On Facebook I was invited to an event on March 31st called
"Treat all Girls Like Dudes Day". The creators of the event
don't want guys to use this as a ticket to be assholes to girls, but they do
want it to be a day where girls get no special treatment for being girls. They
want to see if girls can handle a day where a guy doesn't open the door
for her, or let her get out of a speeding ticket because she starts crying, or
is really cute. They want girls and guys to be treated the same.
I really like this idea, but their motives are kind of
weird. They are angry about the “BS”, meaning, the unfair special treatment.
It’s weird because for most of history of western civilization woman have been
treated as inferior to men. In my American history class we have been studying
the Cold War era where there was a revival of domesticity for woman during the
baby-boom era after the two world wars.
Woman in this post-war/ Cold War era were expected and very
strongly encouraged to find a good husband, have children and be a professional
homemaker. The home was seen as a sacred and safe place for woman to be content
in, and the world of work was dangerous, and tough, and therefore restricted to
mainly men. Wages and opportunities were less than for men, which forced women
to be dependent on men. People did not think it was possible for a woman to
have both a career and have a family. If women were not content in their
vocation in the home,they were seen as having something psychologically wrong
with them. Their daughters however rebelled in the 60’s and 70’s during the
feminist movement. Since then, it is not unusual for women to go to college and
pursue careers, as well as a family, or for women not to get married at all.
Feminists challenged the idea that a woman’s only calling is
to be a wife and a mother. They challenged the idea that woman are weaker than
men, and therefore are unfit for the workplace. They challenged the idea that
men are to be in authority over them.
I see some problems with the feminist movement. Abortion and
birth control came with a desire to be independent from men. Woman wanted to be
like men in that they did not need to take the physical responsibility of their
desire for sexual freedom. They wanted to be able to have sex without being married
or having children. This desire for sexual immorality has caused the genocide
of millions of babies. However, it is also unfair that men have always been
sexually free. It was okay for men to have sex with woman, but if a woman was
not a virgin, it would be near impossible for her to find a husband, or a job.
If she got pregnant outside of marriage, she would suffer huge
consequences while the father of her child would probably have no consequences.
This was ridiculous (and unfortunately still happens in many societies). It is
equally immoral for men or women to have sex outside of marriage, and it was
unfair that only woman bore the consequences. However, murder is not an
alternative to bearing the consequences of one’s actions, even if one must bear
it alone, but this is unfortunately something the feminist movement spurred.
Feminism also becomes a problem when woman are so obsessed
with their careers that they neglect their families, and often times this will
result in divorce. People often point to women being outside the home when they
see the torn up families in our nation. They blame this on the fact that women
have abandoned the home. They forget however, that these children also have a
father who is equally responsible to raise his children and keep his family
together. Parenting and marital relationships require the efforts of both the
husband and the wife. Blaming divorce rates on woman being in the workplace
rather than the home is making things much simpler than they are. Both husbands
and wives should not let their work become more important than their marital
relationship, and raising their children. Feminism may have encouraged women to
abandon their homes in many cases, but we can in an equal number of cases blame
fathers for abandoning their homes.
Still, pastors will often point to the Titus 2:4-5 where it
says that women are to love their husbands and children, and work in the home.
I always thought, with disappointment, that this meant that I was biblically
required to be a stay-home mother and wife, if I was going to be a godly woman.
However, in Proverbs 31;10-31, we see a seeming contradiction to the Titus
passage. The virtuous wife in Proverbs works outside the home, buying land and
selling and buying merchandise. She is also said to have “strong arms”, meaning
she is not weak and frail. She is a hard worker, both in the home and outside
of it, and her husband and children praise her and respect her for it.
Culturally, we think that Titus 2 must means that women are
meant to be restricted to the home, especially for people who come from the
Cold War era. This is not biblical. A virtuous wife is not a weak person,
completely dependent on her husband, and working at home cooking and cleaning
and tucking the kids into bed every day. She has freedom. She loves her family,
and is diligent to them, but there is no where that says that she is only to be
in the home. We also have to realize that before the industrial revolution,
work was almost always done at home. Titus 2 corresponds perfectly with
Proverbs 31 because it is saying that wives are to be hard workers at whatever
they do, and to love their families.
Now, in our society, not so much now as in the past, but
many people still think that women are supposed to be submissive to men in
general. In the past it was always assumed that at work a woman would not be
the boss of a man. It was also assumed that women couldn’t speak in church, but
men could. These ideas were thought to be biblical and moral.
We learn God’s requirements of a husband-wife relationship
in Ephesians 5:22-33. Women are supposed to be submissive and respectful of
their husbands, while men are supposed to love their wives as Christ loves his
church. Both are supposed to love each other as their own body, because they
are one body. Some people may assume that because the wife is submissive, she
must be inferior to the man. This is false. A wife has a different role than
her husband, but she is still his equal (Gal. 3:28). I have heard several
people compare this to the trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are three
persons, who are equally God; they are one God. Husband and wives are two
persons, and they are one. The Son submits to the Father, and the Spirit
submits to the Son, but all three persons of the trinity are equally God; they
just have different roles. This is similar to the relationship between a
husband and a wife. This being said, a wife is submissive to her husband.
This does not mean she is submissive to all men, because all men are not her
husband.
A wife being submissive to her husband does not mean that
she becomes his slave, or that he should not listen to anything she has to say.
We cannot take the analogy of the husband being like Christ and the woman like
the church to the extent that the husband becomes divine. We also remember that
Christ washed his disciples’ feet, and he gave his life for believers. Love is
self-sacrifice (John 15:13), so it is necessary for a loving wife and husband
to be servants of each other and to want what is best for the other. Also, a
wife needs to submit to her husband, but this does not mean that she cannot
have discussions with him about his decisions, and this also does not mean that
he should not respect her opinions and arguments.
The other area where woman have different roles than men is
in the church. Women are not to be elders or pastors. In Titus 1:5-6, Paul
tells Titus to appoint an elder who is “above reproach, the husband of one
wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery
or insubordination.” He clearly says that elders in the church are to be
husbands, meaning men. Then in 1 Timothy, Paul is warning against
false teachers, then he says in 1:12 that women aren’t to be overseers of men.
In the next chapter, he gives qualification of overseers. It is clear from the
context that he is talking about church leadership. So it is not right for
women to be church leaders (elders or pastors), but Paul is not saying that
women cannot be leaders of men in general. The reason men are church
leaders is because they are also Christ-like figures in the church. They
shepard the church like Christ sheparded his disciples. Another
aspect to be pointed out is that a man who is not an elder has just as little
right to be teaching and leading in church as does a woman.
So, thanks to Dr. McCllhenny (my history professor) and his
wife, Becky, I have rethought my views about what it means to be a godly woman.
I can be strong and educated and have a career, as well as be a wife and
mother. Of course, my family has to come first before my career, but this
principle is the same for whoever my husband will be. Love is self-giving, not
selfish. To wrap this up, every day should be a day where guys and girls
are treated the same. I don’t like that my friends are calling March 31st a
day where girls are treated like guys, because that presupposed that they are
supposed to be treated differently. We should love our neighbor as ourselves,
regardless of their sex, race, age, etc. All people should be treated equally.
