Through the use of archival and ethnographic sources and rich life testimonies, this book provides a rare glimpse into how women found space to hold firm in their religious beliefs and withstand daily discrimination and prolonged hardship under a Communist regime in China that held rejection of religious beliefs and practices as a patriotic duty.

1. Women, Religion and Space During Times of China’s Political Transformation Part 1: Late Imperial and Republican China: History, Religion and Space - Daoist and Muslim Women in Kaifeng 2. Religious Pluralism and The Place of Kaifeng in Women’s History 3. Women-Led Religious Spaces and Modern Times 4. The Jiuku Miao in Kaifeng: Diverse Memories of a Women’s Daoist Temple 5. Investing Muslim Women’s Traditions with Modern Meaning Part 2: Republican China Modernization, Religion and Space – Catholic Women in Kaifeng 6. Contesting Female Space in Changing Times: The Catholic Providence Sisters and Chinese Catechists 7. Catholic Virgins and the Growth of Local Spaces for Women 8. The Tradition of Catholic Shouzhen Guniang in Jingang 9. A Political Campaign to Re-map Gendered Space, 1949-1958 Part 3: Communist China, and Beyond Women, Religion and Space in Contemporary Chinese Society 10. The Zhengzhou Beida Women’s Mosque: Tradition, Modernity and Identity 11. The Jiuku Miao: From Marginality to Legitimacy 12. Being Female, Being Celibate, Being Catholic. Conclusion: Women, Religion and Space: Freedom, Dependency and Inter-Dependence