Being Feminist and Pro-Family -- By: Lynn Marie Marcotte

Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 03:1 (Winter 1989)
Article: Being Feminist and Pro-Family
Author: Lynn Marie Marcotte


Being Feminist and Pro-Family

Lynn Marie Marcotte

Today, many believers are finding themselves at odds with each other about the family, sex roles, and how the two intertwine. Women may find themselves gifted with the ability to teach or lead but find no context for those gifts within their churches. Men may prefer teaching children in Sunday School to organizing a missions conference, but instead get stuck doing the very things for which they have no vision, just because it is expected of them as men. And as they marry and bear children and as their lives incarnate their Christian faith, both men and women may find themselves constricted by “traditional” roles mapped out for them by their churches.

Like many women in the church today, I wear several hats: wife, mother, and professional. And, even though I find support for those roles within my own church, I am discovering that my experience is rare and that what women and men should do about family, work, sex roles and raising children is a heated issue. There seem to be two camps vying for our allegiance today—the pro-family movement and feminism. And according to some, a Christian can’t be both pro-family and feminist.

The Issues

The issues look something like this. First, there’s the pro-family movement, which is interested in supporting and sustaining the “traditional” family. It is thus committed to social and political issues related to the sustenance of the family because it thinks family life is being undermined and devalued. According to pro-family advocates, this deterioration is caused by such practices as widespread cohabitation, no-fault divorce, joint custody of children, blurred sex roles, government intrusion into the family, and the rampant growth of child-care centers. Many of the people who are active in the pro-family movement find a biblical basis for not only maintaining “traditional” family life but also for fighting politically against its deterioration.

Then there is feminism. It believes that men and women should be treated as equals, —socially, economically, and politically. Throughout history, women have been mistreated, deserted, and forced into submission by a system that insisted upon their maltreatment. And, because of disgust by what has historically happened to women and by what they presently experience, feminists are vocal, active, and adamant about change. The old system, the “traditional” ways, cannot support equality for the sexes, so feminists are agitating for a new paradigm of human relationships. Women have been treated poorly these many years, and they are fighting back. There’s a deep fear of regression or minimal change; they want sweeping changes. They want a new paradigm.

This new paradigm, feminists say, could ultimately be freeing for both men and women. F...

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