Women and Religion in Britain Today: Rites and Rituals

This book is the second volume edited by Yvonne Bennett examining the lived religious lives of women in 21st-century Britain. The authors continue to explore contemporary women's spirituality by looking at the way women use rituals and rites within their lives. Coming from different academic fields, the contributors bring together an interdisciplinary collection of voices on the topic of rituals and ritualistic behaviours. The chapters are woven together to shine a heterogeneous light on religion in the twenty-first century and the impact it has on women in Britain today. The volume also examines the editors' own spirituality alongside that of the participants, offering a hybrid academic-practitioner viewpoint on ritual.

The chapters begin and end with a philosophical examination of ritual and the manner in which ritualistic behaviours are incorporated into human experience. This book takes the reader on a journey from the cradle to the grave and from medieval history to the present day.

Yvonne Bennett obtained a BA and MA through the Open University. On leaving school, she trained as a nurse and, after having children, retrained as a nursery schoolteacher. She has completed a PhD at Canterbury Christ Church University. Her research area of interest is conservative Presbyterianism in the Gàidhealtachd (Highlands and Islands) of Scotland. In 2021, Bennett published a book that examines the ways in which churches in Britain help the vulnerable in their communities. The book 'The Church Who Needs It? We Do!' examines the difficulties a group of South London women experience with Universal Credit and life under lockdown during the Coronavirus pandemic. In 2022, she edited a book, 'Women and Religion in Britain Today: Belonging' with Vernon Press. In 2024, she co-authored a book published by Vernon Press, 'Stories from the Front Line: The People Behind the NHS Headlines'. This book examined the ways in which NHS Scotland, and in particular its flagship hospital, was letting down the elderly by exposing them to iatrogenic harm.