Appropriately Subversive: Modern Mothers in Traditional Religions

By Tova Hartman Halbertal

Book Overview

How do mothers reconcile conflicting loyalties--to their religious traditions, and to the daughters whose freedoms are also constrained by those traditions? Searching for answers, Tova Hartman Halbertal interviewed mothers of teenage daughters in religious communities: Catholics in the United States, Orthodox Jews in Israel.

Sounding surprisingly alike, both groups described conscious struggles between their loyalties and talked about their attempts to make sense of and pass on their multiple commitments. They described accommodations and rationalizations and efforts to make small changes where they felt that their faith unjustly subordinated women. But often they did not feel they could tell their daughters how troubled they were. To keep their daughters safe within the protective culture of their ancestors, the mothers had to hide much of themselves in the hope that their daughters would know them more completely in the future.

Moving and unique, this book illuminates one of the moral questions of our time--how best to protect children and preserve community, without being imprisoned by tradition.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674008863
• ISBN13: 9780674008861
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.9" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

very insightful study of religion and feminism

Too often, scholars of religion look at one religion only, using a historical perspective. This book shows the utility of the comparative approach of modern religion. Unlike many comparative approaches, it is not interested in how one religion influences the other, but on how different religions confront similar issues, in this case, how mothers in traditional Catholicism and Judaism deal with dilemmas raised by modern feminism. The author shows great skill in balancing literature on religion, feminism, and psychology. She also succeeds in walking the very fine line between a detached scholar and one committed to a religious tradition. Students of psychology, religion, and feminism will benefit from this book's insights, as well as the further development of her mentor's (Carol Gilligan) methods. In addition, since it is written in a clear, relatively non-technical manner, parents who are deeply committed to a religious tradition, but feel equally committed to feminist values, will learn much from this book's perspective.

Brilliant Analysis

Hartman's brilliant analysis of the Catholic and Jewish women who are subject of this book brings to light their dynanmic efforts to express their fealty to their traditions and their sense of self as women. This work is marked by an insightful use of feminist theory and respect for individuals' commitment to their faith. One can only hope that Hartman continues to share with us her insights.

appropriately conflicted

This is a fascinating, insightful and compassionate exploration of the conflicts faced by mothers who are traditionally religious but are also feminists. Halbertal doesn't offer pat answers. Instead she offers a multilayered portrayal of women trying to sort out how to raise their daughters in the face of their own conflicts between their love of the rich traditions of their religious communities and their awareness of the yoke these same traditions and communities place upon women as individuals. Highly recommended.