The Damaging Impact of Biblical Womanhood
Girls are given their blueprints of behavior in society at a young age. Next, they are handed one layer after another of their foundation from all the loving, or not so loving, forces along the way of their upbringing. Perhaps certain temperaments respond differently to the various voices and forces that create, stabilize, and reinforce the construction project of womanhood. In the Church, when one is old enough, one realizes that there’s a spiritual stamp of approval in the mix, and that truly complicates the solidifying mortar.
All the childhood ideas and dreams that weren’t fleshed out in one’s youth mysteriously disappear in exchange for the idealized Biblical Womanhood taught from the classrooms of Christian colleges, the pulpits of churches, the circles of women’s Bible studies, the well-intentioned performance platforms of women’s Christian conferences, the stories of missionaries, the conversations between friends, and home group prayer requests. The roof has been installed, the trim painted, and the landscaping finished before one ever realizes that the shelter that has been built for a woman’s life journey is based on lies, power, oppression, and the subjugation of her entire being as a woman. Unaware she is part of an entire system, she has no qualms or doubts, because she can’t see the system for the shelter.
I was a part of this system. Bit by bit, I surrendered my seat at the table in my marriage and in my life. The pressure of direct indoctrination and subconscious teaching of Biblical Womanhood creates an environment that conveys to women how to be a good Christian and that we must have the protection of marriage and submit to our husbands. As a woman, I needed to figure out how to be more silent and submissive. If I could morally improve in this way, then my husband would be better able to lead our family spiritually. Aspiring to this level of morality, which had somehow become equated with holiness, reveals how Biblical Womanhood can weasel its way into our thought process. This system had infected me.
I eventually silenced my voice so much that whatever I might have to say, I considered it unworthy, untrustworthy, and irrelevant. My voice disappeared so much that I also wanted to disappear! Eventually, the silencing of my voice and the surrendering of my soul to this lie caught up with me. I shut the door on loss and grief, but they kept knocking. Depression, desire to separate from this life, and a loss of identity haunted me for decades.
When I finally saw the system for what it was, every decision I ever made and didn’t make came into question! I was unable to dream outside the shelter that had been so methodically constructed. I also began to realize how this system of subjugation was being supported and perpetuated by many women just like me. We who never gave our own questions space because that would be considered unchristian, ungodly, and unholy.
Beth Allison Barr’s book The Making of Biblical Womanhood, based on significant research of Biblical Womanhood throughout ancient history and how it arrived in our modern times as gospel truth, has re-wired my brain, stirred my soul and given me a new found sense of entitled freedom that I never thought was mine to claim because of being female and choosing Christianity as my faith. Her book is an extraordinary example of how history repeats itself because we either forgot, were written out, or were not allowed a seat at the table or a position in the field. This clear and reported history is a profound wake up call to all people throughout the Church, across the world, and for all generations. I believe that keeping women out of the pulpit not only affects those women seeking Church leadership roles, but it also has a deep spiritual impact on all women’s development from their earliest days. It is cruel and damaging to the very souls that are housed in their bodies.
And I call this Spiritual Abuse!
As I accepted my blueprints and participated in the construction project of becoming a woman, I absorbed and took on a message about my identity, more from the Church, its interpretation of God’s Word, and my upbringing than from the actual life of Jesus.
The Making of Biblical Womanhood changed my life’s blueprints and re-grounded my identity!
I grew up as a young girl with adult hands laid upon me in sincere prayers for the man I would marry, the children I would have, and the Godly woman I would become. Men were the pray-ers, teachers, and preachers of God’s Word except for Women’s Bible Study or Sunday School. Even then, a strong and knowledgeable woman would require a man at her side if she were teaching the teenagers with boys present. With a plethora of tele-evangelists on TV at home while growing up, James Dobson (and the like) on Christian radio, (Heck! Christian Radio, itself!), and Bill Gothard tucked away in a stack of books on my father’s shelf, it is no wonder I chose to attend a Christian college. This institution further cemented the idea of what it meant to be a good Christian woman, which had been covertly absorbed into my identity.
By the time I was 18, in 1983, it was my understanding that real Christians went to Christian colleges and real Christian women aspired to remain at home with their kids for the domestic good of their husbands, children, and home life. With all the above as my foundation for womanhood, I went into marriage expecting and essentially requiring my husband to be this “Spiritual Head of the Home.” I remember that I wanted to think differently and actually wished things were different. But somehow all of this got woven into God loves me and Jesus died for me —neither of which, however, really mattered unless the other domestic part of Biblical Womanhood was done right.
I found myself internally resisting and outwardly rebelling and then heaping enormous shame onto myself for “misbehaving,” “not getting it right,” and “not being enough.” This is Spiritual Abuse!
All of these overt and covert ways of Patriarchy and Biblical Womanhood, that have been passed down from generation to generation, have had a profound detrimental effect on the flourishing and thriving of women. I am just one example. The Making of Biblical Womanhood exposes the bare truth of this impact and with truth and honest reflection, there can be Light and an Awakening of both men and women everywhere.
Cathren (Cat) Cougill is making sense of her life and how she sees the world through writing, reading and loving others. She has moved domestically and internationally 16 times in 32 years of marriage and now resides in Detroit, MI with her husband, Scott. All four of her adult children are finding their paths and Cathren has the privilege of occasionally spending time with them since they are spread out across the USA. Find her at catcougill.com, on Instagram @global.hoosier.cat and on Facebook.
Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash