CinnamonRoll

@Lin who said, “There were quite a few that did not fit into the stereotypical ‘male’ role. They were artistic, musical, etc. but were expected to be interested in sports, hunting and more masculine pursuits. This made them think there was already something wrong with them because they were drawn to design, art or theatre.”

I was a tom boy when I was a girl. I preferred climbing trees and wearing jeans. But every Sunday my mom would dress me up in itchy, frilly pink dresses so I’d be acceptable to the adults at church.

I don’t have kids and don’t like them (nor do I like babies). I feel uncomfortable around babies/kids, but every women I meet, including church women, always assume I have kids, or that I like them and want to spend time around them. Every time I walk into a new church, the greeters assume I’m divorced with kids (wrong, never been married, never had a kid).

I think there are still some expectations in many churches that boys act and dress one way, and girls dress and act another. It can be very uncomfortable for you when you don’t fit everyone’s ideas of what a female is “supposed” to be.

This creates other problems for females, too, these narrow, cultural ideals – we’re conditioned by society and the church to be codependent.

Raising females with the belief they have to always be submissive, sweet, forever compliant doormats who never express anger or are never to express what they really think and feel (and also teaching Christians that these beliefs are BIBLICAL behavior and that God expects it of females) – attracts abusive or controlling men. This is one reason why so many sweet, naive Christian girls wind up marrying emotionally or physically abusive jerks.

Once a Christian woman gets hitched to an abusive man, some men in the church (who say divorce is never, ever right or permissble) do yet more damage and tell her to stay in the cruddy marriage.

Teaching females to stick with rigid gender roles and to be codependent (and that it’s also biblical – even though it’s not-) also has other negative outcomes, such as hindering a woman’s performance on the job and other areas of life.

Quote from blog: “5. Pastors are catering to women’s needs and not men’s needs in the church. The sermons are too long and there are not enough stories of war, fighting or examples of manly heroes.”

I see it differently. Men are already catered to more in churches than women, even though there are more women then men.

Since most pastors are men who believe in male headship, I seriously doubt many of them are “catering to women’s needs.”

There may be more lacy doilies on church tables, but as women are not allowed to lead or make decisions or do anything (other than teach Sunday School to four year olds and make coffee in the church kitchen), men are in control of churches.

Churches I have attended in person, and programming I watch on Christian networks, routinely have male preachers using sports talk as analogies to make points about God or Bible lessons, or male pastors sometimes discuss football at the start or at some point of the sermon to bond with the males in the audience.

While I’m sure some women like football, I’m one woman who finds it boring, and I find the repeated references to football (or baseball, boxing, basketball) boring and distracting during a sermon.

Also, I never hear male pastors toss out analogies that are meant to make ladies feel included.

Knitting is an activity that most of us would probably agree is feminine, or something that women do more than men…. so why don’t these male pastors that use NFL talk during sermons to bond with the guys ever play fair and drop the occasional knitting reference into a sermon?

As a female, I don’t mind hearing about war and violence in the Bible or in the news, and actually find it interesting. Growing up, I did not like “chick flicks” and preferred violent war films, and things like sci fi movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger ripping alien’s heads off.

Sorry to go off on a bit of a tangent here, but my other huge pet peeve as a never married older woman is how often pastors use marriage as an analogy to God.

Yes, I get that the church is called the “Bride of Christ” in the Bible, yada yada, but as a single woman, it gets annoying and painful to hear such marriage analogies all the time. They make me feel excluded when husbands/wives are constantly used as examples by pastors to make a point that they could make equally well without using marriage as an example. (I’ve also heard older single Christian males say they feel put out and ostracized by marriage analogies in church sermons too.)

Quote from blog: “In many complementarian churches, the male leadership is stymied about what women can or cannot do in the church”

I’m a woman over 40 years old, below 45, never married, and I’ve never had kids.

Most churches won’t let women do anything, outside of kitchen clean up duty, or baby sitting kids in the nursery during worship service.

I have never liked kids or babies, never had one myself, and I don’t feel comfortable around them, so I have no interest in serving in a kids ministry, changing diapers, teaching kids, etc.

One of the last churches I went to (a Baptist one) I volunteered my gifts for free (technical related field), and they never put them to use. I was asked once or twice by church people if I wanted to babysit the church toddlers (no, I did not).

Please get a copy of the book ‘Quitting Church’ by author Julia Duin. Portions of that book can be read for free on Amazon and google books.

There is one chapter on how the church under-utilizes women and older, single Christian people (both male and female), which is why both groups have left the church in droves.

Meanwhile, the church at large (in the USA) remains ignorant of these facts and continues to think and act as though all people attending church are age 25 – 35 are married with kids, and they continue to focus all attention on kid and youth ministry, when their real focus should be put on attracting, keeping and financing things for single people over 35, and putting skilled, bright women to work.

Recent data show that about 50% of Americans over 18 yrs of age are never married, people are putting marriage off longer (or never getting married), 1 out of 5 women are leaving child bearing yrs without having babies, etc. but churches are still acting like it’s 1953 and everyone is getting married at 21 and popping out kids by age 25.

Julia Duin mentions in her book that older women who work as lawyers, accountants, etc. are bored by church and their talents are not being put to use, so they have stopped going to church.

These are women who have no interest in reading Bible stories to three year old children every Sunday, they want to do more, but their churches will not permit them due to old fashioned interpretations of Pauline texts about women and teaching men, etc.”

@Heidi. Why would simply teaching or delivering a sermon or lecture be construed as “having authority over?”

I see authority and teaching as different topics. Teaching is simply imparting knowledge, it’s not forcing anyone to do anything.

Quote from the blog: “In our continuing topic of common objections to women in ministry, the objection is raised that women cannot have authority in the church since wives are under their husband’s authority.”

What if you’re a single woman? Kind of puts those complementarians in a bind, doesn’t it?

I’m in my early forties and have never married, so I have no husband who can have authority over me. (Not that I believe in that headship malarky anyway, but if you go by their logic, nothing should impede me from teaching and preaching to men since I am a never married woman.)