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Articles
“DOING RELIGION” IN 
A SECULAR WORLD 
Women in Conservative Religions 
and the Question of Agency
ORIT AVISHAI
University of California, Berkeley
Sociological studies of women’s experiences with conservative religions are typically
framed by a paradox that ponders women’s complicity. The prevailing view associates
agency with strategic subjects who use religion to further extra-religious ends and pays
little attention to the cultural and institutional contexts that shape “compliance.” This
paper suggests an alternative framing. Rather than asking why women comply, I examine
agency as religious conduct and religiosity as a constructed status. Drawing on a study
that examined how orthodox Jewish Israeli women observe, negotiate, and make sense of
regulations of marital sexuality, this paper explains religious women’s agency as religious
conduct, or the “doing” of religion. I demonstrate that doing religion is associated with a
search for authentic religious subjecthood and that religiosity is shaped in accordance
with the logics of one’s religion, and in the context of controlling messages about threat-
ened symbolic boundaries and cultural Others. 
Keywords: religious change; agency; conservative religions; strategic compliance;
orthodox Jews; niddah
Amid renewed interest in religion in the modern world, scholars acrossdisciplines are studying women’s experiences with conservative reli-
gions as a window into tensions between egalitarian ideas about gender,
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This paper is based on my dissertation, titled Politics of Purity:
Menstrual Defilement and the Negotiation of Modern Jewish Femininities. I thank Raka
Ray and Dawne Moon for their support throughout the project, Shakhar Rahav, three
anonymous Gender & Society reviewers, and especially Tamar El-Or and Lynn Davidman,
for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and the Gender & Society editor for pro-
viding clear direction in the revision process. I am indebted to Barrie Thorne for her
enthusiasm and support.
GENDER & SOCIETY, Vol. 22 No. 4, August 2008 409-433
DOI: 10.1177/0891243208321019
© 2008 Sociologists for Women in Society
409
410 GENDER & SOCIETY / August 2008
sexuality, and family, and religious teachings and practices. Responding to
denouncements of religion as an oppressive patriarchal institution (Daly
1973)—Stacey and Gerard’s (1990) article, We are not Doormats, captures
these sentiments well—these studies demonstrate that women use religion
strategically to further extra-religious ends, and note discrepancies between
institutional prescriptions and individual interpretations (Bartkowski and
Read 2003; Chen 2005; Davidman 1991; Gallagher 2003, 2004; Pevey,
William, and Ellison 1996). Studies of women in conservative religions
ponder women’s acquiescence and juxtapose agency and complicity, a
paradox captured by the question, “Why are women . . . supportive of reli-
gious groups that seem designed to perpetuate their subordination?” (Chong
2006:697). This paper addresses two limitations of the paradox approach:
the association of agency with purposeful conduct and the association of
purposeful conduct with extra-religious ends. 
This paper is part of a larger study that examined transformations in
Israeli Jewish orthodoxy (Avishai 2007a). This research focused on the
regulation of sexuality through laws and customs surrounding menstrua-
tion (niddah), with a secondary focus on modesty. I examined the mes-
sages that circulate in the orthodox community and women’s experiences
of observance. The present paper focuses on themes that shed light on reli-
gious women’s agency. I demonstrate that the women who participated in
my study are not passive targets of religious discourses (“doormats”), or
strategic agents whose observance serves extra-religious ends. Rather,
I argue that observance is best explained by the notion of religious con-
duct as a mode of being, a performance of religious identity, or a path to
achieving orthodox subjecthood in the context of threatened symbolic
boundaries between orthodox and secular Jewish identities.
This paper extends the sociology of women in conservative religions in
two ways. First, it suggests a conceptual shift from the paradox frame that
assumes, a priori, that agency and religious adherence are incongruent to
the “doing religion” frame that builds on interactionist, performative, and
postcolonial theories of agency and locates agency in observance. Rather
than asking why women comply, I examine how religious women articulate
and perform observance. The paper’s second contribution is the emphasis
on the constructed nature of religiosity. 
RELIGIOUS WOMEN’S AGENCY
The dilemma of agency is central to social scientific analyses of reli-
gion: Why are educated women drawn to conservative religions (Chong
2006; Davidman 1991), and how do they make sense of such religions
(Chen 2005)? Are these women opposed to equality and freedom
(Gallagher 2004; Stacey and Gerard 1990)? A tacit assumption underlies
these questions: Religious women are oppressed or are operating with a
false consciousness. 
Scholars offer three responses to such claims. The first response—“com-
ply, but . . .”—is that while women may experience conservative religions
as restricting, given the structural forces that shape their lives, they are also
empowered or liberated by their religion (Bartkowski and Read 2003;
Brasher 1998; Chen 2005; Chong 2006; Davidman 1991; Gallagher 2004,
2007; Griffith 1997; Hartman 2003; Macleod 1991; Manning 1999; Stacey
and Gerard 1990). The claim is that religious affiliation empowers women
by mitigating the effects of patriarchal family structures (Chen 2005; Chong
2006; Hartman and Marmon 2004 in the context of niddah) and the realities
of harsh labor markets (Gallagher 2007), thus shielding women from “the
problems generated by the forces of modernity” (Chong 2006:700). 
The second response—“noncompliance”—associates agency with sub-
version. Although rarely explicitly articulated in these terms, many studies
demonstrate that religious women do not adhere to religious prescriptions
blindly; as they adapt their religion to the realities of their lives, women sub-
vert and resist official dogma through partial compliance (Pevey et al. 1996)
and individual interpretations (Chen 2005; Gallagher 2003, 2004; Griffith
1997; Hartman 2003). For example, Gallagher and Smith (1999) find a dis-
juncture between evangelical women’s symbolic adherence to doctrines
such as male headship, and a pragmatic egalitarianism apparent in their
choices about work, family, and child rearing (see also Gallagher 2003). 
The third, and prevailing, response to the “doormats” argument posits
that religious women strategize and appropriate religion to further extra-
religious ends such as economic opportunities, domestic relations, political
ideologies, and cultural affiliation. This approach is indebted to a tradition
in the sociology of culture that views religion as a cultural repertoire, a
dynamic tool kit (Swidler 1986) that does not prescribe action, but creates
a set of schemas and possibilities for action (Sewell 1992). These schemas
are written into institutions and enacted by individuals. Agency is located
in the strategic use and navigation of religious traditions and practices to
meet the demands of contemporary life. For example, Chen (2005) demon-
strates that Taiwanese women that converted to Buddhism and Christianity
after immigrating to the United States use religion to negotiate with patri-
archal family structures, and Gallagher (2007) finds that Syrian women use
religious rationales to avoid unattractive employment. 
Avishai / “DOING RELIGION” IN A SECULAR WORLD 411
Although the strategic compliance frame extends the analysis of agency
beyond the dichotomization of subordination versus subversion, empow-
erment, or accommodation, this frame rests on problematic assumptions.
First, the emphasis on strategic compliance and extra-religious ends is
inconsistentwith the experiences of religious subjects; this frame does not
acknowledge that women may participate in conservative religions in a
quest for religious ends or that “compliance” is not strategic at all, but
rather a mode of conduct and being. Second, the focus on religious actors
ignores the structural and cultural contexts that organize observance. 
THE “DOING RELIGION” FRAME
Quandaries about religious women’s agency mirror decades of feminist
theorizing about women’s complicity with the normalizing techniques
that discipline femininity. Here too, the analysis has evolved from cri-
tiques of beauty regimes and behavioral norms as oppressive technologies
of power (Bartky 1988; Wolf 1991) to more nuanced analyses of empow-
erment and subversion (Bordo 1993). As in the case of religious women’s
agency, the dichotomization of subordination and subversion equates
agency with resistance.
However, sociologists of gender also utilize interactionist and performa-
tive theories to explain women’s complicity with gendered regimes, and
this paper draws on these frames to suggest an alternative to the paradox
approach. Sociologists working within the tradition of symbolic interaction
argue that women (and men) do not so much comply with gendered norms
as they “do” gender through modes of behavior and comportment that are
shaped by regulatory discourses (West and Zimmerman 1987). Gender is
constructed in social situations by agents who operate within such dis-
courses; agency is thus disassociated from purposeful action (including
resistance) and is grounded in the very construction of gender. 
Performance theory, and in particular Butler’s Gender Trouble (1990),
adds the notion of self-authoring and subject formation through gendered
performances. Extending the analysis of agency beyond the subordina-
tion/subversion dichotomy, Butler locates agency not only in transgressive
acts but also in the work one does on oneself to become a willing subject
of a particular discourse. Scholars working within this frame demonstrate
that practices associated with gender bending (Butler 1990), body modifi-
cation (Pitts 2003), or athleticism (Heywood 1998) are self-authoring ethical
projects. Yet, as Mahmood (2004) notes, students of religion are reluctant
to dissociate agency from ideas about choice, equality, and emancipation.
412 GENDER & SOCIETY / August 2008
She proposes that self-authoring projects encompass a theory of agency
that is grounded in docile conduct.
Drawing on the idea that subjects operate, perform, and become within
power relations and normative expectations, I use the term “doing reli-
gion” to make two arguments. First, I argue that doing religion is a mode
of conduct and being, a performance of identity—not only a purposeful or
strategic action. I further suggest that even when viewed as a strategic
undertaking, religion may be done in the pursuit of religious goals—in
this case, the goal of becoming an authentic religious subject against an
image of a secular Other.
The analogy between “doing religion” and “doing gender” is not seam-
less. “Doing gender” is understood as an unconscious performance of
coercive and oppressive norms that discipline femininity and perpetuate
inequality. In contrast, I present the “doing religion” frame as a semicon-
scious, self-authoring project. Yet, the analogy serves as a heuristic device
that emphasizes the constructed nature of religiosity and the enactment of
religiosity in the context of social norms and regulatory discourses. While
these institutional and cultural contexts are key to analyses of gender
regimes, sociologists of religion typically pay little attention to them. 
The doing religion frame is indebted to Mahmood’s claim that agency
can be expressed through docility. I take this idea in a different direction.
While Mahmood focuses on docile conduct as a self-authoring project, my
concern is with the construction of religiosity. Further, since Mahmood’s
study is a philosophical and political polemic with Western definitions of
agency, its emphasis on agency as docility is at odds with scholarship
that demonstrates that docility also functions as a technology of power
(McClintock 1995; Stoler 1995). Recognizing that religious conduct does
not occur in a discursive vacuum, in this paper I discuss both religious con-
duct and the structural and institutional contexts that shape conduct. I
engage the sociological framing of agency as purposeful pursuit of extra-
religious ends, the postcolonial framing of agency as docile conduct, and the
feminist framing of observance as an oppressive technology of power.
JEWISH LAWS OF MENSTRUAL PURITY 
Jewish laws and traditions codify and regulate everyday life. This paper
examines one arena of legal prescription: the laws of menstrual purity that
regulate marital sexuality. Along with the Sabbath and dietary laws, nid-
dah is a key ritual domain. It prescribes an elaborate system of menstrual
defilement and purification and a regimen that regulates women’s behavior
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and dress before, during, and after menstruation and culminates in purifi-
cation in the miqveh, the ritual bath (see Zimmerman 2005 for an overview).
Originally part of the economy of impurities of Leviticus that regulated
access to the Temples, niddah laws, as elaborated and explicated by gen-
erations of rabbinic authorities, now organize marital sexuality through a
recurring cycle of sexual purity and impurity. This cycle demarcates peri-
ods of permitted and forbidden physical intimacy between spouses.
Niddah laws also regulate the forbidden period that extends from the onset
of menstruation to immersion through the laws of physical separation.
These laws prohibit all forms of physical contact between spouses during
the forbidden period, including casual touch, the direct passing of objects,
and sharing a bed.1
Niddah also regulates transition between states, and the transition from
impurity to purity is particularly elaborate. The cessation of bleeding
marks the commencement of a seven-day purification process that culmi-
nates in immersion. During this time (the “seven clean days”), the woman
visually ascertains that bleeding has ended by performing twice-daily
examinations of the cervix (“checking”) using a special white cloth (“test-
ing rag”). Following seven days of clean testing rags, the woman prepares
for immersion by thoroughly cleaning her body. Preparation for immer-
sion and immersion are also heavily codified.2
Niddah laws scrutinize every instance of bleeding and spotting, as these
affect a woman’s purity status. Ambiguous situations require that determi-
nations be made whether such instances compromise a woman’s niddah sta-
tus; pure and impure are legal categories and legal authority and expertise
reside exclusively with the male rabbi. Similar expertise is required when a
color registered on a testing rag is suspect. Many orthodox women consider
this the thorniest aspect of niddah and avoid conferring with rabbis, opting
to err on the side of caution, thereby often extending the period of forbid-
den intimacy. Transgressions in this ritual realm are considered particularly
severe; children who are products of impurity are severely defiled. Yet since
niddah is shrouded in secrecy, this ritual domain is virtually unknown until
marriage, and throughout the course of their lives women cannot rely on
other niddah practitioners as resources.3 This secrecy confounds the chal-
lenges inherent to observing this ritual domain. 
The Study
This paper is part of a larger study of the Israeli equivalent of U.S.
modern orthodoxy, known in Israel as religious Zionism. Orthodox Jews,
who are committed to a traditional yet evolving interpretation of Jewish
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rituals, laws, and traditions, comprise 17 percent of Israeli Jews. They dis-
tinguish themselves from both Jewish secularism and ultraorthodoxy (on
the varieties of Israeli Judaism see Don-Yehiya 2005; Liebman and Katz
1997). My study examined niddah as a lens through which to view shifts
in Israeli orthodoxy, with a particular focus on tensions between religious
codes of conduct and contemporary sensibilities. 
I conducted fieldwork in five phases from 2002 to 2005, for a total of
seven months in the field. I began with open-ended interviews with married
orthodox women. Participants were recruited through a snowball technique.
My criteria for selection were that the respondent be married (premarital sex
is prohibited—only married women are expected to observe niddah)4 and
self-identify as orthodox. Although my sample was not random, I strove to
capture the many shades of Israeli orthodoxy. My sample includes 55
women, who vary along axes that are relevant for this study: socioeconomic
status, education, age, time married, residence (orthodox communities ver-
sus mixed orthodox/secular), degree of observance (based on self-report,
service in the army, educational institutions attended by family members,
employment, number of children, and attire), and stance on reformist and
feminist orthodox projects (see El-Or 2002; Ross 2004; Shilo 2006).
Interviews lasted two hours on average, were conducted in respondents’
homes, and were recorded and transcribed verbatim. 
Interviews focused on three main themes: I asked respondents (1) how
they learned about niddah; (2) how they practiced niddah, probing spe-
cific details; and (3) why they observed. I challenged respondents with
spiritual, therapeutic, medical, and ethical rationales for observance that
I gleaned from my ethnographic data, marriage tracts, and secondary liter-
ature. I also presented respondents with scholarly perspectives on niddah:
the claim that niddah symbolizes communal boundaries (Anteby 1999;
Yanay and Rapoport 1997); the claim that niddah is a site of resistance
and meaning making within a patriarchal culture (Anteby 1999; Cicurel
2000; Fonrobert 2000; Hartman and Marmon 2004; Wasserfall 1999); and
a critique of niddah as an oppressive technology of power (Baskin 1985;
Biale 1984; Yanay and Rapoport 1997). 
My respondents’ narratives yielded three main findings: discrepancies
between orthodox women’s practices and the Jewish legal codex; the deep
ambivalence many respondents harbored towards niddah; and the associa-
tion of religious conduct with the negation of Jewish secularity. Additional
findings emerged as I shifted my focus to the study of the social organiza-
tion of niddah as a ritual domain—the emergence, since the 1980s, of
what I call the niddah cultural industry, which includes courses, workshops,
manuals, lectures, and new women niddah ritual experts, who provide
Avishai / “DOING RELIGION” IN A SECULAR WORLD 415
educational, quasi-legal, quasi-medical, and therapeutic support to obser-
vant women (Avishai 2007a). These experts include bridal counselors,
who teach brides the laws and customs of niddah; Halakhic consultants,
who render legal advice about niddah in lieu of rabbis and are considered
renegades by traditionalists; and purity assessors, who perform internal
examinations to help rabbis ascertain the ritual status of a symptomatic
woman. In the latter phases of my fieldwork, I focused on this cultural
industry and on the new niddah experts. I interviewed 25 bridal coun-
selors and other educators and 10 Halakhic consultants and purity exam-
iners. I also studied the institutes that train each of these professions and
collected ethnographic data at conferences of a traditionalist organization
(Binyan Shalem) and a reformist/feminist organization (Kolech, the ortho-
dox women’s forum). I discuss the shifts in the social organization of nid-
dah elsewhere (Avishai 2007a), where I argue that niddah is in the process
of being transformed from an oral cultural domain, sustained by women’s
folk practices, to a professionalized, standardized, and institutionalized
ritual domain, supported by new forms of professional women ritual
experts, therapeutic discourses about love, sexuality, and family, and ped-
agogical discourses about the secular Other. This context is key to the
ensuing analysis, which considers how the niddah cultural industry and its
pervasive narratives of compliance, and in particular its portrayal of secu-
lar Israeli marriages, femininities, and sexuality, shape orthodox women’s
experiences of observance. 
AMBIVALENT OBSERVANCE AND 
PARTIAL COMPLIANCE 
Orthodox women’s narratives of observance cluster into three categories:
Unconditional observers exhibited little conflict about niddah (seven
respondents). At the other end of the spectrum were outspoken critics (five
respondents), who echoed reformist orthodox theologians and activists
(Ner-David 2003; Ross 2004) and advocated doing away with post-biblical
stringencies. The vast majority of my respondents were ambivalent
observers. This paper focuses on the attempts of this latter group of women
to come to terms with niddah.5
One expression of ambivalence was reflected in many respondents’
rejection of niddah’s impurity context; although “pure” and “impure” are
ritual categories that originally applied to a variety of conditions surround-
ing death, sex, and disease that restricted access to the Temple, many
interviewees wrestled with the implicit notion that they were impure.
416 GENDER & SOCIETY / August 2008
Thus, they tended to avoid the term niddah, which in Hebrew means “to
be cast aside,” opting instead for the terms “permissible” and “forbidden”
to refer to the periods of physical intimacy regulated by the niddah cycle.
In responding to a question probing how she learned about niddah, Miki,
in her twenties, first corrected my terminology, saying, “I don’t like this
word, niddah. In my preparation, my bridal counselor explained that
there’s nothing negative about this word, about me, but still, I like to avoid
it. I think of us as permissible or forbidden.”
Ambivalence was also apparent in my respondents’ descriptions of
the discipline that niddah entails. Many respondents described niddah
as onerous; “burdensome,” “annoying,” and “hard.” Times of sorrow or
jubilation—such as following a miscarriage or childbirth—were particu-
larly challenging (vaginal bleeding in both cases renders the woman ritu-
ally impure and therefore “forbidden”). However, most women found the
recurring niddah cycle difficult without such complicating factors. Anat,
a mother of four in her forties, who said that she observed “pretty much
everything,” reflected:
every month when I’m about to start [bleeding], I get this feeling, argghh,
again! It’s so nice when you’re pregnant, and then afterwards until you get
your period, not to have to deal with all of this. And it’s not that we have to
have marital relations all the time. But you can’t touch, and you have to
always remember not to pass, and then checking and waiting, and getting
to the miqveh in time. 
As Anat suggests, transitions between states is a particular source of
difficulty. As another woman put it, “I always get very angry when I get
my period. I know they say it’s hormones, but for me it’s becoming
forbidden.”
The gap between the Jewish legal codex and women’s practices further
underscores this ambivalence. Recall that niddah prescribes a web of intri-
cate rules that regulate the forbidden period, transitions between states,
preparation for immersion, and immersion. I found discrepancies between
the Jewish legal codex and women’s practices in every aspect of niddah
(Guterman 2006 finds similar gaps). While the outspoken critics in my
sample embraced this gap as an intentional act of defiance, ambivalent
observers strove to soften the severity of transgressions (“this is only tra-
dition,not law,” “no one does this”) or legitimize their practices through
interpretive readings of the Jewish tradition that render seemingly trans-
gressive practices as lawful (“the Bible does not prescribe the seven clean
days, so I don’t have to abide”).
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These attempts to legitimize transgression—rather than assert defiance—
were part of a broader project of coming to terms with niddah by articu-
lating narratives of assent. Ambivalent observers grappled with the
imperative to comply; some (but not the all) were remorseful and sad-
dened by their inability to observe niddah to the letter, and most viewed
correct observance as central to their orthodox identities. In what follows,
I discuss their narratives of assent in the context of messages about com-
pliance that circulate in the orthodox community. 
PURITY AND SYMBOLIC BOUNDARIES:
THE “DOORMATS” ARGUMENT 
Orthodox leaders and educators are aware of these ambivalences and
partial observances, and a vast cultural industry that aims to address these
and related concerns pertaining to marriage, family, and sexuality has
emerged since the late 1980s (Avishai 2007a, 2008). My concern here is
with messages about the virtues of orthodox femininity and the threats of
secular culture that infuse courses, workshops, manuals, and interactions
between orthodox women and the niddah ritual experts who support them.
Because most of the women I interviewed utilized at least one of these
resources, and because the vast majority of the women married since the
1990s were introduced to niddah by pedagogues associated with this
industry, I preface my analysis of their narratives of observance with a
brief discussion of pedagogical messages about niddah. 
A key player in conversations about contemporary orthodoxy is the
Binyan Shalem Institute. Founded in 1997 to support a traditionalist vision
of orthodoxy, the institute trains bridal counselors and offers courses in
Jewish thought. Once a year it draws thousands of women to its two-day
conference in Jerusalem. In a lesson I attended in 2003, Rabbi Tirosh, one
of the institute’s founders, articulated to his audience of more than 1,000
women a pervasive narrative of compliance with niddah and modesty. The
rabbi had four messages for us: first, modesty is linked to trials that the
Jewish people have endured throughout history; many national tragedies
began when “the daughters of Israel” (a common trope in Israeli political
culture) began to pay excess attention to their looks. Second, transgressions
of modesty are the foundation of a slippery slope that results in a variety
of social ills, such as prostitution, promiscuity, and divorce. Third, a society’s
cultural and moral hollowness is reflected in its women, and vice versa.
Finally, excess “openness to outside culture,” and its emphases on career
and fashion in particular, threatens the orthodox community. 
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Bridal counselors echoed this rhetoric of symbolic boundaries. These
counselors, who are key participants in the niddah cultural industry, teach
brides the laws and practices of niddah and discuss with them a host of
issues concerning sexuality, marriage, and Jewish identity before marriage.
This is usually done in several individual sessions offered for a modest
fee. Orthodox brides are expected to attend such a premarital course, and
most of them do. 
In many cases, bridal counselors’ perception of secular Israeli culture is
a key motivation for their involvement with this educational enterprise. As
one veteran counselor put it, “Someone must educate these young girls
about Jewish life. We live in a permissive, loose society. These girls are
exposed to so much, in the newspaper, in films, on the street. They need
an alternative.” The alternative, these educators suggest, hinges on modesty
and observance of niddah. In Binyan Shalem lessons and in the narratives
of bridal counselors, recurring images of scantly dressed, well-groomed,
career-oriented women highlight the wholesomeness of the Jewish
woman who protects the Jewish people through her piety (I elaborate on
this rhetoric in Avishai 2007b). 
The association of unchecked femininity with promiscuity and moral
decadence and the othering that entrenches symbolic boundaries are vari-
ants of nationalist discourses. Yanay and Rapoport (1997) view niddah as “a
strategy of domination . . . a powerful system of compliance which is pre-
sented as a personal religious commitment” (657). But despite their preva-
lence, my data suggest the target audience does not find these messages
compelling. Many respondents were ambivalent about the symbolic piety
that Binyan Shalem rabbis and bridal counselors promote. This is not sur-
prising: This idealized piety is at odds with contemporary orthodox norms.
Jarringly, as Binyan Shalem conference attendees step out of a lesson such
as Rabbi Tirosh’s, they encounter booths that sell variably modest clothes,
hair coverings, cosmetics, and jewelry; many attendees are groomed, highly
educated, or career-oriented women. This tension captures the complexities
that gave rise to Binyan Shalem in the first place: a sense that traditional
narratives of compliance have lost their resonance. 
At the same time, study participants were actively searching for
answers about niddah; in their attempts to make sense of niddah and artic-
ulate palatable narratives of assent, these women utilized a dizzying array
of resources. They read books, attended lessons and workshops, and con-
tacted women niddah ritual experts. They were far from docile “doormats.”
I now turn to examine alternative narratives of observance. I first address
the notion of strategic compliance and then turn to a model that emerged
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in my data: the notion that religiosity is performed and achieved in the
context of a dialogue with a secular Other. 
STRATEGIC COMPLIANCE
The frame of strategic compliance—the claim that women comply with
religious prescriptions in pursuit of extra-religious ends—allows students
of religion to discuss agency without entering the fraught territory of reli-
gious beliefs. Interviews with bridal counselors, ethnographic data col-
lected at Binyan Shalem, and analysis of niddah tracts (Kahana 1979;
Knohl 2005) yielded several strategic rationales for observing niddah.
These include a scientific rationale that posits that niddah protects women
from illnesses such as ovarian and cervical cancer (see Wenger 1999); a
claim that niddah empowers women as it provides them with control over
marital sexuality; religious imperatives that associate perils and rewards
with noncompliance and meticulous observance; spiritual narratives that
sanctify observance; and a therapeutic rationale that associates niddah
with a healthy marital bond. 
The scientific and empowering rationales were rarely mentioned in my
respondents’ narratives, while the spiritual and religious rationales received
only sparse mention. Typically, women invoked the religious rationale for
observance in times of personal calamity such as infertility, illness, or a
financial crisis. The majority of respondents shied away from such expla-
nations; on several occasions, my probing was met with ridicule, as in the
case of Tamar, who pulled out a brochure she picked up at a miqveh,
mocking its cautionary tales about the perils that befall women and fami-
lies who do not abide by the laws of niddah. 
The strategic rationale that associates niddah with healthy marriages
featured prominently in my data. The contrast between the strong, healthy,orthodox marital bond and images of the “shaky edifice” of secular mar-
riages and the notion that niddah promotes healthy marriages are key to
pedagogical narratives about niddah. An infomercial on Binyan Shalem’s
website likens the family and the marital bond to “strong furniture: if you
build with care, families last forever.” Niddah is central to this project. The
claim is that by delineating periods of prohibited and permissible physical
intimacy, niddah imposes a recurring and predictable break from the flow
of everyday life. Such breaks underscore that marriage is a sacred site of
spiritual pursuits and compel couples to develop multiple channels of com-
munication, including nonphysical modes of intimacy. Mandated absti-
nence also preserves sexual interest, thus reducing the allure of prohibited
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sources of pleasure. Niddah, in short, produces an “everlasting honey-
moon.” While this rationale dates back to early Jewish Sages, only in recent
decades has it become a key pedagogical narrative (Steinberg 1997). 
Some of the women who participated in my study experienced niddah
in this way. These women emphasized that separation preserved mutual
desire. Sharon, in her thirties, reflected, “You really miss each other when
you’re towards the end of the countdown, it’s like Passover when you are
waiting for the bread.” Shlomit, a newlywed in her twenties, described her
anticipation: “When I come back from the miqveh (ritual bath) I know my
husband is home, waiting; he always opens the door for me and I smile as
I walk up the stairs because I know he’ll be waiting there … It’s fun, meet-
ing each other again after being forbidden.” Capturing the erotic charge
that niddah produces, Yifat quipped: “It’s like a rubber band, you stretch
and you stretch until it can no longer hold. And then you come back
together, like a magnet.” Respondents also said that they use the forbidden
period to work on nonphysical aspects of the relationship; as Tamar put it,
“It forces us to focus on other things, we talk more.” Other women said
that during the forbidden period, they were more careful about fighting,
“since you don’t have that physical connection to help you make up.”
While these experiences are in line with the claims that the distancing
that niddah prescribes promotes a healthy marital bond, many women in
my sample did not experience niddah in this way. In some cases, the tran-
sition from forbidden to permissible was so fraught with anger that it over-
shadowed the renewal that other women cherished. Leah, in her fifties, said
that throughout their long marriage, she and her husband had rarely been
able to comply with the mitzvah (commandment) to engage in “marital
relations” on miqveh night, because “it is just traumatic for me to go from
everything prohibited to everything permitted; it takes me a time to read-
just.” In addition, many respondents experienced the prolonged periods of
separation as distancing (see Shalev 2005 for a similar conclusion). Some
respondents said that they intentionally spend less time together as a cou-
ple during the forbidden periods and that both spouses tend to direct their
energies elsewhere during this time. Anat, in her late forties, referred to the
forbidden period as “my time, when I don’t have to be considerate; I can
go to bed whenever I want, live according to my own internal clock.”
Whether they viewed the separation prescribed by niddah as the
essence of their marital bliss, or whether they experienced the forbidden
period as distancing, most respondents converged on one point: the ever-
lasting honeymoon was not a motivation to observe niddah, but a prism
through which to make sense of a prescribed ritual practice. As Shlomit
put it, “You can find rational explanations for everything, but there are
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some things I do because . . . because I have to, because it was thus com-
manded.” Only a handful of women who were struggling with their level
of observance, a failing marriage, or often both, suggested that observance
was strategic. In the majority of cases, the benefits of niddah were a boon,
not a motivator. 
To summarize thus far, the frames of subversion, complicity, and strategic
compliance do not do justice to my respondents’ experiences. I now turn
to propose an alternative frame that emerged from my data: observance as
the essence of orthodoxy. 
DOING RELIGION IN A SECULAR WORLD
“This is who we are and this is what we do”
My respondents posited that niddah is no different than other com-
mandments that shape their lives as Orthodox Jews. For Shlomit, niddah
was but one of several adjustments she had to make upon marriage;
“learning kashrut (dietary laws) was a bigger deal [than learning niddah].
I’ve always kept kashrut, but when you have to keep your own kitchen,
you realize it’s not just meat and dairy. Many rules I didn’t even know
existed.” Another respondent pondered why I singled out niddah as a
focus of inquiry: “Why don’t you ask me about Shabbat?” Ora, a viva-
cious teacher in her fifties, said that her “liberal and open-minded
demeanor” and non-orthodox appearance, which defy behavioral norms
associated with orthodoxy, confused her secular students. They were often
baffled to learn that she resides in the orthodox part of town:
They would ask, “If you don’t cover your hair and you wear pants, what
does it mean that you’re orthodox?” And I would explain that I observe the
Sabbath, that I pray, that I fast on Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement], that I
observe kashrut and that I observe the laws of family purity [another term
for niddah].
In its most basic form, the message is that orthodox is what orthodox
does: This is who we are and this is what we do. We observe Shabbat and
dietary laws, and we cover our hair and observe niddah. By the same
token, conversations with or about women who do not observe niddah
revolved around the possibility of maintaining an orthodox identity
despite this lapse. 
Within the internal logic of Jewish Orthodoxy, the association of ortho-
dox identity with adherence to legal codes and cultural traditions is not
422 GENDER & SOCIETY / August 2008
surprising—Judaism is a practice-based religion. Shuli, a scientist and a
mother of three in her thirties, articulated this perspective:
I am given a system of laws. Some I can make sense of, others I can’t. But
I don’t decide which ones I abide by. So the fact that I don’t connect with
niddah, that I don’t really feel . . . pure after it, that I’m not in seventh
heaven about it (I admit I’m not); all this is irrelevant. Because I know that
I have to do it. Not doing it has never crossed my mind. Some things I do
not because I’m elated, I understand, I enjoy, but just because its part of a
system that I live by.
This perspective on religiosity suggests that the apparent disjunc-
ture between compliance and ambivalence—a disjuncture that sociolo-
gists explain with theories of empowerment, complicity, or strategic
compliance—may be a nonissue from the perspective of religious sub-
jects; in Shuli’s narrative, observance encompasses ambivalence. Yet, the
dominant sociological frames do not ground agency in the lived experi-
ences of believers (see Smith 2007 for a similar critique that leads to a
phenomenological explanation of religiosity). Based on my respondents’
narratives, I suggest a theory of agency that is grounded in observance.
However, my data suggest that agency is more complex than merely
“being” religious: Religiosity entails a project of “becoming” through
practice against the image of a secular Other. 
Doing Community, Doing Continuity 
The secular Other was a constant—if veiled—presence in my interviews.
My informants addressed a variety of issues, including implicitcompar-
isons between orthodox and secular choices about career, family size, age
at marriage, and modes of dress; interactions between orthodox and secu-
lar; and perceptions of orthodoxy by secular Israelis. Often, reference to
the secular did not seem to serve an immediate purpose. For example,
Tamara explained her adjustment to marriage by drawing a contrast with
secular: “You know how it is with us orthodox, no touching before the
wedding, not like secular couples who know each other intimately before
they get married. So marriage was an adjustment.”
Despite the persistent image of the secular Other, and in contrast to the
pedagogical narratives discussed above, this lurking presence was not
aimed at investing orthodox women with responsibility for communal
survival or vilifying the secular. Rather, this contrast served to ground my
respondents in a historically continuous community of observers and
Avishai / “DOING RELIGION” IN A SECULAR WORLD 423
mark the boundaries between observers and non-observers. Several inter-
viewees conjured up a remarkably similar image of a legendary kinswoman
who braved freezing waters in a remote Eastern European village to
immerse. Relating this story, the deeply ambivalent Shuli explained that
part of the draw of niddah is “knowing that this is something that has been
observed for so many years despite difficulties.” Ora said that “one of the
things I like about going to the miqveh in a big city is that I see all kinds
of women, and it feels good to know that they’re all doing it, observing
niddah.”
The contrast with the secular also suggests that observance gives rise to
an alternative mode of being and existence; I focus on two key themes of
being and becoming that my respondents associated with niddah: orthodox
femininity and the orthodox marriage. 
Doing Orthodox Femininity and Sexuality 
My respondents’ narratives suggest that the performance of niddah
enables alternatives to secular sexuality and femininity. One pathway to a
distinctly orthodox femininity concerns an appreciation for the female
body that niddah enables. Recall that niddah involves a regimen of self-
surveillance. The woman who observes niddah asks herself throughout the
cycle: “Is menstruation about to begin?” “How many days until immersion?”
“What color is this testing rag?” Capturing the intensity of this regimen,
Talia, in her twenties, reflected on her reaction when she first encountered
niddah’s elaborate details: “I said to my counselor, ‘With all this checking
and consulting with rabbis and cleaning and preparing for the miqveh will
I ever have time for anything else?’”
At the same time, many women appreciated niddah for attuning them
to their bodies. This is particularly true of preparation for immersion;
since the cleansing process requires that all crevices be cleaned, and spots
and scabs removed, as Yael put it, “You have no choice, you get in touch
with your entire body.” On the one hand, this cleansing process—and the
ensuing surveillance at the miqveh by the ritual bath attendant—is a thorny
issue for orthodox women, many of whom are increasingly impatient with
overly zealous miqveh attendants. However, many respondents separated
their distaste for miqveh attendants from their appreciation for the prepa-
ration process. Shlomit said that she welcomed the cleansing process as
“an opportunity to connect with my body, to love my body.”
Shlomit alludes to the notion that niddah’s minute details demand that a
woman focus on her body and its rhythms within the context of the Jewish
universe, which grounds femininity in ritual purity and tradition as opposed
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to appearance and sex appeal. This is not to say that orthodox women are
sheltered from Western beauty norms. To the contrary, many respondents,
especially the younger women in my sample, reported that preparation for
immersion included not only the cleansing of the body as prescribed by
rabbis, but also feminine grooming practices that were couched in ritual
terms, such as waxing body hair and plucking eyebrows.6 
These comments lead to a more general theme: Niddah allows ortho-
dox women to think of themselves as sexual subjects within the confines
of orthodoxy. The difficulty is this: the imperatives of modesty and the
negation of secular culture produce an ambivalence towards sexuality
within the orthodox community. As premarital, extramarital, and same-sex
relations are forbidden, sexuality is more generally painted as negative,
unsanctified, and deplorable. Elsewhere I argue that the orthodox commu-
nity is searching for healthier narratives of sexuality that do not compro-
mise modesty (Avishai 2007a). 
Within this context, because it prescribes restraint, niddah can shape a
modest desiring subject—in contrast with a “secular” sexuality driven by
passion and hedonist desires (Avishai 2007b). Vered, in her forties,
explained this restraint, referring to prescriptions against public display of
intimacy. These laws, she said, are not about offending public sensibilities;
the curbing of yearning for physical contact shapes piety. Ahuva, in her late
fifties, echoed these sentiments as she lamented a loss she experienced at
menopause. Niddah helped her “remember, every minute of the day, every
day of the month, who I am and what I aspire to.” Sharon noted the ethical
implications of restraint: “After giving birth I wanted a kiss. But it’s forbid-
den, because you’re niddah. You’re told, ‘No.’ So you understand that there
are rules in this world. That you’re not in the center.” Galia added, “The fact
that not everything is allowed, permissible, that things are defined for you—
that’s central to building, well, a certain character.”
At the same time, niddah also helps orthodox women access and
embrace a carnal, desiring, and eroticized (if restrained) sexuality. Indeed,
my respondents eroticized the long period of separation followed by
“miqveh day”; recall Shlomit’s narrative about returning home to her
eagerly waiting husband and Yifat’s image of a rubber band stretched to
its limits. Similarly, Michal eroticized the seven clean days that precede
immersion: “The first examination marks the day I’ll go to immerse next
week. And I’m counting and I’m missing my husband, and every day,
every examination brings me closer, brings us closer.”
Niddah legitimates carnality precisely because it regulates desire and
prescribes restraint. As Shlomit put it, “Your whole life, until you get mar-
ried, you’re told no, don’t look, don’t touch, and suddenly it’s permissible.
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There’s a breaking of the modesty code with marriage. But to me it seems
right and natural when it’s done this way, with niddah.” The practice of
checking during the seven clean days is perhaps the boldest endorsement
of carnality. A seasoned bridal counselor said that she tells brides that
checking is “preparation for marital relations . . . when you check your-
self you are preparing yourself mentally, physically, emotionally for your
husband. I tell them not to be afraid to enter the place.” These statements
bear a striking resemblance to techniques of masturbation taught by sex
therapists. While it is up to interpretation whether Jewish law forbids
women’s masturbation, the practice is certainly discouraged and not openly
discussed; yet, in the context of niddah, these techniques are sanctioned—
even sanctified. Although only a handful of bridal counselors spoke about
niddah in such bold terms, other interviewees did indicate that “checking”
helped transitions from forbidden to permissible, especially in the first
months of marriage. In these different ways, then, the performance of
niddah isassociated with a uniquely orthodox mode of being and experi-
encing the world.
Doing the Orthodox Marriage 
A second theme that underscores the project of “becoming” through
practice concerns the orthodox marriage. Earlier I argued that orthodox
couples’ experiences of niddah are mixed. At the same time, my data sug-
gest that regardless of whether couples achieve the “everlasting honey-
moon,” niddah may potentially produce distinct female and male subjects
who are attuned to each others’ needs and whose relationship revolves
around mutual trust and cooperation. As Sharon explained, because pro-
longed periods of physical separation are challenging, “Niddah teaches us
to live with each other, not alongside one another. You have listen, you
have to talk.” Tali added that niddah shapes a trustworthy subject, “Since
it’s all happening [to] your body, and he has to trust you when you say that
you’ve seen blood or if you say you’re permissible.”
Niddah also requires cooperation; many orthodox women are hesitant
about conferring with rabbis about suspect situations, preferring instead to
send their husbands. As Galia put it, “It’s a little embarrassing to send
your husband to the rabbi with the testing rag. But then it becomes a little
about him too, because niddah is about us both.” Ora reflected, “I don’t like
sending [him] to the rabbi or telling him that I’ve seen blood. But it gears
us towards a different kind of relationship, we really do have a different
view of commitment because of all this.”
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The cycle of niddah and the anticipation for miqveh day also allows
couples to develop ceremonies and negotiate the division of labor between
spouses; when asked to describe their preparation for immersion, several
respondents paused to describe their husbands’ preparations and contribu-
tions: changing the sheets, bringing flowers, grooming themselves, and
coming home earlier than usual to watch the children and so free the wives
to go to the miqveh.
In all these small ways, although niddah does not necessarily produce
the “everlasting honeymoon,” it does potentially produce men and women
who arrange their lives around a certain set of values, a certain way of
being in the world. Shlomit articulated this point:
I don’t like these big words, but there’s something very special in niddah.
Its not like you don’t hear about affairs among orthodox, but when you look
at the bigger picture this distancing helps preserve the family because . . .
well . . . it produces more modesty in the family, in the marriage, in us.
Performing Religious Identities
Shlomit’s narrative brings me back to the arguments with which I began
this section: Religious women’s agency is grounded in observance, and
religiosity entails a project of becoming against the image of a cultural
Other. In the case of niddah, “becoming” is grounded in cleaning, check-
ing, withdrawing, yearning, counting, immersing, and aspiring. My claim
is that these practices potentially produce subjects whose sensibilities are
oriented towards the Jewish universe. As one educator noted, the Hebrew
words “rule” (hok) and “inscribed” (hakook) share the same root; thus, “It
is through the inscription of observance that you connect with godly
morality. And to fully internalize biblical laws you must inscribe and per-
form the rules. These rules are not distant, they are inscribed, and they
produce the Jewish essence.”
This essence indicates a feminine subject who harbors respect for her
spouse and for Jewish traditions; espouses Jewish values; and is a modest
and restrained sexual subject, who is not driven by hedonistic desires or
incontrollable passions. In Mahmood’s terms, the discipline of niddah is
an avenue for cultivating orthodox subjecthood through religious conduct—
to which I add, in the context of a dominant and threatening secular Israeli
culture.
However, I part with Mahmood on whether this essence is achieved or
attainable. Whereas Mahmood views veiling as a self-authoring project
that effectively produces a feminine Muslim subjectivity premised on
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docility, my respondents’ ambivalences preclude such conclusions. Thus,
while my critique of the dominant approaches in the sociology of women
in conservative religions builds on Mahmood, I suggest an alternative
theory of agency that is grounded not in docile religious conduct but in
observance.
CONCLUSION
This study demonstrates that Orthodox Jewish Israeli women are
ambivalent towards niddah and seek to make sense of the imperative to
comply. Their attempts to come to terms with their partial compliance and
with the legal codex suggest that observance is not necessarily strategic,
oppressive, empowering, or an ethical exercise of docility. As they navi-
gated messages about orthodox and secular femininities, families and
communities that circulate in their community, my respondents were far
from oppressed “doormats”—but neither were most of them engaged in
strategic compliance or in active resistance. Rather, their narratives sug-
gest a theory of observance that entails the construction and performance
of an orthodox identity against the image of a secular Other. Orthodoxy,
or religiosity, is revealed as both an orientation and an aspiration—in
either case, a construction.
My analysis extends beyond the dominant frames within the sociolog-
ical literature and suggests new directions for research. First, by thinking
about religion as something that people do, in social interaction and in the
context of symbolic boundaries, regulatory cultural regimes, and institu-
tional structures, my analysis demonstrates how religiosity is constructed:
it is a status that is learned, negotiated, and achieved by adhering to or
performing prescribed practices that distinguish the religious from the
nonreligious. This theory of constructed religiosity is consistent with
scholarship that demonstrates that niddah has historically served as a
symbolic marker of difference (Anteby 1999; Marienberg 2003; Wasserfall
1999).
The constructed nature of religiosity also suggests that the dominant
frame within the sociology of religion, which views observant women as
strategic navigators of religious schemas but pays little attention to the
institutional, structural, and cultural contexts that constitute these schemas,
does not adequately capture religious women’s experiences. As in the case
of gender, one cannot make sense of religious practices without appreci-
ating the behavioral scripts and cultural expectations that shape conduct.
Thus, I suggest that we examine how members of conservative religions
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make sense of religious teachings and practices by bringing into conver-
sation their experiences and communal narratives of compliance. 
Finally, the doing religion frame also challenges the paradox that
informs sociological discussions of religious women’s agency. Haunted
by the “doormats” image, sociologists are reluctant to think of agency as
a pursuit of religious ends or as nonstrategic action—hence the focus on
inadvertent empowerment, willful resistance/subversion, or strategic com-
pliance. In contrast, the doing religion approach dissociates agency from
the pursuit of extra-religious ends. By associating agency with obser-
vance, the doing religion approach avoids the false dichotomy that pits
compliance andagency. This rhetorical shift is in line with Mahmood’s
(2004) observation that the association of agency with strategic action
reflects the intellectual biases of students of religion rather than the reali-
ties of religious subjects. Women’s participation in conservative religions
is paradoxical only from the perspective of the observer, who is unwilling
to register forms of agency that embrace religiosity for the sake of reli-
giosity. To see agency, one does not need to identify empowerment, sub-
version, or rational strategizing. It suffices to note how members of
conservative religions “do”—observe, perform—religion, wherever that
might lead.
This conceptual shift is part of my broader agenda that focuses on the
renegotiation of religious forms in response to contemporary sensibilities
(Avishai 2007a). Rather than framing women’s experiences with conserva-
tive religions within the (false) dichotomy that pits agency against complic-
ity, I suggest that to make sense of the complexity, ambiguity, and transience
of religious traditions as they come in contact with competing ideas about
women, gender, family, and sexuality, we focus on inductive dilemmas of
resonance—articulations of hesitation, ambivalence, and desires for stabil-
ity and change that emerge from religious subjects’ narratives.
NOTES
1. Such precautions are legal “fences” that ensure that people abide by the
core restriction—in this case, the biblical prohibition against intercourse with a
menstruant. 
2. Readers may be familiar with a movement among non-orthodox U.S. Jewish
women to reclaim immersion as a woman-centered practice of healing and the
miqveh as a feminist institution. This reinterpretative agenda, which detaches
immersion from the impurity context and from the orthodox Jewish universe, is
beyond the scope of this paper.
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3. Despite the emphasis on secrecy, I found that in many cases, the impending
marriage of a close friend or a sister opened a brief window for frank and open
discussions of intimate issues under the guise of “preparation.”
4. Some sexually active unmarried orthodox women do observe niddah; they
believe that transgressions of the laws of purity are more severe than the prohibi-
tion pertaining to premarital intimacy. 
5. I focus on narratives of assent rather than narratives of dissent because
ambivalences shed light on the complexity of observance. I do not address the
orthodox feminist movement. 
6. According to some interpretations, unwanted body hair that is typically
removed may be viewed as a barrier that invalidates a woman’s immersion. 
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Orit Avishai is an assistant professor of sociology at Fordham University.
Her research and teaching focus on gender and religion, with a particular
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Avishai / “DOING RELIGION” IN A SECULAR WORLD 433
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