Men and Feminism

This is a topic that few people like to discuss. If feminism has such a negative effect on women, what effect has it had on men? Feminism is the supposed to be an equalizer, balancing the scales for men and women. However, Feminism has become all about “girl power”. The desire for women’s equality has morphed into the desire for women to not just be equal to men but for women to overcome men entirely. (For my thoughts on Feminism click here!) Women are encouraged not just to do everything that men do, but to do it better. I can admit this is something that first attracted me to feminism. I am incredibly competitive, and the idea that people thought men and women are not equal? That was something I could prove wrong!

 However, if you look at many men today you will notice that by and large they are not the same caliber as the men of bygone eras. Men today are battered by angry women who shriek for “equality” that they don’t understand. Men are not allowed to be men because women have told them that is wrong.

When I see this happening I want to scream! Have you noticed men and women are made differently? Well, we are. In her book Let Me Be a Woman Elisabeth Elliot writes that “the body of every normal woman prepares itself repeatedly to receive and to bear. Motherhood requires self-giving, sacrifice, suffering… the willingness to enter into suffering, to receive, to carry, to give life, to nurture and to care for others”. That is not to say that every woman is going to have 2.5 kids and a golden retriever. Women are designed to be nurturers; this means that even if they produce no children of their own, they will still find ways to nurture and care. Women need to talk and work through their emotions. Have you ever heard a group of women discuss a particularly troublesome problem? They will talk it to death. Men on the other hand are different; they are designed by God to be providers. I have friend that constantly reminds me that men are binary, on or off. Finding a group of men that will talk a problem to solution would be difficult.

This is something I see often in the relationships that my friends have with their boyfriends, fiancés, and spouses. These women push and pull and stomp their feet to try to lead a boy who never grew into a man (another article on that to follow shortly!) If you are the leader in the relationship, if you are the one pulling the relationship forward, what exactly is his job? If you believe in a Biblical relationship and you want a Biblical marriage, you can’t be the man of the relationship. It is not your job to be the head of the household. That is his job. You can’t have a biblical relationship (and eventual marriage) if you don’t understand the role that God designed you for. This means that we have to understand the inherent differences between masculinity and femininity. In her book Voices of the True Woman Movement, Nancy Leigh De Moss writes:

Femininity and masculinity belong at the center of God’s ultimate purpose. If you try to reduce womanhood to physical features and biological functions, and then determine your role in the world merely on the basis of competencies, you don’t just miss the point of womanhood, you diminish the glory of Christ in your own life.  Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like servant leadership, protection and provision in the home. Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts. These differences are absolutely essential by God’s design, so that marriage will display, as in a mirror dimly, something of the glory of sacrificial love of Christ for His bride and the lavish reverence and admiration of the bride for her husband.

Women HAVE got to stop trying to be men. It leads to frustration and confusion across society. Ladies, stop trying to be men, embrace the gift of femininity that has been given to you. Allow the men in your life to be the men that God called them to be, challenge them to be that man. Allow your femininity to glorify the kingdom of Christ as we stand out in a world clouded by androgyny.