This week’s giveaway is one of my favorite books ever: Wild Women: Crusaders, Curmudgeons, and Completely Corsetless Ladies in the Otherwise Virtuous Victorian Era. I bought this book for the title and have not been disappointed. It’s hard not to love a book that has chapter titles like this:

  • Brazen Brides and Wicked Wives
  • Twisted Sisters and Mortifying Mothers
  • Shocking Scholars and Wanton Wordsmiths
  • Holy Terrors and Pope Perturbers

Each chapter is filled with vignettes of women who “gave Queen Victoria the fits!” (back cover). These women refused to live in the narrow boundaries their society set for them and lived their lives by their own rules. Along with notable names like Carrie Nation, Annie Oakley, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, you’ll also learn about women like Belva Lockwood who battled Congress for five years for her right to become a lawyer and practice law. She was “the first woman sworn in by both the Supreme Court and the Court of Claims” (p. 168). She opened a mother-daughter law firm and went on to win “a $5 million settlement against the government for the Cherokee Nation.” She ran for president with VP candidate, Marietta Stow, in 1884, winning 4,149 votes along with the “entire electoral vote of Indiana” (p. 169).

For a chance to win Wild Women let me know in the comments if you would like to see me do a newsletter (saying no is just fine, don’t worry about it if that’s your answer). I’ve played with the idea, but have yet to act on it. If you would like to see a newsletter, what would you like to see in it?

  • How to study the women of the Bible and bring them out of the shadows?
  • Feminist theology?
  • What women are doing in the church and in biblical studies and theology?
  • Women and leadership roles in the church?
  • How you can help promote equality in your own church?

Any ideas you have for a newsletter would be greatly appreciated!

This drawing will be open until midnight Thursday, March 24. I’ll draw the winner on Friday morning.

Remember that I am offering a free 30 minute session of spiritual direction through March 31. Email me for an appointment. Don’t know what spiritual direction is? Watch this video.

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