Posted by Dianna Anderson in Anti-Ignorance | 37 Comments
Twirling Skirts
John and Stasi Eldredge Tell Me How to Be a Woman
I just read through Captivating again. I will give John and Stasi Eldredge this: they are good at telling stories. They use the unique tool of testimony to share, edify, and teach – which sounds good if you don’t scrutinize the ideas these carefully picked stories present.
Defining Beauty
While the entire book is plagued by lazy writing, the worst case comes right near the beginning in chapter two, the chapter on Beauty. This chapter frames much of the rest of the book. Apparently, a woman’s greatest tool and greatest reflection of the image of God lies in her beauty. We have somehow become ugly because our “feminine hearts” have been wounded.
That sounds okay at first, but John and Stasi seem lost as to a way to define beauty that does not restrict or reduce it to physicality. Their examples of “feminine hearts” rely on the physical: naturally beautiful princesses, ladies all dolled up for a cocktail party, little girls in dresses.
They make broad claims about the feminine heart, inner beauty and all that, but only provide examples of physical beauty, which undercuts their own contentions. There are no examples of beauty that do not also align with a cultural norm of beauty, all the while making the claim that Christian beauty is counter-cultural because it consists of “inner” beauty. They don’t want to define beauty as solely physical, but their examples do just that.
They point to childhood as that time when we women were most innocently beautiful, wearing twirling skirts and asking our daddies “Am I lovely?”
I don’t know about most of John and Stasi’s audience, but that’s an image with which I cannot identify. From as early on as I can remember, I hated skirts and dresses. After church, I would climb trees still dressed in my church clothes, not caring if I ruined them because I didn’t want to wear them anyway. I played sports and rode my bike everywhere. I invented a game of swinging from high up in a Willow Tree to the ground by holding on to their flexible branches. My best friend was a boy, and we’d frequently pretend to be robbers climbing over my backyard fence.
When the Eldredges ask the rhetorical question, talking about how adventurous little boys are, “Who’s brave enough to jump out of a second story window onto a trampoline?” I wrote in the margin in capitals: ME.
I cannot identify with this image of little girls and tea parties and twirling skirts, so the fundamental shaping question for the book is entirely lost on me, and, I imagine, many of my fellow females.
Movies and Art
John and Stasi propose that men and women, in their approach to life, the universe and everything, fundamentally ask different questions. The man asks “Do I have what it takes?” and women ask “Am I lovely?”
I do not believe that there is anything inherent in being a woman biologically that would force a girl to ask such a question. I know cultural impetuses that have caused me to ask it in the past, but I do not see such a question as fundamental to who I am. Indeed, I find nothing in the Bible to indicate such a question exists for either sex. John and Staci define who women are and what they do based on cultural normative examples, not Biblical text.
When chapter two attempts to describe what makes a woman beautiful, most of the case for beauty as an asset of woman is built not upon the Bible but upon art, culture and film. In talking about how women are valued for their beauty, John and Stasi write about the beauty of a woman at rest in most paintings through art history. There is even the statement, written with a tone suggesting authority, that beauty is a tool unique to women because, after looking at art in a museum in Santa Fe, “[they] had not seen one painting devoted to the beauty of the naked masculine form.” Clearly, these two didn’t spend much time in museums in Europe.
They base their thesis about women possessing this unique tool of beauty not on Biblical context, but rather on the idea that there aren’t paintings of naked men. Again, a basic knowledge of art reveals this is not even true.
It may seem like a minor point, but it speaks volumes to the approach to the book. Rather than setting out to explore the Biblical idea of femininity, they instead chose a narrative and cherry-picked verses, art, and poetry that fit just such a narrative. Indeed, the entire book struggles with trying to force a Biblical narrative into a cultural one. For every Bible verse, there are two or three movie references, often badly misread ones – who in the world sees Arwen as a warrior princess over and above Eowyn? Apparently John and Stasi. These movie references are insultingly stereotypical – Steel Magnolias, Beaches, Fried Green Tomatoes. As though every woman has seen and wants to be like the women in these movies. The book uses these pop culture references in place of Biblical support, painting a picture of womanhood that is a strange combination of Esther and Julia Roberts.
Sexual Language
In addition, the language surrounding womanhood and womanly beauty becomes uncomfortably sexual. All the language used to describe a woman’s interaction with the world around her and within the church has sexual overtones: we “excite,” “allure,” “invite,” “entice,” “satisfy,” “seduce,” “desire,” and “arouse.” These are all used, over and over, as descriptions of what a woman does with her God-given beauty, as a representative of God. The sexual overtones become almost shrill with the chapter on being “romanced” by God, where the characterization of a loving relationship with one’s Lord is written in terms of a passionate, almost literally sexual affair, seeming to underline the idea that what a woman has to offer is inherently tied to what exists between her legs. In order to support this idea, throughout the chapter, the authors seem to take the “her” pronoun used throughout Hosea as literal – God is pursuing women, in our femininity. The Eldredges conveniently forget that Hosea was a prophet using the image of man marrying a prostitute to reflect the history of the relationship of Israel to its God. The entire thing is a metaphor meant to cajole all of Israel – not just its women – to shape up and come back to God. Jesus is not writing us women specific love letters in Hosea – he’s attempting to return his country, consisting of men, women and children to come back using the image of a wayward woman. There’s a big difference.
Never mind the fact that calling Jesus our “fiancé” puts men in an odd position. Indeed, the entire book puts men in a theologically odd position – by placing them in a simplistic box that says “You don’t have to be handsome, you have nothing to offer but protection and strength, and to be ‘feminine’ is a sin.”
Protection by Men
While they give lip service to the idea that single woman can be just as Godly without a man (devoting a whole two pages to the section!), the overarching conclusion is that things are not right until a woman’s beauty is drawn out and protected by a man. Because after all, the passive woman at rest needs an active man to balance her out. They even go so far as to write:
“It follows that God would want to ensure that a woman helping to advance his Kingdom would be offered the covering and protection of good men. Issues of headship are intended for the benefit of women, not their suppression. You know how dangerous it can be to try and come alive as a truly feminine woman. Right? God desires that wherever and however you offer yourself to the Body of Christ, you’ll have the protection of good men over you. Not to hold you back, but to set you free as a woman.”
The assertion that women need to be “protected” by men is one of the more insidiously damaging claims the Eldredges develop here. I have somehow sinned in choosing to go down a different path and eschew the protection of men because they are men.
Conclusion
Rather than embracing biological sex and gender as merely one facet of an entire human being and one intensely influenced by the culture that surrounds us, the Eldredges turn gender into the defining characteristic. According to them, I have probably sinned because I consider my sex not my defining characteristic, but rather an accessory: I am a Christian, a writer, a teacher, an activist, an intellectual, an academic., a sci-fi geek. Oh yeah, I’m also a woman.
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- some well deserved criticism…. « lurking chihuahua - [...] Twirling Skirts | The Blackbird Press – an article offering a well founded critique of some bogus ideas of ...
hey, nowhere on this piece does it say which book you are critiquing. surely that’s a standard practice in a review piece esp. when the authors have published numerous books.
i want to read your article in full, but this struck me as such a glaring omission i felt i needed to comment.
I think your critique of “Captivating” is well founded and gives expression to many of my own thoughts on the book. I actually found “Wild at Heart” to be more inspiring, although it too offers a picture of manhood and masculinity that is not universal. I appreciate that the eldredge’s have a heart to help readers understand that God made them in his image. But, like you I found the book judged my capability as a woman – and my adventurous spirit. I love to dress up and i’m a proud member of the well dressed professors club, but today i’ll dress in my uniform as an athletics coach and i’ll be functional and comfortable and i’ll challenge my players to make the most of each physical contest.
Ah, yes, Anna, I’ll alert Justin (the editor) to the error. That was a mistake on my part.
And I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only woman who felt her adventurous spirit challenged by the box John and Stasi attempt to put women in throughout the book. I’m interested to hear what other women who post here have to say.
I started one of Eldredge’s books a while back but it really didn’t appeal to me. I like pretty ladies as much as the next man but as the husband of a very capable woman and father of equally great daughters I know full well there is a lot more to being a woman than being cute…
I would agree that, as a whole, this book did make me feel as though I had been put into a box, especially in the romancing aspect of it. I have no current desire to be married, and while this may change one day, I have always hated the idea that a Christian woman’s greatest joy is in finding a husband. It has been an idea that my church has embraced (even to the point of congratulating me on getting into a highly rated graduate school because now I could meet my future husband) and one that, for a time, severely hindered my relationship with Christ. It was frustrating to be told time and time again that God created me to desire romance, because for me, He didn’t. Also, it’s incredibly awkward to be told to picture yourself being pursued as a female lead in a romantic film by Jesus…both because those films have no real concept of actual love and because I don’t think anyone should be picturing themselves making out with the God of the universe.
Good article. It’s been a while since I read it, but you expressed the majority of my feelings.
I have personally always liked John Eldredge’s writing, though I definitely don’t want to be filling my mind with anti-biblical literature. I have read Wild At Heart, and will definitely have to read Captivating now, but I wanted to ask, what Bible verses should I be keeping in mind to counter the evidently non-biblical thoughts John and Staci write?
I am somewhat familiar with the Genesis account of God having created woman as a companion for man, and with the Proverbs 31 description of a worthy woman. Also, with some of Paul’s writings about the differing roles of men and women. But beside those are there other verses I should be reading to prepare myself so I do not get mislead by the book?
@Anna, Dianna
I fixed the lack of book title (oops). Can’t wait to read these comments when I get back to Detroit. Two of my favorite subjects: religion and gender. It makes me giddy inside!
Thank you for putting into words what I felt as I read the book. It almost felt as though they were feeding me propaganda like…”you have inkings of these feelings in you so we’re going to blow them out of proportion and make them who you really are.”
I love this article. There are many things I could comment on, but I want to underline your point that the idea of kissing Jesus makes men feel pretty awkward. For one thing, it’s repulsive because I’m not gay… and if that’s the case, I have to suspect that the Eldredges took a wrong turn at Ephesians 5 and oversexualized the metaphor of Christ and the church being like husband and wife.
It’s also pretty awkward for us when women say “Jesus is my boyfriend!” because how are we, as mortal men, supposed to compete with that? I mean, can’t a woman date a man without dumping Jesus? It’s not meant to be an identical relationship.
One criticism I have of this article is the section on protection from men. First, I don’t think that the idea of having good men protecting you should insult you. In your quoted passage, they don’t say that women are weak or inferior. “you’ll have the protection of good men over you” seems to emphasize covering, which is not necessarily condescending.
You might read into that an assertion that you are weak, but I don’t know if that’s what the Eldredges are trying to say. Just like it’s not a matter of weakness when one cop says to another “I’ll cover you,” or when you say “the roof covers my head.”
Also, please realize that if I say “I like to protect women,” it is not the same as saying “women are weak.” The assertion that I want to protect women or that God affirms that desire should not be insulting to you.
Now, if you want to attack the basic idea of male headship in a marriage, you are faced with the precarious task of trying to explain away St. Paul’s writings.
What are your thoughts, Dianna?
Oof. It’s a little hard to answer that question without giving some background about myself and what views I have and why. This got quite long because a lot of the problems I have with the theology which were too long or too far afield to include in the initial article are included. Sorry about that.
I’ll state first and foremost that I am an egalitarian when it comes to relationships between men and women – they both have equal roles, and the biological differences in sex have absolutely nothing to do with the roles they play in the family. My father cooked 95% of the time in my home. My mother had a job when my father didn’t. Both of them worked outside the home, as teachers, while I was growing up. My father in no way saw himself as the “head of the household,” and this is the model of egalitarian relationship that I hope to (if I marry) model my life after.
I also believe that gender (not sex – there is an important distinction between the two [sex = biological, gender = identity]). itself is a social construction. You may be born biological female but have the mind of a male. You may be born biologically male, but have a predilection for those things which are not traditionally masculine, and vice versa. I realize that this is a hard argument to make in a Christian environment, but it is impossible for me to separate this view of gender as a social construct (and therefore something that is thrust upon a person rather than decided by the person by him or herself) from my view as a woman in the church. If my identity as a woman is merely a social construct, than I have the ability to challenge, change and form my own opinion of what a woman, especially a woman in the church, is, which is not that much of a stretch from what most feminist Christians would proclaim.
So there’s the background. Now onto the answer.
Because of gender being a social construct, a small part of identity, and therefore not something which defines an entire person, I have a problem with saying that men, solely and simply because they are men, have an obligation to protect me so that I may be more of a woman (which is, indeed, precisely what they are implying).
I think that is insulting to both men and women, and I don’t read it as a police officer saying to one another, “I’ll cover you,” because that implies an equal partnership in which both people are doing a similar and necessary action, which is not the case here. And I don’t believe that is how John and Stasi mean it to be read – it is meant more and I read it is a paternal statement: The world is dangerous, therefore you need these more knowledgeable people to protect you (which, as you can see, is not at all the cop analogy).
I frankly do not see what possessing either set of genitalia has to do with acting as the community of God for one another. It implies that a woman cannot be edifying, protective or uplifting of her fellow woman as she figures out who she is (though they do cover this “sisterhood” aspect elsewhere in the book, they keep it to being within the church, and not as a woman goes out into the world, which this passage is about). This section also implies that men do not need the same kind of protection as a Christian going out in the world. It coddles the woman – the question of “Right?” is so condescending – and implies that her coming out in the world as a Christian doing her Christian duty is somehow more dangerous and filled with more pitfalls than that of a man, simply because she is a woman. It turns women into toddlers taking their first steps into a big scary world that doesn’t like them, while implying that men are fine, simply because they are men.
Now, while that could be read as an acknowledgment of the privilege that benefits men in this world, it is also a reinforcement of that privilege. Indeed, if it is read as “this is the way the world is because of the way the patriarchy privileges men,” then it is even more insulting that they buy into the patriarchy by saying that, because this is the way the world functions right now, that is the way it needs to stay. If it is a simple acknowledgment of the male privilege, then it is more insulting to women because it says that that is something necessary for us to learn how to be a woman – I need a man to tell me how to be a woman? What?
Now, I’m aware that this reads as saying “I don’t need men,” and I want to be clear: That is what I’m saying. But it does not meant that I do not need them as brothers in Christ. I just don’t need them to tell me who I am as a woman and to give me “protection” in the world. If being an independent, intellectual female who can go out into the world and learn who I am as a woman without the protection or help as a man is somehow a sin, then by all means, I am a sinner. To imply that one sex NEEDS another simply because of the biological dispositions is not only putting both men and women in a restrictive box, but flying in the face of what we know of the Body of Christ, which is an infinitely multi-faceted, multi-talented, and varied group of people, all of whom identify and understand themselves and their genders in their own unique ways. There may be women who need a man’s protection, who feel good when a man offers that sort of “covering.” However: I am not one, and to imply that I somehow need to be is to put me in a box, poorly supported by Biblical thought, and to deny the very nature of the Body of Christ in all its multifarious glory.
TL;DR: “Protection” is a condescending reinforcement of the privileged patriarchy, of which the church (small c) has been a main perpetrator.
Now that I’ve answered that, I’ll defer to other people who have written things I agree with and have written them better than I could here. Rachel Held Evans is a blogger I admire, and she makes some pretty interesting argument about egalitarianism (submit to one another, rather than merely wife submitting to the husband) and some other interesting perspectives on women in the church I think could benefit the discussion. You, by no means, would need to read all of these, but just know that, for the large part, what RHE has to say, I would echo and support.
http://rachelheldevans.com/marriage-eternity-complementarian-womanhood – On the impact of complentarianism and egalitarianism on the idea of marriage being eternal – sort of a “what then?”
http://rachelheldevans.com/contention (mostly just the first part about how “true Biblical womanhood” is a mish-mash of all sorts of contradictory messages)
http://rachelheldevans.com/article-1230861476 (on using the Bible to arbitrarily define female roles)
http://rachelheldevans.com/article-1221345290 (On the mixed messages women receive growing up in the church)
So, that’s more than enough reading material for you. Thanks for letting me talk.
Dianna,
I only want to say one thing here on men and women submitting to each other. I do not hold to egalitarianism but I still think that men and women as husband and wife can submit to one another without resorting to egalitarianism, as Paul states in one of his epistles (I can’t recall which one at the moment).
You stated above something about women submitting only to men but that is not something that the complementarian view argues for. It would indeed argue for the submission of one to another without stepping into egalitarianism. I know you said very little about it in that section so I won’t call it a straw man but it seems to come very close, unless I am mistaken (and I may be; forgive me if such is the case).
John
I just reread my statement and I don’t know if my train of thought will makes sense to someone outside my brain. I’m quite tired as I write this. If it seems like it to anyone else, I’ll restate it better, later or tomorrow. If not, I’ll leave it. Please do not comment on it unless it makes sense. Sorry.
John
Thanks for this article, Dianna. I read Captivating as an insecure 14 year old and drank it in– I read it again at 20 and wanted to throw up. My immediate future does not involve a relationship or marriage, but it does involve “dangerous” things that I’m told I should be married in order to do. I don’t buy it. As Justin noted, men desiring to protect women isn’t necessarily a bad thing– but what about those of us who have no such protection, and possibly never have? I don’t think we should sit around until our “real lives” begin in marriage and we are “safe and sound”. From a young age, our culture instills women with the mindset of needing a man, and the church is no different. We hear a Christian version of a secular message: that the perfect man is out there and that we should be praying for him until we meet him; that marriage is second only to God and that God clearly intends marriage for all of us. The world obsesses over sex; the church obsesses over marriage. Both are incredibly harmful. Is it bad to be praying for future spouses? No… but what happened to the possibility, and gift, of singleness?! Singleness becomes something to get through rather than a legitimate, God-honoring lifestyle that is just as much a gift as marriage (albeit, a very different one). And that isn’t to say we should go at it alone, because protection and strength can be found in platonic relationships, friendships with other women, mentors, and ultimately, the church. Not that marriage has nothing else to offer, because it is a beautiful, unique, amazing gift (so I hear), but in my experience, God has provided abundantly in other realms and has made me incredibly content with being single– for the time being, and maybe even forever.
[However, I am not an egalitarian. If I get married, I want a man to lead. As has been said, I think it is possible to mutually submit to one another without being an egalitarian.]
@Dianna,
Thank you for articulating your thoughts. After reading your lengthy comment, reading all of the articles you linked to, and having a good conversation with Tia, there are many directions we could take the discussion, so forgive me if I arbitrarily choose one of them for now. If I don’t address all your points at once, it’s not that I mean to ignore them.
You said: “Protection” is a condescending reinforcement of the privileged patriarchy, of which the church (small c) has been a main perpetrator.
I think this is a really extreme statement. I think I get what you’re saying about how the protection idea makes women sound like toddlers. But, I don’t think that’s necessarily true. You’re unfairly attaching a thought or feeling to all men who believe in protecting women (that they think of women as toddlers, which presumably means childish, stupid, naive etc.).
Personally, I am somewhat protective of my female friends. However, I don’t have any desire to lord over them, patronize them, or be in a privileged position, and as far as I can tell, they all appreciate that I try to look out for them. I think wanting to protect women is simply a noble instinct that most men have. I agree that this shouldn’t be used to make women feel like they’re wrong for being single, or that she is too weak to do something great, or anything like that. However, I don’t think the idea of a man protecting a woman is deserving of the accusations about reinforcing privileged patriarchy.
I also affirm everything Tia just said, and I agree that some (the Eldredges, maybe?) would wrongly discourage certain tendencies just because they are not typical of one’s sex. But that’s a separate issue from headship or protection. I believe, and I think the bible supports, that people should be encouraged in their various gifts and unique personalities, without artificial constraints. For instance, I wear bright purple mittens and daily drink tea out of a dainty porcelain cup. I like flowers more than football and might have more female friends than male. There’s no conflict there with biblical manhood, or the fact that Ephesians 5 tells me to love my wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
On the protection thing, I will say this: There is a difference between an instinct that many men feel to protect females they know and love, and a prescription from an authority (ie: a person speaking to a wide audience of the church as a whole) that this is the man’s predetermined role. And I apologize for launching into another story here, but it’s what I can think of to best illustrate my point.
I have a ton of guy friends, and in college during the fall and spring when it was nice, we would go for walks around the neighbor at 2 or 3 in the morning. Two in particular would behave the way you describe – acting protective of me as we walked. One, indeed, always had to be between me and the street. And I never took this sort of action as “Oh, he’s implementing the patriarchy and that’s patronizing.” I took it as a gesture of friendship because he knows me and loves me, and felt that this was the best way to help me stay safe in an admittedly bad neighborhood.
But this is not a prescription for how the church should function as a whole when it comes to male-female roles. David protected me because he sensed that, in that moment and in that relationship, that was the best way to serve me, and he made sure I was okay with it. In other ways, I got to reverse the gesture and protect him – counseling him in what to do when he was having trouble making a decision, being his sounding board for creative ideas, editing stories and talking out his ideas, etc – he frequently allowed me to be the voice of authority on many of his projects. Even though the friendship was platonic, we had an egalitarian relationship, one in which there was an equal exchange of ideas, and I didn’t feel patronized in my friendship with him.
However, when I see John and Stasi Eldredge describe “protection” as a prescript for being a man, and for the woman to be “protected” as she is stepping out in the world doing “dangerous” things – like showing off her feminine beauty? – that is when I have a problem. It is the institutionalization of such behavior that I view as abhorrent.
I don’t have a major problem with the men in my life protecting me because I know it is an action taken not because I am female but rather because they know me, and they know what actions in my defense would be welcome and unwelcome. For example, none of my male friends would ever think of speaking for me in a discussion. The thought wouldn’t cross their minds to “protect” me in that way. But holding onto me as we go through a crowded NYC street? That is completely understandable.
Knowing your female friend, feeling protective of her, and acting on that protective feeling when you know her well is one thing. Thinking that is your role in life for all women everywhere, as John and Stasi seem to be prescribing to the church as a whole, is completely different. When we take one trend and assuming that is meaningful reality and therefore a rule for all cases, we run into a problem, especially when it comes to gender roles in the church.
Studies have shown that there is more difference between behaviors and predilections within a group of same sex people than there is between people of different sexes – i.e., the two sexes are so varied within themselves that declaring differences between the sexes are at all universal becomes a moot point.
I should say here, along those lines, that the protection idea varies a lot amongst my guy friends. One of my guy friends once joked about it, telling me to run into the river if someone attacked us because he wasn’t going to be any good (Travis actually knows this guy – Charley said this in Oxford when we were cutting through University Parks at 1AM…illegally…).
Protection in specific relationships depends on a case by case basis and to make it into a universal rule for the church is to turn it back into a part of the oppressive patriarchy, as cliched feminist-y as that sounds. I’m okay with you feeling protective of your female friends – but I’m not okay with you thinking that is your role as a male, because regardless of intent, it can and does, when it is prescribed as a rule, infantalize the woman. Protection is something that must be approved by the person in question, not something that you can just do because you happen to be a man and she happens to be a woman.
I hope that makes sense as to why I view protection as a concept and protection as enacted in my relationships differently.
On complementarian vs. egalitarian, I’m mostly against it because all the examples of relationships that are complementarian that I know are ones in which the woman stays at home popping out babies, and which embrace an extremely conservative theology which is, in many ways, antithetical to the way I live my life. At this point in my life (almost 25 years old), being a man’s “helpmate” is the last thing in the world that I want. And I realize not all complementarian relationships work in such a way – I just have no good examples to go by. And that does serve to fuel a lot of my vehemence against complementarian theology – I believe a lot in judging theologies and doctrines by the actions they instill in people, and I have yet to see a complementarian relationship that does not result in the woman giving up and sacrificing a lot more of her life than the man.
I hope that last part makes sense. I don’t mean to offend – it’s just that idea and label of “helpmate” or the assumption that I am somehow fundamentally different in my nature because I am a woman and that is something God prescribed within me is not something that sits well with me.
@ Dianna,
Your writing in the section entitled “Sexual Language” reminded me of the Song of Solomon. Do you find the Song of Solomon uncomfortably sexual? Also, the Song of Songs is commonly supposed to be either an analogy of God’s love for the church or a panegyric about monogamous love–can it not be both?
You wrote: “[…]I consider my sex not my defining characteristic, but rather an accessory.” Were your sex defined by the form of just your genitalia, then your sex could be viewed as an accessory. The form of your genitalia can be altered to take on the form of the other sex(es). With a sufficiently talented surgeon, you could wear this or that sex almost as easily as you could wear this or that watch. Similarly, although the familiar form of water is such that it takes on the form of its container, water isn’t defined by its ability to take the form of its container. At a certain temperature, water becomes ice, and ice doesn’t take on the form of its container. Thus, as water isn’t defined by its conforming to its container, so a person isn’t defined by her sex.
But what if we defined sex by chromosomal form? A talented surgeon could change the form of your reproductive organs, but your chromosomes would remain unchanged. Water can change from a liquid to a solid, but it its chemical composition would remain unchanged. Whatever form water takes, water is always H2O. Whatever form your body takes, you always remain the same sex. In the same way that we did not always know that water was essentially H2O but identified it by its non-essential properties, could it be that we don’t know the essence of sex, but are capable of identifying it by its non-essential properties?
Specifically, just as H2O can exist apart from the qualities by which we have fixed its reference (i.e., the bundle of qualities that compose the definition of “water”), could the fact that God gives a person a specific sex enable us to identify and fix the reference of an essence, a natural kind, that is revealed through the form of her body, even though that essence could exist apart from/without the bodily form that actually accompanies it?
@Xenoglossa: Short answer to your second question is no.
Long answer (I’m prone to those, sorry): Water is not a sentient being capable of making decisions about itself and recognizing the container it is in, and therefore, in logical extension, making a decision about whether or not they like or dislike said container or would make an effort find another one more suitable. Sex and gender are two completely separate entities, and the mistake that many make is assuming that they are one and the same. My biological sex has, scientifically, no real bearing on my nature as a human being (and scientific studies bear this out). This article is helpful in detailing those studies: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/23/sex-differences-science-cliches
As that article helpfully reminds me of the vocab, saying that we are “defined” by our sex is reductionist. I am a whole person, and to say that I’m a woman first, and therefore that means x y and z in terms of how I must behave reduces me to, well, x y and z. To say that we are like water and defined or “guided” or have some sort of “essence” that exists in our very biology is deterministic.
Gender is a vastly complex field that consists not just of men and women, but women who are biologically male, and men who are biologically female, and people who feel no attachment to either gender. Transgendered people are something the church doesn’t know what to do with, frankly, because here are real life examples of people who do not fit our neat little gendered boxes, and all of our deterministic biology says they must. Now, I know there’s the nature argument, but it’s the same one that’s used on homosexuality and failed – they must have had something happen in childhood or whatever that make them go “queer.” Truth is, there are LBGTQ people who grew up in perfectly well adjusted straight homes, and LBGTQ people who grew up in the most terrible homes imaginable, and others that are in between. To reduce a gender role to mere biology is to reduce anything we do to the genes in our cells, which is far too hopeless and deterministic for me.
First question: I didn’t mention it in my article, but John and Stasi do use Song of Songs quite a bit, which is unnerving as it has never been presented to me as metaphorical scripture. I mean, it’s metaphorical (the girl doesn’t literally have goats for breasts or whatever that famous line is), but it is metaphorical in the sense that it is a love song written for a specific time and place. I am a fan of the Catholic Church’s more literal interpretation of it, which sees it as a vision of love between men and women that reflects true love of God – i.e., it is an example of a good and loving and liberated relationship, but not allegorical for the relationship between Christ and the Church. If it is read in this second, allegorical meaning, it forces the relationship between believer and Savior to take on, as I put it, an uncomfortably sexual tone which again displaces men as it is unclear which role the man would play in that oddly sexual relationship with a male Christ.
Is it well and good to think of being pursued by Christ? Do images of the Bride of Christ help to further us spiritually? Yes, and yes. (This might seem irrelevant, but Derek Webb’s “Wedding Dress” is one of my top 10 consistently favorite songs, so I am not averse to that sort of metaphorical language in discussing the relationship between Christ and the Church). But to couple it with a definition of gender, and to say this is God’s love letter to women either 1. excludes men from the picture, which is just plain odd, or 2. puts the man in a odd position of not being able to relate to a certain part of God, which is quite problematic, as it makes God the actor of how we relate to him. To put it more understandably: To say that God only shows parts of himself to some people and different parts to others basically ensures that no one can get enough of a picture of God to act on this belief, and this parsing of God – which would happen if we create sexual metaphors for our relationships with God – is dangerous for the church as a whole as it reduces God back to individual experience and how he reveals himself to you, specifically, and not the church as a whole.
I apologize if this doesn’t make sense. Gender and the Bible and the Church are complex nuanced subjects, so I feel like I’m writing a book 20x over when I explain my views on these things. I’m enjoying the discussion though!
(for those interested, Derek Webb’s “Wedding Dress,” inspired [I believe] by Hosea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvQRd7D9BDM )
Just to throw it out there, “helpmate” is not a Biblical term, but “helper” is (Genesis 2:18, 2:20). This is not a condescending or negative term. Why? Consistently throughout the Bible, God is referred to as our helper (Psalm 30:10, 54:4, 118:7, Hebrews 13:6). One of the Holy Spirit’s titles is actually “Helper” (John 14:26, 15:26, 16:7). It’s not because men are better and women are simply there to help them achieve their goals…it’s because we as men NEED HELP. Drastically. To function, to do life, whatever. When I help someone, it is because I love and care for them and desire to serve them and consider them greater than myself. Is that not the heart of Jesus Christ? To love the Lord and others and consider them greater than ourselves, man and woman alike? In this sense, the term “helper” ought not be considered a negative title, otherwise we should reject the Holy Spirit as our helper and just let him know we are strong and independent and can do everything on our own.
This obviously doesn’t mean that men ought never to help women or be their “helper” either, but I think the spin placed upon that word is a misconstrued one that should be avoided. We can discuss psychology and sociology all day long, but if any of that is in some way contradicting Scripture, I’ve got a problem with that.
P.S. Complimentarianism doesn’t just mean the wife stays home and pops out babies. And, for the record, I know a great number of non-brainwashed women who love Jesus and are independent (whatever the heck that means in this twisted up American generation) who believe that being a mother and taking care of her children is the greatest thing she could ever do for this world and that it is a wonderful and holy thing bestowed upon her by the Lord. I think it’s a bit low to take cheap shots at any woman who isn’t out getting a major work career or traveling the world or doing all of this solo-uno-womano things that some seem to think makes a woman a real woman. To call them blind, misguided, or weak, is an unfair generalization that will run us into all heaps of trouble.
Dianna
I don’t think it’s quite right to reduce male/female differences to, in effect, “the only difference is genitalia; culture is the rest.”
Even if there are statistical outliers (Transgender-types), there are certain definite broad statements that can be made about men and women that seem to relate to the workings of the mind, and which are therefore not reducible to genitalia (thus, I think your brush-aside of Xenoglossa’s question wasn’t warranted).
This is not to assert superiority of one mind to another, only difference (which wold also suggest different optimal function). Once again, these things can only be taken in broad brushstrokes. Outliers will occur.
One obvious empirical fact related to this are the differences in the sorts of intuitions men and women have, and the fact that we can notice those differing intuitions.
This indicates that any normative account of gender that says “men and women are precisely equal but with different sex organs” is in error.
And finally (I realize I have hardly addressed all your points, and you make a number of good ones which I agree with. As a starter I’ve always found the term “helpmate” a bit provincial), I must say that I think your argument re: men protecting women is wrongheaded.
You seem to be operating off an axiom of along the lines of “anyone who protects another person must do so by that person’s consent.” That seems indefensible to me.
Thank you for the great discussion on this, guys. I’m glad this article has spurned a great debate (though it does seem a bit group against one right now…).
I’ll try addressing you both here (and I apologize for the behemoth comments…it happens).
Cory -
Thank you for your comments re: ezer or “helper.” The thing is – if the most common usage of the term is in God helping man, then the conclusion of complmentarian theology, especially as pictured in the Eldredges’ system, makes even less sense, because it implies in the converse that man has certain things that God does not (this is the basis of complementarian thought: men and women have separate qualities that fit together to form the whole). So if we accept “helper” in the definition that complementarian theology offers, then that leaves a confusing question of what it means when God is a helpmate, in the sense that he complements the man? If that makes sense. It seems to me that the definition cannot go both ways.
You write: “This obviously doesn’t mean that men ought never to help women or be their “helper” either, but I think the spin placed upon that word is a misconstrued one that should be avoided.”
But it does imply, in practice and in theory, that it would be unusual for a man to take on the “helpmate” role, and therefore becomes condescending.
You also say: “We can discuss psychology and sociology all day long, but if any of that is in some way contradicting Scripture, I’ve got a problem with that.”
I don’t quite see how citing an experienced author on gender studies is contradicting Scripture.
Re: Popping out babies.
I do not know where I implied that women who believe complementarianism are weak or blind or misguided. I merely said that all my experiences with complementarianism have been negative – my female cousins who subscribing to complementarianism did not pursue things that they loved, are not using degrees they earned, and all have multiple children under the age of 7. Their assumption when they talk to me is that this is the life that I, as a Christian woman, must also pursue. That is what I have seen on as complementarianism in practice – women who sacrifice other life goals in order to have children, and to have a lot of them. Please don’t read this as me looking down on them; I’m not. I realize that being a mother is a wonderful thing, and it is what some women are good at and meant for. But to create a theology that is centered around being a good wife and a good mother as the duty for women is…well, wrong.
Complementarianism, in practice and in my experience, deems “mother” and “wife” as the most important role a woman can play, which leaves out of the vast array of women who have no desire to be mothers and would rather spend their time writing and reading books than carrying around a kid. It’s great for those women who are meant to be mothers; and it’s an untenable burden for those who are not. Women are defined not by themselves but by how they relate to the men in their lives – you cannot “complement” something if there is nothing there to complement – and I believe this does a disservice to both men and women.
Daniel:
Please read the article I linked to. It explains that many scientific studies that claim biological differences between men and women actually influence personality or behavior are basically bunk. This part is especially pertinent:
“But that battle is over; it’s nature and nurture. Few scientists (or parents) believe that any child can become anything with the right environment; the child’s own genetic predispositions have something to do with his or her personality and interests.
But if biology itself is not the enemy in the study of gender, biological reductionism still is. The latest version even has a name, “neurosexism”, the use of new technology or the language of neuroscience to support old prejudices and stereotypes. … First, the very differences in behaviour they wish to explain are stereotypes – “women are more empathic than men” – and then any sex differences that turn up on a brain scan are invoked to explain them. But empathy is not a fixed trait, like eye colour. It varies with the situation. When social psychologists observe men and women in different situations where they are given the chance to behave empathically or not, sex differences evaporate. Are women more empathic than men in their dealings with enemies or strangers? Don’t count on it.”
We are disagreeing on the fundamental idea that there can be ANY broad strokes drawn among women or men on any sort of biological or neuroscientific basis. Sure, there are things that genetically pre-dispose many of us to certain conditions (nature) but how we are raised also makes a difference in how we think about the world. And these “differences” are much more varied within one sex than they are between sexes (as I already said). In other words: If you have a group of women and a group of men, you will more likely find differences among how the individual members of the groups behave than between the sexes themselves.
Having any sort of normative idea of gender related to behavior is unsupported by the facts. The things I’m talking about are not outliers but basic studies in personality. Women are no more empathetic than men, women are no more inclined to one type of thinking or another over men. Women are no more inclined to certain roles in life than men. And to imply that those differences in biology are major factors in behavior and therefore serve as a basis for drawing a normative of either gender is to ignore the years of study and scholarship on the topic.
And I don’t quite get your argument on protection? I said exactly what I meant: I don’t mind the “protective” actions of certain men in my life because it occurs under certain conditions and certain ways in which I am okay with. I don’t think that’s wrongheaded at all. Think of it this way: You’ve been reading my writing and we’ve been commenting back and forth for awhile. You know that I can hold my own pretty well. So, let’s say we’re having a conversation in a pub, and things get heated, and one of my guy friends decides to step in and respond in my place, without asking me first, effectively ejecting me from the debate in the name of protecting me from a debate that was getting dangerously close to an argument. Would I be justified in feeling condescended to, or should I merely take his protection as it was offered?
We have these images in our cultural consciousness of the handsome prince running in an protecting the damsel in distress. But when this is read as the norm, as the role of the man, I’m reminded of that scene in Disney’s Hercules when Hercules shows up to rescue Meg from the river demon, and she gets mad at him. (reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUm_G-_6puc, starts at about 1:30) That is how I feel when a man feels the need to “protect” me because he is a man, and that is how I feel when I see it proscribed into theology – protection is something that should be examined on a case by case basis, and decided between the man and the woman involved. Now, if a speeding car was rushing at me and my guy friend pushed me out of the way and saved me without asking my permission first, sure, that’d be fine. But he’d be rescuing me not because he’s the man and that automatically predisposes him to be the best choice for rescue. He’d be rescuing me because he’s my friend and he was there. And to confuse the two is to make a grave error in judgment.
I appreciate your comments, Dianna, and while I still find some discrepancies in our opinions, I know what it’s like to have everybody else disagree with me and gang up against me (trust me, happens all the time…in fact the other day I was told part of my theology was soul-damning…that was fun!
), so I’ll let this one be =) Have a wonderful weekend!
I have to say, there is an element of this discussion that cannot be adequately addressed by those who have not experienced the sacrament of marriage, or have no interest in doing so.
While I do not agree with the book reviewed here, I think Dianna clearly represents the common view of the academic culture. Western science reduces everything, including gender and relationships. But this is a true reductionist view, and not holistic. If you take the studies (which often are inspired by feminist ideologies) at their face value, you miss out on the true nuance and mystery of real world relationships. Western culture is broken and has taught us to deconstruct everything, but gives us only incomplete resources with which to rebuild. Marriage and roles have been deconstructed, but our culture does not provide even adequate answers to the questions of why we marry, and how we are to live together when married.
I think an egalitarian view comes at least partially from a distrust of men. You can talk about equality, and how it is better to have fair roles etc., but when it comes down to it, the underlying belief is that men are not to be trusted. And this is what our culture expects: that men will be unfaithful (not necessarily in a sexual sense). I think the other core belief of our culture in regards to gender roles is that a woman’s success is evaluated in the same flawed way as man’s. This pits domestic relationships against academic/corporate success (often driven by selfish ambition). Men should be evaluated in the same way as women: what are your relationships like? What do your friends say about your? What is your family life like? Are you a good father? Do you love your wife? Sadly, our culture does not provide very many good examples of this, and the image of Christ and the Church as our model for marriage is rarely reflected.
The clear fact is that women are the ones equipped to bear children. That puts them in the awkward position of having a well defined role of child-bearer and, for lack of a better word, nurse. Different cultures value (or devalue) these roles, and ours is ambivalent. Our culture is vast, with many subcultures. Academia in particular casts a condescending eye on these natural roles of women. Study after study tries to redefine what it means to be a woman, with an implied goal of superiority over men, at least, that is how the journals and popular media spin them. Many churches elevate those roles to a point where there is a belief that no woman can be fulfilled outside of those roles.
Now, let’s talk about singleness… We have a cultural divide between the typical Christian subculture view and that of the professional or academic view. In many churches, staying single is subtly stigmatized with the underlying assumption that there is something wrong with you for still being single. While in some professional circles, marriage is tantamount to failure, and the poor engaged professional will have to allay the fears of their peers that the work will not suffer. Both are wrongheaded, and belay an underlying misbelief (if you will). St. Paul makes it clear that being single is not only a viable option, but in many cases, preferred. If a woman has no burning desire to be a wife or mother, she should not be coerced into doing either. Although, if her sexual/relational drive is such that she longs for such intimacy, it would be wise to reconsider.
Let’s look at marriage in a little different way. As Christians, our calling is to become Christlike, holy. One path, for some, is marriage. This path is not easier or harder than the path of the celibate Christian, but better suites some. There are some elements of the Christian life that can be learned more intimately through marriage and parenthood, but I would also say the same for celibacy. But… the single person cannot fully understand the experience of the married, and the married person cannot fully understand the experience of the single, even if they move in the same direction, towards God.
Now, all this I say from my own experience, having been married for almost 16 years, and having to learn (and still learning) what it means to be a man, husband, and father along the way.
techSam – thanks for your insights. And if you’ve been married 16 years, you’re my hero.
Dianna
It seems you and I have 2 disagreements. One is about science/psychology, and neither of us has presented sufficient evidence for a knockdown argument. At a later date I’ll get back to you (once I have had time to marshal my sources), but for now will considered things effectively drawn until more reference can be made to the empirical evidence. (I’d do it now but I’m in the midst of a project)
The second is as regards protection, which may be simply a verbal disagreement. When I refer to protecting women, I primarily mean physical protection. You may well agree with me here that it’s silly to say that no man should physically protect a woman unless she consents to that protection. I would only jump into an academic argument to protect someone if they were defending a position I hold and getting beaten at it. In arguments, as I see it, people are not being defended, positions are.
This is very long. If you’re lazy, skip to the bottom. The following is not an argument, so don’t feel like you have to search for a thesis to affirm or rebut. Just some info from my background in psych, if only for other readers following this, as I feel both Dan and Dianna have made a couple of overly-broad claims about gender studies…
Studies have proven again and again that comparing the genders in countless things–physical strength, aptitude for math, language skills, etc–will result in two overlapping bell curves. To what degree these curves overlap and in what way depends greatly on what we are measuring.
In many cases you need a large sample to show this. For instance, on average, men are better at math and women are better at language skills. But if you took a group of, say, ten people, who knows what you will get in terms of who possess what talents. The generalization is only true when you are talking about a large sample. In something like this, Dianna is right that differences among people of the same gender varies widely enough that you can’t make reliable assumptions, and you can’t label a talkative man or a math-loving woman as “abnormal.” However, this should not imply that the observed differences between males and females as groups aren’t both numerous and interesting. Here’s a few off the top of my head:
Males are more common in both the genius and retard categories as measured by IQ tests. I find this interesting because this does not appear to be conditioned—when you test a kid and he ends up as either mentally handicapped or has off-the-charts intelligence, it’s hard to argue that society conditioned either. On average, there is no discernable difference in intelligence between either sex. But it does call into question the idea that sex has zero bearing on the brain.
Other differences between the sexes are more noticeable. Take for example MBTI personality results. Among other things, it measures whether you are first and foremost a “thinker” or a “feeler.” (Note that this does NOT measure intelligence or imply that thinkers are smarter or that feelers lack emotion. Google MBTI for more info.)
The test itself is gender-neutral, but shows that 2/3 of men come out as “thinkers” and 2/3 of women come out as “feelers.” This shows a significant difference in tendency, yet 2/3 is a long way from 1, meaning it is not by any stretch weird for a male to be a “feeler” or a female to be a “thinker.” So, while it would not be correct to say “women are feelers,” it would be correct to say “if I meet a random woman, she is most likely a feeler.” Twice as likely, in fact.
Another such situation is observation of body language. Women are, on average, better at naturally picking up body language (without deliberately trying) and having those observations influence their judgments about the person (many people think this is the explanation for womens’ intuition. However, gay men as well as artists, doctors, or men in what we might consider more nurturing professions tend to pick up on body language the same way women do.
Again, speaking only in terms of averages:
-men are better at single complex tasks while women are better at multitasking.
-men are more likely to have speech impediments or sexual disorders
-women are far more likely to have anxiety disorders
-schizophrenia affects men far more severely than women
-there appears to be more interaction between opposite sides of a woman’s brain (strictly speaking, the meaning of this is unknown)
-men see better in bright light, women see better in the dark
-men have greater eye-hand coordination but women have greater fine muscle control
In short, countless studies suggest:
the behaviors or thinking of men and women overlap significantly.
As groups, the behaviors of thinking of men and women show statistically significant differences.
From this I draw two conclusions:
1. It is still in question to what degree nurture affects gender and in what ways, it is probably not provable unless we want to lock people in sensory deprivation chambers for their entire lives and then make them take a bunch of tests. But there are many psychological differences in trend which are not likely to be conditioned by society (speech impediments, number of genius or handicapped children, severity of schizophrenia).
2. If you make a guess about a stranger informed only by gender studies, you are probably right, but possibly wrong. It seems to me it’s wisest to be aware of gender differences without betting too much on an assumption about a particular person or trying to convince them they are broken if they don’t think and feel like the majority of their sex about any given thing.
In addition to the studies Justin mentions, there was actually one done where groups of children of both sexes were given dolls to play with. The majority of girls immediately took the dolls and cradled them, gave them bottles, dressed them, etc. The majority of boys took the dolls and pretended they were guns and started shooting each other. The kids were of a variety of ages, so some degree of nurturing could have existed, but not in all cases.
Interesting discussion. One thread that’s been bothering me a bit on this post and others is the whole “saying Jesus is your boyfriend is creepy and childish” thing. If thinking of God in this way makes you uncomfortable, that is fine, but that doesn’t mean that some women can’t connect with God through this metaphor. As already noted, the Bible uses sexual and marital language when referring to the relationship between God and Israel (see Ezekiel 16) and God and the church.
It’s hard to fathom how deeply God loves us. It may help some Christians’ understanding of this love to think of the most intense human relationship on Earth and then compare this to their relationship with Christ, knowing all the while that their union with Christ is even more exquisite.
Also, bear in mind that nuns use exactly the language of marriage to symbolize their unique relationship to Christ. Check out Oprah’s coverage of a vows ceremony for women from a convent in Ann Arbor, Michigan:
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Marrying-Christ-Video
and:
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Nuns-Celebrate-Their-Marriage-to-Jesus-Video
There’s even a wedding cake at the ceremony’s reception
Lauren,
This is, of course, only true of monastics in the Roman Catholic tradition, and a very late development at that. The Orthodox monastic tradition knows nothing of the sort.
John
We note that Catholic nuns are not part of the general marriagable public [and hence guys concerns re: competition and exclusion don't apply]. Given their special situation, they are allowed certain metaphorical liberties that are creepy in the general populace [I'm romantically connected to Jesus until I dump him for some other guy?]
Also, modern American nuns have a tendency towards soppishness (there was a recent Vatican investigation into American nuns with concerns that they were not taking their vows seriously. A wedding cake would seem prima facie justification for that investigation). They are not representative of Catholic nuns as a whole (across the ages).
John and Dan:
I grant you the points about the nuns. My main argument, however, is that just because someone else’s way of relating to God makes no sense to you, and even if it makes you uncomfortable, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong. Remember, this is just a metaphor – a tool some girls use to understand their relationship with Christ. Ultimately, the way someone relates to God is not really anybody else’s business.
Basically: it makes sense to her. It doesn’t have to make sense to you.
“My main argument, however, is that just because someone else’s way of relating to God makes no sense to you, and even if it makes you uncomfortable, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong…Basically: it makes sense to her. It doesn’t have to make sense to you.”
Fair enough.
If it doesn’t have to make sense to me, then there should be no problem with me calling it nonsensical or stupid. If we’re going to make ‘sensible’ a relative term (which appears to be the move you’re making), then we have no disagreement. She has said “Jesus is my boyfriend – Yay,” while I have said “Jesus is your boyfriend – Boo.” But since all we are doing is expressing our feelings, no harm/no foul.
Everyone is certainly entitled to his or her own opinion. I called “foul” because the vibe I was getting from many of the comments was that the “boyfriend” position was per se invalid, i.e. “This is stupid” (objective) rather than “I think this is stupid” (subjective).
In any case, I thought someone ought to point out that the opposite opinion is legitimate.
Well, I think the claim was/remains “this is stupid” (objectively)
However, when you employed a form of relativism to defend it, the question of objective stupidity was discarded. If it’s within a relative domain, then neither of us can say what it is objectively. So we’re left expressing our feelings.
My claim remains that the “boyfriend” position is objectively stupid. By counterarguing that it is not stupid even if it is impossible for me to recognize it as such, you haven’t answered the charge, you’ve dodged it into a relative domain where genuine disagreement is impossible
In effect:
Me: “Jesus is your boyfriend” is stupid
You: There’s no fact of the matter, so a girl who likes that position can take it
Me: Fine, but I still think it’s stupid
This argument seems to me, lies fundamentally in what you believe about Genesis. Did Adam sin or Eve Sin? Did Adam’s silence cause Eve to sin? Was this an authority issue or an issue of who happened to be being picked on? Did the order of handing out curses have anything to do with gender or authority? Do you believe that there is a real devil?
There is this guy who is a real creationist zealot who says that every aspect of our faith lies in what we believe about Genesis – specifically chapters 1-11. I was skeptical about that bold of a statement, but have come to realize this to be quite true- especially in reading this blog and run of comments.
It would be interresting to see how one would conclude if belief in this part of the Bible were literal. I am sure that that is a whole different subject. Perhaps one worthy of a new article.
Please note that I have really enjoyed the intellectual sparring. We are to spur one another to good. I believe this is real good. I have more personal experience that relates to this gender subject, but would like to have an idea about what everyone believes about the fundamentals a I can guess but really don’t want to make assumptions.
Shirrel, it’s wise that you don’t make assumptions. We welcome your comments, though. In arguments I often ask what other people believe, or ask them to clarify their own position. Otherwise the two people arguing aren’t really talking about the same things.
However, I’m not sure what Genesis 1 has to do with the present argument. Perhaps it’s related, but I don’t see the relationship. As for the fall, it seems to me it was the fault of both Adam and Eve, and they both proceeded to blame someone else.
Also, if we view Adam and Eve as individuals, then even if you said “it’s eve’s fault” that’s not the same thing as saying “it was Woman’s fault,” as if all women should be blamed for the stupidity of a particular one.
Perhaps you could explain–how do you think gender debates are legitimately related to what people believe about Genesis?
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Captivating. Just seeing the word now sends shivers down my spine – and NOT in a good way!! Someone suggest I read this book a few years ago when I was going through a time of trying to work out what in my life was ‘me’ and what was learnt through circumstances. They felt my ‘tough, unemotional, unfeminine, exterior’ was due to the circumstances I faced when younger. Ha! They were so wrong. Reading through this book in order to once again find my ‘little girl’ just confirmed that she had never existed – well – that is – not in the way described. Never had I wanted to be a princess waiting to be rescued! Never. Give me a challenge and someone to rescue though and I would have been in my element. BMX, football, and tree climbing = me. Pretty dresses, dolls, and hair bows = things that made me run away!!
Reading through the book, I couldn’t help but shout ‘you haven’t got a clue who I am!’ (as if that would make any difference!!). Thankfully I was and am secure enough in who I am that in the end I could put the book down (actually I threw it away!), smile at the ignorance within it, and move on. However, if I were confused, or insecure at the time – this book could have been hugely damaging.
What makes me any less of a girl just because I never wanted to be a princess? Did I miss the verse that mentions Eve dreaming about being a princess and waiting to be rescued by the brave and adventurous Adam? Hmmmm.
Thanks for sending me this link, and reminding me of two things; firstly, my huge dislike of the book, and secondly, of the fact that we are ALL different, and cannot be put neatly into a ‘pink’ and ‘blue’ box – and God is ok with that!
Jo
Jo