Thanks for the recommendation, Pr. Joseph. That curriculum contains much that would answer this question as far as the consequences of the syllabus is concerned. The purpose of the curriculum, however, is to lay out an answer to the what-ness of created womanhood as one finds it in its original creation, its corruption by the Fall and the Curse, and its redemption in Christ.
The “seed-passages” for this exposition are five in number (hence Five Aspects of Woman), and they contain as well seed concepts for a parallel exposition of manhood, laid out in Five Aspects of Man.
The seed passages are:
Genesis 1 (Lord of the Earth; Mistress of the Domain)
Genesis 2 (Husbandman; Helper-Completer)
Genesis 3 (Savior; Lifegiver)
Proverbs 1-9 (Sage; Lady of Wisdom)
1 Corinthians 11 (Man, Glory of God; Woman, Glory of Man)
It’s no surprise that women have been getting progressively unhappier as they have been progressively “empowered” in the workplace; focusing on competition and advancement rather than nurture and flourishing forces them to treat their feminine strengths and virtues as weaknesses and liabilities.
Yes, and it’s ironic that this is happening at exactly the same time that men’s strengths are being denigrated (as documented by the article @Fr_Bill linked to over at the topic For your files on manhood).
For a woman to have authority in business is fine, because production is both a masculine and feminine mandate. A female executive is not representing God’s father-rule. But … It masculinizes many women—short hair, power suits, bossy attitudes—and makes them both unattractive and miserable.
I don’t think your arguments hold together here. You speak of authority, which flows from God the Father and is part of His nature as Father; you call business a “quasi-household” and an “emaciated household-knockoff,” and ignore your own point that in the real household she is acting “as a wife”; you acknowledge that it makes women unhappy and leads them to make obviously authority-connected changes to their sexual appearance, behavior and values, but then you deny that this is caused by her subverting “God’s father-rule.”
That’s the way I’ve viewed it too. Executive authority deployed by women in the workplace over men inevitably rubs against the “grain” of both the woman and the man/men she leads. When such arrangements occur in the workplace, both the man and the woman must expect static, and coping strategies by both the female authority and her male subordinates is required.
One coping strategy, indeed a very common one, is that the woman leader masculinizes in her relationship to her male subordinates.
Another coping strategy is for a man to adopt a variety of demasculinizing strategies. Sometimes it amounts to a “pulling in your horns” posture, doing precisely what the female authority required, and doing so in ways that allow the male to document/validate that he complied to the letter. This usually reduces, not enhances, productivity.
One Christian female supervisor I knew (she’s long since retired from professional service in government) found herself managing a cadre of younger male attorneys. In order to put the sexual currents at their lowest possible voltage, he kept kept as much distance between her and these men as possible, engaging them (which often involved critiquing their work) with as little face-face interaction as possible. Email was a Big Tool at her disposal.
She also chose to “dress down” in the office - opting for very formal, very unadorned sorts of professional attire (always dark dresses/suits; no pants). She gave special attention to her hair - not to masculinize it, but also not to “flaunt” it in flamboyantly feminine fashion. She wasn’t adopting masculine modes of presentment; rather, it was more a veiling of fashions of dress/grooming which would accentuate her femininity.
It largely worked for her and for her cadre of research attorneys whose labors she managed. In other contexts, these strategies might not have worked so well, or even been possible.
Hi gentlemen, I think a major question we’d need to answer is whether behaviors that rub against the grain of femininity just are examples of representing father-rule, or whether father-rule is a subset of them.
The reason I argued that it’s not inherently problematic for a women to exercise authority in a business is because I was drawing a direct analogy between a woman exercising authority in her household. She has authority over the slaves or servants, for instance. That’s on behalf of her husband, true, but it’s not inherently problematic that she has it, nor would it be problematic for her to retain it should her husband die (at least, not that I can see; I’m willing to be proved wrong).
There’s a certain appeal to the simple symmetry of saying that masculinizing activities are co-extensive with father-rule, but my short time on this earth suggests that God is content to be a little less tidy.
I also don’t think it’s inevitable that women in authority in business become masculinized. One of the things that @michaelfoster and I discussed when we were working through this issue is that we’ve both been under two types of women in business: the ones trying to be men, and the ones trying to be mothers. And we both agreed that the ones trying to be men are terrible (though they often rise higher), but the ones who are motherly are often very good. So I’m not sure that business authority per se is masculinizing; I’d say it’s the business environment that strongly pushes women toward acting like men.
A couple points I think your analysis misses, brother:
In bible households you often see a sex distinction regarding whom the husband and wife exercised their authority over. Specifically, you see mistresses more over the female sevants. I know you also give the example of a household where no male head is present, more on that further below.
Relatedly (I failed to find the link I was looking for a few weeks ago) but it is interesting how the Victorians ordered their household structures in terms of setting matrons over female servants and masters over the various levels of male servants etc. That is very natural way to set things up, and I think reflects how most societies who have not lost all sensitivities to these things would do it (I’m not arguing for a Victorian heyday btw).
I suspect ruling queens tended to lessen the inherent strain on their sex by operating through men, kind of like the concept of having foremen to do the dirty work.
To your substantive point, any use of the example of Lydia needs to consider the Fall. She was not married, (whether by the death of her husband or failure of societal structures to be able to marry and fulfill the creation mandate etc.) and thus this makes her case not a norming example to be held up and followed. Rather, I think it better serves to show the ways that even Christian households feel the strain of the Fall, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she did many of the things I mentioned above in order to lessen this strain.
Hey Henry, good points. I wasn’t thinking specifically of Lydia; I don’t think she’s a very useful example since nothing normative is said about her situation. I was more drawing a general principle.
However, your point about gender segregation bears consideration. I’m not sure how commonplace this is across non-Western cultures, but I do know it’s not un common, and that it is commonly quite extreme. We certainly do need to weigh that into the equation.
That said, how much weight should it get? For instance, in a husband’s absence, his wife presumably may, and indeed should, exercise authority over the house in his name—even over the male servants where necessary (though if they are good servants this would probably be infrequent). I know that when the British Empire was expanding, one of the main reasons this was possible was that wives were highly competent helpmeets, and husbands could trust them to manage their affairs while they were away at sea or abroad, often for months or even years at a time. Say what you will about the British Empire, but this particular facet of the social structure does strike me as quite laudable.
Apologies I must have confused the Lydia point with something someone else said.
For instance, in a husband’s absence, his wife presumably may, and indeed should, exercise authority over the house in his name
I think what we mean by ‘exercise authority’ is key. When scripture speaks about the exercise of authority it is not talking about mere social rank (as others have pointed out there have always been rich women who hold more sway in society than many poor men). I’ve always found the Piper chapter (p62-64) that @acmcneilly referenced is very helpful in sorting through the nature of authority and its exercise. Directive/Non-directive, Personal/Non-personal etc. In my experience people find this makes a lot of sense.
Assuming the common case of a family that is not wealthy enough to have servants, her children are under her authority. But even here the wise woman will be acutely aware that as her sons reach manhood she needs to be less personal-directive towards them. I’d expect in biblical times sons would naturally assume many aspects of exercising authority in the household in the absence of their father. I’m not sure what percentage of households had enough wealth to own servants - I assume that was only the upper/middle class. But yeah, I’m sure there were many cases where there were male servants and no sons of age.
My general feeling is that this just goes to demonstrate there are lots of challenges to living out one’s sex, and when you have enough wealth to employ servants you should give thought to what is fitting in terms of male-female dynamics. Husbands being away for months and years might be a necessary evil in a fallen world but not good enough reason to say that whatever fallout in terms of male-female household dynamics must be ok. Propriety in male-female dynamics doesn’t become unimportant just because the context for those dynamics is matters of production rather matters of justice. I think this propriety is central to what we are talking about concerning the meaning of ‘exercise authority’.
For interest’s sake, on the Victorian household structure I alluded to previously, see the pic below from here. The housekeeper (and ultimately all of the various roles) answered to the Butler, from what I understand.
Precisely. Not to mention that if the home and it’s production and relations are the foundational model for the rest of society then that must extend back to the man having the mission/goal and the woman being a helpmeet in it. The fact of the matter is that the economic work being described in Proverbs 31, for example, is not divorced from the man’s creation ordinance to rule the earth and provide food for his family.
To point out that there are examples of women helping with that work and instructing/directing men in the process is no different than to point it out of military/spiritual leadership in Deborah. If you want to draw a conclusion from one then you better be willing to draw a conclusion from the other. Either that or have a pretty good reason why not to.
Right, which is why I went to the distinctions between prophet, priest, and king. There is a principled difference at work between a female manager and a female ruler (unless I be mistaken). That difference does seem to fade the higher up you go, presumably because a business is most analogous to a household, so the higher you go the more the roles merge. But I do think the general point is reasonable: “mere” instruction is a prophetic role, which is open to women, though it is less common. The priestly and kingly offices, however, are off limits to women.
I suspect that the point about propriety is a reflection of this fact. While it may be lawful for a woman to exercise certain kinds of authority over men at some times, it may still be improper for her to do so, given that her actions don’t exist in a vacuum, but rather in the shadow of the priestly and kingly offices forbidden her.
Then again, perhaps I’m approaching this from the wrong side. Perhaps we should be looking first at general male/female propriety, and then inferring specifics like prophetic/priestly/kingly/whatever else roles from there. But that doesn’t seem to be the direction Scripture moves, right?
Paul just goes back to the order of creation and the particulars of how the fall happened and reasons from that. Not nearly as complicated.
Do you have any examples of historical works that reason along the lines you are, particularly bringing in prophet, priest and king distinctions? I don’t think I’ve read anything like that.
The problems seem significant to me. Off the top of my head…
The prophets were the closest thing the Israelites had to a king prior to Saul. In other words, I don’t see how the work is separated from fatherhood any more than kingship is.
The “king as father” doesn’t seem to accomplish the proof you want, because it is also makes the country into a family. That leads to the necessary conclusion that there is no civil position or work that would be inappropriate for women (the kingship excluded). That doesn’t seem to be your position. But perhaps?
It’s an argument from implication (there are no priests implies something about the nature of the work) to analogy (fatherhood) to principles (women are therefore excluded from father-roles), which is quite weak. What you want to start with is principles. (To reiterate, that’s what Paul does.)
Agreed. The principle isn’t complicated. Creator order and fall applied everywhere. If there are complications it may be because of a few things (randomly ordered and thinking out loud):
While Scripture clearly gives the principle, we don’t have the kind of clear and explicit application to life outside the church and home as we do to the church and home. We do see examples, both negative and positive, in narrative portions of Scripture, but Paul’s letters don’t address the workplace (etc.) like he does the home and the church.
There hasn’t been, at least that I’ve run across, much written on this outside of Scripture.
Church members, especially hard women, react negatively, often with scoffing against this teaching no matter where it is applied (at least in the churches I’ve been in, E-Free and non-denominational, baptistic, Bible church sorts), but ESPECIALLY if we dare try to apply this teaching outside of the church and home.
Because of the above reasons, and likely more, the complications are often, at least in me, due not to the clarity of the principle, but to the cost and related reluctance to apply it. I found that where I am reluctant to apply Scripture, Scripture becomes conveniently “complicated.” I have to fight with myself more in relation to this issue (applying the principle outside the home and church) to convince myself that the text and applications are plainly what they are. This is hard pastoral work, really hard.
Pastor @tbbayly can we expect a book on the topic of women inside and outside of the church. You might take a public flogging for it, but it would help us all know where our pastors stand . No more good ol’boy coverups.
Kind of like what Douglas Wilson was saying about the Presbyterians just wanting to manage crisis rather than do the hard work of standing up for an unpopular biblical truth.
Sorry, but I doubt it. What really commands my attention is the church and her shepherds. Sexuality is just a case study of the death of authority on every level, as well as the death of preaching to the conscience and faithful pastoral care. Abortion demonstrates the same. In other words, working on abortion/imago dei and sexuality is the way to lead the reform of the Church, today. Love,
Just want to throw in here (haven’t read the whole thread yet) - Christopher (C.R.) Wiley’s book Man of the House which talks about household unity/function. Many of his Facebook posts are also on this theme.
Hey guys, I’m not sure the complication is in my position. I think it might be in your thinking about my position
Fundamentally my view is very straightforward:
The original family was also the original government and the original “business.”
Everything flows from there.
Adam was a prophet, priest, and king. I’m not arbitrarily applying those distinctions; they’re just there in Scripture. That said, perhaps they’re not the right categories to use in this case. I’m not sure.
What I am fairly sure about is that it’s safe ground to say Adam was made as a human father to represent the heavenly Father in ways Eve was not. Eve represented God (she was also his image), but she didn’t represent his fatherhood.
The difficulty I have is figuring out where the line is between fatherly and other representation. That’s why I find the prophet/priest/king distinctions helpful. For instance, is it ok for a woman to teach art to a bunch of men? I’m not sure why it wouldn’t be (but perhaps that is culturally conditioned; perhaps it really isn’t). But assuming it’s ok, why is it ok, when it’s not ok for a woman to teach Scripture or politics? The prophet/priest/king distinctions seem to help there (as general categories) in demarcating father-rule from other kinds of authority. But perhaps I’m on the wrong trail. Perhaps the teaching of men by women is actually too fatherly regardless of the content matter. I’m open to that; I’m just trying to fit the principles together.
. No more good ol’boy coverups.