A Blue Parakeet in High Heels

By Leslie Keeney:

The other benefit of wearing heels is less easily described, but more powerful—something akin to both courage and confidence, but not quite either. Something that comes from deciding not to pretend I’m not female when walking through the predominantly male world of evangelical academics.

Anyone old enough to have been sentient in the 1980s remembers that a lot of women dressed, as Harrison Ford’s character in “Working Girl” said, “like a woman thinks a man would dress if he was a woman.” Thankfully, only lawyers still have to dress that way, but any woman who works in a field like Christian academics runs the risk of giving in to the siren call of downplaying the fact that she’s not a man.

The title of Scot McKnight’s book “The Blue Parakeet,” refers (in part) to women who are called to teach and lead, but whose very presence baffles and confuses the sparrows feeding peacefully in the contemporary church. It is this image that sticks in my head when I’m walking down the hallway towards a room where I am likely to be the only woman.

It’s not the case that every man considers the blue parakeet something to be avoided. Some of them are glad we finally found our way to the backyard feeder. But whether welcomed or not, the fact of us changes whatever room we walk into. No matter how hard we try to hide it, our bodies are shaped differently and our voices are higher. Our femaleness cannot be kept under wraps. Our very presence disrupts the dynamics of the suit and tie club.