What is a Woman
“Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.” - Jane Austen
Note: I wrote this last October after a glorious conversation with a friend and rediscovered it tonight.
It is not a good idea to squander a windy, autumn evening to anything other than writing or a cuppa tea while listening to the roar of a cold front moving in. It has been awhile since I’ve written anything other than grief or travel and I miss sitting down to a topic which has strong bones and soft flesh.
Flesh is not my favorite word, but then again, neither is moist and it isn’t advisable to hate too many words at once. It gives other people and writings so much power over you when you tiptoe along carefully trying not to come into contact with moist adjectives while leaving room for tender cakes.
Being a woman is a learning adventure. A friend asked me a question recently; what does it mean to be a woman? I think maybe he had just watched Matt Walsh’s production or something and I was delighted he asked. Not to call anyone out but also to call people out, the conservative crowd mocks freely when people stumble over their words over “what is a woman” but I find that few of them have better answers than the sex of a woman.
I don’t hold ignorance or even stumbling over words against anybody. Probably the only reason I write is because there is a power of editing which is comforting.
Here is what I told him. Aside from biological considerations, which to me are obvious and central and not worth the compliment of rational opposition here, I have categorized being a woman in the following ways.
First imagine throwing a little pebble into a still pond.
The center is found and the ripples widen. Here are the ripples that I think about for “what is a woman.”
Center: a woman is made in the image of God. She is certainly made in the image of something, so if you don’t believe in God than you are left to the un-tender ministrations of the worldly wisdom which tends to produce such wisdom as
Aristotle when he classified woman as deformed men. Ack, Ari.A woman learns to be a woman when she realizes the world is not centered around her. Perhaps this may be true of men as well. Only when you are not the center of the world can you enjoy who you are. This isn’t to say that your view doesn’t count or you are not important. It’s only that if point #1 is true, then point #2 must also be true.
A woman chooses her expression of who she is, taking into consideration the culture around her. Cultures have had different views of what makes a woman, feminine, and it changes quite often based on the caprice of the current school of thought. Fat, skinny, quiet, bold, strong, floral, scholastic, loud, quiet, weak, hopeful, tough, happy, beautiful, intelligent, melancholy, fainting, helpless, warrioress, mama, and so on and so forth and what have you. At the end of all those voices a fledgling woman chooses expression of her identity in style of clothing, personality, and voice. Sometimes she chooses not to, which is an expression in itself.
My friend said that he knows when a girl is still a girl and when a girl has become a woman if she knows her voice and is confident in it. This friend is a gentleman and believes in chivalry and protection for women. He is not a feminist-leaning person. He believes that protecting women and encouraging them to have a voice is not mutually exclusive.
This topic of men and women and how they interrelate and who they are is one that has occupied a good chunk of my thoughts for probably over ten years. It bugs me that it’s hard to find satisfied men and women. I often want to ask people: are you happy with who you are? Do you feel like being a man, or being a woman, is one of the best things about you? Do you feel constantly hemmed in by what other people say you should be?
It seems everyone is so preoccupied with what we ought to be that they don't stop to just be. As a woman, or a man, there are near-constant messages thrown at us by myriads of voices in podcasts and sermons and conversations, and books, and music, and religion. Some are good voices and some are terrible and there’s too many of them to keep up. It’s all about being more like a man, or more like a woman and I want everyone to stop for a moment. Why is is that even the Christian people who claim being a man or woman is what it is can’t stop talking about becoming more like a man or a woman? It is an illogical mystery.
Darned if we shouldn’t figure out just how many tears a man is allowed to cry before he’s too much like a woman, and darned if we can’t figure out just when a woman has become too successful in business to have gone too far into men’s territory but there is a letter of law here somewhere!
Yet, the topic is important. What does it mean to be a man, or what it means to be a woman. There are mysteries there that only belong to older men and older women to teach younger men and younger women about craft so let us return to the center of the quiet evening pond with the widening ripples. I give you Genesis 1:26-28 as our center for both men and women.
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Male and female, made in his image. We are both made to be images of who God is, but in limited ways. Neither of us get the whole slice.
He gave us one joint command. He did not separate that command, he brought out two people who could make it happen. Both men and women submit to that command. We rule together. The stories of men and women in the Bible have one thing in common: they listened to and had faith in God despite odds and oppositions of culture. It always required boldness and courage. It has always required faith, and it requires voice. Confess Jesus is Lord and believe…
Faith is central to the experience of both men and women. Without that we won't ever know who we are at our core, we’ll only know the outer things.
There is a glory that comes uniquely to men and uniquely to women. Something deep within us that says we are different. A sort of springing to life when hands touch and sparks fly. Something which makes me feel inexplicably happy when a man goes out of his way to do something for me that I could’ve done but which might have been more difficult for me, or maybe even something I could’ve done easily but he did it for me because he wanted to. The happiness I feel when I put on a dress that is over-the-top feminine and makes a bold pronouncement of that fact is probably akin to the joy a man might have to conquer a tough challenge. The joy of sitting with my girlfriends talking girl talk endlessly: food, fashion, relationships, adventure, and business experiences. The thrill of a date. Putting your cheek next to the satin softness of a little baby and feeling the world grow beautiful amidst sorrow.
It doesn’t do to get too pragmatic about what it means to be a woman — to say that it is only about reproductive capabilities or use and value to the world (thanks for nothing, Plato) but that being a woman is also about extravagance and joy and being too much. To be fanciful and silly sometimes, and other times frugal and wise. To reach on my tippy-toes for a professional ambition and to amble around my kitchen, cooking barefoot.
I think this about men too. Their value as men is not only pragmatic and useful. It is not only what they can do for women or the world. It’s about watching them focus intensely on learning a new skill and seeing their exultation over a win in sports. To feel their power or to see vulnerability. To see them reach for a professional ambition and then get down on the floor to play with kids.
One of the most damaging ideas to being satisfied as a man or woman is the idea that value is based on usefulness. Usefulness and transaction is a great thing and can lend to happiness, but it can’t tell you who you are, only what you do. If you read stories like Joni Eareckson Tada you see there is a profound time of helplessness, or even uselessness which taught her much about who she really was. Our Biblical heroes faced it too. Moses got benched for multiple decades. Joseph was imprisoned and forgotten. David took care of sheep in isolated places. Mary and Joseph lived in Egypt for years. Paul spent a lot of time after his conversion not being particularly useful to the kingdom (as we see it).
That’s familiar to me as well. Years of pleading with God to “put me in, coach.” Let me have this dream. Let me do this thing for others. I didn’t stop serving God or doing good works, but had to learn who I was apart from what I could produce and got benched for a good long time. Not even sure he’s putting me in now though it looks more hopeful.
The Gospel itself leaves nothing for us to do, because Jesus did it. Because of that we are inspired by faith to step into good works, but Jesus’ work on the cross is firstly for us, not with us. There’s a profound mystery in accepting that there are times and ways in which we are left simply to accept what is and not what we can be. That someone beyond us is telling us who we are and it’s not entirely up to us. We have limits.
One of my best limitations is that I am a woman. It’s amazing and I love it. I will never be a man. All due respect to the men, but I’m pretty happy about that. The only whisper of unhappiness I feel is when I watch men throw things.
I will always wonder why being human means being so variable and faceted. Since a little girl, I have been given a unique voice and expression as a woman, straddling a line that means I move semi-freely between logic and emotion but always under the influence of certain hormones. Able to view situations coolly and with detachment, and to enter back into them. It makes the world in general see me as only a strong, independent woman, when in actuality I am as fragile or lonely as anyone else. It is also true that my gift makes me strong. When I am discouraged by the balancing act of being human I root back into the truth that I am a woman made in God’s image and equipped to be a woman of dominion. If I stand on that instead of how a woman is supposed to look and act (a see saw) life becomes much more stable and happy. Who we are at our core as an image-bearer is the fulcrum to the seesaw.
We aren’t defined by our gifts or weaknesses or feelings. We have that middle part of us where God said “welcome, baby girl to the world…” and “hey man…” and by the voice of God we have a place, not by the voice of anyone else.
I submit to you that none of us will ever know who we are if we don't first listen for the voice of God, who created us male and female.
Jeremiah 33:3 ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’
Call on him. He answers.
