'Worthy Women': Sexual bargaining for a place in Utopia - or Dystopia?

My colleague, and former graduate student, Sunelle Stander Lays, and I have an article accepted for publication in an upcoming edition the Journal of Theology for Southern Africa (JTSA).

The article focusses on the controversial Christian preacher, Gretha Wiid and her 'Worthy Women' movement.

We sought to understand why women would give over their agency, willingly submit to abusive patriarchy, and subject their bodies sexually to their husbands? There are many complex reasons, as we discovered, that relate to economic security, changes in white Afrikaner social identity, misinformed theological hermeneutics, and a desire for social and political security.

I wrote an article on one aspect of our broader argument for the Berlin based Counterpoint: Navigating Knowledge.

In this article I highlight the intersections of race, class and religion within this complex, and very sad, situation. Please see the article here: https://www.counterpointknowledge.org/worthy-women-sexual-bargaining-for-a-place-in-utopia-or-dystopia/

It is entitled: 'Worthy Women': Sexual bargaining for a place in Utopia - or Dystopia?

Thanks to Sunelle for her excellent research! We are also grateful to the Church of Sweden and the Gender Unit of the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology at Stellenbosch University, who funded this research (among many other wonderful projects in Gender, Religion and Health!) We are also grateful to Marcia Pally the editor for this series on Counterpoint for her help and hard work along the way!

Update 7 July 2019

Here is a short video that I made on this research. Thanks for watching! I have received the final proofs for the academic article. I believe that it will be published in July at some point. So please do check out my researchgate profile, or the Journal of Theology of South Africa for the final article.