Everyday sexism revisited

Sarah Allen in her second article looks at the issue of equal representation

Imagine a young women walks from this world into your church.

At first she is excited; she hears about freedom, grace, forgiveness, hope, love. But then, after a few weeks, the penny drops. No women preachers.

A list of Elders’ names on the back of the bulletin: all men. There are plenty of women there, of course, filling the pews, manning (is that right?) the crèche, offering teas and coffees. But up at the front, no women. So she asks a question of the person next to her and is astonished by the answer. It’s not a mistake or a blip. This prohibition is from the Bible. A book and a group of people which had seemed so new, a breath of fresh air, now seem an old part of a dangerous, dying misogynistic culture. She doesn’t come back.

We have a plausibility problem. Of course this isn’t new, (The Woman’s Bible, erasing all texts which appeared to demean women, was published in 1895, after all) but the vehemence and reach of fourth-wave feminism is. If one main thrust of the movement is the fight against sexual harassment (as I detailed in last month’s article), another is the fight for equality. Everyday Sexism’s Laura Bates even defines sexism as treating someone differently because of their gender.

The Women’s Equality Party was launched in 2015 You might not have heard of it, but it won one in 20 votes cast in the London Mayoral Contest in 2016, an impressive achievement for such a young party. It is the political edge of this new wave of feminism sweeping the West, dressed not in a 1970s earth mother skirt, but in a business suit. Equal representation in parliament, the judiciary and business; equal pay; free childcare and flexible work, so that partners can share work and childcare equally, are amongst their campaigns. The premises underlying all are: that women are valued only when they work in powerful jobs; and that worth is sameness.

The baby ‘problem’

This push comes at a strange time. Currently women are 35% more likely to attend university than men1 and they form the majority of those qualifying in both Law and Medicine2. Since 1970 paying women and men differently for the same job has been illegal in the UK and indeed, when the BBC broke down the much trumpeted gender-pay-gap-shock statistics this August they found that between the ages of 22 and 39 the pay gap is statistically negligible3. Women are enjoying more opportunities than ever before.

One ‘problem’ is that most women have babies. And then, very often, choose to work part-time afterwards. So, as life goes on, a pay gap does emerge and women are less likely to be in the top jobs in business and certain careers. They sacrifice promotion and seniority and prestige and money to be with their children, not just for a year but often for a decade or more. The other problem is that women often choose different jobs. They dominate teaching, nursing and person-focussed careers, which again pay less than commercial or STEM jobs. Our new wave of feminism says that this is wrong. They say women want free childcare, paternity rights, flexible working and quota systems. Ironically, however, we find that the Scandinavian countries which have introduced many of these measures display a gender pay gap which is only a couple of percentage points different from ours. The reason? Women there are working, but still shorter hours than men and in different occupations. Difference remains.

‘Whatever you want’ culture

Back to our young woman in church. She has been brought up in an educational environment in which equality of opportunity is central and equality of outcome is the aim. It says you can be a woman any way you want, but you’d better want to be successful. You can be a woman any way you want, but you’d better want power. You can be a woman any way you want, but you’d better make sure you don’t want to depend on a man. But she has also been living in a media environment in which power is won through looks and Kim Kardashian is queen. It says you can have whatever career you want as long as you are not too thin and not too fat. You can have the relationship you want as long as you wear make-up that covers up your flaws. So she hears that her body is both unimportant and all important. That she should be treated exactly as a man is, but she is completely different from a man. Perhaps it is unsurprising that a culture which is so vociferous in stating the sameness of men and women, has a mass media which displays more and more stereotyped and extreme images of masculinity and femininity. Gender confusion arises from this conflict over difference and young women suffer; in 2014, out of 16–24-year- olds, 26% of women reported having a common mental health disorder, as opposed to 9% of young men, and 25% of young women say that they have selfharmed4. There are many factors in this disparity of pain, but certainly the pressure to be everything is surely one of them.

Not the right lens

If only our young woman would stay in church long enough she might hear truth which speaks into this confusion over difference and equality. The Bible is clear that men and women are made together in the image of God. Eve is Adam’s necessary helper in the task of subduing the earth and filling it. They share many callings through Old and New Testaments: ‘Be holy, as I am holy’; ‘Do not be afraid’; ‘Be completely humble and gentle’; ‘Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ’; ‘Be strong in the Lord’. We see men and women teaching, prophesying, praying, praising, leading and sinning. The Christian leader who says starkly: ‘God made men to be life-protecting leaders. God made women to be life-giving helpers’ is perhaps missing the sameness of our calling to love God and others. But, as Michelle Lee Barnewall in her excellent book Neither Egalitarian nor, Complementarian (see review November en) points out, equality is probably not the right lens through which to view gender either. ‘Equality speaks to one’s personal privileges and rights, whereas love describes one’s willingness to prioritize others’.

By design

At the same time the Bible offers a picture of sex which differs by design, not by social conditioning or patriarchal oppression. Men and women are created with different chromosomes which influence so much, from hormones to muscle mass and more. Highly regarded psychiatrists and psychologists (Stephen Pinker and Simon Baron-Cohen pre-eminently) see this worked out in brain development. Men are often stronger at systematising and spatial reasoning. Women are often superior at verbal tasks and empathy. Often, not always. Averages, spectrums, diversity and no space for stereotypes.

The Bible calls us to recognise these differences in the way we dress and how we treat each other (Deuteronomy 22.5, 1 Timothy 5.2 for example). Our bodies and their differences matter because they are made by God to complement each other and to reinforce our need for service.

Difference is about dependence

It is within this rich context of shared creation, calling and sacrifice that our young woman should hear about the prohibitions which outrage her. The Bible calls man the head of woman. Wives are called to submit, husbands to lay down their lives. Women are not called to be the leaders of local congregations. Value does not come from power. Worth comes from God and significance is found in service. Difference is about dependence. And in this teaching on gender we hear echoes of the gospel.

We seek to explain carefully and lovingly the Bible’s good truths about men and women, but we also need to live them out wholeheartedly so that people taste and see the goodness. Ask these questions of your church. Do your Elders seek out the ideas and opinions of godly women in the congregation? Are men and women being trained for service and publically recognised? Do you hear the voices and stories of men and women, young and old, on a Sunday morning? Is the topsy-turvy gospel culture of unity, inclusion, sacrifice and love triumphing over the world’s values of rights, independence and self?

1 www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35111772 
2 www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jan/21/ gender-gap-university-admissions-record
3 www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37198653
4 www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37504679