‘From Tradwives to Red Rebels – a preliminary exploration of the dynamics of gender in contemporary millennialist movements’

Harvey, Sarah and Newcombe, Suzanne (2026). ‘From Tradwives to Red Rebels – a preliminary exploration of the dynamics of gender in contemporary millennialist movements’. In: Strum, Tristan and Crome, Andy eds. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Millennialism and Apocalypticism. Bloomsbury Handbooks. London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing (In Press).

Abstract

The academic study of religion and gender remains largely separate from the analysis of millenarian movements. There is no established body of literature which connects the sub-fields of new religious and/or millenarian movement studies with that of gender. However, the diversity and potential disruptive significance of contemporary millennial movements suggest that this scholarly oversight is in need of further research and re-evaluation.
This chapter has two primary sections. The first provides a brief survey of academic literature on the dynamics of gender and religion in the study of contemporary religiosity before detailing a few examples of literature that deal explicitly with gender and millenarian movements. The second section thematically considers various ways in which gender is an important factor for consideration within contemporary millenarian groups. We examine four broad categories of millennial movements: those with 1) normative gender roles 2) those with distinctive (non-normative) beliefs and practices around sex 3) those with female leadership and 4) those with a conception of a feminine divine.

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