Reviewed by: Barbara Neubauer. pvalenti@snet.net
Women's roles in society, family and the Church are explored in this collection of essays. As stated in the preface, the targeted audience of this collection of essays is the student and individual seeking to educate themselves about "issues that shape our society and its institutions." (vii). The authors attempt to shed some light on the "ways women are regarded and treated today." (viii) This volume attempts to do so with essays that investigate attitudes of Christianity and social institutions towards women. Ten chapters address how women were treated differently than men, especially in marriage and ministry, beginning with the 1st century C.E. to the present.
The editors give a basic introduction to concepts of gender roles in the first essay, Gender Roles in Family and Culture: The Basis of Sexism in Religion. Theological ideas that have formed our views of the female gender in society provide the basis of this discussion. Ancient Israel perceived women as a commodity, the Greco-Roman culture pronounced the domestic versus public sphere, regaling the woman to the domestic. After Early Christianity allowed women initially to participate in public life, the medieval world assumed a religious dogma that firmly placed women at the bottom of social hierarchy. Beginning in the Renaissance, the Reformation placed more emphasis on the married woman. In modern times, women slowly became active in humanitarian causes, thereby drawing parallels to their own situation and slowly demanding equal opportunities.
In Chapter 2, Gender in the Origins of Christianity: Jewish Hopes and Imperial Exegencies, Mary Rose D'Angelo warns of anachronisms of the Patristic Fathers and Anti-Jewish feminists. She argues that Jewish hopes of a new world in the 1st century C.E. provided the forum for intensified participation of women. For example, she argues that the teachings of Jesus released women from their restrictive status. Her essay focuses on gender roles in the Gospels, rejecting the term "Jesus-movement" and suggesting "reign-of-God-movement" instead, thereby by shifting the focus away from Jesus (p. 27).
The Aesthetics of Paradise: Images of Women in Christian Antiquity, (Kenneth Steinhauser) explores the role, status and function of women after the composition of the New Testament. Steinhauser distinguishes a sociological versus a theological explanation for women's marginalization. In researching literary and visual images, he identified the following roles/functions. The iconic woman receives her identity from others, she is identified by contemporaries through her relationships (e.g being a wife). The symbolic woman represents an idealized identity that is linked to a virtue, or more often a vice (e.g. Mary versus Eve). Whereby, the iconoclastic woman creates her own identity through her achievements (e.g. Macrina or Hypatia).
In Excluded by the Logic of Control: Women in medieval Society and Scholastic Theology, takes a look at historic evidence to familiarize the reader with "real" women's lives. Marie Anne Mayeski attempts to give a general understanding of opportunities and female accomplishments. A woman's social status plays a significant role when connections between opportunities and life choices are presented. Some of the life choices that the Mayeski addresses include the monastic life, women in theology and religious revival movements. This essay also gives an excellent introduction to Thomas of Aquinas' ideas and his impact on woman's position in society and intellectual history.
Moving into the Renaissance period, the essay Ave Virginia, Regina Terrae: Power of Culture and the Culture of Power in Renaissance England, examines Elizabeth I impact on the female gender. William Swatos, Jr. concludes "the best estimate of Elizabeth's world can be gained from the reactions against it by Puritans and Papists" (p. 108) The image that Elizabeth's ministers, her people and herself created, provided the framework (culture) for her power. Elizabeth had to conform to cultural norms in order to reign effectively. She cleverly embraces the male view of womanhood where necessary ("I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king" p. 97). Elizabeth affirms the traditional role of women and purpose of marriage in the Anglican theology.
Ellen M. Leonard explores The Separation of the Sexes: The Development of Gender Roles in modern Catholicism. She does so by looking at how Christian women's family lives and female religious orders were affected by the Reformation and the Catholic Reform. The Reformation placed a greater emphasis on the married woman, regaling single (unattached women) to a status of being a "loose woman." The Catholic reformers insisted on regulating marriage and continued to view women according to Aristotle and Thomas of Aquinas, in need of protection. In religious orders the clausura was enforced. Leonard concludes her discussion by describing the Protestant society as assimilationist, Catholic society as separatist, in their understanding of gender roles and anthropology.
Leonard's conclusion leads nicely into the next essay by Wendy Fletcher-Marsh: Towards a Single Anthropology: Development in modern Protestantism. She states: Protestantism "inherited a tradition of religious thought and practise that bears the scars of androcentrism" (p. 129), but has been gradually evolving to a single anthropology providing a new framework for Christian life and ministry. The five developments that affected women in recent history are: the office of deaconess, the advent of the paid professional church worker, the woman missionary, the enfranchisement of women in ecclesiastical polities and the ordained woman as a leader of local communities.
Gale Pohlhaus' contribution, Catholics and Protestants, Conservatives and Liberals: Christian Marriage Today, examines how secular knowledge has influenced religion and marriage. A changing society calls for a discussion of various topics, including sexuality, birth control and abortion, parenting, divorce and especially communication.
The last two essays, Weaving New Cloth: Overcoming Sexism in Ordination Policies (Molly T. Marshall) and Understanding the Dynamics of Gender Roles: Towards the Abolition of Sexism in Christianity (the editors), look to the future of women and ministry. Weaving New Cloth contrasts a Southern Baptist perspective with a Catholic one and proposes a "Shared Vision." Understanding the Dynamics of Gender Roles revisits the gender role discussion, but interweaves sociological interpretations of family interaction. Interaction in human society is conducted within triangles (between a parent and child, in a relationship or a religious relationship).
The essays deliver an excellent introductory study to theological views on women. The development of the topics and the history of gender roles flow in a smooth progression. No new research is presented, that was not the goal of this book, but interesting and thought provoking ideas are laid before the reader. Anyone new to the treatment of Christian theology and the impact on women will find a more than pleasing treatment of the theme and be tempted to pursue further reading on their own. My only critic would be that the essay titles do not completely hold their promise, but that shall not deter from my recommendation to enjoy the contributions.