I’m a Woman – Part 1

from here

I can’t say exactly when it first dawned on me that the church (specifically, the Anglican church in Sydney) was extremely interested in my body. Not in my interests or gifts or passions, just my body parts: these offered all the information they needed to figure out who I was and what I should aim for in life. For example, my body told them that my opinions weren’t as valuable as they would be if I were male: I was not allowed to teach men in church, or to lead them in any way on my own (“lead” was understood differently by different groups, and could mean anything from from singing at the front of the congregation and lifting your hand to indicate that everyone should join in, to being the minister of a church). Men would only listen to sermons by men, whereas women and children could learn from anyone. It was unclear at what age a boy turned into a man and therefore switched from “Teachable” to “Unteachable.” I thought about this as I nursed my baby boy; at what age would his maleness trump my theological degree?

There was no agreement on exactly why God had decided that men should teach and lead, while women should be quiet and submit. Some suggested it was because Eve represented all women, and in deciding to eat the apple way back in Eden after chatting with Satan, she proved that women were easier to lead astray than men. Of course, the various misdemeanours of actual living male pastors need not be taken as a universal warning (“Those guys can still teach! It’s women who remind us of fictional characters that are the real problem!”). Whatever the reason, we were repeatedly assured that these gender roles weren’t about power; men and women were equal, they were just different. This was said rather a lot, presumably in the hopes that people would say, “OH ALL RIGHT THEN” and stop challenging the statement. (I recently explained to a minister that the fact he’d said he “allowed” women to preach at his church was a fairly obvious sign of his power over these women, no matter how hard he might be trying to deny it. No cookies for you, sir.)

These roles apparently weren’t about how much God loved women, either. God loved everyone, He just didn’t want women (or LGBTQI+ people, or unmarried people) becoming ministers in churches! That wasn’t because He didn’t love us, it was just because only (straight, cis) men could be trusted to understand His word exactly how He meant it to be understood when He wrote it all those years ago! It was very simple. “God’s ways are higher than our ways,” ministers would say with a shrug, likely relieved to be able to lay the blame on the Bible’s “clear teaching” rather than having to answer for their own sexism. Also: “Adam was created before Eve, which is obviously God’s way of communicating that men should lead women, and no, the creation order argument doesn’t apply to the animals who were made before Adam, don’t ask me why, please leave my office now.” 

Feminine rejection of godly masculine leadership is the mark of the curse.

John Piper

I was taught in such churches that my body was not only the sign to men that I wasn’t to be taken completely seriously, it was also a danger. I’d learned this lesson much earlier in life, having been molested by a man as a child, and the church’s reinforcement of this lie that my body was problematic was psychologically harmful in a way I didn’t acknowledge until too many years later. The “Billy Graham rule” – made slightly-better-known by Mike Pence in 2017 – referred to the practice of male leaders avoiding one-on-one time with any woman other than their wives, so that they could be neither tempted by such a woman (all men are attracted to all women, apparently) or accused of being tempted by her (women, after all, are notorious for their false allegations of sexual misconduct). (It’s also possible that this rule has nothing to do with women and is actually about the fact such men seem to believe they’re a one-on-one meeting away from becoming a sex offender, so enforce the rule to protect women.) (It’s also possible these men truly believe they’re deeply alluring to all [!] women and so such meetings would not lead to rape, but consensual sex in the middle of busy cafés.) (I’m really just spit-balling here; if you have light to shed on this, I’d love to hear from you.) (This is a lie. Please don’t contact me.)

Before camps and mission trips, the women would be pulled aside and reminded not to show too much skin at the pool/beach, because men (again: all men!) could not help but think sexy-thoughts upon the sight of a woman (any woman!) in a bikini, and all sexy-thoughts were bad outside of marriage. Not wanting our “brothers in Christ” to “stumble,” we swam and chatted wearing t-shirts over our swimmers, some of us enjoying (sometimes in a sexy-thought way, let’s be honest) the sight of the guys playing sport on the beach with their chests and shoulders and abs and backs and *vigorously fans face* smatterings of hair proudly on display. 

from here

My female body was no good for summertime, one-on-one conversations with men, or explaining theological concepts to men, but it was good for making babies and then raising said babies, and so I was placed on The Woman Track, which involved doing whatever I could to become a wife and a mother ASAP. The Man Track looked far more interesting to me: nothing seemed to impinge upon men’s aspirations! As well as being husbands (because everyone’s goal was to be married, duh) and fathers (because if you were married then of course you would have children, duh), men were free to pursue their vocation/s! Whichever they liked! They could become ministers if they wanted to, not because they were especially gifted at connecting with people or preaching, but simply because their man-ness made them very useful to God (I realise I’ve made this point before, but I’m repeating it here because I still find it flabbergasting: hopes, dreams, strengths and/or weaknesses played far less of a part in the role-assigning process than the presence or lack of a pecker. It’s profoundly odd.)

Being very useful to God meant that men could opt out of unpleasant tasks at home like cleaning the toilet or refocusing fractious toddlers, because their job was to provide for their families, not to work in the house! Lol! (When God wrote the Bible, He meant that men were only supposed to provide financially and spiritually, not emotionally or, like, by “providing” an extra set of hands to help. Obviously.) Such men could argue (though they never needed to) that working long hours/6-day weeks was really the best way they could possibly serve God with their time: “Sorry, love, it’s for the Big Guy. You’re doing a great job with the house and kids, though! Dinner was amazing, I’m so lucky to have you! Oh, I bought you these books about how motherhood is your highest calling, which offer nice reminders that the hard stuff is actually when God’s most present, so your suffering is bringing Him glory! Good on you, darl. I’ll be home late after Bible study, so I might see you tomorrow morning, unless I leave for work early to get some stuff done. Say hi to the kids for me! Mwah!” 

As far as I know, most Anglican ministers are still required to work 6-day weeks, with additional weeknight commitments such as Bible study or meetings. Family is not expected to be the top priority for men as it is for women. I remember exactly where I was standing when I was told (by a shocked narrator) the story of a woman who dared to call her husband after youth group some Friday nights to ask him to hurry home to help with the kids. The nerve! What kind of a wife would require her partner to actually be her partner?! I ASK YOU.

Men are not called by God to be “working at home” as women are in Titus 2:5. The ground is not cursed for women in Genesis 3:17, but for men, whose responsibility it was to work outside of the home–and to protect women, which was the first “man fail” of all time. 

The curse bore down upon Eve’s primary activity, childbearing, showing that her intended sphere of labor and dominion-taking was the home (Genesis 3:16). This is true of the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 as well, who though something of a whirling dervish of godly femininity was not, like her husband, by the city gates with the elders (Proverbs 31:23), but working tirelessly to bless her family and manage her home for God’s glory.

Owen Strachan

I can’t remember when it first dawned on me that the church thought my body was the most important thing about me, but I do remember shedding many tears over the thought that God would love me more if I were male. I’d felt so special to God the night I’d converted to Christianity, overwhelmed by the thought that He wanted me – of (literally) all people! – to follow Him. Back then I was a “baby Christian,” as my grandmother called me, desperate to absorb everything and grow to match the knowledge of my fellow Bible study pals, but I found the teaching on gender roles deeply unfair and illogical, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it so that I’d be able to believe and say the appropriate things and fit in. I hated this about me.

During the early years in my first church, I cycled – sometimes daily – through feelings of rage and despair, and then attempts at acceptance. I spent a lot of time both asking God for satisfying answers to my questions about gender (I’d heard enough of “We just don’t know why God chose us specifically, P.S. feminism is of the Devil and this conversation is definitely over now”), and gaslighting myself (“This is only a problem for you because you’re a sinful woman. Godly women submit, even when it’s hard! Especially when it’s hard!”). I wondered how it didn’t seem to bother many of the other women in the church, repeatedly concluding that I must be the one who had it wrong and needed to change. It certainly never seemed to bother the men.

I remember going out for dinner with friends after sermons on head-coverings or women’s roles in marriage, and ranting and crying over pizza. I remember declining communion during one church service – for the first time ever – to protest the fact that a bunch of only-men were approached and then voted into the group whose job it was to find our next minister, and that no one had noticed the group was exclusively male, or, when it was pointed out, considered it a particularly big deal that there’d be not even one woman to offer her perspective on a potential future minister’s suitability for our congregation (half of whom were women). (My similarly-upset friends and I were later told that one of the men “thought like a woman” so pretty much counted as one.) I sobbed that night, and an older woman came and sat with me and told me that when she questioned God’s love for her, she thought about her female friends and realised God must like her a lot to bring them into her life. I found this sweet, and tried to do the same.

I didn’t want this topic to bother me so much; I was desperate to please both God and my church leaders (not to mention any potential husbands out there! Helloooo, eligible fellas! Please bear with me while I try to hold you in the esteem I’m supposed to whilst significantly lowering my expectations for my own future!). I wanted to feel totes okay with what I was being taught rather than constantly wrestling with it. Looking back, I can see how through such pains my feminism was born; though I’d been introduced to it earlier, my time in Sydney Anglicanism demonstrated gender inequality in a way I couldn’t ignore, starting a fire in me that continues to burn despite having left the church years ago now. (THANKS, YOU GUYS!)

Next up on listener favorites is a poem by Jamie Lee Finch called “Sex”. This was featured in full on our episode “The Ethics of F***ing (Part 1)”.
Posted by The Liturgists on Tuesday, 10 July 2018

Jamie Lee Finch reading part of her poem Sex (1:12). 
Listen to the rest of it on her website.

After Moses was born, I spent my days and nights breastfeeding and reading, reading and breastfeeding. As well as books on parenting, I realised I could finally explore the questions about gender I’d been asking for years by that point, given I had access to the library of the Bible college where I’d studied the previous semester (and where Alan was still a student), as well as oodles of time to fill. I started this blog, both to document my thoughts throughout this process, and to keep a couple of close friends (who had the inclination but not the time to research the topic) updated on what I was learning. I used a pseudonym, knowing my views would make others angry and potentially affect Alan, who wanted to work for the church eventually.

That was 2010. I see now that it was the beginning of the end for my faith.