Preface:
This isn’t meant to be insulting to anyone. It’s not meant to be a
commentary on the beliefs and practices of people I do or do not know, it’s not
my place to judge what people believe. This is meant to be a place to work
through some thoughts that I have been mulling through for a while now. It is meant to be a place to question things that other people accept as fact and leave unquestioned. It’s
not polished; it’s not a “final draft” of an argument. I’m not trying to convince
anyone of anything. I’m not trying to tell anyone they are right or wrong in
their beliefs. I only want to express these thoughts and wonder out in a public
sphere. That way, anyone is welcome to wonder aloud with me – I welcome anyone
to add to the dialogue! Just be sure to keep it respectful; keep it thoughtful and understanding.
Thanks!
Anna
Right now I am in one of the healthiest, happiest
relationships I have ever experienced or seen other people experience at my
age. I think there are two major reasons for this. The first is how hard we
both work to communicate openly and honestly at all times. This isn’t always
easy. But because we are both constantly checking in to make sure we are both
on the same page, we avoid unnecessary problems and address the problems that
do arise immediately and efficiently.
The second reason has to do with the philosophy of complementarianism.
I hesitate to use that word because it carries a lot of religious politics and emotionally
inflamed responses. As a movement in the Christian church, complementarianism often
is a softened way to pitch patriarchy, all the while justifying this behavior
because God created men and women as equal but different. In theory this is
fine but in practice this more often than not encourages a harmful system
discouraging equality because the emphasis is on the differences, and ignoring the (in)equalities being performed. This is accomplished by creating definitive lists of the
roles a husband and a wife must perform, because God created females with X
traits and males with Y traits and there are specific tasks and roles that become necessary to support those traits. If you don’t perform them, you have failed to reach your
status as a “real man” or “real woman,” marking yourself as wrong and bad. (for more on this, see: http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/legalism-gender-roles)
Instead of working off of a static list of masculine
behaviors and a static list of feminist behaviors, my personal relationship has a dynamic
list of Anna behaviors and a dynamic list of Alan behaviors. I’m incredibly private
and he’s an exhibitionist. I become overwhelmed being surrounded by people and
he thrives off of social energy. He loves teaching and I love learning. He loves
cooking and I love eating. And this works perfectly for us – we both have our
needs fulfilled, but at the same time he encourages me to break out of my shell and be open to
new types of adventures while I encourage him to reel things in and behave tactfully.
Call it complementarianism, call it yin-and-yang, call it
opposites attracting, call it whatever you like; but what we have is balance. And
that balance allows for both of us to experience safe and healthy personal
growth both as individuals and as a couple. And that is why I think balance of personality
traits can be positive and maybe sometimes even necessary part of a
relationship.
I don’t think that you can find that balance of traits by
limiting the criteria to universal and prescriptive “male” and “female” forcing
people to be boxed into constructed ideals of masculinity and femininity. The
more I research Biblical basis for complementarianism, the more I have to
question what gender has to do with it. I think God’s call for “complementarianism”
is for us to live life with someone who compliments our unique strengths and
weaknesses, and not just calling us to pair a really masculine penis with a really
feminine vagina. God is supposed to be a path to freedom, and yet these
limiting ideals are a means of confining us into boxes that deny us our ability
to be free and honor Him through who He created us to be (see: http://www.jennyraearmstrong.com/2013/02/06/john-piper-women-in-combat-and-how-gender-roles-fall-short-of-the-glory-of-humankind/).
As for the argument that men and women are hardwired
differently, I’ve never really believed this, obvious biological differences aside (though I do think those are sometimes not as obviously dichotomous as we want to make them out to be). The two reasons I’ve ever heard given
are “because God made it that way” and “it just makes sense.” Even if we choose
to ignore factors like intersex identities and how heteronormativity shapes
worldview, I still have never bought either of those arguments. “It just makes
sense” is too subjectively doxical and dismissive of other options. The second one depends
entirely on your translation of the Bible, but I believe “because God created
man and woman differently” isn’t as supported by scripture as people want it to be. Yes, God’s first two beings were a man and a woman. But you know what
our creation story is?
Genesis 2:22-23: Then the Lord God made a woman from the
rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man
said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called
‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”
Adam and Eve were created as equals (Eve coming from his rib and side and not from his feet or head, meaning neither was designed to submit or rule over the other). They are physically one and the same genetics (Eve being made of Adam's flesh).
Adam and Eve don't Biblically exist to highlight their DIFFERENCES from one another; on the contrary, they exist in a way that shows how much ALIKE they are.
Adam and Eve were created as equals (Eve coming from his rib and side and not from his feet or head, meaning neither was designed to submit or rule over the other). They are physically one and the same genetics (Eve being made of Adam's flesh).
Adam and Eve don't Biblically exist to highlight their DIFFERENCES from one another; on the contrary, they exist in a way that shows how much ALIKE they are.
In Genesis 3, with the story of the Fall, we
see sharp division between Adam and Eve. This is where gender roles are assigned as a
punishment for the actions with the Tree of Knowledge. However, those gender roles are NOT a result of God creating man and woman them that way; the gender roles are a
result of man and woman failing to live up to how they were created to be. Masculinity and femininity aren't hardwired into us; they are a result of man's choice.
If
we are created in His image, then we were created to be whole and good and
complete. God portrays both masculine and feminine traits
throughout scripture, so the ideals we should be calling individuals to strive for
would be possessing balance of feminine and masculine traits within ourselves. The
pursuit of masculine men and feminine women was a consequence of man and woman
CHOOSING that path (with the Fall), not being created that way. As god is
complete, choosing to either be masculine or feminine is the opposite of godly –
it calls a person to be disjointed and lacking version of who they were created
to be. It calls individuals to force themselves to try and behave a certain way
even if that means performing a life of lies. Maybe even in some cases to be
separated from God and His will for us. By choosing a feminine or masculine path, we are choosing to defy a path bringing us towards godliness.
There’s the argument that having one masculine parent and
one feminine parent is simply better for children – with someone to expose them
to both sides, they will have a full parenting experience. That’s like taking a
half of chocolate cake and a half of a vanilla cake, and putting them together
to create one choc-vanilla cake. Sounds great, right? But is it not good for a child to have two
fully-realized individuals as parents instead of two half-realized individuals
as parents? It'd be like having two chocolate vanilla swirl cakes instead of one half of a vanilla cake and one half of a chocolate cake.
Maybe that's a confusing metaphor, but I just said it as a way to explain why I don't understand the argument that men and women need to compliment each other through arbitrary forced traits and behaviors, instead of believing that we all should strive towards being whole and well-realized individuals. Then we can search out partners in a process of complimenting each other wherever our individualized strengths and weaknesses lie so we can further assist one another in the process of growing into the most well-realized people we can possibly be.
In this framework, if godliness is the ideal, than there is
no such thing as a godly man or godly woman. There are only godly, or whole/balanced/well-rounded, persons.
(In fact, this theory could even extend into viewing
intersexed individuals as being symbolic for the ultimate ideal state of being.
So there’s an interesting thought).
