Liz Cooledge Jenkins

Tag: gender & feminism

  • Reflections on a four hundred year old essay

    I wrote down some thoughts about how my mind was blown when I read an essay called “Women’s Speaking Justified,” written by Margaret Fell in 1666. Feminism & Religion posted my piece on their website, which is exciting – glad to be included in their work. Check out the full article here if you’re interested!…

  • 2021: a year in books

    This is the first year I’ve actually written down (or at least attempted to write down) every book I’ve finished reading over the course of the year. It’s been a good exercise.  Looking back at the list now, I feel a lot of gratitude. These authors poured their hearts and souls into each of these…

  • God lifts the lowly: reflections on Mary’s song

    46 “My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.  Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. 50…

  • Y’all’s heavenly…mother?

    Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. -Jesus (Matthew 6:26, NRSV) Or, in my translation: “Y’all, look at the birds of heaven, because they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and y’all’s heavenly father feeds them.” The…

  • Super chill book review: The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth (Beth Allison Barr)

    I wandered into an Amazon bookstore a couple months ago and saw Beth Allison Barr’s The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth featured on the shelves. Which totally makes sense, because Barr’s work has been profiled in the likes of The New Yorker and NPR. But it also kind…

  • Super chill book review: Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America (Ijeoma Oluo)

    Well, it seems that I took a *totally intentional* hiatus from blogging for most of August. But I’m back, woohoo, with super chill book reviews and more. (Hopefully, more = poems, scripture reflections, prayers, sermons. We’ll see.)  For now, I’m excited to share some quotes and general brilliance from Ijeoma Oluo’s 2020 book Mediocre: The…

  • Super chill book review: You Are Your Best Thing (ed. Tarana Burke and Brene Brown)

    In the last year or so I’ve read four of Brené Brown’s (many) books, and I’m a fan. She has great stuff to say. So much of it. I really think that she has changed (and continues to change) the conversation around things like empathy, shame, vulnerability, connection, and belonging.  At the same time, as…

  • Super chill book review: This Bridge Called My Back (ed. Anzaldua & Moraga)

    This one is an oldie, but a goodie. The book is This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, and it was originally published in 1981. It’s what it sounds like—an anthology of pieces written by lots of different women of color. I read the…

  • Extraordinary Courage, Extraordinary Kindness

    Sharing a sermon from a couple years ago: feel free to listen here, or the text is below! The passage is Ruth 2, where Ruth meets Boaz. As I reflect on the story of Ruth, I wonder if the world of our heroines, Ruth and Naomi, might in some ways not be as different from…

  • Some feminist-ish musings on Jezebel

    Revelation 2:18-23 reads, literally translated, something like this: (18) And to the angel of the church in Thyatira, write: these things says the child of God, the one who has eyes like flames of fire and feet like burnished bronze: (19) I know your works and love and faith and service, and your steadfast endurance,…