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TITLE:
Religious Conversion as Women’s Liberation from the Family: The Case of Taiwanese Immigrant Women
AUTHOR(S):
Carolyn Chen
DOCUMENT TYPE: Article
Carolyn Chen is a post-doctoral researcher at the Center for Working Families, University of California, Berkeley.
Working Paper No. 54
- Download the Document (PDF format - 6 K) - July 2002
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ABSTRACT:
This paper examines how religious conversion to Christianity and Buddhism offers Taiwanese immigrant women spaces of independence from the family. Religion liberates women from traditional social roles by offering alternative conceptions of a genderless self. Through religious conversion, women carve out independent identities for themselves outside of family-defined roles. This new sense of religious purpose in their lives often competes with their commitments to their families.