Eve's Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body [Paperback]

Lilian Calles Barger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2003

Botox. Plastic surgery. Make-up. Women sometimes go to desperate lengths to distort, mold, and fashion their bodies into that of the "ideal" woman. They live with the reality of the body, from its reproductive implications to the pressures from the media to look a certain way. They are intimately connected to their bodies, but often find it difficult to link their experience of the female body with their desire for Christian spirituality.

Lillian Barger presents Eve's Revenge to help women see how their understanding of their bodies impacts spirituality. Not a self-help book, it describes the tension women experience between their bodies and their desire for a spiritual life. Barger suggests the possibility of viewing women as unified, not split, between body and soul. This model, offered through the life and work of Jesus Christ, provides insight into how Christian women ought to live in the world and in their own skin.

Christian women struggling with a body/soul tension and those interested in the social and spiritual meaning of the female body will find this engaging book enlightening and helpful.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This book is sure to shatter a few stereotypes. Barger, a former corporate executive, directs The Damaris Project, a Dallas-based forum on spirituality and women's studies. She has an impressive command of the literature (and, less happily, the jargon) of feminism and its discontents, from Naomi Wolf to Camille Paglia. Her early chapters cover standard topics in women's studies, focusing especially on the female body and its meaning. Barger leavens her exacting analysis with personal vignettes-lunch with an old friend who has had plastic surgery, memories of growing up as a girl in Argentina surrounded by female relatives, a season of excruciating chronic pain earlier in her life. She builds an eloquent case that the body cannot be ignored in accounting for the desires and frustrations of contemporary women. But Barger takes this insight in an unusual direction by suggesting that the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth are uniquely relevant to the questions women (and some men) are asking about the body and its significance. Her fusion of academic feminism and committed Christianity will surprise some readers, since she engages neither the vast popular literature for evangelical women, nor the critiques of Christian patriarchy offered by academic writers like Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza. But she offers a fresh reading of Jesus for our body-haunted culture, suggesting that only flesh-and-blood, suffering and resurrected divinity can do justice to the wounds and wonder of our humanity.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

LILIAN CALLES BARGER is president of The Damaris Project (www.damarisproject.org), an organization encouraging women to explore the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth in light of women's history and social experience.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Brazos Press (March 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587430401
• ISBN-13: 978-1587430404
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #487,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina and immigrated to the United States at the age of eight. Prior to my life as a writer/speaker I had a 20-year career as a certified public accountant. Now I am the founder of The Damaris Project, an organization providing women resources to start meaningful conversations in their community. I have been a frequent speaker on college campuses and conferences. My favorite part of speaking is interacting with the audience.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Looking differently at the world, July 31, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Eve's Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body (Paperback)

Since reading this book, I notice comments and assumptions everywhere around me -- especially in business publications I love -- in a new light. This alone demonstrates to me the immediate relevance of this book.

Everywhere in daily life we are presented with unexamined (or commercially driven) assumptions about technology (and what it's for), relationships and community (and where they can be found), and the body (and how it can and should be reconfigured at will to reflect an inner self). Both men and women are also subject to a lot of ridiculous cultural expectations according to their gender. It is nice to see someone drag all of this out into daylight and say, "Not only is all of this here, we're going to go past it and see if we can come to a better understanding."

It's not self help, male bashing, or utopian visions. It isn't ten steps to a more embodied life and doesn't give you a form letter to send to Congress. Most of it is trying to understand a larger picture, with some anecdotal evidence thrown in of what different people think or do that seems to help or hinder. The author is trying to enlarge the overall human playing field and question some assumptions that have limited it, not just talk about equal pay or wearing less makeup.

She covers a lot of ground. The writing contains some rather abrupt transitions - one reviewer calls the book "unpredictable" and it is that. It is beautifully -- at times, floridly -- written. It may not thoroughly please a reader who loves detailed technical definitions of all terms with comprehensive support for every statement. The book is a readable length and style without all that, and the main ideas and points are clear enough.

I think the book breaks new ground for understanding what it means to live in one's own body -- not ignoring it, not forcing it to be something it's not, and not succumbing to its every whim. It is also pretty significant to say that what my body IS has a lot to say about who I am.

A refreshing book. I am challenged by it and very glad I read it. Would read more books by this author.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Provocative Body, May 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Eve's Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body (Paperback)

Extremely provocative and honest, Barger's book encourages refreshing dialogue that supplants the idea that the human body is a free platform without spiritual implications. Well-written, and well-researched, Eve's Revenge is a direct response to today's culture wars- a very good read.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Transformative Read, August 27, 2006

By 

Kendis Paris "K.Paris" (Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eve's Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body (Paperback)

Eve's Revenge is by far one of the most significant books I have ever read. Barger does an exceptional job of uncovering the motivation behind body-related shame, while offering a redemptive alternative to the status quo. I found its principles so liberating that I gathered a group of women to study and discuss it together in greater depth. Insightful, thought-provoking and fresh, Eve's Revenge honors the whole person (body and soul) by reminding us of what we were truly created to be.