And she’s had a facelift! The blog… not me. As promised last week, I’m planning a bunch of new things for the blog in 2021 and here’s the first one.

However, the whole idea of getting a facelift is worthy of additional attention.

Living in Australia and working as a teacher, I could get a facelift if I wanted to and consider it my right as a woman, in order to feel better about myself. For the record, I have zero plans to get a facelift, ever. Although, I do sometimes plan to not do things that I end up doing.

Just before Christmas I was looking at my shelves and noting all the books I own that I have either never read or am partway through. I decided that once Christmas had come and gone I wouldn’t buy a single book until the end of 2021.

Unfortunately, Amazon is turning out to be my summer holiday’s Achilles’ heel, because I’ve already broken my resolve three times since Christmas.*

I blame Mikki Kendall. If she hadn’t written Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot my resolve might not have initially crumbled into the quickly ensuing landslide of purchases since.

As previously explored on this blog, I spend a fair amount of time reading feminist texts, having first completed my own little personal research project on Biblical Femininity some years ago now.

As with all feminist texts I read, there will be ideas I agree with and those that don’t fit with my understanding of The Bible. Yet I was drawn to Kendall’s book because she’s clearly making some very valid points:

Just who is modern feminism fighting for?

Can we really say that all women’s lives are being improved by feminism or is it just the wealthy, white women?

I think of my sponsor children in Indonesia who I met in 2019. I didn’t meet their mothers but I know a good deal about their lives. I can’t see how modern feminism has achieved anything at all for them. A Christian organisation has done something though.

Of course, there are organisations outside of Christianity that provide assistance to women all around the globe; but there are definitely sections of the Church providing more for marginalised and poverty stricken women than the #metoo movement.

But I confess there are times when I know as a Christian I could do more.

I read stories about young Christian women around the globe who are forced to deny their faith and marry men who will take no refusal. Those that do refuse are usually killed on the spot.

What has modern feminism done for these young women?

What have I done?

Considering that I’m convinced God isn’t asking me to go work in areas around the globe where this behaviour is prevalent, I’m left knowing that this terrible atrocity is occurring to innocent women in the world, but am playing no role in assisting them.

That disturbs me, but I don’t know what to do about it.

And maybe God’s not asking me personally to do anything about it right now, other than pray. Even then though, it can be hard to know what to say. So as well as pray, perhaps I just need to reflect and think.

And perhaps when Kendall’s book arrives, she’ll give me some ideas.

Yours in troubled wondering,

Alison

* Ed: Between scheduling this post and it going live, I actually bought a fourth book.