Yesterday's News

Lilian Calles Barger has a link to another story about the dual-lives of contemporary women. I don't know that I'm qualified to post on this, since I'm not a mother or homemaker by any stretch of the imagination (need confirmation? try my macaroni and cheese). In any case, the discussion continues. Old pal Josh Byers has a response over at his blog - he's linked to it in the comments on yesterday's post, but I'm providing it here.

My own reticence to an idea like the one introduced in yesterday's post stems from experience - in a highly intellectual environment - where men continue to make claims about women's vocational status (i.e., what women should do, or what ministry opportunities are available to them) as a way of disguising claims about women's ontological status (equal, separate but equal, or just separate?). My Greek professor used to begin every semester with a speech directed at men who were uncomfortable with the idea of learning a biblical language from a woman - she encouraged them to drop and take another (male) professor.

Even in my own degree program, there were male colleagues who adhered to (and in one notable case, promoted loudly) the paradigm that women are suboordinate to men. When I pushed them on it, asking them in our "Christian Ethics and Modern Culture" class how I could expect them to ever take my ideas and work seriously, they responded with the answer, "but we affirm you." I don't know what being affirmed of my suboordinate status looks like, or how that's supposed to help my intellectual confidence. Even male colleagues who identified themselves as sympathetic to the egalitarian cause eventually dismissed the issue as an one of interpretation, rather than deep ontological status. Especially toward the end, my confidence that I would be well-received in an intellectual environment with men was shaken pretty soundly.

I should say, though, that a similar view about women and their work seems to be present in the secular academic world as well. In this case, though, shouldn't our Christian environments do a little better? Maybe that's unfair. In any case, the debate about traditionalism vs. egalitarianism in Christianity is old news in the blogosphere, and I'm not intending to fan any flames or start any arguments. Instead, I'm just trying to give some (admittedly reductive) context to why public statements emphasizing female "roles" bother me. In any case, full disclosure is done.