2 minute read
Remember that highly gif-ified scene from The Avengers where Tony Stark rolls his eyes at Steve Rogers for catching the flying monkeys pop culture reference? I usually manage to keep it inside, but that’s exactly how I feel every… single… time… I hear White bros talk about what it means to be the (dick)head of the family and what the role of women should be in the Church and/or society at large. It’s so patronizing. It’s one of those conversations that I’ve been subjected to so many times by Christian culture that I can barely stomach it anymore. I’d like to retire it.
My theological conviction is that the highest purpose of each and every person is to be whoever God had made them to be and do whatever God has called them to do. That principle applies to men and women alike, but for now I’ll limit the discussion to women. It’s beyond irritating to me that women often still face a glass ceiling in their professional lives, but that’s no more vexing than the constant infighting between more career-oriented women and more family-oriented women because of the conflicting values and ideals of their cultural scripts. It’s all so stupid.
In terms of gender roles and the distribution of labor, I take an extremely practical view. Let’s say there’s a wise woman who’s a professional theologian and spiritual director while her husband is a firefighter. She should probably be the spiritual leader of their family system. On the flip side, let’s imagine there’s a studious guy who’s a CPA while his artist wife is awful at math and gets anxiety about retirement planning. It makes sense for him to be primarily responsible for their household finances. I don’t care about ideological crusades. Divvy it up however it works best.
I love Laurel Thatcher Ulrich‘s famous quote, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” In its original context, it meant quite the opposite: well-behaved women should make history. It wasn’t intended to encourage women to rebel or be less well-behaved, but it has since come to take on a meaning of its own. I revel in the quote’s delightful double-meaning as it’s subversive to every overly simplistic cultural script Christian culture has for women. As a full-time girl dad, it’s my intention is to raise my daughters up to be wise, healthy, kind, and badass Jesus followers.
The original beatniks of the late-1950s were around before second-wave feminism transformed the cultural landscape for women in the early-1960s. That movement drew attention to issues like domestic violence, marital rape, unjust divorce laws, and professional inequality. The earlier Beat Generation generally supported gender equality, but their behavior was inconsistent in practice. They didn’t always “lean in.” Nevertheless, their legacy is helpful both in pointing us to a spirit of robust gender equality and in counterculturally re-imagining society’s gender norms and values.
