Today is that one hallowed day of the semester when the reading we’re discussing in class is written by a woman. That’s right, it’s feminist theology day.

But let me tell you why I don’t like this day:

This day almost always occurs at the end of the semester along with the other contextual theologies— the other days when we listen to different voices than normal. It’s like the appendix of the class, things to consider after we’ve studied the really important information.

That might sound dramatic, but I have textbooks that are actually structured this way. This implies that women and other contextual theologies are just something to consider, but not the focus. It keeps these voices on the margins.

This is sometimes the ONLY day when the text assigned is written by a woman in the ENTIRE syllabus. Thankfully this is not always the case, but sometimes even this day features a man writing about his view of feminist theology. Sometimes this one special day doesn’t even exist.

This puts a lot of pressure on the one text chosen to make a case, either implicitly or explicitly, for the importance of women’s voices in theology. In my experience this text is usually an extremist position or extremely outdated, so the argument is torn apart and dismissed.

As one of a few, if not the only, women in the class, I’m sometimes looked to as the expert to defend the text we’re discussing, which is especially difficult when the text chosen doesn’t fairly represent the work women are contributing to theology today.

Sometimes the men in class still do most of the talking. Other times, it evolves into a larger discussion of women’s voices and roles in the church and theology, and I am confronted with how many of them have felt about my presence in class all semester.

To truly welcome the voices of women, it matters more that we are regularly included in the texts assigned and consulted as experts wherever we are doing work... and in case you didn’t know, there are women doing important work in all aspects of theology.