To the woman He said,
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”
- Genesis 3:16
As a woman, I think it is a sad thing to see biological males defeating women in women’s sports. It’s a horrific thing to see a woman brutalized by a biological male in a competition. The greatest evil, however, can be attributed to those who perpetuate the lie. A biological male is not a woman, and a biological female is not a man. All the hormones and surgery available will not change the DNA of a human being.
Beneath the vitriolic controversy over transgenderism, I am reminded of Genesis 3 and the expulsion of the man and woman from the Garden after they rebelled against God, after they sought to be their own gods. Actually, the judgment of God that I am thinking of comes from His assignment of the “punishments.” (I’m not sure punishments is an accurate description of God’s response to the arrogance and rebellion of the first man and woman. Rather, I think the man and woman experienced the consequences of their choices. They may not have understood before they acted, but as we know even today, ‘hindsight is 20/20.’ My point is simply that consequences are not arbitrary punishments with which to vilify God. Consequences are the outcome of our actions whether good or ill.)
The woman chose to eat the fruit, a decision about a commandment given to the man. The man, who had been torn apart when God created the woman, loved himself more than he loved God. The man needed the woman, and her happiness meant his happiness. Therefore, he chose to let the woman make the decision even though he knew it was forbidden. He chose her, which was a way of choosing himself, rather than choosing obedience to and friendship with God.
What has all this to do with male athletes competing as female athletes? Quite a bit, I think. The woman took the fruit and ate it, thus breaking God’s command to Adam. The consequence of that is obvious: God said her ‘desire would be contrary to the man’s, but he would rule over her.’ When I see men win in any women's competition, from sports to beauty pageants, I am reminded of that statement. The woman’s desire would be contrary to the man’s. She will want her independence from the man, possibly even want a position of rule over the man. But the man ‘will rule over her.’ Because she could not be trusted with the decision to obey God's command, the man will rule over her.
Yes, there were also consequences for the man’s failure to do what God commanded in regard to the Garden, but that is a topic for another day.
The man will rule over her. In every endeavor women undertake, men get involved and begin to control. Is there any person on the planet who thought, even twenty-five years ago, that men would dominate women’s athletic events at the Olympics? But men invariably find ways to rule over women. I’m not saying it’s fair. I’m certainly not saying I like it, but I am saying that this is simply the way it is. This is what a fallen and sinful world looks like. We can complain about patriarchy all we want, but we cannot make it go away.
What’s interesting, though, is that the fact of men’s “rule” over women, men’s domination over women, is the woman’s punishment. That’s the real kicker. The woman brought it on herself. Though it seems entirely unfair today, and we certainly hear about men invading women’s sports and women’s beauty pageants and such, the rule over women is the consequence of the woman’s decision contrary to God’s instructions to the man.
If we look back over the feminist movement, what began as the desire to vote, to own property, and most of all, to have control over one’s own body became female domination in the academy, in media, in entertainment, and so on. From wanting equality with men, feminists sought more; they wanted equity. The worst damage done by women has been the intentional marginalization of all things masculine. As women gained positions of authority, we promoted identified, measurable areas of feminine superiority* to the exclusion of the masculine. In other words, we sought to conform boys to girls’ abilities and to require men to be more like women – sensitive men who do housework and husbands who listen as best friends. It’s not accidental that western nations that promoted the feminine as normative for the whole of society, meaning feminine normativity for women and for men, are in a state of disarray, both intellectually and morally. It’s the twenty-first century version of the woman deciding to eat the fruit.
Women wanted no male enclaves of exclusivity. Where men could go, women could go. What men could do, women could do. But the reverse was not true. In 1975, Robin Herman of the NY Times was widely praised for being the first woman allowed to do post-game reporting from men’s locker rooms. You go, girl! There is no small irony that nearly fifty years later, we are howling that naked males are walking around women’s locker rooms and showers. Women assume we should be allowed separate spaces and activities. That’s not equality or equity. That’s the proverbial ‘having your cake and eating it too.’ Women appear weak when we want our own gender-exclusive gathering but raise a ruckus about comparable gender-exclusive gatherings of men. Not that I want men to be in women’s locker rooms, but neither did I think women had advanced to anything admirable by entering men’s locker rooms.
The last great bastion of male education, West Point Military Academy, began admitting women in 1976, thus ending any pretense of male privilege. Now, less than fifty years later, the military cannot meet recruitment goals and is plagued by identity politics rather than military training and tactics. Women have been given access in every echelon of what was historically "the men’s world." In some of these arenas, women have made things better, but in others, we have made things a great deal worse, less effective in achieving the objective, such as the military.
Women are not made more by making men less, nor are women made more by marginalizing or aping stereotypical male behaviors. Leaving men and boys with no outlet for masculinity and no means for maturation as men, I am not sure we women have any just grounds for being angry that men now dominate women in sports, beauty pageants, and so forth. Did you know biological men who identify as women demand the right to answer crisis hotlines for rape victims? Only a man could be so obtuse and insensitive. We women, though, were not just a little short-sighted when we decided that we could be the same as men.
Scripture is clear. It is men who need women. The woman was created whole from the side of Adam, but Adam was torn apart in the creation of the woman. Generally speaking, women without husbands do better alone than do men without wives. This is especially true as we age. In Genesis 3, as the man and woman learned the consequences of their sin, there is no indication that Adam was pleased that he would be ruling over the woman. He needed her to be whole, and ruling over her was not the most effective means of achieving that. Still, it is the nature of men is to rule, and it doesn’t really matter what women do to change that.
If we want men to be respectful of women, both individually and as a society, then we need to bring them to Christ. He alone can change a man from the rule of woman to service of and self-sacrifice for women as authentic masculinity. As Christ laid down His life for the Church, so men are to lay down their lives for women. This is the only means by which men remain truly masculine without embracing a demeaning or destructive rule over women. This means he must sacrifice himself even at the cost of losing the woman’s respect and therefore, losing what makes him whole. It’s the choice the man should have made in Genesis 3 but did not. Wives are to submit to husbands who lay down their lives for them, who die to themselves for the woman’s benefit.
The thing I find most interesting – about the Genesis story, about human redemption in Jesus Christ, about Christian marriage, and about the recurring themes of all of these in our society – is the power of women. Women truly living godly femininity wield the greatest power in human relationships. Yet, we wanted equity with men. We wanted to have what men had. We wanted to be like men, and when we couldn’t be like men, we wanted to force men to be like us. Now, they are, and anyone vaguely familiar with reality is appalled by what is being done to women. Women who seek to dominate men cannot destroy masculinity, but feminine domination does pervert masculinity in awful ways.
I would even go a step further and say that in trying to be the same as men, women lost the real power, wonder, and beauty of the feminine. The litmus test of womanhood in western culture is the freedom to have an abortion. That arises from wanting the same freedom for sexual promiscuity without consequences that men enjoy.** The one thing that is profoundly, uniquely, and quintessentially female is the bringing forth of new life. Men cannot do that, irrespective of surgery, hormones, or medical experimentation. Women are born with the capacity to bring forth new life, and the hallmark of women’s identity today is our freedom to destroy life. It is the single, greatest rejection of ourselves as women that the mind can conceive.
All of this, we have chosen, or our mothers and grandmothers have chosen for us. Now, we find that we are not safe from the intrusion of men into our sanctuaries, whether sports or beauty pageants or any other venue. But then men have not been safe from the intrusion of women in the arenas of masculinity for decades now. The power of women was forfeited in an effort to attain the power of men. That backfired, and now we find that women are being overpowered by men who have invaded the domain of women. It doesn’t make it fair or right or good, but it does show that we cannot escape the reality of both our creation and our sin.
If we want men to treat women well, as equals worthy of respect and care, then we need to bring them to Jesus Christ. In Him, masculinity leads in sacrifice and giving, in nourishing and cherishing, in faithfulness and constancy. That is authentic masculinity, and the world would be a better place if we held that up as the ideal, the goal, for men and boys. At the same time, we women need to be prepared to respect their masculinity and to enjoy them as men.
In Christ –
Rev. Elizabeth Moreau
© 2024
* Women are demonstrably stronger in language and interpersonal skills, for example. There were many acknowledged qualities that women possess to a greater degree than men, but these distinctions are ignored in American discourse. That does not mean the distinctions have gone away, but it does mean that masculine qualities have been subjugated to the feminine. What is normal behavior for boys, hierarchical group dynamics for example, is labeled toxic and inappropriate, and boys are expected to cultivate more feminine behaviors such as group think and consensus building.
** While there is no doubt that young men historically sought to enjoy unfettered sexual encounters with women, I think the argument can be made that, in the long run, boys and men suffer as much spiritual and emotional damage from sexual promiscuity as do girls and women. There really isn’t anything like the idea of “free sex.” Sexual activity always – always – comes with spiritual, psychological, and moral implications for those involved, even if we deny that to ourselves.
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