You're Not The Boss Of Me

The only bit of wisdom that came out of my father's bitter, hateful, womanizing father is the observation that "all men are *ussy whipped. All that's left is to figure out how to live with it."

I recently listened to a debate that a friend of mine posted between an "egalitarian" and a "complementarian." The two positions are disagreements on the divine mandate of gender authority roles. The first position is that men and women are mutual in structural authority. The second holds that, though equal in other theological categories, there is a power differential of men over women and that this differential is complimentary. Who is the boss of who? This has been an intractable disagreement for some time.

One of the stupidest arguments that the complementarians put forward is the post-fall curse. I mean seriously, in one breath hold to the redemption of Jesus and in the next defend the fallen order that that redemption is supposed to correct? Nowhere does God command that women are not to lead.
Egalitarianists tend to want us to ignore the fact that women and men really are different. This is not for any reason internal to the defense of the position but rather because these differences have been the basis of the historical arguments for subjugation and thus irrelevant to the discussion.

Men are not women and women are not men. We are biologically complimentary. Even the staunchest egalitarianist will recognize this. I will go further. We are psychologically and emotionally predisposed complementarily as well.

However, hierarchical power structures are not a complementary category (unless you are a Hegelian, in whose master/slave dialectic the one creates the other and the other way around. However even in this case the master is more dependent on the slave for his existence than the slave on the master.)  

Hierarchical power structures are more or less effective ways to run organizations. I have heard people defend hierarchy on the basis of the trinity, saying that Jesus served the Father. Now, by Jesus' teachings on servant authority this would actually make Jesus greater than the Father. It is far simpler to just leave this silliness behind and take the trinity as non-hierarchical and at the same time leave behind any notion of divine mandate for hierarchical power structures in general.

In the creation story of Genesis 1 there is a progression toward higher levels of being. The woman comes last. Who did the serpent go after? What happened when the woman was tempted? The man just bumped along and then blamed the woman. Spineless little puke.

Women are stronger than men. When women "run" men the men succumb. When men "run" women women submit. This says nothing about leadership abilities. This is an observation.

Paul's imperative in Ephesians calls for the more difficult action for each of the sexes. The man, the constitutionally weaker one, to step up and sacrificially lead. The woman, the one with greater constitutional power, to submit.

Wives submit to your husbands because this requires that he gets his act together. If you lead he will follow and will be unable to lay his life down for you with anything approaching initiative or character.

Now, this in no way condones abuse, which can be perpetrated by either party and constitutes pathology. I am speaking about the normal situation. Normally both parties want the greatest good.

My wife said I could post this.

Here is another post dealing with men.