The women of WIT have wanted to take note of the couple requests we’ve received recently from graduate student women at various institutions about joining the WIT blog. Let us just say first how grateful and excited we are that other women in theology would want to be in conversation with us. When we started this blog, we did not know for sure that it would be so appreciated, so we are thrilled at the interest it seems to have generated.
Second, we discussed these requests somewhat at length among ourselves, and we’ve decided for various reasons to leave the authorship of the WIT blog the way it is, with the nine of us, for the foreseeable future. In complex ways, this blog reflects real-life personal relationships that we have with each other, and we have found that these real-life connections help us preserve a certain atmosphere of friendship and collegiality on the blog that we greatly value. In this way, then, we are remaining loyal to the original vision we initially had regarding the blog as a place where we could speak passionately as a particular community working for shared commitments.
But, even more importantly perhaps, we hope that we can encourage other women hungry for more theological discussion to band together and form other women’s theology blogs, framed by their own particular flavoring, intellectual commitments, and friendships. In light of the still-current fact that most women in theology just don’t blog, it would be so refreshing to see lots of women’s theology blogs sprouting up! Why are we women so reluctant to speak up?
So we’re here to tell you that it’s really not that difficult to set up a WordPress account, some kind of “mission statement,” and a kind of loose schedule for posting (if it’s a collective blog). And, most importantly, it’s not that difficult to relinquish those ever-present fears of intellectual inadequacy that tend to stop many of us from pushing forward and speaking our minds and hearts. If you have thoughts, frustrations, and hopes, and wish to express those openly, then have courage and start something up! In fact, if this idea appeals to you and you have questions, you should feel free to contact us, and we can help you with anything, including logistics. And, in the long run, we would love to be in conversation with you; in particular, we would be happy to post features of other women’s blogs and even do interviews of other women in theology on our own blog. Let the conversations between different women’s blogs begin.
Ultimately, though, if starting your own blog isn’t in the stars for you right now, then we warmly welcome you to comment freely and actively on our material. We would really like to get to know our readers!
Sincerely,
The Women of WIT
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