Lori (see comment 58960) said,

Recently, I’ve seen headship writings that say husbands are supposed to respect their wives.

Does ‘respect’ include having an equal say in the family decision making?

Of course not. It just means that he should listen to his wife, and then make up his mind about what he’s going to do.

See comment 59333.

As a survivor of childhood abuse, my first thought was how perfectly these teachings prime women to be victims and men to be attackers. Anyone else think that? Masculinity is defined by aggression and control, especially control of women, and femininity by submission and compliance (and now to any man she comes across!). Abusers will be quite comfortable with this arrangement.

Egalitarians have been trying to point this out for years. This website demonstrates that headship marriages have much higher rates of abuse than do other types of marriage. It also points to how headship couples have higher rates of general dissatisfaction with their marriages.

I love this quote from the above article.

‘By religion, Jewish and born-again Christians have the highest divorce rates at 30% and 27% respectively, followed by other Christians at 24%. Even more revealing and disturbing is the finding that atheists and agnostics have the lowest incidence of divorce at 21%. Why is this? Spokesperson Ron Barrier for American Atheists offers some reasons why he thinks this is so. He says, “Atheist ethics are of a higher calibre than religious morals,” and “with Atheism, women and men are equally responsible for a healthy marriage. There is no room in Atheist ethics for the type of ‘submissive’ nonsense preached by Baptists and other Christian and/or Jewish groups. Atheists reject, and rightly so, the primitive patriarchal attitudes so prevalent in many religions with respect to marriage.”’

It’s pretty sad when women are treated better by non-believers than by men who supposedly follow the God of love.

Quite a while ago, I read an article in Christianity Today written by a headship pastor. He acknowledged the abuse going on in headship homes but said there was nothing wrong with patriarchal teachings. It was simply a matter of educating men better so that they love their wives like Christ. It blows me away that headship men cannot admit the obvious: a belief system that teaches men they have all the authority over women is naturally going to attract men who have no problem enforcing that authority. No amount of education is going to convince that man that he’s wrong. Just ask the victims in a battered women’s shelter.

Although I’ve never been a ‘girly-girl’ (no offense meant, as I have a close friend who is), I now feel more free to wear earrings, to dress in something other than a t-shirt and jeans, etc. since I am no longer in that environment that promotes women as less than human.

Thank you for speaking. If I had a quarter for every time I was told that I was ‘thinking too much’ or ‘reading too much into things…’ Although it’s sad, it’s also good to know that I am not alone in experiencing the patriarchal Christian environment in one of the ways that I did.

And, thank you. Thank you to the women who posted about abuse. How do we get this message through to others, when they have and promote the idea that that the violence is not a result of complementarian beliefs and practice, but a failure in the implementation thereof? There is so much at stake here, and it is so easy to become disheartened.

James Dobson (a prominent Evangelical) preaches (though he actually is a psychologist) that women ‘bait’ men into hitting them so they can show all those around what a ‘bad guy’ their husband really is (he also says that women manipulate their husbands and make them abuse them so they will have grounds for divorce). Is he implying that the victim has more power than the victimizer (i.e. she controls him)? Statistics don’t back this up, but the church believes it because James Dobson says it. In reality, women hide their bruises and make excuses for their husbands’ abuse, that’s what really happens.

Open dialogue is what is needed in our day. Christians in particular should be able to discuss the reality of abuse in the everyday lives of women and children but, sadly, most victim’s experiences are rejected and discounted - i.e. ‘you’re just making this up,’ ‘what did you do to make him so mad?,’ or, my favorite, ‘it can’t really be that bad.’

How do we tell young men, for instance, that they have authority over women (even her speech!) but that rape is wrong? It’s inconsistent. The message being driven home is what matters. Lip service to ‘abuse is a sin’ means nothing in the context of a culture that reinforces an abusive mentality. This message rises loud and clear above the complementarian cry ‘we respect women though!’

These values - touted as Christian(!) - are the same ones in any violent or oppressive scheme. One set of peoples are trained to consider another set as less than them, which makes it easier to think of them as objects, which makes violence more acceptable - indeed it is the natural and inevitable extension of this belief.

How dangerous it is to promote these ideas, even if it seems innocent enough, shoved into a book on dating between good boys and good girls.

It’s ironic, but I actually became more feminine after I got married. Before that, I was a fire-breathing feminist. I always wore jeans, had short hair, was aggressive, etc. I was wondering about the change, and a very wise friend said it was my egalitarian husband. Now that being feminine was no longer a stigma, a symbol of oppression that I felt I had to fight against because of what it represented, I was free to be myself. Now I feel free to be both masculine and feminine. I love pink, but I also love sports. I love shopping, but I also love a good debate about politics. Now that I’m not pigeonholed as one thing or the other, I feel a lot freer and more content with my life.

I was taught that being a feminist was a sin, but I knew that being feminine wasn’t a good thing either. It meant that my concerns and ideas were immediately second-class, if not instantly ignorable. It made me a target for mistreatment. It made me something less, and it wrecked my relationship with God. Who would want that?

Instead, I tried to be as asexual as possible. Unfortunately, that’s hard to do with a curvy build and a conviction against wearing hair too short. Wearing glasses and being either a tomboy or as nondescript in appearance as possible did help, but I never made it to being SNL’s Pat. Doing that kept me safer than being feminine but at a cost to my identity. Who would want that?

It was biblical equality that finally gave me permission to be feminine. Now I can wear a skirt, like pink, and still be free to be myself. Getting married makes me want to be feminine even more, but without giving up the things that attracted my husband to me in the first place. My husband likes having a trustworthy wife who can take care of business and doesn’t need him to watch out for every little thing. It leaves us more time to love each other and enjoy each other’s company, and who wouldn’t want that?

Recently, I’ve seen headship writings that say husbands are supposed to respect their wives.

Does ‘respect’ include having an equal say in the family decision making?

The other thing that disturbs me is that books promoting these soft, patriarchal views (in our bookshop at least) are the most prominently displayed and vigorously advertised books. In contrast, other viewpoints such as egalitarianism or mutual submission are treated derisively or as out and out heresy. That’s depressing.

I remember years ago I found a copy of Loren Cunningham’s book Why Not Women? in a mainstream Christian bookstore. I am still convinced that this was a God-thing. Not only did it start me on my journey to egalitarianism, but to this day I have not found another egalitarian book in a Christian bookstore. (Insert eerie music here…)

Karen (see comment 57572) said,

I also find myself getting frustrated when I see books about love and respect; about how a husband needs to be respected and a wife needs to be loved. Don’t we each need to have, and give, a healthy dose of both these things?

Recently, I’ve seen headship writings that say husbands are supposed to respect their wives. However, the insidious thing about this teaching is that ‘respect’ does not mean ‘equal.’ You can have respect for someone who is lesser than you - for instance, you may respect the foe you defeat on the battlefield. So nothing has really changed. Men still have the authority and can do what they want. It’s another classic example of Big Brotherism - hiding a harsh truth under soft language.

Babs (see comment 57673) said,

I am utterly, utterly tired of people telling me that despite all the evidence to the contrary, my real, deep, inner self is a soft, pink, yielding, giggling, emotional, relational, and childish woman who really just wants a man to make her complete. And, once I just submit (after, never before) I will realize how this fulfills my deepest need.

It’s ironic, but I actually became more feminine after I got married. Before that, I was a fire-breathing feminist. I always wore jeans, had short hair, was aggressive, etc. I was wondering about the change, and a very wise friend said it was my egalitarian husband. Now that being feminine was no longer a stigma, a symbol of oppression that I felt I had to fight against because of what it represented, I was free to be myself. Now I feel free to be both masculine and feminine. I love pink, but I also love sports. I love shopping, but I also love a good debate about politics. Now that I’m not pigeonholed as one thing or the other, I feel a lot freer and more content with my life.

I refuse to act fearful, childish, silly, shy, submissive, stupid, or needy. I refuse to mold my life and character to try to fulfill your dreams, make you happy, or give you children.

Unfortunately, as I said in the above post, many women feel that they have to act this way in return for earning the love and protection of the men in their life - first their father and then their husband. That’s why I’m so eternally glad that the Lord brought me a man who doesn’t need a woman to act this way. I remember when we were going through a major crisis a couple of years back. My husband wanted to make one decision, but I had real misgivings and told him I wanted to do something else. Turns out if we had followed his way it would have been a disaster. He actually said when it was over, ‘I’m so glad you’re not one of those submissive wives who’s afraid to speak up! And, I’m glad I can trust your opinion without having to do it all myself!’

LMcC (see comment 57810) said,

I’ve been on both sides of the hierarchical/egalitarian divide when it comes to dating. Better, I’ve been on both sides with the same man. I’ve seen for myself the difference in his behavior and mine when I stood face-to-face with him as opposed to when I tried to submit like my church told me I should. I thought about posting details, but let’s just say that biblical equality requires a man to treat a woman much better than hierarchicalism ever did, and it requires both of us to pay more attention to our spiritual lives than hierarchicalism ever did.

I remember before we got married, I told my husband that I wanted him to be the ‘spiritual head of our household,’ because that’s what I thought men were supposed to do. Once we settled into marriage, though, turns out we had no clue what that meant. Praying for our marriage? I can do that. Leading devotions? I can do that. Sit back and let him make all the decisions? I’m definitely not that type of personality. So now we regard each other as full partners, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. When I read the writings of headship couples and the wives talk about how they swallowed their feelings and went along with their husbands even though they disagreed, I think ‘There but for the grace of God…’

No, hierarchical lurkers, it does not mean that egalitarian women respect their men any less. If anything, we give even more respect to these godly men courageous enough to embrace biblical equality.

Amen! It takes a lot more courage to treat your wife as an equal than to always need to have authority over her. I respect my husband more than most of the headship men I read about.

Centuries ago the church taught that women were to be controlled, closely monitored, and regulated because of their weak constitutions and limited mental capacities. They believed that women were more easily deceived, more carnal, and more sinful. Women were seen as ‘unclean’ by virtue of menstruation and childbirth. And, the church fathers didn’t mince words. There was no talk of ‘loving servant leadership,’ just control and rulership. Martin Luther reintroduced justification by faith alone apart from works but he forgot about agape love; love for God, and love for your neighbor, which are the fulfillment of the Law. The point that I am trying to make is that I guess the church has changed its attitude toward women. It now encourages a ‘soft patriarchy’ where the men still rule but the fact of their rule is not as pronounced. They can’t outright call Christian women stupid, sinful, or more carnal – women now have access to the Bible and can read it for themselves. So, a different strategy has to be implemented – the women got too smart.

That’s exactly it. Twentieth century women grew out of patriarchy. In order to keep control of the rest, men who believed in it had to make their women believe that there was nothing really negative about it and that it was actually good for them. Your husband loves you and as long as you stick to your role, he’ll protect and provide for you. It’s a simple trade-off. As Patricia Gundry pointed out in her excellent book Woman Be Free, the implied threat is that if you don’t stick to your role - if you become ‘unfeminine’ - then you don’t deserve protection. For many women, they’re happy to make the trade-off. Just do what you’re supposed to do and in return you get love and safety. I personally don’t think it’s much different from the days of slavery/segregation.

The church and society have always trained young men to be competent and self assured while instructing girls to be dependant and passive.

That’s also true. Just the other day I was reading a column in The Times, the British national newspaper. The author pointed out that women in politics get a lot more respect when they ‘unsex’ themselves and become more masculine. The classic example of this in Britain is, of course, Margaret Thatcher, while in America it would be Hillary Clinton. The implied message is that women (i.e. ‘femininity’) belong(s) at home, while men (aggressive, dominant) belong in the public sphere.

So, what does this say about Christianity, when it sounds exactly like the world? And, most headship believers wonder why more non-believers are not attracted to the ‘true’ church - why should they be?

I understand exactly where you are coming from. Recently, my husband and I have come to an understanding of ‘Can two walk together, unless they be agreed?’ (Amos 3:3, NKJV).

I attend a church where we have ‘brethren meetings,’ and needless to say, the word ‘brethren’ is not inclusive of women when it concerns church business and affairs. It surprised me that even though I was quite involved in teaching the pre-teens, singing specials, ministering at the nursing home in our community, and visitation I still was not allowed access to ‘brethren meetings.’ It just did not make sense to me. So, my husband and I discussed this at length, and we agreed that if I could not attend these ‘special’ meetings then he would excuse himself also - and he is the Sunday school superintendent. We both came to the conclusion that the exclusion of the women from church business was wrong, not based on how we felt but based on the lack of a set of foundational Scriptures dealing with this issue. We concluded that the teachings that deal with men and women have been shaped and taught in such a way as to make men and women not only the opposite of one another but also in opposition to one another.

I’m thankful that my husband took a stand for what was right, even though it will cause some problems for him (i.e. with the brethren).

You cannot separate God from equity and social justice - they are aspects of his divine character.

‘He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly [what is right], and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?’ (Micah 6:8, KJV). It doesn’t surprise me that this verse was posed as a question. Godly, Christian men know what is right/good because God has showed them. It will be their refusal to do what is just when it pertains to women/wives that will cut off their blessings, and God will refuse to hear them (see 1 Peter 3:7).

It remains to be seen what our stand for the right will affect in the administration of church affairs, but at least we took a stand together.

When you have done all you know to do, just stand.