Strong Independent Women

Being a strong, independent woman is a powerful selling point for multiple reasons. It not only comes with the benefit of sounding nothing but positive, but it plays off of woman's natural desires, stemming from the original sin.

Then he said to the woman, “I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you. ” Genesis 3:16 NLT

When Adam and Eve sinned against God, He placed upon man- and womankind gender specific curses. The curse upon womankind was painful childbearing and the declaration of the war of the sexes.

God's word here is not a command, but rather predictive. He is not commanding here for husbands to rule over their wives, but that wives will specifically desire to control their husbands and will instead be met with opposition in the form of their husbands ruling over them (which is actually also bad, but more on that later).

The emphasis on desire here is important. Unlike pain in childbirth, which is a natural condition that is not avoidable through our own willful actions, the desire to do something can be overcome. However, we can also give in to our desires and let them control us. In this way, the curse of the woman's desire to control her husband is something like an avoidable trap.

The movement of "liberation feminism" tends to lead women directly into this trap.

This is a tricky subject that I see a vast majority of people get wrong. The long and short of it is that the curses upon man and woman from original sin are real parts of our lives and even people who deny God tend to find this truth. The problems arise when these people formulate their opinions on the subject without keeping God in mind.

From this straightforward curse, we end up with two extremes: radical feminism's rampant misandry and belief that men are, in no uncertain way, the cause of all the world's problems as well as each individual woman's life problems, and genuine "sexist" attitudes toward women (MGTOW is an example of this, if you know what that is) that demonizes women up to extremes of people who genuinely believe that women should be little more than slaves, of both the sexual and labor variety. Both of these extremes also include people who unironically believe that the woman or man populations should be stripped of rights or even "population controlled" (read: killed).

Now these are just the extremes - obviously there are people in between. The vast majority of men, even those who were scorned and believe that women are generally bad people, would never dream of actually owning a woman and forcing her to bend to their every desire on threat of beatings or death, and just as well the vast majority of women don't really think men should all be killed except for a few that are kept in labs to artificially continue the propagation of the species. But extremes are what you get when there is a lot of push and push back, so extremes are coming out of the woodwork and will continue to build up until a more neutral equilibrium is reestablished.

So, how do these extremist attitudes - that any normal person would of course believe are completely outrageous - relate to womankind's curse?

I mentioned push and push back as being a cause of extreme attitudes. This is - almost literally - illustrated by the wording of the curse. Woman will desire to control her husband, but he will instead rule over her. Woman will attempt to control her husband, and in response he will rule over her. When you push, you get pushback.

What this means in practice is that when woman gives into this desire to wrest control, she pushes against man - who then push back, and in response rules over woman. This is directly in line with the curse of original sin and is in all likelyhood the very basic cause of almost all strife and conflict between men and women. Unfortunately, just like the original sin itself, this is arguably the woman's fault. However, in alignment with original sin, it is truly the fault of both sexes, as when men and women live together the way that God intended them to, both have responsibilities in the way that they behave. When you have women battling for control over men, it's just as against God's design as men ruling over women.

God spells out very clearly what the relationship between husbands and wives should look like, and control and rule on either side are both clearly lacking in these commandments.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.  Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Ephesians 5:22‭-‬27 ESV

Many different kinds of people love to abuse the first part of this snippet, mainly the "wives, submit to your own husbands," part, which - like many misuses - doesn't even go to the end of the verse. Ranging from disgruntled women-hating men to your general every day atheist trying to "gotcha" someone, this half of a verse, completely out of context, is very clearly understood differently when viewed in context.

Relationship between husband and wife as laid out in the bible is simplified in the observation that both are called to serve one another, but differently. This coincides with the obvious reality that men and women are in fact different, which is absolutely fine (feel free to view my other entry on why different or "unequal" is not the same as "one of these things is superior to the other"). Husband and wife are in a covenant with God and thus, while indeed promising to one another, are in fact promising to God how they will behave in the context of their marriage. Like every other facet of following the Lord, we are compelled to follow through with our servitude and live under God's will not out of fear or obligation, but because we truly want to.

When a husband behaves as God intends and when a wife behaves as God intends, they both serve each other willingly and out of love and compassion for one another. If a husband loves his wife as Christ loved the church (quick reminder: one of the biggest reasons Jesus even came to earth was the live and die for the church), what qualms would any woman have submitting to such a husband? If a wife is obedient and follows her husband's guidance in raising and protecting her and her children, what God-fearing man would be so vile as to manipulate this trust and devotion?

Worldviews that don't acknowledge both the curse of original sin and its role in men and women's daily lives and God's design for the interaction between man and woman will always be flawed and harmful.

A worldview in which one believes that men should rule over women ignores the sacrificial love that men are to show women. As written, the husband is not simply to guide his wife, but that he would sanctify her, which is to say specifically to lead her to live a good and righteous life in the light of the Lord. Ruling over a woman implies an acute lack of compassion - it is not necessary to love someone in order to demand that they behave a certain way. Which is to say, a man who would not lovingly guide, but in fact command, in a way of legalism or authoritarian expectation, a woman to be a wholesome, good, and righteous woman is in fact falling quite short of God's commandments and His design for the interaction and relationship they are to have. This would be perhaps comparable to tithing, but doing so reluctantly and out of obligation. You may as well not even tithe if you are not doing so joyfully. You may as well not even bother leading your wife if you are doing so without the sacrificial love that Christ showed the church.

Likewise, a worldview that insists women should in fact control men - or more reasonable sounding, simply not submit to their husbands - dodges the submission that women are to have. Now, remember - women are not submitting to an emotionless ruler. None of this works out of context of the whole thing. If women are submitting to an emotionless, demanding ruler who does not show sacrificial love, the designs is still not being followed correctly. You do not get one part without the other. This is why it is so important to understand God's commands and the bible in context - God's design isn't women submitting to men who are willy nilly just doing whatever they please and demanding that women do things because it is pleasing to the man, no, the entire design rests upon the man and woman submitting to the Lord and fulfilling His commandments.

There are many different worldviews on how the relationship between men and women should be approached, and any of them that do not acknowledge the original sin for how this relationship tends to happen and Jesus's commandments for how it should happen will fall short of ever accomplishing anything. Worldviews that believe women should rule over men are as flawed as worldviews that believe men should rule over women - they are both wrong, though perhaps for different reasons. Whether one is better than the other is inconsequential, as the correct answer will always be the way that God intended. When we live within His will for us is when we will be most fulfilled.