Equality of Women.
This is a topic to cause any conversation to get heated…..just like the blog I wrote a few weeks back about honour and headship and leadership.
But here I want to touch on the honour of a woman in the midst of the equality debate.
I have just come across a superb blog article (via a link from Challies.com), about women and their value alongside men….no not just value, but how much a man needs a woman to accomplish and be, all that he was created to be. The article is profound, not just because it states the truth, but because of the ways it states it, and the referencess it quotes from the literature.
Please take the time to read the full article here, but meanwhile here is the final paragraph (emphasis mine):
Woman is the most powerful living force on the globe. She creates, shapes, and sustains human civilization. The first step in weakening her power is to convince her that she must overcome her femininity. This, ironically, is precisely what the most vocal strains of feminism have advocated. Yes, woman should have equality in the workplace, in politics, and in the public square. But to render her more like man in order to accomplish this, and to judge her womanliness a hindrance to her ascendancy, is to get things exactly backwards. It is to treat her as much less than she truly is.
I think this article hits the nail on the head.
We are confusing the 'are' and the 'do' of life.
As I have mentioned before, the Western world who have promoted feminism, are coming from an 'achieved honour' focus culture. They see honour as being derived from what a person 'does'. This is not the time to go into a theological treatise on ascribed and achieved honour in Scripture, but biblically our primary identity is not achieved but ascribed. We did nothing to be born and nothing to be re-born. Once we are born, we then start 'do'-ing, and when we are re-born, we then 'do'. But both only occur because we first 'are'. The 'doing' is the logical and natural outworking of the 'being'.
In trying to escape a mis-placed earthly and cultural honour which ascribed women a lower status, the world's answer seemed to be in the 'new' opportunities of the industrialised world, where women could begin to 'do' what men 'do'.
Femininism was women seeking through achievement, what they believed they were failing to receive through culturally ascribed honour. It is no different here in Africa. Feminism and Feminist theology is strong in our corner of Africa.
But both feminism, and the culture it is rebelling against, are seeking mis-placed honour. It is seeking honour according to the honour codes of fallen creation, of human wisdom and of finite knowledge, instead of finding honour from the Creator and knowing the joy of living according to His plan and purpose.
The world only knew one way to 'overcome' what was thought were the boundaries preventing a woman's honour (spoken about as dignity, equality, respect etc), and that was to overcome the femininity that held her back from 'doing' what men do.
Hoped for honour-gain has become honour-loss
But in seeking such honour by becoming more like a man, we didn't gain honour, we lost it.
We lost the honour of our femininity.
We lost the joy and pleasure of being who the Creator intended us to be.
And as the blog article pointed out, the more society looses feminine women, the more society loses out. We end up with men who can't fully be the men they were meant to be and women who are refusing to be the women they were meant to be.
In fact we as women show how small-minded we are when we say we need to become like men.
For a lock on a door to be functional according to its purpose there has to be both the lock mechanism and a key. Neither one without the other is useful, but neither are anything like each other (except maybe they are both made of metal). For one to say to the other that it must become in shape and activity the same as the other is pure nonsense. They 'achieve' their purpose because they are different and work together acknowledging how the differences are meant to interact. Neither is better than the other, and neither's activity is less important than the other. Each is equal in value, worth, importance, significance and honour.
Identity needs to be rooted in the Creator's truth not the creation's ideas.
We need to develop a strong identity in who we 'are'. And that identity needs to be rooted in who the Creator says we are.
It must not be in what the world says we should look like, or what function we do or don't have, or what earthly heritage we come from. Our identity needs to come from the ascribed honour we have firstly as beings uniquely created in God's image, and then most of all as who we are in Christ.
We must also be careful not to fall for the temptation to try to 're-create' the Creator's design, and re-define issues according to our own wisdom, in order to fit society trends or cultural mores….we can easily run the danger of seeking to be 'approved' by cultural opinion while rejecting God's opinion. On the other hand we should seek God's approval and smile even at the risk of rejection by cultural opinion.
And as women, we need to learn to be content in who God says we are, and who God created us to be.
What we 'do' is not the measure of who we are.
What we 'do' may come from who we 'are', but the honour of identity starts with who we 'are' according to the Creator. It is then and only then, that what we 'do' according to God's plan for us, will also be honourable.
Women will never be equal to men….in what we do.
But guess what?….said another way…..
Men will never be equal to women either, in what they do.
Different doesn't mean despicable
Men and Women are different: our roles are different, our function is different, our strengths are different, our weaknesses are different, our brains are different, our biology is different. We are wonderfully different!
When differences are in accordance with the creativity of the Creator, and not our own notions, 'different' is not something to be avoided, but to be embraced.
We have just had the 2016 Olympics and every race was divided so that men and women do not run in the same race…..this is not because the Olympics treats women as inferior, but because it treats them with consideration and honour.
We don't force 13 year old swimmers to enter the same world championships as 20 year old swimmers.
The Paralympics are not held separately because we despise the disabled, but because we honour them. To force them to run against others without disabilitites is dishonouring them. For a disabled person to refuse to participate in the Paralympics because they see it as discrimiation is to refuse honour and set themselves up for failure and disgrace.
We say things in the West like 'dare to be different' or 'embrace your unique gifts and qualities' or 'don't let anyone else tell you what you should be', and yet women are believing the lie that feminity is an unacceptable 'difference' that we should discard. We have believed the evolution lie that whatever is 'current' is of a higher evolved state and thus better than what went before so whatever 'new' idea comes along must be better for us.
But the lies of the Serpant that started in the Garden are still capturing our minds today.
When our idea of 'better' doesn't match the Creator's perfect design and we deem that the male and female differences are a hindrance to 'advancement' and 'happiness' and 'success', we are on the road of disappointment, delusion and destruction.
Delight in femininity
It's only when we acknowledge and embrace the differences that form the Creator's design, that they can become the very means to our true 'success' as how we were created to be.
It is only as we recognise our Creator (who made us as equal in His sight), and our Redeemer (who in Him we stand equal in His sight), that we will enjoy the fulness of who we are.
Even as Christians we can be tempted to first gain our identity from what we 'do' as seen by others and approved by others around us. But if we take that road, we will set ourselves up for false comparisons….both with other women as well as with men.
False comparisons will steal your contentment and flood you with condemnation.
They will tempt you to want to 'be' who you are not.
They will lure you to live outside the Creator's design. In this age of 'gender confusion' there is lots of temptation to live outside the Creator's design.
But that just sets you up for further heartache and disappointment.
Let's not destroy our true created identity and honour in an effort to run after mis-placed identity and honour.
Women, let's delight and rejoice in our femininity, and rejoice in our God who gave it to us to bring glory to Him and good to the world in which we live!
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