Emerging Women

As you might have noticed, we recently posted the list of upcoming books for our Emerging Women book club discussions. Thanks for the input many of you have given and the interest in participating in a variety of ways in these discussions. We tried to select a variety of options that represent different genres and opinions. I hope these books can lead us into some meaningful discussions. So over the next few months we will be reading and discussing –

May -
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
by Barbara Kingsolver

June -
Looking For God
by Nancy Ortberg

July -
The New Christians
by Tony Jones

August -
The Shack
by William P. Young

September -
The Chocolate Cake Sutra
by Geri Larkin

If anyone is interested in leading part of the discussion on any of these books, just let us know! I’m looking forward to the discussions.

by A.J. Jacobs

“My quest is this: to live the ultimate biblical life. Or more precisely, to follow the bible as literally as possible.” So begins A.J.’s year-long sojourn, which he has made into a funny, informative and thought-provoking book. You can learn how You too can live biblically, see before and after pics of A.J’s hair (see if you agree he resembles the unibomber,) and view a link on How to be good at at A.J’s website.

At the project’s start, A.J. decides to get himself some good biblical studies resources. Upon walking into a Bible bookstore, a sales clerk offers A.J. some advice, as he points to a suggested bible, which is, “designed to look exactly like a Seventeen magazine: An attractive (if long-sleeved) model graces the front, next to cover lines like, ‘What’s your spiritual IQ?” Open it up and you’ll find sidebars such as ‘Rebeca the Control Freak.’”

“This one’s good if you’re on the subway and are too embarrassed to be seen reading the Bible,’ says Chris, [the sales clerk] It’s an odd and poignant selling point. You know your in a secular city when it’s considered more acceptable for a grown man to read a teen girl’s magazine than the Bible.” (p 9)

This interchange caused me to think about this quandry/opportunity:

1. What does it mean to be unapologetic and open about our humble walk with God when so often we feel ashamed and very apologetic about certain aspects of our religious “families of origin.” and the dogmas that often supplant life in the Spirit? What can we claim from our origins that abides in light, love and truth in place within our spirits where deep calls unot deep? And what could it look like when we let that Light shine?

On page 39 A.J. writes:

…one of my motivations for this experiment is my recent entrance into fatherhood. I’m constantly worried about my son’s ethical education. I don’t want him to swim in a soup of moral relativism. I don’t trust. I have such a worldview, and though I have yet to commit a major felony, it seems dangerous.

I thought it was funny to observe that A.J. actually agrees with fundamentalists about relativism, even though this is the view he espouses. I wondered,

2. Is there an alternative to relativism and absolutism?

3. Have you wrestled with “what to tell the children,” either in your family or spiritual community? I am curious particularly in areas of sex, salvation and evangelism how your own journey/ambiguity or ambivalence impacts what you say, avoid saying or otherwise communicate to a younger generation.

4. What approach do you take to instilling, offering, modeling and otherwise helping nurture young disciples, whether they are your own children or spiritual children you feel are entrusted into your care in friendship and/or ministry?

As we wrap up this month’s discussion of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, I want to turn to the question of expectations and costs. Woolf constantly seeks to understand what exactly it is society (popular opinion) expects from women. It is easier to understand why women are the way they are if one understands the constraints on who they are allowed to be. She quotes a common opinion on what was suitable for women writers – “female novelists should only aspire to excellence by courageously acknowledging the limitations of their sex.” While she was shocked that such a statement came from 1928 and not 1828, it is one we still hear today.

In the church especially we are used to there being certain expectations and limitations for women. Even when the church or group is egalitarian, those assumptions regarding what is suitable still exist. Often if a woman writes a book it is assumed to be a book for women, even if the spiritual themes are broader than that. I’ve come to expect that if there is women present in a line up of conference speakers I can almost guarantee that she will be speaking on social work in urban settings, AIDS in Africa, or overcoming sexual abuse, eating disorders, or being a lesbian and not anything strictly theological or from the Bible. Not that most of those things are bad topics, just that they are “acceptable” topics for women to address.

Yet to move beyond those expectations comes at a cost. Woolf presents an interesting perspective –

Moreover, in a hundred years, I thought, reaching my own doorstep, women will have ceased to be the protected sex. Logically they will take part in all the activities and exertions that were once denied them. The nursemaid will heave coal. The shopwoman will drive an engine. All assumptions founded on the facts observed when women were the protected sex will have disappeared—as, for example (here a squad of soldiers marched down the street), that women and clergymen and gardeners live longer than other people. Remove that protection, expose them to the same exertions and activities, make them soldiers and sailors and engine–drivers and dock labourers, and will not women die off so much younger, so much quicker, than men that one will say, ‘I saw a woman to–day’, as one used to say, ‘I saw an aeroplane’. Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation, I thought, opening the door.

Much has been said of the costs of women finding equality. Lifestyles and family structures have changed and often women are made to bear the full guilt of the vicissitudes of those changes. Women and men have had to make sacrifices and surrender their pride. Women have been maligned and ridiculed. We have been accused of seeking power when all we want is to be ourselves. We still in the church are subject to harsh criticisms, asked to be quiet (in the name of unity of course), and told our passions are unimportant. Pushing expectations comes at a cost.

So I ask. What expectations do you see in play? How can they be challenged? What costs have you had to pay? Are the costs worth it?

As we continue our discussion of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, I want to turn to the issue of families. I first want to fully acknowledge that this isn’t an issue for every women nor should it have to be. I completely respect the multitude of ways women choose to live and work in this world and the reasons why many desire to not have kids. I don’t want anyone to feel excluded from this conversation either, but the issue of the ability of women to have children and do something like write surfaces in Woolf’s writing and is a huge issue for some women.

In her questioning the lack of resources of a women’s college, Woolf (writing in the 1920s) wonders how things would be different if our foremothers had been out making money and receiving an education instead of bearing and raising child after child. What different memories and opportunities would women now have? But then she surmises that such questions are meaningless because we then wouldn’t exist at all. The assumption is that one can’t be a mother and write (or teach, or make money, or be intellectual). These days (amidst much controversy still) women have far more opportunities to work and some men are (rightly imho) stepping up to their fair share of parenting responsibility, but nevertheless women still bear the majority of the childrearing load. As Woolf would say, it’s hard to have the time, privacy, and money to write with children underfoot. And it is a choice that women still struggle with. Family or career? Or both? Woolf saw the choice basically as an either/or, but others obviously have challenged that dichotomy.

My favorite challenge came from the writer Margaret Atwood in her poem Spelling (I blogged through it regarding these issues here, here, and here). In the poem she addresses the very issue of women choosing between children and writing. She choose to do both and saw both as a way for women to have a voice and participate in the act of creation. While she acknowledged the intense struggles of choosing both, she also thought that to deny women either creative outlet was an act of violence. As a working and writing mother I tend to agree – even though I face struggles every day. This is what is working for my life, but I know each of us faces something different.

So where do you fall on these issues? How have you made both work? Or why did you choose one path over another? I’d love to hear your stories.

Our book selection for this month’s discussion is Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. This week I want to look at the idea presented in the title of the book. Woolf’s suggestion is that for a woman to be able to write (have the time, energy, space, resources) she needs a room of her own and money. Her suggestion is an endowment of 500 a year (which today of course wouldn’t pay for one month’s rent, but I’m sure someone could come up with a sum that accounts for inflation) which would allow women the opportunity and the time to write without the constraints of funding the habit through backbreaking work. The room is for privacy and sufficient uninterrupted periods to concentrate.

Woolf sees the numerous books that men (some who, as she puts it, “have no apparent qualification save that they are not women”) have produced and the vast amounts of resources that in her day had been set aside to develop the life of the mind for men. She wonders why women have been denied these same opportunities. Why must the women’s colleges scrimp and save? Why is it so much easier for the men to get an education and find the resources to write? She wonders at how many more books by women we would have or how much better the ones we do have would be if women had privacy and resources.

Over the last century much has changed in the world. Women often have equal access to educational opportunities, but I continue to hear ongoing conversations about how much more difficult it is for women to write. One of the very first conversations on this blog involved why it is easier for men to blog. And the question of why aren’t we seeing emerging books by women is asked on a fairly frequent basis. Is Woolf correct – do we just lack the time, privacy, and resources? (I have to laugh at that because my writing this discussion post has been interrupted a few times by my toddler asking me to taste the food she is making in her toy kitchen…). How do you respond to Woolf’s assertions? Do they hold truth? How do they apply today?

And on a more personal note… Why do or don’t you write (blog…)? How does it work for you? When do you find the time?

This month for our book discussion we are going to do something a little different. In the past we have focused on books of a mainly religious nature, but this month we are turning to a classic in the world gender issues – Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. First published nearly 80 years ago, Woolf’s book has defined for generations of women the struggles women often face in the academic and intellectual world.

I first read this book early in college in a Women Writer’s class (an elective of course). At the time I was a good little conservative complementarian who thought any argument for women’s rights was feminist and therefore evil. The irony of the fact that I was a woman getting an education and therefore benefiting from the rights people like Woolf fought for completely eluded me. I was more than willing to accept the gifts of the early feminists (the right to vote, have a job, own property, have a bank account, get an education) while condemning the very philosophy that granted me those rights. I read the book with very different eyes a decade later. I understood Woolf arguments and frustrations better, and I marveled at how her dreams and predictions for the future have played out.

But before we delve into the content of the book, I would like to hear about your experiences with early feminist writers. Have you encountered Woolf before? In what contexts and mindsets? Have you ever studied the lives of the women who fought for basic rights for women? Have such stories been encouraged in your life or hidden?

Well, one problem with being a book lover and the mom of a toddler is that books suddenly disappear when you are about use them, and so this post isn’t going to have any quotes. I hope if you’ve had a chance to dip into the book you’ve found some gems of your own, and please feel free to share any that inspire you!

In the latter part of the book, Karol talks about the breakup of the old order, with its imposition of sameness, at the cost of individuality and the voices of the sisters. She describes the crisis of community that occurred when after years of oppression, the freedom to dissent suddenly arose, causing the foundations of friendship, sisterhood and solidarity to be shaken, and the cost both of that oppression, and the pain of its lifting after being normative for so long.

1. Where is your community at in the process of valuing the voicing of its members, even when it means the loss of uniformity?

2. What is your community doing or not doing to foster an environment where people are/feel loved and safe enough to stretch beyond comfort zones to include the Other, even when the other is the person in the next seat or pew?

3. Describe a time you took a risk and voiced a dissenting opinion about theology, community or spiritual life? What was it like?

4. Describe a time you did not voice a dissenting a opinion, but felt one? What was it like?

5. Describe a time when someone else’s dissenting opinion felt threatening to you? What was it like?

6. What is your heart’s urgent prayer for the church/God’s people?