In
America today, the woman is caught in a predicament. In generations past she
was often content to assume the pinnacle role as wife and mother, the heart of
the home in every sense. Nowadays the woman is urged to seek her freedom from
“domestic slavery.”[1] Women, regardless, of
their decision to remain single or marry, are losing their identity with the
traditional established role. This is primarily due to an increase in the
openness and opportunity for women to be career builders outside the home.
It
appears that the American family is adapting to the evolution of the woman’s
role and seems to have adopted the idea that the wife’s earning power is a more
important asset that her abilities as a full-time home manager, mother, and
wife. That idea, whether born of
financial pressures or role awareness, had added earning power and brought
radical change to the family’s economic structure and expectations. However, it
has brought about an alarming change in domestic relationships and a total
restructuring of the traditional American home. Many believe that this will
dissolve the home, as we know it. That belief carries even more validity as we
watch the alarming divorce statistics continue to raise and permeate the
church.
Is
it the main argument of this essay that a woman’s place is exclusively in the
home? Absolutely not. But as Christian men and women, who believe in the
preservation of the family, one must stop and analyze the negative effects of
the modern feminist movement—by religious definition a “self consistent system
aimed at rejection God’s role for women”—in the home and in society today.[2]
Feminism
claims to be the answer to the housewife’s dilemma. Women are captivated by the
freedom that feminist propose. But is this “freedom” biblical? It is the intent
of this article to prove that, unlike the propositions of the feminist movement,
the biblical role of the woman, in regards to the family, is one of
homeworking. To accomplish this, an
examination of the evolution of the feminist movement, its main tenants, and
its impact in society will be presented. In addition, biblical principles will be
considered that may be applied to help Christians successfully cope with the
onslaught against the family. Lastly, a response to feminism will be presented
that establishes the equality of man and woman based on the Creation account
and the imago Dei, and that the
primary biblical role of the woman and/or wife is one of homemaking.
HISTORY OF THE FEMINISM MOVEMENT IN AMERICA
It has been the
goal of many American women to come out from the shadow of the man in search of
unique and independent identity. The roots of the American feminism movement
can be traced back to the post-Revolutionary War era.[3]
Thomas Paine, a spokesman for the Revolution, spoke about the oppression that
women faced during this time. He concluded, “Women were constrained in their desires,
constrained in the disposal of their goods, robbed of freedom and will by laws,
and were slaves of opinion.”[4]
The
women of this era were not allowed to vote, run for political office, make
contracts or enter into any legal relations in their own name. The legal status
of women during this time was defined by a “tradition of English common law
that denied women autonomous legal standing as citizens.”[5]
The access to employment and education was strictly limited since many colleges
placed restrictions for admitting women.[6]
These educational restrictions even extended themselves to foundational
education, like high school.
It
was not until the 1830s that women began fighting for their rights. The beginning of the industrialization was
starting to draw working-class and immigrant women out of the home into
factories, such as textiles.[7]
With industrialization the productive work that women had done in the home
would gradually shrink as more and more such items would be purchased rather
than produced at home. Yet women were severely restricted in their legal rights
and their access to many types of employment was shrinking.
Regarding
the crisis that women lived during the 1830s Ruether writes, “It was the contradiction of women’s
shrinking “sphere” of working in the home and her lack of access to education,
work, and legal rights in the larger society that sparked the women’s right of
the nineteen century.”[8]
New conditions in the 1830s caused women to ignite in an effort to obtain their
rights. During this time the men who were fighting for temperance reform,
education, and the abolition of slavery realized that they needed women to get
their message across.[9] In
exchange they added credibility and helped the women’s right movement.
The
antislavery movement in America also helped give impetuous to the feminist
movement. A correlation was made between the slavery of the blacks and the
slavery of the women. Both black and women were oppressed and both needed
deliverance from “bondage” by the man. Women, like their black comrades,
considered themselves to be slaves and sought deliverance through the
participation of social reforms. After the Civil War women played an
increasingly public role in the reformation of society.[10]
The
feminist movement peaked in 1920 with the ratification of Amendment Nineteen to
the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote. This amendment was the
result of the labor of radical and aggressive female reformers as Susan B.
Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who founded the radical National Woman
Suffrage Association in 1869.[11]
For
the next three decades the feminist movement made no advance, perhaps due to
two world wars that threaten society and the American way. At the present age, the feminist movement has
once again resurfaced. It has become a highly debate issue. The real heart of
today’s movement is predominately concerned with the issue of sexism, which
refers to “all those attitudes and actions, which relegate women to a secondary
and inferior status society.”[12]
It is precisely at this point where Christians must examine social definitions
in light of God’s word. One must answer, how valid is the premise that declares
the female role synonymous with “inferior status”?
MODERN FEMINISN
Much
of the fault of modern feminism is not that it is feminist, but that it is
modern. The most helpful insight of modern (late twentieth century) feminism is
that patriarchy—that is, cultural rather than legally instituted male dominance
of the women—is at the root of women’s traditionally subordinate place in
society.[13] Modern feminist point out
that what is cultural is not necessarily natural. Their point of view is a
critique to the traditional point of view when the gender roles are divided
along the line of male leadership and female subordination, with men in the
public arena and women in the home, they do so believing that such role
divisions are natural and God-ordained and are the way things were meant to be.
But feminist claim that such role divisions are based not on what is inherently
natural for men and women, but on what has become culturally normative—and
cultural norms have been determined by patriarchal social values.[14]
The
feminist movement refuses to accept automatically and without question, the
identity that patriarchal society has assigned her. Radical feminism’s cure for
the social ills of sexism has resulted in parents who are too busy with their
own careers to care for their children, spouses who are too concerned with
their own fulfillment to continue to care for each other, legally mandated
reverse discrimination (against men) in some instances, and a general disregard
for the sexual norms without which no society can remain sane.[15]
While
early feminism failed to finish the job it began because it failed to recognize
that the power of patriarchy was cultural as well as legal, modern feminism has
gotten off track by overemphasizing patriarchy’s cultural power. The radical
feminist promotes that the premise that patriarchy is the single foundation on
which Western civilization has been built must therefore be forthwith
overthrown.
Credit
is due where credit is deserved. It is true that patriarchy has shaped the social
structures of Western culture. But is patriarchy integral to the values and
ideals of western culture, or is it a persistent perversion of Western values
and ideals? In the conservative journal Policy
Review, Katherine Kersten writes, “Ironically,
(modern) feminist tend to forget that the West, and the West alone, has evolved
the standards of justice, equality, and individual autonomy by which they now
measure their society, and claim to find it utterly wanting.”[16]
Western culture does not need to be overthrown; it needs to be set firmly back
on its track.
EGALITARIAN ANTHROPOLOGIES
ESCATHOLOGICAL
FEMINISM
Eschatological
feminism developed during the first and second centuries. It has been connected
with “mystical ascetic sects and movements, condemned as heretical. Although it
has never been entirely absent from orthodox asceticism and mysticism.”[17]
This type of feminism is present in Protestantism among left-wing mystical,
Utopian and millenarian sects.[18]
Those
who hold to this position allege that before the fall male and female were
equal in transcendent state. This idea that takes several forms in Christian
Gnosticism claims that the fall of Adam represent the split of this androgynous
state into male and female. This also represents the “fall into morality,
finitude, and death; hence the necessity for immorality.”[19]
Gnosticism
affirms that the woman can be equal to the man by rising above the carnal
femaleness and regaining her spiritual androgyny. The propose that male and
female should rule equally in the church, but this leadership is restricted to
those who have been fully converted and are the spiritual elite by remaining
celibate and have adopted the angelic lifestyle of heaven rather than fallen
sexuality.[20]
This
type of feminism invites women to prepare themselves for the end of the world
and transcendent life in heaven. This can be accomplished by not being “of this
world” abstaining themselves from sexual and procreational relationships. In
summation, eschatological feminism does not have a message of equality of women
in the world.
LIBERAL
FEMINISM
Liberal
feminism has roots in both Biblical and scholastic anthropology presenting a
radical remodeling of these traditions. The Enlightenment of the
eighteenth-century had an impact on this type of feminism as it helped
establish its major positions. This type of feminism rejects classical
tradition that indentified nature or the order of creation with patriarchy.
Instead it indentifies nature or order of creation with the original unfallen imago dei and affirms the equivalence of
all human beings in this original creation.[21]
Perhaps
the French philosopher Condorcet explains this position best. He claims that
all human beings share a common human nature, a common possession of reason and
moral conscience. In addition, he states,
“Women have the same qualities therefore they have necessity for equal
rights. Either no individual of the human race has genuine rights or else all
have the same; and he who votes against the rights of another, whatever the
religion, color or sex of that other, has henceforth abjured his own.”[22]
This
form secularizes the imago dei and
the process of redemption. It places original equality within the natural
world, seeing the restoration of equality as a reform or revolution that must
be carried out through history. It demands that the church be reformed as well.
This reform must be one that is social in nature. They argue that the church
is the bearer of redeemed humanity therefore it should validate the women’s
right for leadership roles.[23]
ROMANTIC
FEMINISM
This
form, which contrasts with liberal feminism, argues that the differences
between male and female can be seen as representatives of complimentary
opposites: femininity and masculinity.[24]
It takes its definition of femaleness from spiritual femininity, which is
intuitive spirituality, altruism, emotional sensitivity, and moral (sexual)
purity.
In
romantic feminism it is the woman who represents the original imageo dei in a purer and less ambiguous
way, the original goodness of humanity. They propose that the male can have
also this goodness, but that it is obscured since males must partake of power,
competition, and sin.
In
its most radical form it repudiates male culture and withdraws into the female
sphere as a separatist enclave of female value. Some of those who practice this
type of feminism are not in agreement whether or not the male can be redeemed.
Some believe that the male can be separated from the fallen men institutions
and converted into the higher female sphere, while others claim that the male’s
egoism, pride and domination is innate, inseparable from its natures.[25]
Romanticism
idealizes women precisely in their segregation from this ambiguous world
idealizing the home, interpersonal relationships, overlooking the violence that
is present in the sphere of private relationships, both the violation of women
to keep them there and the way in which unexpressed angers and frustrations
from the work world can be unleashed in the home.
THE EFFECT OF FEMINISM IN AMERICA
Today’s media
presents women as a new, liberated, working woman with her designer clothes, male
secretaries, and even her very own brand of preference for cigarettes.
Newspaper adds are careful to include statement, “Company XYZ is an equal
opportunity employer.” Television air comedies and dramas that feature
struggling working women or powerful women executives.
The
change in values has also educational system. For example, federal regulation
Title IX guarantees equal opportunity, facilities, and faculty for female
students to participate in all the areas of education, including intercollegiate
athletic competition.[26]
Even the English language is being reconstructed by some educators to eliminate
the sexist use of masculine pronouns that refer both to male or female.
ECONOMIC
IMPLICATIONS
It
is worth mentioning, for arguing sake, that there has always been a percentage
of women in the labor force. What is unique is the increasing proportion of
women in the work force. Fifty-eight percent of the women workforce are
married, living with husbands, and likely to have school-aged children.[27]
This is a dramatic increase from the 70s where the workforce was forty-one
percent.
Regarding
these economic implications the following conclusions can be reached:
1. The
housewife will be a rare breed...the work place is no longer a man’s world.
2. A
fat paycheck and divorce go together for a lot of top female executives, a
recent studied showed.
3. At
least two million children in America between the ages of three and thirteen
must care for themselves while their mother works. [28]
At this point is when the church
must begin to question those trends and face the issues with a willingness to
take a firm biblical stand. The value structure that reflects the mind and
person of our Lord must be upheld.
SHIFTING
VALUES
There
seems to be a current media and educational campaign promoting the idea that
for a woman to be fulfilled she must have a sense of control over her destiny,
and for American freedom to survive we need to see the pragmatic basis of
individual independence, including that of a man.[29] What appears to be
a comfortable adaptation to the restructuring of family and labor is being
shown to be both a strain and a weakening force on the individuals who make up
the new liberated mindset.
What
is the most hurtful element of the shifting of the values is that the children
are being hurt. Although many declare that there is no detrimental effect on a
working mother’s children, studies by some scientist have found that it is much
more difficult for a surrogate or standing mother to meet all the needs of a
child.[30]
This may result in a wide rage of maladies including insecurity, frustration,
and disciplinary problems. Nowhere is this more evident that in our
deteriorating school systems.[31]
Such results require Christians to evaluate seriously their participation in
the growing consequence, both for themselves and their children.
A
RESPONSE TO FEMINISM: THE IMAGO DEI DOES NOT EQUAL INEQUALITY
The
narratives of Genesis 1-3 give us foundational data from which we can develop a
biblical view of the sexes. Here male and female receive their orientation from
the creative hand of God, and God’s intention for them becomes clear. These
chapters concern the creation of man in the image of God; they reveal that man
is male and female, discuss the role of man, and provide the understanding of
man’s fall. These passages have received considerable attention through the
centuries, and recently, in view of new feminine consciousness, a renewed
interest in explaining them has developed.[32]
Genesis 1-3 can
explain the problem of man. This problem has become one of the most crucial
problems of today. Existentialism and humanism are philosophies that have
brought more importance to the existence of man than his essence. Believing in
God has become rare. Society has lost faith in man’s basic goodness and in the
significance in human values.
The
consequences of this is a society that embraces a new wave of nihilism, which
denies all human values and speaks of the meaningless of life.[33]
Philosophers are wrestling with trying to resolve the problem of man, while
sociologist are trying to answer it; psychologist and psychiatrist are facing
it; ethicist and social activist are attempting to solve it.
The
Christian worldview is that there is value and purpose in for life. God created
mankind to depend on Him (Neh. 9:6). To further understand man one need to
consider that the most distinctive feature of the biblical understanding of man
is the teaching that man has been created in the image of God.
To the surprise of
many the Bible never gives us any kind of systematic theory about man as the
image of God.[34] Genesis 1:26-28 reveals mankind to be the
crown of God’s creation. Three emphases are grounded in these verses:
- Man is seen as created in the image of God
- Man is expected to procreate
- Man is to be master over all of God’s other created beings on the earth
The image of God is not clearly
defined in these verses. Nonetheless, Scripture deals with that concept without
using those exact words. Two immediate affirmations derive from the perspective
on humanity provided in these verses (Genesis 1:26-28) and in 2:4-25 namely,
continuity and difference: the continuity of humanity with all other animals
and, in deed, with the rest of creation; and the difference between humanity
and other animals.[35]
Humans
are unlike other creature in that humanity is created after God’s own likeness,
in God’s image. Only to human does God speak to directly. The imago Dei tradition has been the focus
of diverse interpretations among Jews and Christians. What is obvious is that humanity
is thus defined in relation to God in terms of both similarity and difference:
humanity is in some sense “like” God, but it itself is not divine. Humanity
thus stand in an ambivalent position—living solidarity with the rest of the
created order and yet distinct from it on account of humankind’s unique role as
the bearer of the divine image, called to a peculiar and crucial relationship
with Yahweh and yet not divine.[36]
A
careful examination of verses 26-28 will reveal that male and female are equal,
both bearing the Divine image and having the responsibility that that image
entails. Male and female are to be jointly concerned about procreation.[37]
The woman is not merely a vessel for the man’s child, but neither is the child
the sole concern and responsibility of the woman. As a unity they are to
populate the earth to fulfill the purpose of God and show His glory on earth
(Psalm 8).
As
previously stated, man’s domination over God’s creation has been the source of
much confusion and controversy. Often women have been relegated a small part in
God’s creation. Certainly the primary domain of the woman is domestic (Titus
2:5), but it is not her total domain. It has been assumed that men alone occupy
the world outside the house. However, God originally intended that men and
women work together in agriculture, education, and even in the housework.
When
Adam saw what God had created for him he did not perceive her as something
inferior to him or that she was made to be a slave to him, like feminism
proposes. The equality of essence shared by male and female must not be
diminished. One must keep in mind that the narrative of Genesis 2 presents the
man as having functional headship over the women. The male’s role in fulfilling
the mandate in Genesis 1:26-28 is not independent from the female’s however,
neither are they egalitarian as many feminist have argued. The chronological
order of the creation shows that she is a vice-regent with him.[38]
A RESPONSE TO FEMINISM: CARING FOR THE HOME
DOES NOT EQUAL SUPPRESION
It
has been substantiated from Scripture that the wife’s main work responsibility
centers in the home--as an internal work priority. That is contrasted to the
role of the husband, for in taking on the responsibility of caring and
providing for his family, he finds his main work priority to be outside of
home. This argument becomes more evident when an analysis of the passage that
deals with love is accomplished.
While
it is true that emotional affections ought to be evident in the husband’s life
as well as his wife’s, Scripture indicates that the main emphasis in the love
role for the husband is different form that of his spouse.[39]
As an example, Titus 2:4, wives are to be taught to “love their husbands.” It
appears that this does not come naturally. The word love here is phileo and it implies strong affection,
one that results from a sense of satisfaction that the needs of the family are
met. It also indicates a strong physical and emotional attachment to the
spouse.
In
Ephesians 5:25 husbands are commanded to “love their wives, even as Christ
loved the church.” Love in this passage comes from the word agape, which indicates a benevolent
relationship to be demonstrated to the family. Agape love also involves the
concept of sacrifice. The husband willingly gives himself for the good of his
beloved.
THE
NECESSITY OF ROLES
Role
differences between husband and wife were not created to make the male superior
to the woman; the opposite is true. The Bible also teaches that the church is a
body made up of many different parts (1 Corinthians 12). Each part has a
different function. Each Christian has a different job to fill that God has
set-aside especially for him and her.
The
feminist theory of interchangeable parts (or roles) has been ridding high for
two decades or more, and its presuppositions have been in vogue for almost half
a century.[40] One would reasonably
expect that of this is the way God really intended people to live, society
would have improved under its influence. But the broken homes and moral decay
prove otherwise. Looking back three or four generations ago, when women were
still mostly homemakers, moral decay and broken homes were almost non-existent.
A new theory, that men and women are interchangeable, has never been spawned
from the Bible.[41]
HOMEMAKING:
A DIVINE ASSINGMENT
Homemaking
is a career. Keeping the home is God’s assignment to the wife.[42]
Dorothy Morrison wrote, “Homemaking is not employment for slothful,
unimaginative, incapable women. It has as much challenge and opportunity,
success and failure, growth and expansion, perks and incentives, as any
corporate career.”[43]
Wives
need to make Jesus the center of the home. All sorts of changes take place when
Jesus is the boss, but the greatest is the change of values.[44] Few women realize what great service they are
doing for mankind and for the kingdom of Christ when they provide a shelter for
the family and good mothering—the foundation on which all else is built.[45] A
negative attitude toward childbearing and a correspondingly positive attitude
towards careers, leisure, money, or any of the other worldly idols has serious
consequences.
In some cases when the wife goes to work outside the home, often her husband and children go through
culture shock.[46] The husband now has added
to his vocational work increased family assignments. When both mother and
father are working it leaves two employers without totally committed employees
(leaving for emergencies, games, etc.) and children without a primary caretaker
utterly devoted to their personal needs and nurturing.
Homemaking
is not destructive drought usefulness, but an overflowing oasis of opportunity;
it is not a dreary cell to contain one’s talents and skills but a brilliant
catalyst to channel creativity and energies into meaningful work,
“it is not a
rope for binding one’s productivity in the market place, but reins for guiding
one’s posterity in the home; it is not oppressive restraint of intellectual
prowess for the community, but a release of wise instruction to the household;
it is not the bitter assignment of inferiority, but the bright assurance of the
ingenuity of God’s plan for complementary sexes, especially as worked out on
God’s plan for marriage; it is neither limitation of gifts available nor
stinginess in distributing the benefit of those gifts, but rather the
multiplication of a mother’s legacy for generations to come.”[47]
Mary
Pride in her book The Way Home guides the reader through the first steps of
becoming a home worker. She recommends:
- Know the goals that have priority—nurture children, help the husband, and have a fruitful ministry at home.
- Win the husband—the very first step is to win the husband’s consent, but warns that a submissive wife does not force her will upon him.
- Quit your job—She makes the point that regardless of how important the current job of the wife is she should quit.
- Not giving the devil a foothold—she writes that part of the reason why homeworking is old fashion is the flood of degenerate propaganda disguised as entertainment. This type of literature/entertainment should not be around the home.
- Support—She invites the woman to search others who are like-minded, an older one if possible.[48]
CONCLUSION
This
essay has demonstrated that feminism has labeled wrong the biblical role of the
wife, which is homemaking. Feminism claims to be the answer to the housewives’
dilemma, and the freedom that feminist promise captivates today’s women.
Sentimental arguments about the importance of motherhood fell flat against the
obvious truth that the children already were not at home most of the day.
Despite feministic claims, homemaking is the biblical lifestyle for Christian wives. Homeworking is just not staying home either (that was the mistake of the fifties). Women are not called to stay or sit at home, but to work at home. Homemaking is the exact opposite of today’s careerist, institutional, Socialist movement. Most importantly homemaking is the path to obedience to God. Homemaking is based on what the Scripture say. Homemaking, like feminism, is a total lifestyle. The difference is that homeworking produces stable homes, growing churches, and children who are Christian leaders. For further study in this subject the works of Paul K. Jewett, Man as Male and Female, and Beck and Demarest The Human Person in Theology and Psychology are recommended.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Achtemeier, Elizabeth. Feminine Crisis in Christian Faith. New York: Abingdon Press, 1965.
Berkouwer, G.C. Man: The Image of God. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1962.
"Condercet's Pleas
for the Citizenship of Women." The
Fortnightly Review, June 1870.
Fowler, Richard A., and H. Wayne House. Civilization in Crisis. Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1988.
Friedman, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: Dell,
1963.
Gaustad, Edwin, and Leigh Schmidt. The Religious History of America. New
York: HarperOne, 2002.
Greene, Joel B. Body, Soul, and Human Life. Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008.
Groothuis, Rebecca Merrill. Women Caught In The Conflict. Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers,
1997.
Hoekema, Anthony A. Created In God's Image. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1994.
Kersten, Katherine. "What do Women Want? A
Conservative Feiminst Manifesto." Policy
Review, Spring 1991.
Labor, United States Department of. Title IX, Education Amendments of 1972.
http://www.dol.gov/oasam/regs/statutes/titleix.htm (accessed August 20, 2011).
Lener, Gerda. The Woman in American History. Menlo
Park: Addison-Wesley, 1971.
Malcolm,
Kari Torjesen. Women at the Crossroads.
Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1982.
Morgan, Clifford T., and Richard A. King. Introduction to Psychology. 5th Edition.
New Yorrk: McGraw-Hill, 1975.
Paterson, Dorothy. "The High Calling of Wife and
Mother in Biblical Perspective." In Recovering
Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem.
Weaton: Crossway, 2006.
Pifer, Alan. Women Working Toward a New Society. New
York: Carnegies Corporation of New
York, 1976.
Pride, Mary. The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to
Reality. Westchester: Crossway Books,
1985.
Ruether, Rosemary R.
"Christianity And Women In The World." In Today's Woman in World Religion,
edited by Arvind Sharma. State University of New York Press, 1994.
_______. Sexism and God Talk: Towars a Feminist
Theology. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993.
[1] Richard A. Fowler and H. Wayne House, Civilization in Crisis (Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1988), 1.
[2] Mary Pride, The
Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality (Westchester: Crossway Books,
1985), xii.
[5] Rosemary R. Ruether, "Christianity And Women In
The World," in Today's Woman in
World Religion, ed. Arvind Sharma (State University of New York Press, 1994),
269.
[7] Edwin Gaustad and Leigh Schmidt, The Religious History of America (New York: HarperOne, 2002), 241.
[13] Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, Women Caught In The Conflict (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers,
1997), 65.
[17] Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God Talk: Towars a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1993), 99.
[26] United States Department of Labor, Title IX, Education Amendments of 1972,
http://www.dol.gov/oasam/regs/statutes/titleix.htm (accessed August 20, 2011).
[29] Alan Pifer, Women
Working Toward a New Society (New York: Carnegies Corporation of New York,
1976), 4-12.
[31] Clifford T. Morgan and Richard A. King, Introduction to Psychology, 5th Edition
(New Yorrk: McGraw-Hill, 1975), 83.
