The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine (Plus) | 
 enlarge | Author: Sue Monk Kidd
Publisher: HarperOne
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $4.26
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Avg. Customer Rating:  79 reviews
Sales Rank: 4635
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 0061144908
Dewey Decimal Number: 204.092
EAN: 9780061144905
ASIN: 0061144908
Publication Date: January 1, 2007
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Product Description
"I was amazed to find that I had no idea how to unfold my spiritual life in a feminine way. I was surprised, and, in fact, a little terrified, when I found myself in the middle of a feminist spiritual reawakening." ––Sue Monk Kidd For years, Sue Monk Kidd was a conventionally religious woman. Then, in the late 1980s, Kidd experienced an unexpected awakening, and began a journey toward a feminine spirituality. With the exceptional storytelling skills that have helped make her name, author of When the Heart Waits tells her very personal story of the fear, anger, healing, and freedom she experienced on the path toward the wholeness that many women have lost in the church. From a jarring encounter with sexism in a suburban drugstore, to monastery retreats and to rituals in the caves of Crete, she reveals a new level of feminine spiritual consciousness for all women– one that retains a meaningful connection with the "deep song of Christianity," embraces the sacredness of ordinary women's experience, and has the power to transform in the most positive ways every fundamental relationship in a woman's life– her marriage, her career, and her religion. This Plus edition paperback includes a recent interview with the author conducted by the book's editor Michael Maudlin.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 74 more reviews...
This is an IMPORTANT book to read if you want to understand feminism. July 5, 2008
Sue Monk Kidd captures the reader with her openness about how she became a feminist, almost by accident. This is a very personal account describing her experience of moving from accepted Christianity to feminism. I found the story fascinating and finished it in only 3 days. For the most part, the author simply told her story and how she interpreted the events she faced along the way. However, at various places in the book she began to generalize her experiences to all women, which made me agree with the reviewer who said her journey is not my journey.
What I found a bit disconcerting is that the author states that she made a living as a writer for Christian and inspirational magazines and yet on page 83 says that she suddenly realized that the Bible focuses primarily on masculine rather than feminine attributes of God. Actually, the primary message throughout the Bible is that the God who created the universe wants to have a personal relationship with his creatures, both female and male, and how that is achieved. Even the author would classify relationships as a domain which is more in the feminine rather than mascuine realm. Likewise, the majority of the 10 Commandments deal with relationships and in Matthew 22:36-39 Jesus said the 2 most important commands were loving God and loving your neighbor. I don't see how anyone can miss these more feminine qualities of God.
Maybe the fact that America is a much more egalitarian society than when the book was written in 1996, and maybe some of the recent books that I've read, like The Female Brain, which highlights some of the hormonal and internal changes that women undergo explain why I disagree with the author and don't view the elements of patriarchy in society as something that needs to be attacked. Also, Kidd identifies many identity issues as struggles for girls and women, which I believe are universal struggles regardless of one's gender.
However, even with these complaints I believe the book is important to read if one wants to understand and interact knowledgably with a feminist.
 A voice from the wilderness April 24, 2008
Sue Monk Kidd's journey resonates for me as I have long struggled with the way we tend to ignore or excuse the masculine priority that surrounds women's lives. Ms. Monk explores and ennunciates the "stacked deck" of everything from language and religion to the ingrained assumptions of women's secondary status in the world. True the balance has shifted somewhat, but as long as there are places where men have a "right" to beat their wives, where it is against the law for women to be educated, where it's a BIG DEAL to have a woman run for president, where we criticize a woman for being today's connotation of the word FEMINIST for speaking simple truths; we have a problem. Not one to be trivialized or ignored. Can you imagine the hue and cry that would erupt were we to refer to all humanity as "whitekind"? Ms. Monk is shining a light on the endemic prejudice women live with every day of their lives by sharing her journey, her questions, her fears, and confusion with us. I am grateful to her. I don't feel so alone.
Excellent Story and Resource February 13, 2008
Sue Monk Kidd expertly and openly shares her most intimate experience in finding the Divine in this well written and referenced personal account.
Dance of the Dissident Daughter January 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Finally, a book about the female goddess written by a woman with great knowledge and wisdom AND amazing research. The research allows us to believe that we are NOT being duped by a woman...like we've been duped by all the men.
This is an excellent book with such profound insight into a woman's soul. Every woman should read this. Sue should write another book filled with even more research!!!
Inspiring December 13, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Sue Monk Kidd has created a beautiful masterpiece in Dance of the Dissident Daughter. Her personal and touching story of a woman who became slowly disillusioned with the male patriarchal church which surrounded her, and her own feelings of guilt and pain through her journey is intensely touching. So many novels treat these journeys as solitary paths that we can tread at our own pace, but Sue's real life story encompasses the realities of her husband, her children, and her extended family - and their reactions to her rejection of the tradition patriarchy that held sway over her. Her journey is an inspiration to us all, and should be read by men and women alike (men can and are oppressed by the patriarchy of the church, too!).
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