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.)