Helig femininitet, läkande och systerskapets återkomst: könskonstruktion och aktörskap i separatistiska, ny-spirituella evenemang

Sammanfattning: This paper examines five contemporary spiritual festivals, courses and gatherings for women in a Western post-secular context. The purpose of the paper is to contribute to the current feminist debate on alternative spirituality, often referred to as new age, in regard to gender essentialism and agency. Firstly, the analysis explores how the examined discourses construct women as subjects. Secondly, it explores how the events can be understood in terms of agency, empowerment and politics. Complementing a poststructuralist theoretical framework, theories in subjection following Butler and postsecularism are employed to conduct the analysis. The themes the “natural” woman, the sacred feminine, healing, empowerment, sisterhood and transformation are found to be central in relation to gender construction and agency. As a result of the study, women are found to be constructed in close relationship to nature, which in some cases perpetuates cis-normativity. Being a woman is often assumed to be a process of which the subject herself can be the master. Women are constructed within these discourses as capable of transforming both their own lives as well as the society as a whole, which leads the author to the conclusion that these spiritual events for women can be viewed as sites of (sometimes highly political) postsecular agency and subjectivity.