The Problem with Men/Women 204 question
Every so often, a question comes into tentpegsquestion@yahoo.com that makes me wonder if I dare tackle it. This time, the answer is “sure!” And it has nothing to do with the fact that my wife is out of town…
I was teaching a class on women’s roles in the church and the family. Not my choice of topic, but I was repeatedly asked by several members of the class to teach on that subject, so I obliged. It was interesting to me the lack of respect some of the women in the class had towards men as an entire group. My mother falls in this same category, a group who thinks there is something innately wrong with men. As I have been going over this in my mind I have started to wonder if that is close to blasphemy. It seems like the idea is suggesting that either
1) Man was made in God’s image, and man is innately flawed meaning God is flawed
or
2) Man was made in God’s image, and man is flawed so God cannot display his image accurately
both of these hint at blasphemy to me. Of course the same would be true for misogynists. Do you think there is a hint of blasphemy in a general disregard for entire segments of the population built in the image of God?
If we understood the symbolism and poetry of First Corinthians 11, this would be easier to deal with. The head of man is Christ and we are not to live or pray with our head covered. In other words, if we live in such a way that people cannot tell that Christ is the Head of our lives, our prayers are hindered and our witness is muted. The head of the woman is man and if she prays or lives with her head uncovered, she has shamed herself. What does that mean? If a woman consistently strips her husband bare in public, pointing out his faults and failures, complaining that he acts like a… well, a man… she harms herself and her relationship with God. Love is supposed to cover a multitude of sins, not bring them into Ladies Bible Class or broadcast them over a cell phone.
This is strange, but true: men love women and think highly of them most of the time. In my 52 years I have never been in a room where the men wondered why women couldn’t be more like men and think like men. Not once — and, remember, I have been in some interesting rooms! Yet, women have this idea that men should think like them and act like them (when they want them to, but not when they don’t. It is up to the man to figure out which time is time without any signal given by the woman). If a man doesn’t like spending the afternoon at Pottery Barn but would rather plop on the couch and cheer on the Longhorns, he must be lazy, incompetent, or ignorant. If he doesn’t like movies where people talk about their feelings and die incredibly slowly, he must be a Neanderthal who only likes movies when things blow up.
No proud owner of a Y chromosome joyfully buys a little fluffy cap for the toilet seat or a dust ruffle for the bed nor will you find one agonizing over which scented candle conveys the appropriate level of thanks/sympathies you want to express to the people who had you over last night/experienced the death of their cat. Because men don’t like that or do that, women judge them as lacking in some essential human quality. Men should only want sex when the woman wants it. To want it more often is to be animalistic, simplistic, and brutish. To want it less often is to be unmanly. The woman is the standard; man, the deviation.
Ladies: to be blunt, there are men out there who love shopping for home goods, who think Bed, Bath, and Beyond is heaven on earth, who love to talk about feelings, who appreciate good fashion, who think haute cuisine is precious, and who love to cuddle. Sadly, those men already have boyfriends.
Let’s be fair — women bring beauty, order, and joy into the world. I don’t want to live in a world where there are no women. It would be full of awful smells, sounds, and East European Dictator Style decorating. Still, it is odd that men rejoice that women enjoy time with their friends but women HATE the fact that men enjoy time with theirs! Men love all those tiny things that women bring into their lives, but women often consider men to be a project that isn’t going all that well.
There might be an explanation of this in the curse given at the fall of Adam and Eve. That odd phrase directed at Eve (and all women) was that “her desire would be for her husband” is very difficult to interpret. Some believe it means she must serve her husband but that isn’t right; men are also to serve their wives, loving them and giving themselves up for her as Christ did for the church (Eph.5). Others believe that it means that women will have this desire to dethrone men; in other words, her desire will be for her husband’s place/position. I’m not sure that interpretation is tenable. So… what? It could be that this is a signal that tension will enter in between men and women as women want (desire) to work on their husbands, shaping them into something acceptable to themselves.
I warn both men and women, frequently, in my classes that they are to respect each other, take the differences as a good thing and show good humor toward each other in all things. Learn the blessed art of negotiation over sex and everything else. Men are to make sure they are treating their wives with as much gentleness, forgiveness, and sweetness as Christ treats the church and the wives are to treat their husband with respect and love. Interesting, isn’t it, that Titus is told to have the older women teach the younger women how to be — literally — “men lovers and children lovers”? For many women, that is not natural; it has to be taught. (fair enough, for some men, love isn’t very natural, either)
God created man on purpose. He is useful as he is. God created woman on purpose. She is beautiful and useful as she is. Put us together and wonderful things result. Go to war with each other and only heartache and frustration ensue.
But is this blasphemy? No. Blasphemy is a direct assault on God’s character. To question something He made or did is not the same thing. Hey, I wonder why He made grass that doesn’t stop growing all by itself at 4 inches… but that’s not blasphemy!
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:52 pm
The preceding message is approved by the Red Hot Momma. Fabulous job Patrick Mead.
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:22 pm
That’s throwing one fast and hot right over the plate, Patrick! I have run into this a lot, especially as pertains to sex and intimacy. This is partly due to the feminisation of the church in the past 350 years, partly due to the Victorian idea that sex (for women especially)is something dirty, only to be tolerated in order to have children. Intimacy as women view it has been held up as a high ideal, while intimacy as men view it (which has more to do with physical intimacy) is considered low and beastly.
You see this in our schools, where sitting still quietly is promoted, and movement and physical activity (which is something upon which boys thrive) is frowned upon. Sure, it’s easier to keep order when everyone is still. But boys don’t learn as well that way.
Preach on, Patrick!
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
At the risk of having to turn in my man-card, I listen to Dr. Laura Schlesinger quite often and she says the same thing and has written a couple of books on the subject.
September 2nd, 2009 at 7:45 pm
“Ladies: to be blunt, there are men out there who love shopping for home goods, who think Bed, Bath, and Beyond is heaven on earth, who love to talk about feelings, who appreciate good fashion, who think haute cuisine is precious, and who love to cuddle. Sadly, those men already have boyfriends. ”
Bahaha!
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:26 pm
I’m gonna send this to my beloved to see what she thinks…in case it doesn’t go well, let me say it has been a pleasure reading your material
September 3rd, 2009 at 1:58 am
[...] Read Patrick’s full post here. [...]
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:06 am
Is it possible that “your desire will be for the man” may mean that Eve will no longer enjoy the same partnership she had with Adam as caretakers of the garden and its animals, but will depend on him to provide for her as she prepares for/ provides for their children?
I don’t see this so much as a curse as a consequnce of sin. God cursed the ground; not His children. But away from the garden and its Tree of Life, there would have to be a new way to sustain life – procreation – and that would mean a change in their relationship … and harder labor for both.
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:01 am
Gen:1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
I really can’t see where it is said that only the male of the species(man) was made in God’s image. If woman is saying man is flawed, what are you saying about woman, who is also created in God’s image. if they are both saying the other is flawed, they are both right. how can a flawless being sin?
Does it strike anyone else as strange that the forbidden tree is not mentioned in Ch.1, and is only mentioned in Ch 2 before woman was created.
Oh by the way Patrick, those men who already have boyfriends, who were they created in the image of?
September 3rd, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Laymond, first notice the original question. The question notes that if disregarding a large swath of the population made in God’s image is blasphemy, it is true for both the type of women listed, and misogynists – woman haters. Given that and the respect Patrick’s answer has for both men and women I don’t understand the first two paragraphs of your post.
It does not strike me as odd in the least that the tree is not mentioned in chapter 1. Chapter 1 describes the creation of the universe, Chapters 2&3 discuss man’s relationship with God. The tree is not a critical part of the creation of the universe, but it has a vital role in the relationship between man and God.
Finally, men with boyfriends, alcoholics, adulterers, warmongers, liars, thieves, greedy, and swindlers are all made in the image of the same perfect God. There is a known gene related to alcoholism. We know where this gene is, and we can tell if it is switched on or off. If someone has that gene switched on does that justify drunkenness? How about drunk driving? What about people who have an “angry” gene, does that justify murder? Legal and illegal, right and wrong depend on something greater than our genetic code. What we do with the image of God through sin does not force God to approve of the sin.
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Chad, I am just saying that men have always blamed their short comings on the woman, Adam did, even though Eve had not been created when the order to leave the tree alone was given.
September 5th, 2009 at 3:33 am
You don’t get it because you are a man. My interpretation of “her desire would be for her husband” simply means she wants his attention most of the time and he does not reciprocate that feeling. Since it’s one-sided, that’s the curse of it. The fact is most men lack in giving her the attention she desires. In other words, he desires her some of the time, but his attention is usually over other things most of the time. That is why women get angry if their husbands spend too much time at work, watching t.v., or on an activity or hobby like hunting or golfing. In a worst case scenario, she desires monogamy and would not want more than one husband, and that is not always the case for some men who secretly wish polygomy was legal or currently not a sin. My husband is currently hunting this weekend and I didn’t say a word.
September 5th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
If I were grading this post I would have to give you and A+…very good indeed!
I believe Titus gave that wise advice to older women because hopefully they have experienced many of the hurdles that come with being a wife and mother and have learned what works and what doesn’t’. A good marriage absolutely depends on give and take and loving each other in spite of our flaws and misconceptions.
September 14th, 2009 at 2:04 am
Interesting thoughts. A thought on the “woman desiring her husband”…I think recov cath is on to something. When Adam/Eve were in the garden Adam was able to focus all his attention on God and Eve…now he has to work, farm, hunt, protect etc. We as women crave the exact situation and intimacy with our husbands and our God that existed so perfectly in the garden. Because of her/their choices, their intimacy would forever be in jeopardy and would never come as naturally as it had. Losing this intimacy would have truly been devastating.