This article appears in the latest issue of Spiritus (Spring 2013) on pages 17-35;  Here is an excerpt:

“The history of women writing about spirituality, especially mystical spirituality, is part of a wider story: that of the entry of women into the once-patriarchal realm of theology, or, to put it in terms of the Gospel phrase invoked in my title, a narrative of “the violent taking it by storm” (Mt. 11:12). The twentieth century forms a parallel to the thirteenth by becoming the first era in which women seized the opportunity to take an active role in theological study and education. In doing so, I believe they also played a part in helping to overcome, at least in a gradual and not yet final way, one of the most disastrous wrong-turns in the history of Western theology: the divorce sundering spiritual teaching from academic theology that became evident at least as early as the fourteenth century.”