“The question of gender—who we are as men and women—has never been more pressing, or more misunderstood.
Weaving personal experience with expert knowledge, Dr. Abigail Favale provides an in-depth yet accessible account of the gender paradigm: a framework for understanding reality and identity that has recently risen to prominence. Favale traces the genealogy of gender to its origins in feminism and postmodern thought, describing how gender has come to eclipse sex, and how that shift is reshaping language, law, medicine, sexuality, and our own self-perceptions.
With substance, clarity, and compassion, Favale teases out the hidden assumptions of the gender paradigm and exposes its effects. Yet this book is not merely an exposé—it is also a powerful, moving articulation of a Christian understanding of reality: a holistic paradigm that proclaims the dignity of the body, the sacramental meaning of sexual difference, and the interconnectedness of all creation. The Genesis of Gender (Ignatius Press) is a vital, timely resource for anyone seeking to better understand the gender paradigm—and how to live beyond it.”
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Abigail Favale, Ph.D., is a writer and professor in the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. She has an academic background in gender studies and feminist literary criticism, and now writes and teaches on topics related to women and gender from a Catholic perspective.
Her latest book The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory was just released in June 2022 by Ignatius Press.
Abigail was received into the Catholic Church in 2014, and her conversion memoir, Into the Deep: An Unlikely Catholic Conversion, traces her journey from birthright evangelicalism to postmodern feminism to Roman Catholicism.
Abigail’s essays and short stories have appeared in print and online for publications such as First Things, The Atlantic, Church Life, and Potomac Review. She was awarded the J.F. Powers Prize for short fiction in 2017.
Abigail lives with her husband and four children in South Bend, Indiana.
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