Women as Ritual Experts reveals how in gender segregated religions like Orthodox Judaism women develop their own autonomous religious sphere and activities that sacralize female roles. Until recently, this female world of religion has been all but invisible to both anthropologists and scholars of religion, who typically speak as though the male sphere of religion were the only definition of religion or the sacred. By exploring this separate sphere of women's religion and demonstrating its variety, depth, and dynamism, Susan Sered here attempts to expand the definition of religion, ritual and the sacred. Sered's research was conducted among uneducated, illiterate Kurdish women. She uncovers the strategies these women have used to circumvent the patriarchal institutions of Judaism, the techniques by which they have made their lives meaningful within an androcentric culture, and how they have developed their own `little tradition' within and parallel to the `great tradition' of Torah Judaism.

A paperback reprint of a title originally published by OUP in 1992, this ethnography explores the religious beliefs and rituals of a group of elderly Jewish women, originally from Kurdistan and Yemen, who now live in Jerusalem. By analysing their rituals, daily experiences, life-stories, and non-verbal gestures, Sered uncovers the strategies these women have developed to circumvent the patriarchal institutions of Judaism, and how they have developed their own 'little tradition' within and parallel to the 'great tradition' of Torah Judaism.

In this fascinating and pathbreaking work, Susan Starr Sered uncovers, describes, and analyzes religions scattered throughout the world in which women are both the majority of leaders and the majority of participants. How are these women's religions different from those dominated by men? What can we learn from them about the ways in which women experience and interpret the supernatural? How do women construct religion? Looking for common threads linking groups as diverse as the Sande secret societies of West Africa, Matrilineal Spirit cults of Northern Thailand, Christian Science, and the Feminist Spirituality movement, Sered asks whether there is anything particularly "womanly" about women's religions. Offering a new understanding of the role gender plays in determining how individuals grapple with the ultimate conditions of existence, Priestess, Mother, Sacred Sister not only highlights the profound differences between men and women, but the equally important ways in which we are all alike.

Based on five years of fieldwork in Boston, "Can't Catch a Brea"k documents the day-to-day lives of forty women as they struggle to survive sexual abuse, violent communities, ineffective social and therapeutic programs, discriminatory local and federal policies, criminalization, incarceration, and a broad cultural consensus that views suffering as a consequence of personal flaws and bad choices. Combining hard-hitting policy analysis with an intimate account of how marginalized women navigate an unforgiving world, Susan Sered and Maureen Norton-Hawk shine new light on the deep and complex connections between suffering and social inequality.