An Exercise For MLK Day

Substitute African-American For Women.

When you ask a Christian, “Are women equal to white men?” perhaps you should first ask, “Are women people?”

Someone recently said to me, “I wonder how long it will take this country to treat women as equals.”

I replied that we would have to backtrack quite a bit just to get this country to treat women like people.

The truth is that Christians especially, by which I mean fundamentalists, are trained to treat women like property.

One Christian I knew got married and had his new wife move into his home. 

She was not allowed to bring any furniture into the man’s house. 

Nor were her needs respected. 

In fact, he mocked and berated her for mentioning them. 

He also heaped verbal abuse on her whenever he was displeased with her: her education, her life history, her opinions, her health. 

Anything and everything that was part of her identity was subject to yelling and screaming, condemnation, condescension, accusation, ridicule, insult, disrespect, and abuse. 

At least he was honest about how he felt about her: more than once, he screamed in her face that she didn't deserve respect and that she deserved only disrespect—as much disrespect as he could possibly give her and then some.

Apparently, he felt that he was being kind, merciful, and gracious in not giving her all the disrespect she deserved.

This good Christian man had a dog. 

The dog had furniture in the man’s house. 

The dog’s needs were respected. 

The dog was never subject to abuse. 

In fact, the man would have been enraged if he had ever caught anyone yelling at, hitting, or otherwise abusing his precious dog.

So, why was it so easy for this good, Godly Christian man—who was devoutly trying his best to please Jesus and be a good man—to love his dog like himself while treating his wife like a convenient, safe punching bag? 

And why would any otherwise sane, rational woman put up with such treatment for any length of time?

It’s in the Bible.

 

And how evangelicals and other fundamentalists interpret and are taught it.

The entire Bible is written from the point of view of a patriarchal society. 

There is no escaping how women were treated—as chattel, no better than slaves. 

So, how can one possibly expect people using that society as a model for all that is good to make the leap into treating women differently…better?

They can’t. 
 

They just don’t know it.

One attempt that Christians make toward treating women as equals to men is called “complementarianism.” 

Complementarianism is the authoritarian’s way of trying to be (or pretending to be) egalitarian. 

The idea behind complementarianism is that men and women have separate but equal roles in Christian marriage. 

Did you catch it? 

“Separate but equal.” 

It works exactly as well for women in Christian marriages as it did for Blacks during the Civil Rights era in the 60s.

As in, “It didn’t.”

The fallacy behind the separate-but-equal in complementarianism is that the man is the head of the woman, the home, and the marriage. 

This places the woman undeniably lower. 

And with him firmly ensconced in that place of power, any illusion of the woman’s equality in the relationship vanishes…to be replaced by cognitive dissonance. 

And who is he not to act like a caveman when handed such a position of implied infallibility?

Let’s say that I work in an office. 

I have a boss, for whom I work “at will.” 

This means that I can give two weeks’ notice to leave for a new job if I want or need to, or my boss can fire me or lay me off if he wants or needs to. 

You can say that I am my boss’s equal, but am I really? 

This man has the power to keep me employed, give me a raise or a pay cut, give me chump assignments and otherwise make my life miserable, or just flat out fire me because he doesn’t like the shape of my nose or my one tooth that sticks out. 

I may think of myself as being his equal, especially if I have more experience or education than he does, but that doesn’t mean that I will ever once get the last word in a conversation (or argument) or give him direction or interact with him as a true equal. 

I can never truly be who I am around him. 

Why? 

Because I am on the clock. 

I am an employee, and I am there to serve him.

In a Christian marriage, the wife is the unpaid employee of the husband. 

She has given up her right to be who she is. 

She can never clock out at the end of the day because there isn’t one. 

She is on the clock 24/7/365. 

Of course, she is still free to move out and get a divorce if she needs to, but while she’s “under his protection,” and I use the term “protection” loosely, she has basically signed a contract accepting the fact that she will never once get the last word in a conversation or argument or give him direction or interact with him as a true equal. 

Oh, she can try, but it would be ungodly behavior—remember, she is supposed to be submissive to him.

Oh, but what about mutual submission? 

That’s another sham that authoritarian Christians use to try to be or pretend to be egalitarian. 

And it fails because men don’t have “wife” nerve endings.

Think of it this way. 

If a man accidentally smashes his thumb with a hammer, he doesn’t smash it again deliberately because it displeased him by responding to the first blow from the hammer by HURTING. 

No! 

He nurses it, puts ice on it, and instantly regrets the pain he caused it. 

Why? 

Because it is his own flesh. 

But even though the Bible says that husband and wife “become one flesh” and that he is to love her “as he loves his own flesh,” he can’t. 

Even if he wants to, he is simply incapable. 

The same man who treats his dog like a king feels completely justified pummeling his wife with his words (or worse) because she is NOT his own flesh. 

He has no empathy for her. 

Why would he, when that is a trait that society only barely values and only in women? 

He only has feelings for himself, and he nurses his own pain by bullying, browbeating, and intimidating her. 

She is a thing to control and to punish if it gets out of line or acts uppity. 

And he swears that this is good, godly, and righteous behavior—it is the proper way for him to treat his wife, since he must be stern and keep her in line. 

This good Christian man sees nothing wrong with his behavior. 

He won’t even apologize unless she serves him with divorce papers—and, even then, it won’t be, “I was wrong, and I shouldn’t have treated you that way.” 

It will be, “I’m sorry you got your feelings hurt.” A classic non-apology. Why? Because he sees nothing to apologize for.

This is what we are up against. 

This is what it means to be “a Christian nation.” 

This is what evangelicals and FOX “News” pound into the heads of their viewers, male and female, 24/7/365. 

Despite the frequent but half-hearted lip service to equality, the meta-message is clear: not only are women not equal to men, but women are not even people!

Really…would you do that to a dog?

As my Christian friend likes to say, “Think about it.”