Arcadia University, Glenside, PA, USA,
J Relig Health. 2013 Dec;52(4):1108-19. doi: 10.1007/s10943-011-9544-y.
This article explores how gender and religious belief come together in an elderly woman's experience of suffering. It is based on qualitative research that explored experiences of suffering in a group of community-dwelling elders (80+) living in a North American city. We use the case study method to introduce themes that show suffering's uniqueness to the individual whose narrative we report, as well as similarity to themes that emerged in other participants' narratives. In this case, an elderly woman's gender and religious identities merge in her stories of suffering, which include the memory of a childhood disability and an incident of clergy abuse that occurred 70 years previously. A key finding in this paper is that key themes in her story of suffering, which are disablement and clergy abuse, resonate to the general themes of suffering found in our study, which are (1) threats to personal identity; (2) loss of a valued item, quality, or relationship; and (3) a lack of control over self or the circumstances of life.
本文探讨了性别和宗教信仰如何在一位老年女性的苦难经历中交织在一起。它基于一项定性研究，该研究探讨了一群居住在北美的城市社区中的老年人（80 岁以上）的苦难经历。我们使用案例研究方法，引入了一些主题，这些主题展示了个体苦难的独特性，我们所报告的叙事正是来自于这位个体，同时也展示了与其他参与者叙事中出现的主题的相似性。在这个案例中，一位老年女性的性别和宗教身份在她的苦难故事中融合在一起，其中包括对童年残疾的记忆和 70 年前发生的神职人员虐待事件。本文的一个重要发现是，她苦难故事中的关键主题，即残疾和神职人员虐待，与我们研究中发现的苦难的一般主题产生共鸣，这些主题包括：（1）个人身份受到威胁；（2）失去有价值的物品、品质或关系；以及（3）对自我或生活环境失去控制。
