On Women’s Roles
Okay, I’ve bitten off way more than I can ever hope to chew with this blog title. But nevertheless, I hope my very quick thoughts will get us all thinking.
First off, I wonder how much my ideas about women and the church are influenced by my culture and how much by the Bible. (And a further clarification: I’m not going to talk about women in leadership in the church right now — that’s just a bit too much for the spare brain power that I have.) What concerns me is that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of thinking women in the church at large. This is the sort of thing that blog groups like Intellectuelle and College girl are seeking to address. It seems to me that in contemporary evangelical subculture many of the “older women” Paul writes to Titus about do well to admonish younger women to “work in the home” and to “love their husbands” but I fear that beyond this there’s not much mentoring going on. (Please do correct me if I’m completely off base — and I do know that this is not the case everywhere and there are many exceptions, I’m just making, perhaps unhelpful, generalisations). That is, the “older women” lead craft nights and host baby showers as well as helping out younger women when it comes to marriage and family, but the Christian life for a woman is not always seen outwith such a framework.
I know it is the case that many women thrive in their role as Christian wives and mothers and although I feel that even if one’s role is a wife and mother (without an outside career) one needn’t live the role, one may fulfil the role without making the role the defining feature of one’s identity. After all, we’re not to live the role of beautiful, perfect, everything’s-perfect-on-the-outside woman and this is easily addressed in Christian subculture — beauty comes from the heart, etc. However the role of wife and mother is held up as the telos of a Christian woman’s idenity in an evangelical environment. The role of Christian wives and mothers is, I believe, essential and it makes sense that the church would stress this aspect of womanhood in relation to the feminist outcry of the last generation. At the same time however, I fear that emphasising these roles to the exclusion of the person is detrimental to Christian women. What if one isn’t sure about ever getting married or having children? What do you do with your church’s single women? What is a girl to think if her worth is wrapped up in her role as a wife or mother? Must all women have as their end goal marriage and family? How do outside interests/career fit in with this? What does the “Christian woman” look like (the Proverbs 31 woman sure juggled a lot more than just 2 roles!)?
I think that the evangelical church would do well to consider some of these questions and view it in light of the whole gospel of God. And I do find it a bit hard when women are content to settle for the role rather than transform the role. A woman as well as a man has been bought by the blood of Christ if she has been redeemed. Here is her worth. Not in a wedding ring or baby nappies.
August 26th, 2005 at 11:58 pm
I do realise of course that a lot of my perspective stems from my own position — a woman married while doing her PhD without any children. I know that if I did have kids, for instance, my perspective might change a bit.
August 29th, 2005 at 8:54 am
Hmm… I just posted a long comment, but I don’t think any of it was very helpful. I can to a degree see where you’re coming from, but I don’t know if that is generally the case. I don’t think, at least in my own experience, especially from the experiences I had before being married, that the roles of a woman aside from family are neglected. I think that family roles are talked of and used for instruction a lot because *most* women will find themselves in a family, and we both know that at least the wife role is a difficult one to fill, and one in which we do need much instruction from the older/wiser. But I don’t think that other roles are necessarily forsaken, and not for single women either. At least not in my experience with the churches and Christian circles I have been exposed to.
I do agree that our worth as a human being, and particularly a woman, ought to be more emphasised in general, but I think that might be the case in anything. We are all taught, men and women alike, about our worth as Christ’s own, but when split into man/woman divisions, I imagine men get the same husband/father lectures as we get wife/mother. I agree that isn’t right, but I disagree that it is one-sided.
So I suppose what I’m saying is, it needs to be around the board that interests other than family are considered, but I’m not agreeing that the family side isn’t just as important or should be emphasised less.
I don’t know if I’ve said anything constructive or right, I’m just trying to flesh out the thought for us both! I’m not really trying to impart any wisdom or even opinion, I’m just kind of thinking about it with you.
August 29th, 2005 at 9:26 pm
Thanks Lori for your comment and for thinking it all through with me; I appreciate it. I guess I just think that the wife/mother card is probably played more in Christian circles than the husband/father card for men. Just a thought. I wonder if it’s just a double standard.
Nevertheless, I’m glad this hasn’t been the case with you and your past experiences though. It is kind of hard to figure out though, being that both of us are residing in the UK which is a whole ‘nuther ball game from American evangelicalism. It’s good to hear your thoughts and please do continue to think it through with me (and others).