Between shame and sanctification: patriarchy and its transformation in Sicilian Pentecostalism

This article examines the ways in which Sicilian Pentecostals enact a gender system in response to a perceived crisis in the prevailing gender order, an order I interpret, following Kenelm Burridge, as a system of “redemption,” conferring a culturally specific form of “integrity.” Pentecostalism, then, is a gender‐system‐in‐the‐making, a new calculus of human worth, that combines new structures with aspects of the failing hegemonic system. The result is a more complex, ambiguous patriarchy, one that may be less viable than the hegemonic system, enabling believing women to transcend some of the gender constraints of the prevailing system.