Guest posts
Karen – Karen shared her experience trying to understand how being a mother has shaped her identity within the church.
Kayla – Kayla has written a marvelous essay about how strong-willed women can live well within evangelicalism.
Larissa – Larissa wrote about her experience with the True Loves Waits movement and discusses its effect on women.
Monica – Monica shared her story growing up in Nebraska and talked about the sort of blueprint for feminine identity that she grew up with.
My writing
Blueprints – My story of how I became interested in these issues after growing up in a deeply chauvinistic strand of fundamentalism
Coleridge to Crockett and the Secret to Being a Real Man – General thoughts on masculinity
An Open Thread on Feminism – I opened up a post for women to comment on these issues before I began writing about them. I’m glad I did, the comments here are gold. Read them, learn from them.
Protecting the Chastity of an Aspiring Pervert – A reflection on modesty and how it’s discussed in some religious cultures.
Rape Culture and the Question of Evangelical Culpability – A second essay on modesty building off the argument in Protecting the Chastity of an Aspiring Pervert.
The Still Lingering Echo of a Primal Shout – The follow-up column to the Toast…. This one is about marriage.
A Toast to Prudery – A sex column I wrote for the Daily Nebraskan after a co-worker asked me to write a positively-stated view of Christian sexuality.
Other Resources
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolfe – Wolfe’s book is a study on the current ideal of beauty, how we got here culturally and how the current understanding manifests itself in all areas of life.
Feminism, the Body, and the Machine – An excellent essay by Wendell Berry that discusses feminism within the context of industrialization with a (as you can guess) decidedly localist twist. An excellent read.
Jesus Girls – A collection essays published in 2009 by a group of women writing about their experiences growing up in evangelicalism. An excellent read.
Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher – So far it’s the best book I’ve read on these issues. Read it, you won’t regret it.
Servant Leadership and Gender Roles – This was a six week education course offered at my old church home, Grace Chapel, in Lincoln NE during the fall of 2009. It was led by our pastor, Mike Hsu, and our music director, Crystal Davy, who is the same Crystal that commented on the Open Thread linked above.
[...] Gender and the Body [...]