Lauren Ducommun

Book Review:
The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr
Brazos Press, 2021

I was gifted a copy of Barr’s new book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood, which I’ve seen on Instagram a lot recently.

It is a very easy and engaging read. I agree with a LOT of her observations of church culture today towards women—and I appreciate that she shares those! It did seem that Barr fails to understand that a lot of the observations she made and believes are not just held by egalitarians but also by complementarians.

Barr seems to clump all evangelicals as complementarians and all complementarians as holding to patriarchy. But many complementarians believe that not only was male headship present before the Fall, but also male/female partnership. Complementarianism without partnership does become patriarchy, but that doesn’t represent all comp views. Barr doesn’t ever mention this. So it doesn’t seem a fair representation. I’m not egalitarian (ugh hate labels), but I’m also not complementarian in the way she describes it.

This is such a great and challenging book. Love hearing her perspective and I can empathize with a lot of her scenarios. Barr is definitely very biased and is writing to persuade using pathos and her experience “as a historian”. Although she has a lot of great points, her arguments often seem weak or like there are gaps (exp., she doesn’t define what she means by “female leadership” or “preaching” and doesn’t use a lot of Scripture to prove her points—just experience and examples from history).

Overall, I enjoyed the book. Just wouldn’t automatically adhere to everything she says, as much as I agree with her on a lot of things. Some stuff just seems sketchy (and I’m not a historian lol).