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Changing Old Habits: Dress of Women Religious and Its Relationship to Personal and Social Identity
Author(s) -
Michelman Susan O.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
sociological inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.446
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1475-682X
pISSN - 0038-0245
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-682x.1997.tb01101.x
Subject(s) - distancing , ambivalence , identity (music) , religious identity , sociology , habit , social identity theory , personal identity , social distance , gender studies , identity formation , social psychology , aesthetics , psychology , social group , negotiation , self concept , social science , art , covid-19 , medicine , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty)
Dress has played a critical and visible role in constructing social and personal identities of Roman Catholic nuns, or as those in noncloistered orders prefer to be called, women religious. This research utilizes symbolic interaction theory to examine how social identity, symbolized by the religious habit, communicated an image that was incompatible with the personal identities of the women religious who wore habits. To explore this issue, the author uses the concepts of identity distancing and embracing. During the 1960s and 1970s, following the mandates of Vatican II in 1962, the process of identity distancing was evidenced by relinquishing the habit. Identity embracing was at first symbolized by the ambivalence expressed in wearing the modified habit and more clearly conveyed through secular dress.