Superstars and Misfits: Two Pop-trends in the Gender Culture of Contemporary Evangelicalism

Abstract

This paper examines gender in two forms of mediated contemporary Protestant evangelicalism in the United States: a male-dominated punk network, called Misfits United, and a women's group studying Beth Moore's Bible study, It's Tough Being a Woman (ITBAW). While the appearance and performance styles of these two groups are drastically different, both support gender hierarchies in similar ways. Misfits United and Moore's ITBAW present the gender of their Christian God as flexible, even transformative, and in effect open up discursive space to conceptualize gender on non-traditional grounds. Paradoxically, however, both reinforce traditional gender roles by emphasizing what distinguishes God from His creation: the gendered constraints of human biology.

Aggressive And Loving Men

“…Future studies concerned with gender hegemony should consider how white evangelical Christian men forge alliances with other white men who feel emasculated and angry about changing gender relations in u.S. society. It is worth noting that white evangelical Christians are investing secular objects and symbols from popular culture with religious meaning more now than ever before (Burke 2016;Burke and McDowell 2012;hendershot 2004;Lynch 2005;McDowell 2014;Rademacher 2015), a trend that requires scholars interested in gender hegemony to examine what aspects of popular culture-music, movies, sports, video games-Christian and secular men hold in common and how they leverage these cultural forms to uphold their position in society. This same line of research could extend our understanding of the ways in which class factors into evangelist projects that create space for the alignment of religious and secular men against women.…”

Popular cultural representations of postfeminist religiosity in the International Christian Fellowship: an analysis of the “Ladies Lounge 2021” webpage

“…While conservative Evangelicals discursively support traditional gender roles and the submission of wives to their husbands, research concludes that these norms are often impossible to uphold on a practical, day-to-day level: “Evangelical couples’ everyday experiences tend to resemble ‘mutual’ submission in which husbands and wives share household responsibilities. […] Women often work outside of the home and men help out with childcare and domestic tasks […] in order to sustain a middle-class lifestyle” thereby being able “to call themselves anti-feminist while taking advantage of material advantages demanded by the feminist movement, such as women working outside the home” (Burke and McDowell 2012 , p. 72). In this way, while formally recognizing female submission, women performatively and functionally claim influence over family decisions (e.g., Ammerman 1987 ) and a degree of autonomy and control over their own lives (e.g., Griffith 1997 ), while men are increasingly involved in the sphere of the home 8 (e.g.…”

What makes a man: Gender and sexual boundaries on evangelical Christian sexuality websites

“…Although pegging and men's cross-dressing are quite different, website users construct what I call gender omniscience, or the privileged knowledge of one's ''true'' gender that is based on the triangulated relationship between the self, spouse, and God, to prove their gender normalcy and justify these acts. Instead of basing gender on nature or science, as many evangelicals do (Burke and McDowell, 2012;DeRogatis, 2009), these evangelicals present the all-knowing power of spouse and God as the ultimate authority on gender. This maintains the appearance of essentialism but actually constructs gender as subjective since believers differ in their marriage and spiritual relationships (see also Gerber, 2008).…”

“…On the contrary, they have adjusted expectations for how and when to discuss it as a wider range of sexual practices are talked about and receive social approval (DeRogatis, 2005). Instructions on sexual morality have typified the American evangelical movement since the 19th century (Griffith, 2004), and more recently, evangelicals have drawn on the cultural popularity of self-help and sex advice to talk about sexuality in a number of settings, from Bible studies to Christian rock concerts (Burke and McDowell, 2012). While the evangelical sex manuals of the 1970s present a fairly narrow depiction of intimate life, evangelicals in the 21st century provide one that is much more complex.…”