Whose Threshold? Women's Strategies of Ritualization

Abstract

This article looks at the growing practice of women's ritualization, in which women are devising and enacting their own rituals to mark life events. It examines Turner's work on liminality and offers a feminist critique. It then goes on to explore women's ritual as a conscious and intentional strategy, drawing on Catherine Bell's work and extracts from interviews. Finally, it poses questions about the ways in which women's ritual may be seen as subversive of the status quo.