Oh yeah, that clears things up
Sep 11th, 2009 by Bryan
I haven’t chimed in on the gender and biblioblogging stuff because I don’t think it’s a very interesting issue. As far as I can tell, the women in the field probably feel like they have better things to do. No one is preventing anyone from starting a wordpress.com blog, are they? If we were talking about faculty appointments, tenure review, or publishing I’d be open to the “old boys network” argument. But seriously, the whole point of this medium is to provide an instant, unmediated, and egalitarian access to internet readers.*
OK, so maybe there are structural issues that I, as an elite white male, cannot recognize. That is the gist of the long quote in Crossley’s post about Gender and Blogging. I might be open to that argument as well, but not when it reads like this:
There is often even an overdetermination of the difference of the “other” in this respect (whether that “other” is a specific method or content), while the center appears to lack the cultural, racial, ideological, and so on bases that defines the “other.” Thus, the absence of these facets from the center defines the center of the discipline—here historical studies—as neutral. Moreover, while the “Asian-American” critic or the “female feminist” can point out the perceived ideological nature of the dominant “male” perspective, the normative “male” center—consisting of those who perform as white, heterosexual males—are expected to maintain the fundamental guild structures.
OK, so who’s playing insider/outsider games now?
* Note: I would be interested in having a debate about the “Top 50″ over a pint at SBL, but not here.
EDIT: I wanted to point out that I find Judy Redman’s comments to be helpful on the larger question (for example, here, here, here.) What I like about this approach is that she understands the issue to be a symptom of larger problems in the church or in academia. This recognizes the tricky fact that “biblioblogging” comprises different communities that sometimes overlap online (secular academia, the conservative church, and others in between). I might buy the argument that women in conservative churches would not open up a blog because they have internalized the idea that “women don’t know anything about the Bible.” [However, I would question whether that is the issue as much as the attitude that women shouldn't teach the Bible in a mixed context. I think there is a difference, but I digress.]
What I can’t accept is that the same attitude would operate in a liberal academic context, which is where I am coming from. (I am also a member of a mainline church that is very accepting of women leadership, fwiw.) I don’t think that those of us who see this as part of our academic work (even if connected to a church in certain ways) should be lumped together with people who work and/or live in traditionally patriarchal religious contexts.
Darn it, I said I wasn’t going to write on this, but I just did.
Bryan,
Thanks for your comments.
As I said in one of my posts, I think that even in the mainline churches that are accepting of women’s leadership, only a relatively small proportion of women feel that they can hold their own in theological/biblical studies discussions. Thus, I think women students are less likely to decide to blog bible/theology than are men students. I think this adds another layer of reasons for under-representation of women in the bibliobloggosphere.
Thanks for commenting, Judy! I enjoy your writing very much.
Do you think this a generational issue to any degree? I did not get the feeling in my seminary program, MDiv or PhD, that the women students were holding back (they were about 40%, if I remember correctly). Even back to my ministry internship program in college, the women were smart and confident, and many now have pastoral and academic positions. I can’t imagine any of them feeling reluctant to put their voice “out there.” I can only presume that they want to spend their time on other things. [edit: I occurs to me that perhaps because I felt comfortable, I assumed that they were comfortable. They were active in the group, in any case. We had good leaders who helped everyone feel included.]
I have the opposite problem with my undergraduate students. The women are much more confident and capable in class discussions, broadly speaking, than the men. That could be a measure of the difference between the church and the academic classroom, which is the distinction I’m trying to make in my post.
I too wonder about the generation gap. 40% women! That’s amazing. Was that in the PhD program? Just out of curiousity, where are these working now? I had the following exchange over on Jim West’s blog a few days ago. I think it touches on your post, maybe:
4 Jill on September 2, 2009 said:
I suppose we can about the “tenure gap.” Why aren’t more tenured (or even tenure track) scholars regardless or gender, blogging. It might be that they feel that serious scholarship isn’t being done in blogs yet. I’ve heard that argument from some female friends: isn’t not a gender issue, its a scholarship issue. The stereotype of the blogger is a MDiv student or grad student. That is not the networking opprotunities that some women are looking for to help with their career.
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5 Jim on September 2, 2009 said:
thanks jill. so in your estimation women are purely utilitarians who wont do something if it doesnt further their careers (even though the supposition that bloggers are mostly mdiv students has no basis in fact)?
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6 Jill on September 3, 2009 said:
Fairly and unfairly, its a stereotype thats out there (bloggers are MDiv or grad students). Personally, I enjoy reading the blogs and we’ve had some fun conversations as you know. There are women, not all of course, that are very careful about establishing themselves in mainstream scholarship. Scott Bailey said on his blog, “I think my blog should be part of my academic CV like my hockey career should be, or my favorite movies” (6-13-09). If so, I understand why the models that are held up for some women are Exum publishing her early work in ZAW or Tribe in JAAR as a way of ensuring that their later work be taken seriously. I’m not a woman in grad school or academia and I can’t speak to what it takes for some scholars, regardless of gender, to be taken seriously in the feild. I would guess that it involves a number of choices based on a practical assessment of the field, some may even seem somewhat utilitarian. I hope one day blogging is considered more mainstream in biblical scholarship, but its not there yet. Maybe its the stereotype that blogging blurs the line between professional and personal too much. That could make many female scholars uncomfortable because that is stereotype that has dogged feminist criticism in Bible for decades: its all about opinions rather than serious scholarship, an unfair stereotype for both bloggers and feminist scholars. My point is that the decision not to blog by women might be a calculated and professional one and not simply based on hurt feelings and pity parties over personal experiences of being left out.