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MIAMI UNIVERSITY the Graduate School MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Kimberly Kappler Hewitt Candidate for the Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Director Lisa D. Weems Reader Kathleen Knight-Abowitz Reader Peter Magolda Graduate School Representative Tammy Schwartz ABSTRACT HOW EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN WOMEN NEGOTIATE DISCOURSES IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF SELF: A POSTSTRUCTURAL FEMINIST ANALYSIS by Kimberly Kappler Hewitt Situating my research within the theoretical framework of poststructural feminism, I pose the question, ―How do evangelical Christian women negotiate, appropriate, resist, and embrace the multiple and conflicting discourses through which they are constituted and constitute themselves?‖ To explore this question, I asked participants to create artifacts to address a prompt designed to explore their multiple and conflicting discourses. I also conducted two-part interviews with each participant. Using the methods of textual analysis and deconstruction, I concluded that each of the women moves—often uneasily—between the dominant discourse of complementarianism and the counter- discourse of egalitarianism. Each woman‘s views are complex, nuanced, and at times paradoxical. While each of the women remained committed to the discursive construct of headship at least symbolically, each of the women also employed multiple strategies to emasculate it. Further, all of the women rejected dominant and hegemonic readings of key biblical passages and used a variety of strategies to re-read and un-read the passages. While each participant invokes the language and claims of liberal feminism, especially within her professional discourse, most participants eschew the term ―feminist,‖ and all of them evince complex views on the discourse of feminism. These findings have implications for teacher education, K-12 public education, and the advancement of feminism. HOW EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN WOMEN NEGOTIATEDISCOURSES IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF SELF: A POSTSTRUCTURAL FEMINIST ANALYSIS A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Educational Leadership by Kimberly Kappler Hewitt Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2009 Dissertation Director: Lisa D. Weems Reader: Kathleen Knight-Abowitz Reader: Peter Magolda Reader: Tammy Schwartz TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ...………………………………………………………………………... iii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: CHRISTIANS, CATHOLICS, AND CAPTIVATING—OH MY!.…………………………………………………... 1-25 CHAPTER 2 EVANGELICALISM: VIVID SWIRLS IN GLASS MARBLES……………………………………………………………….... 26-108 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY: CIRCULATING WHIPS OF WIND……..... 109-176 CHAPTER 4 INTRODUCING PARTICIPANTS: GENDERED SUBJECT POSITIONS……..……………………………………………. 177-217 CHAPTER 5 MAJOR THEMES: NAVIGATING EVANGELICAL GENDERED IDENTITY………………………….……………………... 218-248 CHAPTER 6 BITING ONE‘S THUMB AT THE BIBLE & USING THE ―F-WORD‖..………………………………………………….…….. 249-282 CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS ………………….…….. 283-316 THE LAST WORD …………………………………………………………...…. 317-318 BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………...... 319-330 APPENDIX A IRB APPLICATION FOR NEW PROTOCOL REVIEW …….. 331-345 APPENDIX B INTERVIEW DATA …………………………………………... 346-356 ii For Greg, for being you and for the “I love you” and “Hang in there…you can do it” sticky notes. For my daughter Mackenzie, for inspiring me. and For Mom and Dad, for believing in me as a wee tot to a Ph.D. candidate and all the points in between. iii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: CHRISTIANS, CATHOLICS, AND CAPTIVATING—OH MY! Stumbling and Diving into a Dissertation Perhaps research is as much serendipity as it is anything else. Cassandra—Cassie—called on an eventless, nameless day in late summer, 2005, to invite me to participate in a book study of Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul, by John and Stasi Eldredge (2005), after the book had been mentioned at Crossover, the nondenominational Christian church that we both attended. Although I am a bibliophile at heart and love the way that book studies invite us to know each other more deeply, I was a little anxious about the content of the book. I tend to be of a different philosophy from those who write highly popular Christian books. Nonetheless, I agreed. I drove off to Barnes & Noble to purchase the book. After locating it in the Christian literature section of the bookstore and thinking, There’s a whole section for this stuff? I whipped open the flap of the book and read: Why do little girls love to dress up in twirling skirts? Why do they dream of a day their prince will come and together they will live in a great adventure? Because that is the heart God set within every woman. WHAT?!? It was at this point that I experienced a visceral, almost overwhelming desire to hurl the book as hard and as far from myself as I could. When the desire subsided, I read on: This book is an invitation to become that again, become the woman you truly are. Just as Cinderella was invited to the ball, God is inviting you to a great Romance with him. ―The eyes of his heart are ever upon you. The King is captivated by your beauty.‖ There is absolutely no way that I can read this book and not spontaneously combust, I thought. In a frenzy, I ran my finger along each spine in the Christian 1 literature section of Barnes & Noble. Nothing caught me as even remotely ―feminist.‖ I paused. Are feminism and Christianity mutually exclusive? I have carried this question within me for a long time, but being in the Christian literature section of the bookstore made the question immediate and threatening. I darted to the Women‘s Studies section of the bookstore. Again, I fingered each spine in the section and pulled out five books on the topic of feminism and religion. I negotiated with myself that if I bought four of these feminist books about religion that I might safely purchase the Captivating book without combusting. I did so, telling myself that I would give this Captivating book study a shot, and if I couldn‘t handle it, then I would excuse myself after the first session. Cassie would understand. The study group was led by Cassie and Wynne and included five other young, professional women besides me (Gretchen, Carly, Kelly, Sam, and Silvie). We were all friends, although some of us hadn‘t known each other long or well. I missed the first session of the book study (I was on my honeymoon), so at the beginning of the second session, I asked what everyone thought of the book so far. Several spoke up to say that they felt it was ―validating,‖ that the book communicated that it was ―okay to have these desires [for being romanced and pursued].‖ I could feel my body tense. Wynne asked me, ―What did you think?‖ For an infinitesimal second, I paused. It’s complete crap, I thought to myself, but I said instead, ―Well, I did not find the book validating or liberating. I feel that it‘s oppressive.‖ I went on a bit about why I felt that way. Then silence. I noticed that I was holding my breath. I don‘t remember exactly what Wynne said, but her comments respected and acknowledged mine and yet pushed on them as well as she made her own point. And then there opened up in that group at that session a space to question the book, to poke at it. Gretchen said that she felt a ―push and pull‖ with the book. Sam agreed. And we went on from there. The conversation was alive, rich, intelligent. I left Cassie‘s that night feeling exhilarated. I didn‘t necessarily like the book any better, but I fell more in love with these women, these Wonder Women, who wrap the group in strong arms of love that make a safe space to say what you want, to ask what you want, and to challenge each other in the best sense of the word. It was only much, much later that I wondered if 2 what I so valued and appreciated in these women—their acceptance, their openness, their kindness—was a function of their performance of the evangelical gendered ideology of the ideal woman. I had been planning on doing my dissertation on the ways in which evangelical1 Christian leaders construct ―female.‖ Issues of femaleness, religion, and identity had been marinating in my brain for years, and they crystallized on this topic in the early fall of 2005, in part because of the Captivating study. I wanted to analyze how evangelical Christian leaders construct ―Truth‖ about what it means to be a woman and what women are supposed to do and be. I wanted to deconstruct the work of radio preacher John MacArthur, whose radio ministry is heard on over 2000 stations worldwide and who said, ―the most damaging sexual harassment taking place today is the sexual harassment by feminists and their governmental allies against the role of motherhood and the role of the dependent wife. That‘s real sexual harassment with devastating results‖ (2005, pp. 6-7). I wanted to deconstruct the best-selling Captivating, and I was also going to deconstruct the ministry of a woman evangelical pastor. That was my plan. But, in the words of poet Robert Burns, ―The best laid schemes o‘ mice an‘ men/ Gang aft a-gley‖ (Allison, et al, 1983, p. 512). And my plans went awry in a most wonderfully disruptive and productive way. The ―gang aft a-gley‖ part happened during one of our Captivating study sessions. During this particular book study session, on October 13, 2005, I asked the others what they thought of a particular passage from Captivating, one that had seemed to suck all of the oxygen out of the room when I had read it earlier in the week: Woman is cursed with loneliness (relational heartache), with the urge to control (especially her man), and with the dominance of men (which is not how things were meant to be, and we are not saying it is good thing—it is the fruit of the fall and a sad fact of history).
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