Women In Charge

It's hard to know where to stand on this one.

A former professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has sued the institution and its president, L. Paige Patterson, contending she was fired because of her gender. She is seeking damages for breach of contract, fraud, and defamation.

Ms. Klouda was appointed an assistant professor of Old Testament languages at Southwestern's School of Theology in the spring of 2002. At that time, the suit says, she was the only female member of the School of Theology's 40-member faculty. When Mr. Patterson took over as the seminary's president in the summer of 2003, the complaint adds, he "personally assured her that the administration change -- his appointment -- would not jeopardize her appointment."

But in April 2006, according to the lawsuit, she learned that her contract would not be renewed. "Dr. Klouda was told that she was 'a mistake that the trustees needed to fix,'" the lawsuit asserts. She is now an assistant professor of Old Testament studies at Taylor University, in Upland, Ind.

Not that I am without sympathy for Ms. Klouda...well, okay. I have a little trouble finding sympathy for Ms. Klouda, who is not just an innocent beleagured academic, after all, but a determined and dedicated hardshelled Baptist who lay down with this pack with her eyes open. She knew who these dogs were before she decided to run with them, is my point. Now they have bit her on the ass, I'm a bit lacking in tears for her. Did she not ever notice previous to this occasion that she was surrounded by misogynist tools? Was this her first hint that her culture was a poisonous, filthy, hate-ridden one?

I mean, d'oh!

Okay, okay. As Twisty tells us, we cannot blame the oppressed for their oppression. Truly, Ms. Klouda has been oppressed. It can't be her fault that she suffers from that oppression, and is warped by it, and can utter such things as this:

Ms. Klouda said she "firmly believed that excellent work both in the classroom and the academy would define me, and that I would be evaluated fairly in light of my scholarly accomplishments and congeniality."

And, apparently, believe them -- in a culture where this is, apparently, the commonly held worldview:

In his post, Mr. Burleson discussed the debate over a passage of Scripture, I Timothy 2:12, that some interpreters have taken to mean that women should not minister to men. He raised the question of whether such an interpretation might have been a motivation for Ms. Klouda's dismissal, even though she was not teaching theology, but Old Testament languages.

"What bothers me is the extraordinarily restrictive views of certain leaders in our convention regarding women," Mr. Burleson commented. "This is not about 'being a pastor' of a church. ... This is all about the belief among some that women should not have authority over men, whether it be in the home, the church, a business, or society in general."

Which, as I have found, from hanging out at Worldview and WordNutDaily, that absolutely is the worldview.