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A Year of Biblical Womanhood cover
LAUGH & RESIST

A Year of Biblical Womanhood

by Rachel Held Evans

She followed the rules. The rules lost.

For you if

you were handed a rulebook for being a good woman and want to see it tested

⚡ Choose Your Route ⚡

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$23 MSRP · Paperback
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Rachel Held Evans took the Bible's instructions for women literally for twelve months to see what "biblical womanhood" would require. She grew out her hair, covered her head, called her husband "master," sat on her roof, camped in the yard during her period, and held up a homemade sign praising him at the city gate. The method is the joke: follow the rules exactly and the rules expose themselves. She wrote from inside evangelical culture, so the laugh lands where the "submit to your husband" message actually lives. In a bundle about what boys are excused, she asks what exactly is being offered to the women told to submit.

Where This Book Lives

Themes
faith as weaponfeminismgender rolespatriarchyreligion and politicssatire and power

The satire aims at the symptom (the instructions given to women) more than at the institutions that withhold education. That is the point of the placement: this is the one place the symptom gets mocked on its own terms. Evans died in 2019.

Part of a Reading Journey

Sexual Literacy

Sexual Illiteracy: What We Never Taught Them

A culture that bans the books and forgives the boys never taught anyone what yes means.

8 books • SEE THROUGH IT → MAKE SOMETHING BETTER

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