Kristen

Steph said:
“If women with serious intellectual and communication gifts stopped treating other women as secondary, and instead saw it as an honor to teach them deep, provoking spiritual truths, a lot of the problem would be solved.”
This brings Susannah Wesley to mind. Many know her as the mother of John and Charles Wesley, but she was also a minister in her own right (though the church denied her any sanction or support). She started teaching a few women in her home. Her teaching was so deep and spiritually provoking that more and more began coming. Men came too, more and more men and women, to hear and receive.
Should Mrs. Wesley have driven away the men who came to hear her teach, since no man had given her authority to do so? Should her teachings have been only for women? Does God really want His messages hampered by the sex of the person whom He anoints to teach? Is this really about women’s roles, or about men wanting the sandbox all to themselves?
As far as the idea that women should teach only women and be content– I am certain you would be horrified at the idea of telling an African American preacher that he could teach children of any race, or adults of his own race, but it was not his place to teach white adults. The discriminatory nature of this is very clear when African Americans are substituted for women. But discrimination is discrimination, no matter whom it is practiced against.
It is not women who want to teach both women and men, who are treating women as secondary. It is those who tell a woman she can’t do this, because she is a woman.