Building Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

White American Evangelical Complementarian Theology, 1970-2010

Dissertation, 2021

Abstract: In the later twentieth century, to counter “second wave” feminist ideas about gender being the product of socialization, anti-feminist evangelicals in America began promoting a particular gendered theological anthropology they named complementarianism. It presented manhood and womanhood as innate, divinely ordained, categories of identity with accompanying biblically prescribed roles for men and women in the church, the home, and society. I argue that notions of “biblical” manhood and womanhood rest on a theologically back-filled foundation that consists of cultural assumptions, particular theological commitments, nostalgia, and conservative, white, middle-class, American values as much, if not more, than biblical insights.