by Kirstin Burkett (Matthias Media, 2000)

Created or Constructed? The Great Gender Debate by Elaine Storkey (Paternoster, 2000)

(reviewed by Rod Benson in Mosaic Vol. 4 No. 2, Winter 2002)

Here are two recently published books on gender roles and gender relations written by Anglican women who I would call evangelical-yet they are worlds apart.

Birkett, a self-confessed ex-feminist, is a graduate of the University of NSW who writes and edits in the area of the history and philosophy of science. She offers a provocative, politically incorrect account of the feminist movement in the twentieth century. This is one of a series of short books on issues relating to public discourse published by Matthias Media.

Birkett attacks feminism as “a movement that is ideologically bankrupt” yet “profoundly moralistic” (pp. 79, 82). Curiously, she dismisses the vast feminist literature as lacking substantial philosophical foundation, with the exception of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (English trans. 1972).

This is a big assumption, and begs the question: are feminists living in a philosophical vacuum? Are they really ideologically illiterate? And for those Christians who are also feminists, can we legitimately say that their biblical and theological foundations are without substance? I think not.

But Birkett goes even further, arguing that feminism is the pariah for the weaknesses and failures of modernity. For example, she makes the astounding claim that feminism itself is the reason for the plight of women in contemporary society, for rising divorce and child abuse rates, the various ills associated with abortion, and even increases in unemployment. I am sure some feminist principles and practices have a negative impact on some of these problems, but to claim that feminism is the root of them all is simply ill-considered and irresponsible thinking.

Whereas Birkett discusses the social fallout of the feminist revolution, Storkey examines the debates over perceived essential differences between women and men, and explores where those differences may have originated. The text is an updated version of her New College Lectures given at the University of New South Wales in 1997. Storkey teaches theology and sociology at the University of London, is UK President of Tear Fund, and a member of the General Synod of the Church of England.

Storkey traces historical developments in Australia through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, contrasting what she sees as premodern, modern and postmodern expressions of sex and gender roles and gender relations, approaching the subject through the lenses of psychology, sociology, philosophy and theology. Modernity is said to have led to another form of absolutism by dismissing biological determinism.

Now in a postmodern environment, equality feminism is doomed to failure because it cannot escape the assumptions of the system it tried to undermine. Women’s identity and sexuality must therefore be discovered subjectively. The argument has come full circle, Storkey observes, but with a fundamental shift: sexual and gender differences are now perceived as self-defining, and the only way forward in understanding identity and sexuality is through experience. Sound familiar? This is the unmistakable message of much contemporary music and screen culture.

There is an interesting chapter critiquing gender as portrayed and discussed in popular writings (e.g. Why Don’t Men Iron; Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus; and The Book of Guys). Storkey suggests that this literature indicates a strong contemporary emphasis on sexual difference, and a return to premodern attitudes. The rationale for this ironic change, she argues, is usually early childhood identity formation through bonding and detachment.

Storkey also notes that gender has rarely been an issue addressed by theologians except in discussions of “headship.” Today, however, substantial theological treatments of sex and gender are emerging, albeit in the context of whether theology itself is an irretrievably gendered discipline. There is a thoughtful discussion of the interaction of gender and theology at the levels of tradition, textual interpretation, cultural influences, and issues of power and privilege.

The conclusions at which Created or Constructed finally arrives is that feminist theology is a reaction against premodern essentialism; that religious authority tends to deny full humanity and dignity to women; and that, although postmodern feminist theology embraces deconstructionism and experience-based analyses of reality, it retains a legitimate foundation within the Christian faith system (p. 107).

But to my mind Storkey saves the best until last. In a “post-postmodern postscript” she responds to her previous dispassionate discourse from a decidedly evangelical perspective. For her, sexuality is “given”; sexual differences are part of the rich complementarity of a God-breathed creation; and how we express our sexuality really does matter.

A distinction between sex and gender is important, but “it would be a mistake to think too rigidly of sex as creational and gender as cultural . the way we shape our gender is also a part of our human response before God” (p. 114).

Finally, Storkey offers four biblical paradigms to describe male-female relationships: difference; sameness/similarity; complementarity; and ontological union. Her final chapter is almost worth the price of the book.

Both these books are slim volumes, easily accessed. If you’re looking for a wholesale rejection of all that feminism entails, consider Birkett. If you’re looking for a theologically informed and less polemical treatment of gender issues, I commend Storkey.