Women's Lib, Weak Men and Marriage

Women’s liberation started as far back at 1792 with Mary Wollstonecraft, who published A Vindication of the Rights of Women in which she advocated for the "social and moral equality of sexes. In 1848, the seventy year fight for the women’s right to vote began. The Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was ratified in 1920. This fight for equality was later termed the “first-wave of feminism”. The “second-wave” began in the early 1960’s and ran through the late 1980’s. In this wave, women strived to reach a further sense of equality with men and to allow women to have a greater control over their body and the protection from physical abuse (Nancy Sink, Women's Liberation Movement, December 2008).

Women’s Liberation is good – in some ways. In others, it has set humanity, relationships and women back several hundred years. WHAT?!?!? No, I’m not crazy, nor am I disagreeing with the good the movement has done for women over the last 100 years. Because of the Women’s Liberation movement, I can provide for my child without resorting to welfare or illegal work. I can do this on my own without having to ‘depend’ on a man to provide for us. If the movement had not existed when I became pregnant, we might have both starved to death, or worse. I believe this movement and the women who paved the way for us today should be commended for their actions, because I am able to earn my own money, purchase a house or car on my own, go to school to become whatever I want and I can marry whoever I want.

I think the Women’s Liberation movement has had some terrible consequences from their initial good intentions. Over 56 million babies have been aborted since 1973 when Roe v. Wade became law.

 

 

Independent women trample over the men in their lives, because these women will not be ‘subject’ to men. Women complain about the lack of strong men to date or marry, but what they don’t realize is this: the women’s liberation movement has made boys grow into weak men who have been labeled chauvinist if they do anything formerly known as gentlemanly – hold a door open, pull a lady’s chair out for her, hold her coat, etc.

 

Where am I going with this? Hang on a few minutes more, I’m getting there.

I am a strong woman who has lived on my own for a long time. I have a decent job and I provide for my son by myself. I own a business. I teach my son to do his laundry, cook and clean. I also teach him to shoot, open doors for women, have manners and to be strong. He is allowed to have emotional responses and he talks to me about why he is upset. He is not allowed to use emotion to manipulate a response from me, nor is he allowed to be gender-neutral, as he is a BOY, as God made him. He is taught to treat women with respect (and men too).

What the men I’ve met do not understand is this: they see one side of me when they first meet me. On a second date with someone, I was told I needed to ‘act in distress’ so that I could be rescued. Say what? I’m on a second date with someone I basically don’t know and he’s trying to get me to change who I am?? No good, dude. I don’t even know you. Why in the world would I show you my weaknesses when I don’t know you? So you can use them against me? Not going to happen, buddy.

What this guy – and many others – don’t realize, is that under my strong exterior lies a woman who wants the Biblical example of marriage. The one where the husband is the head of the house, but he answers to God. And he lives a sacrificial life, because it is demanded of him, that he should “love his wife like Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).  And a marriage where I would be subject to my husband and show respect him, because that is how God designed the marriage relationship between a man and a woman.

1 Corinthians 11 (NASB)

³ But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ

Ephesians 5:22-33 (NASB)

²² Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. ²⁴ But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, ²⁶ so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. ²⁸ So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; ²⁹ for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, ³⁰ because we are members of His body. ³¹ For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. ³² This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. ³³ Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

The Women’s Liberation movement has tried to destroy this Biblical marriage ideal, by saying women should not be ‘subject’ to anyone. What they fail to understand is this: under a true Biblical marriage covenant, women are not the subject/slave/minion to their ruler, the husband. The biblical marriage is a partnership between two people who put their respective relationships with Christ first, then each other. Christ puts the husband in charge in the home, with the wife as the helper. This doesn’t mean she works all day then comes home to cook dinner, clean house, do laundry, help kids with homework and so on  while the husband snoozes on the couch in front of the TV. It is a partnership – work is divided where the strengths are. Take me, for instance. It’s getting to the point where I am going to soon be unable to help my son with his math homework. I nearly flunked 4^th grade myself because I couldn’t figure out fractions (NOW I can do them in my head – it’s that numbers and letters together mess someone invented that confuses me completely). So, he gets a tutor if he doesn’t understand it. Cause I won’t be able to help him. I’m really good with writing, so I can help him with that sort of thing. My problem will be to avoid taking over his writing projects and doing them for him. Self-control… getting better all of the time!

It basically comes down to this – if a man would take the time to get to know me, and get past the strong/tough exterior instead of running away, he might just discover that inside, there is a weakness that needs balance, a damsel in distress, a princess who needs her prince.