Following my recent post 'What women think/feel/say about being women', here's a chapter about women from my recent book 'The Family: At Home in a Heartless World' (HarperCollins 1995). I don't claim significant expertise here (wrong gender to start with): these ideas come from being married for 36 years, followed by three daughters, two granddaughters, and 9000 hours of listening to women (4000 counseling men - about the ratio of women to men who generally seek counseling).

Shalom! Rowland Croucher

The most widespread injustice in human history is that of 'patriarchy' or 'sexism' - the oppression of women by men. Sexism is as much a sin as humankind's domination over nature, the oppression of one race by another, and the oppression of slavery. It has resulted in 'the feminisation of poverty'. The often-cited statistics from the United Nations tell the sad story: women constitute half the world's population, perform nearly two thirds of its work, receive one tenth of its income and own less than one hundredth of the world's property. Three-quarters of the very poorest people in the world are women and their dependent children.

Different cultures and eras have different household practices. Modern technological societies, both capitalist and socialist, have dramatically altered and reshaped gender relations and the status of women. In poorer nations urban migration has weakened traditional women's cultures and isolated them from social supports. Women become disempowered easily when poverty threatens. For example, recently in Helsinki, Finland, I saw several Russian and Lithuanian prostitutes plying their trade. In Thailand and other developing nations, poor rural families sell their daughters for 'job opportunities' (mostly prostitution) in cities. 'Sweat shops' all over the world employ women at subsistence-level wages to make clothing, footwear, toys etc. Wealthier families have 'domestics' - a word that may cover for 'white (or brown) slavery' or concubinage. Where young women are transported from one country to another (say, from Bangladesh or the Philippines to Saudi Arabia), they have few legal supports in that foreign place.

Sex roles and identities vary greatly across time and between cultures. But relations between the sexes are foundational to the health of all societies. Whilst they may not be as rigidly fixed by nature or by divine decree as some would have us believe, in general women and men are different both biologically and psychologically. Women do some things better than men, and vice versa. For example, women are better 'nurturers' but men can learn to develop this role too. Women are more in touch with their feelings (men are better at chess!). When women make ethical decisions, they are concerned about relationships; men can be more abstract. (In my calling as a counselor to pastors, when I ask how they're going, a woman pastor will invariably answer in terms of relationships, a man in terms of measurable success - numbers, programs, money or buildings!). Publicly women may express sorrow, sadness, or joy, but never anger (the reverse is true of men). A woman's sexual experience is inextricably bound up with her total personhood and the total relationship with her lover; for men sex can be divorced from other dimensions of relating.

One theory has it that of the seven deadly sins men have a greater temptation towards pride, women towards sloth: pride tempts us to be more, sloth less, than we really are; the first tends towards independence, the second towards dependence; each is a denial of our God-ordained uniqueness. One of males' greatest fears is to be laughed at; females have a greater horror of being raped or killed. Women commit far fewer crimes - especially violent crimes - than men; they are far more likely to be victims of sexual abuse (Kinsey estimated that 25% of women in America were victims of incest).

Now why do women and men have different psychologies and abilities? Social scientists debate this issue with great fervour. Some anthropologists explain the differences in terms of the 'biogrammar' in our genes. Men are more aggressive because they have been hunters for most of their history; women bear and bond with small children, so their biogrammars predispose them towards enjoying the emotional dimension of relationships. Sociobiologists, on the other hand, may begin with the fact that human males produce millions of sperm during their lifetime, but women usually produce only one egg at a time - about 400 during their lifetime. Men are therefore predisposed to be predatory, sexually, whereas women are highly selective in the choice of a 'quality mate'. This is supposed to explain why women can tolerate infidelity by their partners more readily than men: if the man's woman is unfaithful, he will have to devote energy to raising someone else's child, whereas women are always certain that the child is genetically hers.

Radical feminists say women have always been exploited by men, and role differences are simply the product of the propensity of men to be violent to make women conform to their wishes. Other feminists may begin with women's biology: the 'handicaps' of menstruation, menopause, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and caring for infants mean women are dependent on the males in their family, clan or tribe for protection and physical survival. Women suffer more often from depression than men (one theory, the 'learned helplessness theory' suggests that women are less able in all cultures to control the sources of reward and reinforcement in their lives than men). The 'brain sex' theorists tell us that boy babies react with aggression and girl babies with helplessness when confronted with a frustrating situation because they are genetically 'programmed' that way.

The 'nature versus nurture' theories fall over one another to explain why women and men are the way they are. What women and men have in common is far greater than what separates them. Women's lives do not have to be conditioned by the biological reality of their capacity to bear children, nor do women because they are women have to provide domestic stability. You'll have to forgive my simple view on all this, which is: while some components of male/female differences may be genetic/hereditary/evolutionary or cultural/learned, basically they are different because God has created them that way, so that they may enjoy a God-ordained complimentarity.

A woman's greatest need is to receive constant, affectionate, tender love especially from the two key men in her life - her father and her mate. She has a deep emotional need, which her partner had better recognize, to hear tender words, to experience a servant-spirit in her man to back up those words, and to spend a lot of quality time with him. She cherishes the hours she spends with her man, the intimate experiences, the romantic dinners and nights and movies and soft lights. A man wants the special woman in his life to be a companion, sharing mutual interests; he wants her to be healthy (physically and emotionally) and attractive; to be responsive sexually; and to respect him. St Paul had an amazing knowledge of the varying needs of the sexes when he told husbands to love their wives and wives to respect their husbands. They are the two biggest clues in male-female relationships.

A prayer for women:

So, Jesus, my friend and companion, I with other women are at a crossroad. All over the world, and throughout all of history, men have ruled us, sometimes in an authoritarian, and occasionally in a cruel way. I and my sisters have suffered and in some places are still suffering awefully. At the very least we are not taken seriously and respected by men; at worst we women are treated as objects to satisfy men's desires for lustful sex or power.

Jesus, if you had been a woman, how would you have responded to all this? I am grateful that you were in touch with the 'feminine' side of your nature: you sometimes wept; you were gentle, very gentle, with those who were oppressed; you did not care for power or prestige or the superficial rank-orderings of people in society in terms of wealth or status or privilege. You reacted with dignity and restraint when others abused you, but spoke out fearlessly when the abuse was directed towards the helpless. You spoke words of healing; you honoured children; you enjoyed the companionship of both women and men; you enjoyed your family so much that you stayed at home until you were thirty; you noticed beautiful things like birds and flowers; you loved to pray in quiet places. Jesus, I want to be like you.

I affirm that I am made in the image of God. I affirm that when God conceived of me before my parents did that I was and am a delight to him. I am not a 'mistake'. Therefore I will enjoy my giftedness, my beauty, my body, my emotions, my spirituality. I will allow myself to celebrate life, whatever hardships life has dealt me. I will not 'should' on myself. I will accept each new day as a gift. I will enjoy being a servant of others, and if they sometimes serve me, that will be a bonus.

Thank you Jesus. Amen.

A Benediction

May the One who invaded our history via the womb of a woman, and who modeled feminine and masculine virtues in a wonderfully- integrated human life, give you courage when times are hard, faithfulness in your calling to be a woman of God, whether that involves mothering and wifing or not, and above all, a delight in being a daughter of God Most High. Amen.