Why “A Theology Blog by a Girl”?

As a divinity student, I’ve been reading theology blogs for awhile. Despite my sometimes obsessive blog reading and my very strong commitment to feminism, I am ashamed to say that it never dawned on me that all the blogs I read are written by men. Actually, this realization and the subsequent idea for this blog came from a recent blog by Adam Kotsko. Adam hypothetically asks his readers what books we would recommend to him if he were hypothetically teaching a course on feminist theology. He got some great responses–She Who Is by Elizabeth Johnson, Feminist Theory and Christian Theology by Serene Jones, Powers & Submission by Sarah Coakley, etc…etc…

But perhaps the most interesting response was actually one by a friend and classmate of mine, Tim Kumfer. After throwing in a few recommendations of his own, Tim makes an astute observation. He writes:

also we are all fucking dudes. perhaps this is part of the problem with the theoblogosphere?

After reading Tim’s comment, and trying not to beat myself up for not getting to comment in time (cause Adam closed the commenting on the post!), I did some research and saw that Tim was on to something. I discovered that the vast majority of theology blogs that exist are indeed written by men.

Out of the 87 theology or theology-related blogs listed on my blogroll
-    129  have male authors
-    25  have female authors (19%)
-    only 8 sites are primarily written by women (9%)
-    statistics are not including The Immanent Frame, which has over 100 contributors, about 30% women

Out of the 109 blogs that are a part of the Christian Century blog network:
-    21 belong to women (19%)

Because of these dismal statistics, and my own interest in theology, I thought I might as well “join the conversation” and make my own blog. So, welcome! I am just joining the masses who already have theology blogs, writing on what I find interesting in theology and philosophy, with an emphasis here on both gender/sexuality and postmodern/poststructural philosophy.

I hesitated for awhile in starting this blog, as I recognize that “marketing” this blog may reinforce a notion of gender essentialism. I don’t want to pull an Andrea Dworkin/Catharine MacKinnon and build rigid categories of sex and gender to uphold feminism. I’m much more a fan of Judith Butler, Monique Wittig, Wendy Brown, Robyn Wiegman, Gayle Rubin, Teresa De Lauretis, Drucilla Cornell, etc…etc….

Just because gender is constructed, however, does not mean it is not real. To suggest that we should or even can be sex or gender blind is just as ridiculous to suggest that we all should or can be color blind. This is something my friend and old preceptor discussed (primarily in terms of race) over at his blog. Brian reminisces on his experience as a teaching assistant for over 30 courses at Duke, and points out how he has noticed students showing different levels of respect to professors based on their skin color and gender. Brian goes on to analyze the situation. He writes:

What is it in these moments that allows these students to feel free to resist, speak out, or question some professors but defer to others even if they disagree?

I am not saying these students who defied are racist or sexist. The point is they are willing to defer to some and they are, for some reason, willing to be vocal about their disagreement with others. We need to be cognizant of this tendency in order to really begin to dialogue about how minorities and women are so often dismissed in public conversation not because of vehement denials, but through a more subtle lack of deference or respect.

This lack of deference is part of a larger process of social formation that we are subjected to in this country (and the West as well) through a complicated set of real-life relationships, media, and lack of varied teachers and examples in our lives. If we are really to begin to talk about race honestly in this country we must ask ourselves why some might feel the authority to do something like shout “you lie” to the president of the United States in a national speech.

I love the way Brian articulates this, recognizing the precise ways that race (and gender) is (are) and isn’t (aren’t). These markers of identity such as race and gender are assuredly constructed, and people like Butler and Wittig recognize the way in which the reification of these markers is intensely destructive. However, to recognize and acknowledge the existence of gender is not necessarily to reify it. Rather, by recognizing the way in which gender is performed, one can choose to perform it differently, thus subverting/deconstructing it. This is what the notion of queering is. Butler, in one of her pieces, writes about the notion of queering as a postmodern methodological response to the bodies. She explains:

I don’t know what postmodernism is, but I do have some sense of what it might mean to subject notions of the body and materiality to a deconstructive critique. To deconstruct the concept of matter or that of bodies is not to negate or refuse either term. To deconstruct these terms means, rather, to continue to use them, to repeat them, to repeat them subversively, and to displace them from the contexts in which they have been deployed as instruments of oppressive power.

De Lauretis, who actually came before Butler (though Butler seems to get all the credit), says pretty much the same thing:

Paradoxically, the only way to position oneself outside of that hegemonic discourse is to displace oneself within it–to refuse the question as formulated, or to answer deviously (though in its words), even to quote (but against the grain).

For Butler, De Lauretis, and many others, we cannot avoid gender, and to do so would only reinforce its hegemonic power. However, we can perform gender in such a way that we recognize the way in which functions to oppress (both men and women) and perform it in such a way that it is just a little less oppressive.

It is my hope in this blog to not reify gender but to perform it differently, thus doing one little tiny thing to help displace it from the contexts in which it has been deployed as an instrument of oppressive power.

Plus, I like to write, and I like theology, and I figured that this would be a good way to do both.

I hope you like what you see. I welcome your comments.