Veronica Mitchell has a post up at the Toddled Dredge blog about her experience reading the classic Pilgrim’s Progress. The second, less-well-known part of Pilgrim’s Progress follows the allegorical spiritual journey of Christiana, the female counterpart of part one’s Christian. Among other things, Mitchell argues that however well-intentioned, separate “women’s versions” of Christian literature can reinforce the unhealthy idea that a woman’s Christianity is fundamentally different (and less important) than a man’s. From her post:
Women have always managed a kind of code-switching with literature. Women seem better able to see themselves in male characters than men can see themselves in female characters. It is probably the inevitable result of literary history. More writers were men, writing male characters, and if women were going to read, they had to be able to identify with a male character. Men have had less practice at this, simply because circumstances have not required it. [...]At the same time that gender-inclusive translations of the Bible are published, innumerable Bible studies for women have been written on the women of the Bible, with the implication that those women – who are usually minor characters – should be the examples Christian women look to, rather than the men who occupy the lion’s share of scripture. The gender-inclusive translations and the women’s study Bibles may be two sides of the same coin: a sign that we are less able to see ourselves in the other sex than women used to be.
Her observations about “code-switching”-the ability to identify with literary characters of the opposite gender-are especially interesting. What do you think?
(Via Jan at the view from her.)
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August 23, 2007 at 09:28
I’m a copyeditor, and the he/she question can be such a problem with the need to be gender-inclusive these days. Maybe it comes from reading the Bible all of my life, but I have no problem seeing the word “man” and understanding that it means me too. Maybe that carries over into other reading as well.
I think Mitchell may be right. In another generation or so the meaning of “all men are created equal” will be lost behind the sexism women will read into it. It will lose the wonderfully scandalous meaning that it originally had to a negative sexist interpretation.
I have never felt belittled by the word “he”. But then, I’m an almost-40-year-old southerner, so maybe I’m a little old-fashioned. I’m also rarely offended by the words “girl” and “little lady,” and never by a man opening the door for me.
August 24, 2007 at 09:42
I think she’s right. Women are very adapt in reading stories and understanding that it pertains to them too even though it is written by a man about men. (Except maybe in adventure/hero tales. I don’t think we see ourselves as the rescurer but the rescuee.) Men never see themselves in the female role and have been totally discouraged from doing so by our culture. To see a man doing anything like a woman has been seen as the highest of insults, such as “You hit like a girl,” “You scream like a girl.”
In reading the Bible, women have always had to switch the language in their minds to include themselves. Throughout the Bible the word “man” is written to mean human. I understand that God is talking to women too. What drives me crazy is when people take the “man” literally to mean only men and totally exclude the other half of the human race.
August 26, 2007 at 13:00
I was never challenged in reading the Bible and seeing myself as a Moses or as a David (even at his most sinful times!) until gender-specific language morphed into gender-bashing-in-reverse, with the outcry of raised fist and voice, “To all those men who dared to write in the masculine tense all these centurie, we women will have it no more!!” What silliness! I am fifty, and I lived through the women’s movement of the 60’s and 70’s when women first began to figure out their role in life outside the home. Some of the activism, and the brave activists, were needed and genuine in their objectives. Today, I am not sure that the effort and energy spent on determining someone’s intent about the opposite sex is all that valuable an exercise. If nothing else, the women’s movement allowed women to stand shoulder to shoulder with men in whatever endeavor they choose – and that’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it? The choice. Free will from God, captured in a free society.