“The truth may set you free, but first it will shatter the safe, sweet way you live.” Sue Monk Kidd
This article is about women, but it is for men also. If you are a husband, father, son, brother, or nephew to women, keep reading. This article also deviates a bit from my usual articles. I suppose it falls into the category of cultural criticism, yet it does pertain to women survivors of abuse.
Many women I know struggle with a sense of not being enough, particularly women who were abused in some way as a child. I notice that among Christian women the sense of not being enough is very prevalent. I realized why last weekend after I started reading a book by a prominent women author.
Last Friday, I started reading Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd. “I don’t relate to this book,” I thought after reading a few chapters, but then I kept reading. I began to realize that Kidd is correct when she says that women have a wound inside that stems from the patriarchal nature of our culture. This is particularly true for those of us who are Christian.
I grew up in a Lutheran church where I don’t remember once hearing the traditional Christian doctrine that men are the head of the household taught. However, there has never been a woman pastor there ever. Both of my grandmothers taught me that the teaching that husbands are the head of their wives comes from the culture of the time Apostle Paul wrote his epistles (letters), which is something one of my seminary professors taught.
That doctrine is common in Christian churches, whether Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox. It is interesting that men are the ones who run most Christian churches, and they cherry-pick when it comes to putting the Bible in context. In 1 Corinthians 3:10, Paul says that a woman should wear a covering on her head as a symbol of submission to her husband. Men teach that women do not need to cover their heads because that was the cultural norm then. Yet they fail to put the rest of the passage in context that teaches that husbands have authority over their wives.
I think Christian men (not all) refuse to put Paul’s passages about submission in context because it benefits them. If women feeling that they are inadequate, then they are easier to control. And for women who are abuse survivors, the doctrine and its effects further victimize them. It creates a culture where women as pastors are few, except for the handful in some Protestant denominations.
Evangelicals tend to close their eyes to the reality that women make less than men. Women are paid 22 percent less than men on average. We lack a paid maternal leave law in the U.S. Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found that the U.S. is the only country out of 41 nations that fails to mandate paid maternal leave. I have never once heard any pastor mention these facts in a sermon, but I have heard pastors teach on the submission of women.
Is it any wonder that many Christian women feel a sense of inadequacy? We are marginalized in our places of worship, jobs, and families. And for those of us who are survivors, that just adds to our pain. Until the Christian Church (whether Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox) rises and creates a culture of equality, women will continue feeling inadequate.
Resources
Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd
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