Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 31:4 (Autumn 2017)
Article: Will Boys Be Boys And Girls Be Girls? Correcting Gender Stereotypes Through Ministry With Children
Author: David M. Csinos

PP 31:4 (Autumn 2017) p. 21

Will Boys Be Boys And Girls Be Girls?
Correcting Gender Stereotypes Through Ministry With Children

David M. Csinos

Spring 2010

David Csinos is Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He also serves as founder and president of Faith Forward, an ecumenical organization for innovation in ministry with children and youth. Dave writes and speaks widely about faith formation, children’s ministry, youth ministry, and culture (see DaveCsinos.com). He holds a PhD in practical theology from University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto, as well as degrees from Wilfrid Laurier University, McMaster University, and Union Presbyterian Seminary.

Human beings begin to develop gender identities very early in life as they pick up on cues and clues given off from the sociocultural contexts in which they find themselves. As people and institutions demonstrate socially appropriate ways of being male or female, children become apprentices and learn what it means to be a boy or girl in their culture. Often, the notions of gender1 that are offered to children involve inequality between the sexes and create oppressive limitations for people of one sex while offering unfair advantages and freedoms to those of the other sex.

For too long, the church has not attempted to address issues of gender identity formation in children. While theologians have begun to examine issues of sex and gender, not enough theological thought has been given to the ways young people come to be gendered as they pick up on cultural notions of maleness and femaleness. As a result, some faith communities, unknowingly or not, perpetuate oppressive gender stereotypes and roles as adults teach children—whether tacitly or explicitly—what it means to be a female or male in the contemporary church and world.

Yet, the church is capable of reforming itself as it begins to address these issues by consulting theology and social science for insights into sex, gender, and identity and by critically analyzing the ways in which children form gender identities. In this article, I will do just this. I begin with a discussion of how two significant twentieth-century theologians—Karl Barth and Karl Rahner—have thought of gender. While these two men come from different traditions (Reformed and Catholic), they both offer important theological insight into gender that is useful in developing strategies for correcting harmful gender roles within the church. After this admittedly brief look into the theology of Rahner and Barth, I will delve into the world of social science in order to draw out important and relevant information about the ways in which gender identities are f...