Those damn women
I had been up for over an hour this morning before it registered with me that it is International Womens’ Day, but some people are not so lax, and I had an email from commenter Alan in my inbox by the time that I got to work. I am sure that Alan wouldn’t mind me quoting a couple of excerpts:
Well, there’s a most peculiar development going on in the churches at the moment.Archbishops and ethics lecturers are mounting a new campaign to get men into church.The argument runs like this:men hate the church(that of course will be news to women who look around and find its men who run the place),for five reasons:
*church meeting styles are feminine
*church leadership model is weak
*church is boring and safe:no risk
*church doesn’t relate to a man’s world
*blokes like to get their hands dirty
(”Five reasons why men hate the church”,Jeremy Halcrow,29.1.07 Syd Anglican website)
But maybe there’s another reason.
Perhaps men look around the church and don’t like the way other men are treating women.Maybe there’s too many men now comfortably and easily working with, working for,being directed by,in partnership with, women, that they are uneasy about the kind of blokey culture about in too many of our churches, and dont want to be a part of it!
I don’t know whether I agree with the latter commentary, but I find that there is a real paradox about the church/gender debate. First it seems clear that there are many more men in formal leadership in churches than women. If anything this is even more true of church plants and alternative model churches. As much as I embrace the “emerging” discussion, the movement does seem to have a more than usual affliction with the “angry young man” syndrome. No offence intended to any angry young men in the audience.
However, at the same time, there is a concern about the fact that men as a demographic are under-represented among church attenders. The NCLS says that only about 39% of church attenders in Australia are male and suggests a number of theories as to why. Part of this imbalance is almost certainly due to the fact that the elderly are over-represented in churches and women on average live longer than men. But what of the rest of the difference?
Increasingly, as Alan has pointed out, I have heard people discuss the idea that men are less likely to be involved with the church because church culture is somehow uncomfortable or anti-male. These are the arguments for people who endorse or at least condone a “bloke”inisation of leadership and culture in the church to “correct the balance”. I find these positions to raise some logical conflicts. I think we can point to the following facts that seem to be fairly well established.
- More women than men are regular church attenders
- More men than women are in formal leadership in the church
Which raises a whole bunch of questions. If the culture of the church is anti-church, then who creates the culture? If the leaders create the culture, then why are a group of predominantly male leaders creating such a “feminine” culture so as to be anathema to men? What about the culture of the church is feminine? The worship? The openness? The confessional? The singing? What?
In response to that, if the culture of the church is too female, then what changes will make the place more attractive to men? Surely most men are more sophisiticated than to respond to an increase on the ‘bloke’iness dial? So I have a couple of simple questions I would like an answer to, and I think that the commenters at signposts on this day are well qualified to give me those answers:
- Why are there more men than women in formal leadership in the church?
- What can be done to encourage more women into formal leadership in the church?
- Why are there more women than men amongst regular church attenders?
- What can be done to encourage more men to be in regular church attendance?
April 30th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
except that didn’t work either - back to what Dan said
April 30th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
excuse me for interrupting
April 30th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
*mutters, “typical male…”*
April 30th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Bec re: annoying little comments. Comments just off the top of my head, that have annoyed me.
Q. “Is your (insert partners name) babysitting?” - A. “No he is just looking after our kids”
Comment whilst attending a wedding when getting something to eat -”Once on the lips, twice on the hips”. Comment made by friends’ father.
Comment - Q. “It must be difficult being a woman like you” A. “Only in christian circles”. Comment made by christian psychologist.
Comment - “You look very pretty today” - Comment made by annoying person 15 years my junior.
All the above comments made in church context.
Yes perhaps I am rapidly becoming a christian version of a ‘grumpy old woman’ but I have found all the above comments sexist and very very annoying. I am sure most of the comments were made with no malice what so ever, but I doubt they would have been made at all to a male.
April 30th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
re: mn that independence is not necessarily a good thing…I’m not sure exactly what you mean. 50 years ago I wouldn’t have been expected to have a career, if I had it would have been out the window when I had kids, if I had been in an abusive marriage I would have had very few options, if I had fallen pregnant outside of marriage I would have been shipped off somewhere to have my baby in disgrace…the list goes on.
With independence comes responsibility - I’m not saying all women or men make the best decisions when they are given independence and freedom. But to deny them that independence because it’s “for their own good” or whatever is paternalistic and denies people the chance to go thorugh their own journey themselves.
April 30th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Daisy…
:lol:
Those comments cracked me up (and love your responses - esp. to the third!)
Just in case it wasn’t really clear from the above posts, I get comments directed at me being ambitioius, driven, outspoken etc all the time. Usually just from friends who are taking the mickey out of me - but the point I’m trying to make is that people take the mickey out of men in a completely different way, and the ways we do this reveal our gender stereotypes.
The men in my community can laugh at themselves, and did at the time, so I have no hesitation in posting this one: a group of us were out for dinner after church one night. One woman a few years older than me, who we’ll call A, and I were discussing red lipstick. I was admiring hers and telling her that I wasn’t confident wearing that kind of colour but would like to. Suddenly we realised the whole table had fallen silent and everyone was looking at us. A few people commented that they were suprised to hear us talking about lipstick, given the kind of women we were (or words to that effect). The assumption being, of course, that you can’t both be a strong-willed, independent woman AND interested in lipstick.
Something else that irritates me: I work with the most amazing older Christian men in the organisations I’m involved in, but I find myself sounding like a cracked record, as I’m constantly harping on about how we need more representation from women. They agree with me - but for some reason it falls to me to keep bringing this issue up and ensuring it remains on the agenda.
And don’t even get me started on gender-specific language in churches…I’m not asking for people to refer to God as “She”, but the occasional use of words like “Creator” rather than the over-used “Father” and “Lord” might be nice sometimes.
April 30th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Indeed… I echo the comments about women who stayed in abusive marriages because there were no social safety nets… my mother in law’s neighbor stayed with an alcoholic abusive partner who not only abused her but sexually abused some of the children. She hated him… but stayed.
Of course, some women still stay in abusive relationships because they are too terrorised to leave…
You’d have to say reliable forms of birth control are a good thing for the planet… if every married woman on earth popped out the numbers of children that were the norm before the pill came along we probably would have already hit the point of environmental catastrophe… and I believe birth control in developing nations has to be a global priority or there actually won’t be enough food to go around (currently there IS enough… it’s just appallingly badly distributed… but we will almost certainly be unable to keep producing more food at the exponential rate required to keep up with population growth if we take birth control out of the picture. Think the steep slope of an exponential graph, add another 100 years, 200 years… etc… mass starvation would seem almost inevitable)
As you said Emma… with independence and freedom people sometimes make bad choices (most of us could think of marriages that dissolved because of affairs… or on the face of it, dissolved for relatively trivial reasons) but we don’t deprive everyone of freedom because some people make bad choices. God doesn’t treat people that way…
I think the pill and sexual freedom has had some down sides for women too… at the risk of sounding very old fashioned and sexist… I know some women who would have loved to have gotten married and had children… but seemed to pair with men who were quite happy to have sex without that kind of commitment… and their biological clock has ticked away leaving them childless and sad about about it.
April 30th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
The lipstick story reasonanted with me but in just a slightly different way. Working in a traditional feminist organisation; in a professional capacity- one worker and I basically had this exchange.
Worker - “That’s a nice colour lipstick your wearing today, can you remember what it was called?” A. “Yes, I can as it happens it’s called tiramisu”. Comment “It’s really very nice” A. “Well yes its a redish brown, which is nice in between seasons when, well you don’t want to wear a really redish red, well at least I don’t”
Then deafly silence, before our same sex orientated boss burst out laughing and said, I can’t believe you two, that’s hilarious….”
Lipstick it seems brings derision in many settings.
April 30th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
On a more serious note.
Janet, why could not the women you know have gotten married and have had children or have had children without marriage if that is what they desired? What was stopping them? I know this may be dependant on their faith beliefs. I am curious.
On the topic of affairs, now it might just be me, but I have seen some very scary double standards when it comes to affairs or to pre marital sex particularly in the body of Christ, when it was the woman who ‘transgressed’.
I wonder alot about the notion that it is somehow so much more important or horrifying when women are the ones to transgress sexually. I have never been able to understand it. Women seem to get lumbered with the responsibility of being the keepers of all things sexually pure (well in the christian circles I have travelled in). I think it is a mutual responsibility without gender.
April 30th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
yes that is true re: double standard. Something else i’ve noticed is a real attitude against young ummarried pregnant women. I look very young and I lost my wedding ring years ago - consequently when I was pregnant with my first child I did look like a teen mum! BUt the comments and looks I’d get from Christian circles who didn’t actually know me…I find this worrying and annoying beacuse if a girl does choose to have a baby over an abortion, that’s such a hard choice and often the tougher road - she should be supported and helped, not condemned. And of course no one can see the guy has “transgressed” so there’s no public condemnation for him.
In my old church one of the pastors (married) had an affair with an unmarried woman. She had to leave the church, there were all sorts of insinuations about her sexual past etc while the pastor was looked upon as “oh poor man he got trapped by a vixen” kind of deal. I knew both these people and it was not the truth. Double standard, yes, I have observed it too.
April 30th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Good question…
One girl I went to school with lived with a guy for… about 11 years. They got engaged eventually, then broke up. He really didn’t want a commitment or children. She was devastated… and I think she then found as a single in her 30’s a lot of the men who were the “marrying kind” were already married. She eventually married someone, but the marriage literally only lasted a few weeks…
Another friend I was close to at school has had a number of partners, but none have led to anything longer term… I don’t know why. I think there’s a still a mindset out there if you’re going to raise children it’s best to do so with a committed partner… the single mum needing to keep working to support a baby is a big call.
Others I can think of… yes, I can think of Christian girls who never married because they had trouble finding a suitable Christian man… and sleeping around in order to have a child wasn’t a moral option for them.
April 30th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Bec
“I mean, we always look at divorce statistics as a sign of failure - failed relationships etc. Of course they are - but we’ll never know how many of them “failed” because of, say, increased independence, a lack of commitment etc…and how many “failed” because women now have the means to get out of abusive relationships? In the latter instance, divorce is in some sense a sign of “success” rather than “failure”.”
We can always find cases that go against the prevailing trend - but is interesting to me that when these topics come up we always tend to look at worst case scenario to justify in this case say divorce.
Jesus hated divorce and yet this society wants to make a virtue out of it. Am I supporting physical or emotional abuse? Nope.
The independence issue - depends who’s got the biggest boot on to use. The argument probably runs that most divorce pre-pill and other social changes was initiated by men because they had the purse strings, and it suited them either be controlling and keep something going that shouldn’t or get out because they found something “better”.
These (I’m generalising) women get out because they want something “better” and because they now can - can have all the sex they want or don’t want, earn lots of money if so inclined (education assumed), and bail whenever the want cos they can.
Both men and women will do the same thing - except the stats are showing that women do it more - and the men are too braindead to know whats going on til its too late. May be women are better at keeping secrets from men - or we’re just too stupid or attuned.
Clearly a huge number of men don’t know how to at least ensure their women are content - or is it that those women aren’t content with what they’ve got.
I will say one observation of mine is that I’ve noticed women brought up in legalistic Christian environs at some point really struggle and often bail - because keeping the relationship going because its the “right thing” no longer cuts it today - and Anna Karenina doesn’t cut it, but the Ballad of Lucy Jordan most definitely does.
If I’ve generalised about women you can prbably give me oodles of examples of men doing the same thing - although I thing men probably go to porn if they’re dissatisified with their spouse, try and get their fix that way blah, blah, blah.
I’m not a fan of independence to the exclusion of significant other - its code for justifiable selfishness - whether it be man or woman.
Cheers
MN
May 1st, 2007 at 6:52 am
MN
God hates divorce - I agree. But I am divorced…
I believe what God hates about divorce is what causes the divorce. God hates it when people abuse and put their spouse down. God hates infidelity, or abandonment. There is no virtue in divorce, however, sometimes it is the only way forward.
I hate divorce, but I would not go back to being married to my first husband. I am an advocate for working through problems in a marriage, and not taking the divorce road - because I know personally that divorce, and having to renounce the vow you made to love, honour and cherish (or whatever) is very difficult.
However, if a couple, or one person, in marriage has taken all the steps to see that marriage work, if the situation remains so that the physical, mental or spiritual health of one person is in danger, then I am fully supportive of anyone choosing a divorce.
And even if someone takes the divorce road as an “easy option out”, I would still support them - because people matter much more than what they have done.
Janet McKinney
May 1st, 2007 at 9:58 am
MN…
I’ve heard people say “this society wants to make a virtue out of divorce” before. However I don’t see any evidence of that. I’ve seen plenty of couples go through a divorce, and in every case the couple, and everyone around them, has found it absolutely harrowing - it’s been a complete and utter tragedy, it’s been surrounded by much grieving.
I find these two paragraphs…I think the best word is “bizarre”. I also find them offensive - both to men and to women. I think people sometimes have affairs because they think they can have something “better” - I don’t know anyone who’s left a marriage because they thought they could have something “better”. I think people leave marriages because they don’t think it can work anymore - not because they think they can have something “better”. And while women have affairs, I suspect that the statistics still show that men tend to have them more.
As for women being better at keeping secrets - what evidence do you have for this? I personally think it’s untrue - I know plenty of men who are extremely good at keeping secrets. I also think that it’s quite an offensive statement - it taps into the old ideas of women being more manipulative than men.
It’s interesting that you bring up the issue of legalistic Christian environs. I’ve observed numerous marriages fail when a couple reach their thirties - so often they have been a couple that were raised in and met through conservative Christian cultures and married quite young. In many instances their theologies changed as they grew older, and their marriage seemed unable to survive the massive cultural and other changes that went along with that.
I was discussing this with some older friends the other day - I was telling them about my anger with the church, and how I feel like everywhere I look, I see the “carnage” (I used that word) of the failure of Christian culture to raise young people with a healthy approach to love, relationships, sex etc. I didn’t quite realise until I was having this conversation just how angry I am with the church for this - because in my circles at least, the divorce rates among Christians seems far higher than among non-church goers. My non-churchy friends are doing really well - probably because they got married when they were older, more mature, and knew themselves and what they wanted and needed, and what they were committing themselves to. I think this is an issue we really need to look at - I think it’s better not to have sex outside marriage, but it seems to me that we’re obsessed with this particular issue, and not looking at the bigger picture.
May 1st, 2007 at 10:02 am
I feel like I want to express a reservation about the stats of “women initiating divorce”, simply because the easiest way to test this - ie who filed the application for divorce - is not necessarily the same as who made the decision to end the marriage (which in itself is something that people sometimes find hard to pin down). I had a look at MN’s stats and it wasn’t clear exactly what they were measuring - though some seem to be based on self-reporting rather than the actual filing.
May 1st, 2007 at 10:07 am
MN - sorry, when I say “I find that paragraph bizarre”, I’m not meaning to be insulting - I’m just a bit surprised by what you’ve said, it seems to me as if you’re placing far too much blame at the feet of women, and as if you have some firm ideas of what women are like.
Dan, that’s a really good point about stats. Again, I can only go on my experience, but when I was volunteering in family law I found that many people don’t initiate divorce for quite a long time after separation (in many cases, it’s 3+ years of separation).
May 1st, 2007 at 10:31 am
I can definitely attest to the conservative Christian environment that contibutes to divorce…When I was in youth leadership the church pastors were absolutely obsessed with the idea people were having sex…young people were in my opinion wrongly encouraged to enter into marrriage very young and after a very short time period. I have seen many of these marriages fall apart. People simply didn’t know each other well enough, were far too young and changed too much between the ages of 20 and 30, as Bec says. One poor young couple who’d slept together were told that in God’s eyes they were already married and so had to make it legal. One wonders how long that marriage will last.
I too believe sex is best left within marriage - or at least a lifelong monogomous relationship - but I would rather see that mistake than a hasty marriage inevitably end in divorce.
May 1st, 2007 at 10:57 am
^ ^ Oh, me too Emma…
I have so many friends who are in their late teens or early twenties who feel under immense pressure to get married. I’ve heard so many partners say something along the lines of “find your best friend who you also want to have sex with, and get married as quickly as possible”…not entirely bad logic, but I’m not sure it’s the healthiest thing to be constantly drumming into a 19 year old.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:11 am
no. again, i guess it’s normal for a 19-year-old to be thinking about sex but I really get annoyed that most of the advice expecially for young girls is find a guy get married. we limit our young women so much. I know for myself I always thought I would get married in my 30s, because that’s what my mum had done. I planned on leaving school, travelling, etc. funnily enough it didn’t work out that way and I did get married at 21 (which was very young) but my vision for my life was always greater than that. even so, when you do “ammry your childhood sweetheart” it is like you’ve been married since you were 16, and that brings its own challanges. Sure, getting married and having kids is a wonderful thing but it’s sure not all life has to offer.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:23 am
Is there any good idea why arranged marriages at 14 or 15 years of age seemed so much more stable than our current situation? On our 11th anniversary (number 19 coming up) we went out on the town in Newport Beach (the OC) and were told all night long that we were the only people they knew that had been married for over ten years.
I am sure it must be the fault of womens lib, or women in general, but would like some help understanding why?
rev
May 1st, 2007 at 11:24 am
May 1st, 2007 at 11:40 am
well actually all jokes aside it probably is the “fault” of women’s lib. As a part sri lankan, I know plenty of arranged marriages. They do last - for a couple of reasons. Firstly, in the arranged marriage culture, divorce is still almost the unpardonable sin, and so people go into the relationship with a far better understanding that it is for life. Also, there seems to be more emphasis on whether two people are “matched well” than if they’re “in love”. Both of these things I think can be positive…the negative of course is that there is no economic security for women outside marriage (and here’s where the evil women’s libbers come in!)
I have known many many abusive, bad marriages where there simply is no choice for the woman but to stay. A man might be pardoned for divorce, but a woman goes around with a virtual scarlet A on her forehead.
so in a sense it is the “fault” of feminism…making sure woman have the same economic backups and social standing as men will encourage women to leave bad marraiges. I guess it all depends on whether people see a bad marriage as better than a divorce…like janet said, I think people matter more than what they do.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:43 am
would you say that the percentage of “bad marriages” is more in that context? Seems like “bad marriage” these days can mean, “we just have grown apart”
rev
May 1st, 2007 at 11:55 am
Umm…I would say that no one in that culture would consider “we’ve grown apart” to be that bad, and definitely not grounds for divorce. I don’t know whether you would say there were more bad marriages than in a western society, but if someone here is in a bad marrriage, I agree it can just mean something like “I’m not in love anymore” wheras over there bad would mean you were being abused, your husband was an alcoholic etc.
I think there are pros and cons on both sides…something I dislike in a western sense of marriage is this “We’re in love” kind of concept without really understanding that when you do get married, you burn your bridges. But I do find any system based on arrangement seems to work against women in the long run. The ads they run in sri lankan newspapers are hilarious, but also sad. Women really are still chattel in that sense. They just do not have the economic security or the social support structures to leave even when things are really bad - especially if there are children involved.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:55 am
I certainly have heard of the “we have grown apart” but I wouldn’t like to downgrade that necessarily. I have lived with some friends through marriage breakdowns where you can’t point to abuse, cheating or any “easy” justification like that but which are certainly very painful and difficult situations.
Sometimes I hear of separations or divorces which make me think, either they never really tried or they never were serious about being married in the first time, but how the hell can I know what has really gone on?
May 1st, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Rev, I assume you were joking with the bit about it being “the fault of womens lib or women in general”??
Interesting posts Emma - having absolutely no experience of arranged marriages (though I have plenty of friends who say they’ll call on that tradition if/when it suits them!), it was based on my instincts more than anything, but your posts confirm what I already suspected.
I guess this is part of my problem with Christian culture…there’s so much talk of “the One” (and they don’t mean Jesus!), and I think there’s very little to disintuish “Christian culture” from “pop culture” in this respect. There’s pressure to get married young, plus this question of “the One”…little wonder we have couples struggling to hold their marriages together when they hit their 30s/40s. I feel lucky to have escaped that, and to have got married when I’m older when I feel I had a better idea of what a good relationship was.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:33 pm
and maybe a better sense of who you were as an individual. Like dan says, the “we’ve grown apart” may sound pathetic, but as Janet ? pointed out people change drastically between 20 and 30, most often in terms of theology etc. At 30 I am a completely different person than I was at 20, as is my husband…I thank God that we changed together…it sounds like this has been rev’s experience too. But people who are forced/encouraged into marriage very young and change drastically so that they really are worlds apart…that’s very hard and painful. Again, we should be very careful what we teach young people - and what we model too.
this concept of “the One” is funny too. I used to believe in it…but mathenatically it just can’t make sense.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I guess this ties in with the idea of realistic expectations. In the standard pre-marital counselling that a lot of denoms here use, one of the categories that you as a couple are assessed on are “realistic expectations”. Questions like “I will never be attracted to another person now I am married” and “My partner and I will never disagree about things we now agree on” are examples.
I wonder whether the arranged marriage thing also has a factor of realistic expectations built in. The concept of “the One” is an unrealistic expectation in and of itself, and quite a dangerous one (If I am attracted to someone else then that means my spouse is not in fact THE ONE and therefore I have made the wrong choice). Maybe going into a marriage which is more about growing towards love and relying on a good match has some advantages over that sort of naive all or nothing approach.
May 1st, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Emma, yes all that is true too. I know I definitely had a far better idea of who I was, and of what I needed/wanted in a partner…for example, when I was younger I thought that my ideal partner would be someone working in my field - now I know it would drive me mad and would probably introduce a competitive element into the relationship, almost guaranteed to produce a disaster!!
Dan, I couldn’t agree with your post more - whenever I hear people talk in terms of concepts like “the One”, Destiny, Fate, God’s Will etc, I worry. Sooner or later those feelings wear off - or you meet another person who inspires and excites you, in circumstances that make you feel there was something more than coincidence involved. What then?
I think idea of “the One” are also unrealistic because they create this belief in “Soul Mates” who understand each other completely, agree on everything (or most things)…and of course that’s not the case.
May 1st, 2007 at 2:08 pm
yes and also the idea that one person can fulfill all your emotional needs. That’s just not possible. Hopefully our partners can engage with us emotionally and connect with us in a “soul sense” but it’s not realistic to think that one person can provide us with all the emotional connections we need…or that we can do that for our partners either. That’s why we need friends, family, others in our lives who connect with us too.