If you’ve read here any length of time, you know that I am unwilling and unable at this juncture to label myself as either a complementarian or an egalitarian when it comes to women. I won’t get into all the whys and wherefores at this point. But I did want to share an interesting website I found this evening while doing some surfing and researching.
Gifted for Leadership: A Community of Christian Women has a lot of interesting items to peruse. One of the many I appreciated was The One Necessary Thing. From the post:
This coming March, my husband and I will welcome our first child into the world. The past four months have brought surprises around every corner, but none so surprising as the day I discovered the stereotypes that prevail in my own mind about women, mothers, and daughters.
Early one morning, my husband found me sobbing in our living room. He anxiously asked me what was wrong and I sobbed, “I’m going to be a terrible mother.” The night before, during an inevitable bout of insomnia, I had happened upon the blog of a young mother living somewhere in middle America. This mother’s blog was filled with accounts of life with her two daughters. Days spent contentedly making crafts together. Handmade Easter dresses and matching baskets. Little Princess mermaid parties complete with handmade mermaid outfits and pink party favors. Shopping and personalized embroidered clothing.
I’ve spent 23 of my 30 years pursuing some kind of education. I’m much more comfortable in lecture halls and libraries than I am in craft stores and at parties. So when I read this mother’s blog, I was overwhelmed by the possibility I was not fit for motherhood. I don’t like shopping. I don’t like pink. I don’t know the first thing about party favors. How in the world would I be competent to raise a daughter?
But when the emotion of the moment was over, I was shocked at the limited scope of my thinking. For a few hours, the motherhood I read about in that blog seemed to be the only way to raise a daughter. As someone who has chosen to devote her life to the study of leadership and women’s experiences in leadership, I should have known better, but on first reaction, I didn’t.
Don’t miss the rest of it. It is really good.
And if you want to read more, you might try this one that has an interesting discussion in the comments. (And I’m not necessarily endorsing all the content.)
RetroWomen: The Rise of Gender Fundamentalism
2008 Election Wrap-Up: Vent, Cry, Throw Up, Or Otherwise
Thank you for posting this and making me really think. Mothering is SO HARD, especially in this culture. I tell mothers all the time (in my work with new parents as a doula and educator) that they are the right parents for their baby, and their baby is the right child for them. Still, there is so much self-doubt about being the “right kind of mother”. And as far as women’s roles in life and the church, I realize that although I love our church (a Calvary Chapel), I chafe with frustration at how women seem to be marginalized even when they serve alongside their husbands, doing just as much pastoral care. I’m not so concerned about titles (should “Pastor Joe’s” wife be addressed as “Pastor Jennifer”?), but I am frustrated by the implication that the women’s contributions are somehow less. And I’m frustrated by my subconscious response to this, which is to avoid becoming involved in ministry and instead exercise my gifts in the world. I have some introspection and prayer ahead of me. Thank you for making me think!
Thank you so much for posting this. I feel this way so much of the time!
I just finished reading the second article, the one you linked at the bottom, and…oh, I don’t know, Sallie. For instance, the issue with Southern Baptist Theological Seminary teaching homemaking courses is probably also evidence that our culture has lost certain arts, arts which used to be handed down within the family. I know that, for instance, sewing was something that wasn’t passed down within my own family because a certain matriarch wanted her daughters to get jobs like men. I would like to know how to sew, and I’m not sure why this is such a problem. What I think is strange, to some extent, is that we have reached a point in the culture where we can’t pass these things down (I mean, cookie baking?? Really??) within the family and are instead going to pay a college tuition for it. Economically speaking, this is terribly inefficient.
I know that you and I have a difference of opinion on gender roles in general, but when I read the article, that wasn’t really what I gathered. It was like both sides didn’t really “get” what it means to be fully human. For Driscoll to wrap manhood all up in color schemes, and for Morgenthaler to minimize the tasks of motherhood is to really fail to see the big picture, in my mind. For most generations of the past, the economy allowed the family to participate as a unit. I think of what you and David do as a pretty good example. The men and women might have had pretty defined roles, but each contribution was equally necessary for survival. I think our modern technological world is at the root of a lot of the angst we all feel–this world offers very little truly meaningful work for ANYONE.
And now I’m rambling… đł
Ana and Katy – I’m glad you found the links interesting.
Ana – What you wrote about women’s contributions in the church being marginalized and exercising your gifts elsewhere resonated strongly with me. I feel very similarly.
Brandy – I agree that it is sad the women have to pay college tuition to learn how to bake cookies. Wouldn’t their time and money be better spent learning theology and maybe learn to follow a recipe on say the weekend?
I appreciated one of the comments to the article that brought up why does it always have to be presented as one extreme or the other (solely homemaker who would never consider usurping her husband’s authority by working outside the home or else professional outside the home who despises the home arts)? Why can’t a woman be engaged in the marketplace and use her talents outside of the home and still also value the domestic arts and participate in those that interest her?
It does seem to me that there is a growing movement within parts of the church to make a woman being a homemaker as almost an addition to the Gospel. In some circles I think a woman who is not solely committed to being at home is seen as suspect. This is sad. So I work at home part-time. That doesn’t make me any more godly than my friend who works part-time as an engineer for GM. And it doesn’t make me any more godly than the women who read here who work full-time out of the home.
Re: the first article (which also ties into the second)… One of the concerns I have had for a number of years about the push for Christian women to do it all (homemaking, homeschooling, large families, etc.) is my deep concern about their spiritual lives and how I know ***some*** of them must suffer deeply because of all they are trying to do. Yes, I know that some women can thrive in those situations. But I suspect that more than a few have been sold a bill of goods wrapped up as a requirement of the Gospel and are in desperate straights as they have no idea how to walk with Christ when they are completely overwhelmed trying to live the life this prominent blogger or speaker or whoever has put out as ***the only way to live that is biblical***.
Just recently a woman left a comment on Amy Scott’s blog about this very topic and it nearly made me weep to read it. The woman was on the verge of suicide trying to deal with her large family and homeschooling. It broke my heart. What is ***the one necessary thing*** in the life of a Christian woman? It is to sit at the feet of Jesus and follow Him. It is not being a homemaker or homeschooling or having a large family. And any good thing that draws us away from Christ – no matter how noble or important or seemingly biblical – is not a good thing. I realize I’m treading on dangerous ground here, but I can’t help but think there are a lot of women out there who would be better off with smaller families and sending their children to school and having the strength to walk with Christ than trying to do everything the latest book or ministry is telling them to do.
Well, now I’m rambling. This is such a huge topic that it is hard to even know where to start and stop!
I think the problem with the Baptist Seminary is that the homemaking classes are open to women only. My own brother was a bit pampered at home as a boy and ended up having to take a class called Bachelor Survival when he got out on his own. In this day and age BOTH genders need to be more educated about real life. We plan to teach our own daughter how to change a tire when the time comes. If we have a son he will learn to cook. These classes seem to be a not-so-subtle hint that the home is a place for the woman only…woman’s work. Our own home has gone through some changes in the past year. My husband became unemployed and I took a teaching job. My husband cooks, runs errands and cares for our baby fantastically. In my eyes, he is a hero. Yet for Driscoll and some others…I’m sure he would not be considered “man” enough. I can only say that my man knows who he is in Christ and does not feel the need to do some of the silly things others do to prove their masculinity. When you know…you don’t always have to show!
Sallie,
Mmmm…theology classes during the week and recipe practice on the weekends. Sounds like my kind of life!
I haven’t totally figured out my complete view of the work issues per se, but the ideal woman of Proverbs seemed to have a pretty good business head on her shoulders, plus idleness is generally frowned upon, so I think you are pretty safe on this one, sister. đ
Thank you for your thorough thinking in the comments. Gave me some more to chew on…
I don’t know what happened to me. I am not sure if I grew thicker skin, or what…perhaps being out of the homeschooling circles changed me…perhaps leaving the SBC changed me….
But whatever it was I find now that I really don’t care what people think. I’m a feminist. I am a Christian. I am both. I can be both. I can be good at both.
I’ve just kinda shoved this topic into the back part of my brain. I no longer get upset when I read Doug Phillips or things like that…I just kind of smile and know that I’m comfy in my own skin now and that Jesus loves me, just as I am.
I wish I had the brain power to actually pull together a thought. Sadly, I’m a bit low on that today.
I’ve followed and enjoyed the conversations on this topic for a very long time now.
The clearest thing that I’ve come away with is that with both sexes there is a need for a ‘title’.
It’s like if we don’t have an official title from within whatever religious community we belong to, we feel as if we do not fit in.
One day, it just came out of the blue for me. There was no audible ‘voice’ but I knew this.
NOBODY gets it all. We are all incomplete here. Be who you are, use your gifts, and love people.
So I started with my family.
Sallie,
I think you and I are about in the same place along the gender continuum. I have been reading Wade Burleson’s blog for a while now and have really grown to appreciate his appreciation for women and their callings in service to the Lord.
Here is a link to a keynote address he recently gave and you can also read the transcript which he provides. This brother is a true brother, one who holds to the inerrancy of the Word of God and the importance of loving one another, especially his sisters in Christ.
Karen
http://kerussocharis.blogspot.com/2009/08/personal-confession-public-challenge.html