True Woman 101: Battle of the Sexes

  

This week we delve into the raging war between male and female, also known as the battle of the sexes. We took a look at where it began, how it's affected us, and why it continues.

To start things off, we took a look at what was amiss in Adam and Eve’s behavior during Eve’s interaction with the Serpent. 

For starters, they acted totally independent of each other, and tried to blame others rather than owning up to their wrong choices. The serpant intentionally circumvented the mans' authority by going straight to the woman, and the woman acted on her own behalf instead of consulting her husband. This displayed an attitude of independence rather than interdependence (God's intended design for their relationship).

This led to some consequences. Gender specific consequences. And with it came the inititial components of the battle. 

Pain in childbearing for women, pain and toil for men. Women were also given a spirit of independence, so that "(their) desire would be for (their) husband, but he will rule over (them)." In their independence, women seek to control their husbands and their circumstances, robbing men of the leadership role for which they were created and causing a great deal of strife in the male-female relationship.

Sin causes us to want to live outside God's original design. In Eve's original sin, she shows no observance of the man's authority or of God's-she simply takes matters into her own hands. It's the same with women today. They desire to exert their independence which often times means walking all over men and their ego's, with no regard of God's intended design. Women desire control and power at their husband's expense. Men, on the other hand, abuse their leadership role by acting chauvinistic and arrogant rather than lovingly leading. Sin twists the the positive desires that God intended for men and women into a negative desire to resist, rebel, and abuse.

As a woman, I can attest to these consequences personally. The pain in childbearing becomes a painful reality fairly obviously when you have a baby. It starts with the pain and discomfort of pregnancy, which ends with an incredible amount of pain and discomfort. There's also the emotional pain you feel as a mother-when you can't take away your children's pain, when you see them going through physical pain and difficulty, or as they get older and endure the trials and troubles of life.

In terms of the having a desire to overthrow your husband sort of thing, I think that's something we all struggle with. How often have I talked over my husband, not taken the time to listen to him, complained, had a bad attitude, etc? Or over any man for that matter? I've definitely done it with my Dad as well (hello teenage years). It's the cry of our culture to exert ourselves as women-our independence, worth, entitlement-we deserve respect, yes, but not at the expense of men's.

At times, we may be tempted to view men as the enemy. Personally, I don't think we can really blame men when Eve was the one who 1. Listened to the Lie, 2. Acted totally independent of her husband in the matter and 3. Ate the fruit.

Adam shouldn't have eaten the fruit either, but Eve's the one that did it first. Both made the wrong choice and chose to sin. When we view men as the enemy, we fail to identify the real problem, which is sin itself and our own choice to indulge in it. As long as we see men as "the enemy" we can't experience the interdependent relationship that God designed us for.
 

When you see a man who abuses his power as a leader, it makes you want to fight back and take the power away from them. When you here of a man being abusive of a woman, it arouses feelings of anger and defensiveness. But these type of men are not embracing God's design. The key is in remembering what is really to blame, and that is sin. God has given men a great responsibilty in properly exerting their leadership and strength, and when they abuse that power and give in to sin, we can know with certainty that they will be called to account for their actions. 

The women’s movement encouraged women to do womanhood their own way. But the obliteration or self-definition of gender roles is not the solution to the pain of womanhood.As the book states, "at the heart of the women's lib/feminist movement was the idea that to be happy, women needed to be "liberated" from age-old ideas about womanhood...They needed to fight against male dominance, and seize the power and right to self-define." 

Women felt that they were being oppressed, and that it was men's fault. They embraced the power and right to self-define rather than looking to the one who created them to define their purpose, which has now resulted in damaged marriages, failure to embrace the fulfillment found in motherhood, and general moral decline. The male-female relationship has been severely damaged by the demand to define for ourselves our roles and responsibilities of men and women.

For more on the "Battle of the Sexes," see the True Woman 101 tab.