This reading was short yet challenging. Normally, I find longer readings to be more complex; however, I have a feeling that the overall intricacy of this text can be attributed to it not being very recently published. In the first page, I found the claims challenging feminist studies in religion very interesting. Due to its essentialism and ethnocentrism, the feminist approach is sometimes seen as a risky association with modernist fundamentalism that results in a subconscious dependence on the experiences of women, which I never thought about prior to reading this (Peskowitz 111). Later in the same opening paragraph, I had to look up what the word mujerista meant because I had never heard of it before, and I discovered that it means Latina feminist perspective. On page 112, I found it intriguing that there is a bit of stigma in the word religion being over-associated with Christianity. Because of this, people tend to focus solely on characteristics of Christianity, which creates the idea of an erasure of non-Christians. This personally stood out to me because I am a Christian and sometimes feel this way but merely thought it was due to my correlation of the word religion to my own faith. I can definitely see how this is present, which is a real shame because there are SO many religions! I learned about religions unheard of by many when I took New Religious Movements with Dr. Gruen, so I am very aware of the vast number of religions; the term should never be associated with a select few religious groups.
