Uncovers the influence of Yoruba culture on women’s religious lives and leadership in religions practiced by Yoruba people
Women in Yoruba Religions examines the profound influence of Yoruba culture in Yoruba religion, Christianity, Islam, and Afro-Diasporic religions such as Santeria and Candomblé, placing gender relations in historical and social contexts. While the coming of Christianity and Islam to Yorubaland has posed significant challenges to Yoruba gender relations by propagating patriarchal gender roles, the resources within Yoruba culture have enabled women to contest the full acceptance of those new norms.
Oyeronke Olademo asserts that Yoruba women attain and wield agency in family and society through their economic and religious roles, and Yoruba operate within a system of gender balance, so that neither of the sexes can be subsumed in the other. Olademo utilizes historical and phenomenological methods, incorporating impressive data from interviews and participant-observation, showing how religion is at the core of Yoruba lived experiences and is intricately bound up in all sectors of daily life in Yorubaland and abroad in the diaspora.

"Oládémo notes the tremendous agency of women in Yoruba religion, and she shows the considerable impact they have—impact, she argues, tied to such variables as the economy. The author also examines the forces that shaped women's various roles—colonialism, capitalism, and globalization—highlighting major historical phases." - CHOICE

"Professor Oyeronke Olademo has indeed brought her wealth of knowledge and experience to bear in writing this book…[T]his book will be of great value to students and scholars of Comparative religious studies, lovers of comparative religion and anyone interested in the role of women in the development of religion and in this regard. I recommend the book to all and sundry." - Nigerian Tribune

"The book... concludes that Yoruba women have always made a way for themselves in spite of challenges of male domination in the religious space, and in spite of globalization and modernity, women have continued to evolve and play even increasing roles as Yoruba religion is being practiced abroad and also foreign religions are been practiced in Yorubaland." - Indigenous Religious Traditions