Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses perception of gender roles and family practices among pagan women Lithuania and Estonia, focusing on the examples of Romuva and Maausk organizations.

Paper long abstract:

The paper discusses perception of gender roles and family practices among pagan women in Lithuania and Estonia, focusing on two examples. The first one is the ancient Baltic religious organization Romuva, its teaching and everyday practices among its female members in contemporary Lithuania. The second is Estonian native faith organization Maausk. The aim of this paper is to analyze the gender roles presented in the teachings of the groups and the way they are lived by women in both organizations. Reconstructive pagan religious groups usually represent a traditionalist worldview, while the impact of feminist ideas is mostly observed within goddess-oriented pagan traditions like Wicca. The cases discussed in this chapter represent a mixture of the two traditions about perception of gender roles and its lived practices by female members. The paper is based on participant observation and interviews with women members in both organizations, conducted in 2021–2022.