I read an article today that mentioned a quote by Australian activist Irina Dunn in which she quips: "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Unfortunately this particular saying has become a slogan or battle cry for women's liberation (I use this term with a cringe) in Australia and in other places in the world. Sitting here on my couch in the quiet of the morning I wonder if these women really listen to what it is they're saying. Obviously by definition we don't need anyone--at least not in a human capacity. I don't need my husband anymore than a fish needs a bicycle. I do, however, need him as much as a fish needs another fish to procreate. When my two boys play and giggle, looking up at me with their Daddy's eyes, I have a hard time imagining life without them. And yes, I needed him for the act of love that created them.
I don't think the issue we as women have is with men. I have been reading a book by Lisa Bevere called Fight Like a Girl in which she investigates the gender confusion of women today. She asserts that women don't like women, don't like being women, and don't like men simply because they are blessed to not be women! I am not too far in the reading, but I am loving it, because I have never realized the complete upheaval women are in as a societal whole, as individual persons, and as mothers of a race.
Can we continue to mother a race without men to father them? Some say, yes. There is enough frozen sperm to keep the race alive if all the men were to drop dead at this instant. There are enough women to take care of a race of young boys and girls. After all, who needs the men around to teach them to play in dirt and burp, right? Why do we need men to teach our boys to be boys? If we women were left to the child-rearing as many would hope, we would have armies of young boys sweeping and cooking, carrying laundry baskets, and taking out the trash. Our little girls would be carrying baby dolls around on their hips, reading, learning to play piano and sing, and learning how to be...wives?
Is it possible that we as women are trapped in a societal role of womanhood that we don't even like, and we wish something better for our own daughters, yet we advocate this role given us? I don't need a man and neither does any woman that may be reading this. I can't imagine a woman that likes to be alone, though. It's interesting that even though we don't need men, we still date them, marry them, or live with them, have babies with them, and love them--all the while reminding them that we don't need them. This article I read today explained the problem that exists with this mindset and arrangement. If we as women let men "off the hook" when it comes to earning money, raising children, being the leader of the home, what will happen?
They will be happy to oblige! Fifty years ago men would not be caught dead in their "man cave" with a video game controller in one hand and a beer in the other in the middle of the day, unshaven and unkempt. The men got up with the sun, donned their respective uniforms, and earned an honest wage, came home and relaxed, spent time with children, taught their boys to build things, fix things, fear dad, and fear God. Fifty years ago they didn't have women standing an arm's reach away saying "you don't have to, just let me".
Many women today let the men "off the hook" and then expect them to pick up the slack out of consideration for us. Why would they do that? If I tell my husband that I want to keep the house, and then silently expect him to help with dishes after dinner, we are both going to be disappointed. I will be disappointed while doing dishes every night, and he will be disappointed because of the silent treatment he gets every night.
I don't think I've ever thought of the male gender role much. Since James Standish got me thinking about it today after reading his article "Filling the Father Gap" I have realized more than women need men, men actually need women in a more urgent capacity than we realize. Think about it, in Genesis 2, when God created Adam, He said "'It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him'...And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said; 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man'...Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (verses 18, 21-24).
As I read these verses my attention is drawn to the fact that Adam was created first and God--the Almighty and Magnificent Creator of all things--saw that it wasn't good for him to be alone. It sounds like to me that God saw a need, and fulfilled it for Adam. Adam needed someone to keep him company, and God created the perfect companion for him. He didn't create Eve out of dirt as He did Adam. He instead took a rib from Adam, making Eve part of him. Without Eve, Adam was not whole, was he? You could even say that Adam needed Eve, perhaps in the same way I think men still need women. It is this deep need that is causing the turmoil in gender roles today. Women are pushing the men away, saying "we don't need you", when it's the men that need the women. Without the women, men have little purpose. God has commanded the men to leave their mothers and fathers and be joined with a wife. God created this codependency in Eden, and I believe it still exists. When we STEAL the men's role they are lost, and end up wearing sweat pants in a basement with an X Box and a bag of chips. We steal their Biblical manhood, and then we're surprised when we have to toil away at a job to make ends meet, clean up after everyone in the house, make the parent/teacher conferences, take care of the kids, and take care of bills. Where have the men gone?
It seems the men are free and the women are in tears, juggling cinder blocks with arms outstretched in all directions wondering where the men went. If we truly didn't need men, we would be able to do it all, but we can't. By limiting men's role in our homes and lives we end up limiting ourselves. Women have a nature altogether different than men and the two compliment each other.
I'm not sure how or when women will become comfortable in their own skin and role, but I hope I raise young men that can see women for their splendor and grace, and never sacrifice their own roles for the sake of fitting into a societal mold. When it seems likes it's too late to fix our own generation we can turn to teaching our own children a better way--but this too requires the mother and the father.
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