So this post is WAY old, in blogosphere terms anyway–it’s from April of this year.
Rachel Held Evans talks about submission: how it is misunderstood by evangelicals who adhere to gender roles, and how it can be interpreted to apply to BOTH partners in a marriage rather than just the female one. And of course, what applies to marriage affects the way we date.
Gender roles, for the uninitiated, refers to the idea that both men and women have their places, specifically in marriage, and that the woman’s place in particular is somewhere below the man’s. That the man is the natural and spiritual leader of the marriage and his decisions supersede the woman’s in all cases. This is the typical approach to Christian dating.
Evangelicals get gender roles from strange, absurd passages like this one:
“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” (1 Timothy 2:11-15)
This goes both ways, btw. If women have a spiritual obligation to shut up, have kids, and follow the men, men have a corresponding obligation to take the lead in EVERYTHING, including abstinence and dating according to Christian principles. This has led some evangelical pastors to the absurd conclusion that attending to your girlfriend’s sexual needs means you’re less than a man, although of course the opposite is true the moment you’re married. To see a disgusting example of how guys are manipulated and guilt-leveraged into this philosophy, here’s a clip from (who else?) Mark Driscoll.
As far as women are concerned, there are truly awful depths to which men will go once they’re enabled by the damnable philosophy that they are inherently better than women.
Here’s the thing with gender roles: they’re counterproductive. Evangelicals think they’re helping men be men and women be women, but in reality all they’re doing is creating another litmus test for people’s behavior. Every time a woman does something, she has to ask if some man somewhere will feel that her actions infringe upon his right to be in charge. And every time a man does something, he has to ask himself whether he’s truly living up to the manly ideal set by his evangelical mindmasters. Instead of providing definitions and guideposts for masculinity and femininity, evangelicals have simply created massive opportunities for abuse.
On the other hand, when you throw out gender roles, a funny thing happens. When men and women are free to be themselves, they will naturally respond to situations in different ways and express their unique perspectives on life, and instead of being judged for it, they can be appreciated for what makes them unique. Remove gender roles, and gender itself will remain. It just won’t be a schtick to beat people over the head with anymore.
