Emerging Women

Now I know that we have a fantastic group of female bloggers in this Emerging Women community. Just click on our community page if you are looking to find some insightful, witty, and challenging blogs to read. That said, there still exists a gender-gap in the blogging world. There just are significantly fewer theological blogs written by women than men. And the ones that are out there seemingly don’t get the respect or the readership as those written by men.

Patrick McCullough recently sent us an email addressing that very issue. He writes –

“I don’t know if any women from your group follow the conversations in academic biblical studies blogs (“biblioblogs”), but we currently have one that may be of interest to you. I wonder if you might be willing to help us out.

At present, the closest thing to an “official” tally of academic biblical studies blogs is done by the Biblioblog Top 50–which puts the ratio of male to female bibliobloggers at 270 to 20. Women make up roughly 7 percent of those who blog about academic biblical studies. We have had a few conversations about this over the years but have come to no firm conclusions about why this is the case or how we should solve it.

Some explanations attempt to reason through gender preferences (women don’t like to sit in front of a computer, men are more narcissistic, etc.). But these preferences (stereotypes?) seem to relate to blogging in general and not the vast discrepancy in biblical studies specifically. I suggested that there may be a perceived risk to blogging which professionally academic women do not want to take. The person behind the Biblioblog Top 50 believes there is a “deeper, structural religious bias towards male authority.” April DeConick (perhaps the strongest, most reliable biblioblogger who happens to be a woman) believes that there is a sexism embedded within the network of biblical studies blogs, which marginalizes the blogs of women as unimportant (post one, two, three). Have a glance at this person’s post to see a timeline and links to some of the conversation happening.

I wonder if you could pose the question to your community of intelligent female bloggers, many of whom are quite well-informed about theological/spiritual/biblical matters. Why do you think there aren’t more women blogging about academic biblical studies? If you have some knowledge about biblical studies, but are not a “biblioblogger,” why not? “

Zondervan announced today that it would be releasing a new version of the the NIV translation of the Bible in 2011, eliminating the publication of the TNIV. The TNIV has been around since 2002, and was published as a “gender accurate” translation that eliminated masculine or feminine nouns and pronouns that were unsupported by original manuscripts. Since it came out, it has been showered with criticisms. Conservatives said it undermined the trustworthiness of the Bible with James Dobson saying that it diluted “the masculinity intended by the authors of Scripture” and resulted in “obscuring the fatherhood of God.” And now apparently Zondervan agrees with their critics (or at least desperately wants their business). Maureen Girkins, president of Zondervan, now says that “The T-NIV is very divisive. It’s not a unifying translation… We need to undo the damage.” This means examining the gender-related translations decisions and as hinted at, possibly returning to the 1984 non-gender sensitive version.

I am seriously disappointed in Zondervan for making this decision. Douglas Moo, chairman of the Committee on Bible Translation, says that for the new version they desire to “make sure we are putting God’s unchanging word into English people are actually using.” But honestly, how can they do that if antiquated masculine pronouns are all that are used? Children these days do not learn an English that uses male pronouns as the generic form or speech. The language the majority of Americans actually use is gender inclusive, that is just the way things are. I recall a professor I knew who worked on Bible translations share that what changed his mind about the necessity of gender inclusive language for translations was when his daughter asked him why only boys could be Christians. Her Bible used male pronouns and terms like “son of God,” and as a modern American she had no idea that such language was meant to include girls as well. Forget whether gender-inclusive language is the fair or the just way to translate the Bible, it’s practical in our day and age.

So to have the anti-female voices of Grudem, and Dobson, and Piper and their followers win out disturbs me. It is just one more example how for many Christians one of the central aspects of their faith is the subjugation of women. I know there are other accurate and appropriate Bible translations available, but none with the reach as the NIV. It is the powerhouse, it’s the translation of choice for evangelicalism. I grew up with the NIV, and since it’s publication have used the TNIV. It is those words that I know by heart, and it feels like a betrayal to have Zondervan proclaim that I as a woman matter so little.

So how do you respond? What translation do you use? How does gender-inclusive language affect your reading of scripture?