Immaculate Conception of Gender: The Marian Phenomenon Among Catholic Women Pilgrims.

This study examines the phenomenological pragmatics of Marian imaginaries—cultural and religious representations of the Virgin Mary—and their intersection with gender and religion, focusing on Latina Catholic women pilgrims to the House of the Virgin Mary in Selçuk Province, Turkey. Through fieldwork and discourse analysis, including Pope Francis’ 2023 address on the Virgin of Guadalupe, the research highlights how Marian symbolism enables women to challenge traditional gender norms, reconstruct identities, and assert agency within religious contexts. Drawing on Luce Irigaray’s theoretical framework, the study explores Mary as a deterritorialized, mediating figure whose embodied and phantasmatic representations facilitate empowerment by integrating spirituality with femininity and sexuality. The findings suggest that pilgrimage and devotion to Mary serve as transformative practices that foster solidarity, healing, and feminist reinterpretations of womanhood among Latina Catholic women.