"I am not mundane, I am divine" : a historical analysis of the women's spirituality movement in the United States from the 1970s to the 2020s

Abstract

This thesis connects the Women’s Spirituality Movements that began in the 1970s and continued to develop through to the 2000s to the popularization of alternative spirituality in the more recent age of social media. Specifically, I examine the Women’s Spirituality movement that began in the 1970s which has maintained relevancy both academically and socially in varying degrees since its conception. My work will make relevant connections through a variety of different interdisciplinary methods such as historical analysis with primary source archival documents, an IRB approved survey, and oral history interviews. Throughout this thesis I illustrate the evolution of theories of religious development as feminist methodology and the ways in which this shift proved relevant to different social and political movements. The Women’s Spirituality Movement marked an important arc of feminist and lesbian spiritual development and culture. Indeed, the Women’s Spirituality Movement was able to establish legitimacy through the academic discoveries and theories of the women and the feminine divine as the spiritually significant. However, the Women’s Spirituality Movement encountered issues due to divergent viewpoints on transgender inclusion, and today many of the perspectives have become confused with conservative and influencer wellness content and the concept of "conspirituality."