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A Balancing Act: A Discussion of Gender Roles within ...

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A Balancing Act: A Discussion of Gender Roles within Wiccan Ritual

Name:Personal
Elizabeth Shuler Role :Text(marcrelator)
creator

Name:Personal
Dr. Quincy Newell Role :Text(marcrelator)
creator

typeOfResource
text genre
Powerpoint/PDF
Origin Information Place
Laramie, Wyoming
University of Wyoming (keyDate="yes")
4/24/2010

Language:Text

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born digital

abstract
This presentation argues that the liminal space of Wiccan ritual modifies practitioners' gender roles by inscribing both masculine and feminine roles upon the individual to create balance. Under Victor Turner's theory of liminality ritual becomes a function of society that helps fulfill a social need to be outside normal social processes, including gender roles. Ritual is a way of stepping outside of normal time and space to create and live the ideal, if only for a moment, that is nearly impossible to realize in everyday life. Every aspect of Wiccan ritual is aimed towards enacting and embodying balance and unity, even the altar and the circle itself. As the priest and priestess enact the divine coupling in order to instruct and guide the other participants, the solitary practitioner enacts this coupling of masculine and feminine within himself to create a gender role that is outside of the normal understanding of gender, one that is divine. The modified gender role that comes out of the liminal space as it meets with the concept of balance is a representation of unity, of wholeness, which is so pervasive in Wicca. note
From - Undergraduate Research Day 2010 - Celebration of Research - Abstracts
Subject
Undergraduate Research Day

Related Item:series Title Information
Undergraduate Research Day 2010

Location (usage="primary display")
http://hdl.handle.net/10176/wyu:636

accessCondition:useAndReproduction
http://digital.uwyo.edu/copyright.htm
Record Information languageOfCataloging :Text(ISO639-2B)
English :Code(ISO639-2B)
eng