What to say when someone says you can’t be a Christian and a Feminist.

But for many, even after you define the word for them, the next thing you will hear is about how evil the feminist movement is and will mention things like killing babies and bra burning, which sure, are perceptions people have of the movement, but on the whole an uneducated one. So first, let’s break down some great things feminism has done.

1. the right to vote

2. the right to an education

3. the right to own land

4. the right not to be your husband’s property

5. birth control

6. the right to run for office

7. rights in the workplace

8. and basically any right a woman in the US enjoys today (though many other countries like Iceland have more rights and freedoms for women. In fact, you should check out this 2018 report by the World Economic Forum, spoiler: the US ranks 51st for gender parity )

Furthermore, we still need feminists because of the simple fact of the matter is that women still do not have equality with men. Here are some statistics:

• Globally 1 in 5 women will be raped (and puhhlleeeaaaaaasssseee don’t compare this with the likelihood a man is likely to be falsely convicted of rape, my engineer husband did the math when I asked him and a woman is 9,673 times more likely to be raped than a man is to be falsely convicted*)
• Global estimates published by WHO indicate that about 1 in 3 (35%) of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.
• Most of this violence is intimate partner violence. Worldwide, almost one third (30%) of women who have been in a relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner in their lifetime.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
• 70% of the world’s poorest people are women and women hold less than 1% of the World’s titled land.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
• Two-thirds of the 774 million illiterate people in the world are female because girls are often denied an education.⠀⠀
• Of the 40.3 million slaves alive today, 75% of them are women and girls.⠀⠀⠀
• White women, on average, make 80 cents to a man’s dollar, that gap increases for women of color.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

I could go on, really, I could go on for a very long time. In fact, people have written whole books on the unequal treatment of men and women (I highly recommend Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl Wudunn,) but let’s suffice it to say we have a long way to go towards women’s equality.

 

More than that, I am fairly confident that Jesus models this and here are some reason why:

First, it must be understood that Jesus lived in an extremely patriarchal Jewish culture where the prayers of men included saying “Praised be God that he had not created me a woman.” Women were required to stay home, raise the children, and keep everything running. In public, women were not to be greeted by men. And some Jewish leaders, such as Philo, taught that women should always be at home unless they went to the synagogue.

Women married young, very young, with Fathers giving their girls away as soon as they could bear children. Women were nearly always under the authority and protection of the men in her life; without a man women were left extremely vulnerable.

Women had little access to property or inheritance, unless through a male relative. Moreover, any money a woman earned belonged to her husband. On top of that, men could divorce women for any reason at all whereas a woman could not divorce her husband.

Women were left out Judaism too, where men were expected to study Scripture, women were flat out forbidden to study it. Rabbi Eliezar, a leader of the time, once said “Rather should the word of the Torah be burned than entrusted to a woman.”

As you can see, a woman had little to no rights in her life and was essentially the property of a man.

Enter Jesus, my main man. He flipped all of this on his head. Jesus challenged the patriarchy and spoke to women (remember Jews didn’t do that), empowered women by having them do ministry with him (hello Mary, Joanna, and Susanna), and trusted them to be his first messengers (woman at the well, the women at the resurrection.)

But perhaps my favorite story of the Bible is when Jesus was visiting Mary and Martha. Martha was acting according to her given role at the time… hurrying around to clean and serve food and Mary was just sitting at Jesus learning from him as he taught (PS remember how women were NOT supposed to do this? In fact, sitting at the feet of a rabbi was what disciples did, it was what you did if you wanted to be a rabbi yourself) Martha got a little salty and asked Jesus to remind Mary of her “role” and help Martha with all of the cleaning and preparations.

Jesus just responds with: “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴² but few things are needed—or indeed only one.^[f] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

In that response, Jesus takes the gender roles of the time and flips them on their head. I just love it. There’s so much here, but this is already getting pretty long, for more context on how Jesus empowered women to be his disciples (yes I said disciples), read this.

 

The problem with this is that it is limiting to both men and women. There are many women who have giftings to lead, and many men who have giftings to nurture and manage a household. This prevents men and women from using their gifts and instead fits them into roles they may or may not be suited for. I think when God created us with gifts, God intends for us to use them. (1 Peter 4:10-11)

So if a woman has the gift of leadership she should use it, regardless of what culture tells her. Let’s look at some women in the Bible who live in highly patriarchal cultures but still chose to use their giftings and leadership skills regardless of what their culture said.

If still they are unconvinced about women’s leadership in Bible and hung up on the abortion issue (this seems to be thrown out quite often), education in what causes abortion may be helpful.

Women get abortions because they are in desperate circumstances: abusive partners, living in poverty, losing a job if they have a baby, no medical insurance… the list goes on and on. Don’t get me wrong, I think abortion is terribly sad and would never get one myself, but even that statement is said with a lot of privilege and assuming that I have a pregnancy that would not cost me my life. I have a loving husband and am not in an abusive situation. I have enough financial cushion that I would be able to provide for myself and the baby, and I have health insurance.

I guess I am just saying I know what desperation can do, more than that, I cannot imagine the agonizing decision some women face when it comes to whether she or the baby will survive.

Statistically, you know what reduces abortions? Easier access to birth control, condoms, better health care for mothers and children, condoms, paid time off for mothers, condoms, better resources for victims of domestic abuse, condoms, counseling services, social programs, etc. You’ll notice I threw condoms in there a lot because women are expected to endure countless side effects from birth control in order for a man to have a marginally more pleasurable sexual experience. Also, men need to take responsibility for their part in abortion rates.

However, it seems that many in the pro-life crowd are actively against using their tax dollars to help women or their unborn children in the ways mentioned above.

In fact, abortions fall the most under democratic presidents and fell a full 13% under Obama. Easier access to birth control and more affordable health care can make all the difference in the world for vulnerable women.

Sadly, desperate women will get abortions whether or not it is legal. In fact, many women die while trying to perform abortions on themselves. Why not help women so they don’t find themselves in desperate positions?

There was a wonderful list of ways that pro-life Christians could fight abortion rates I found online, they are below:

Either way, feminists fight for many things that reduce abortion. As a society, we should not be so focused on the symptom of a broken system, but on the system itself.

Finally, if they choose to point to the worst people in feminism to base the whole movement off of, remind them that the Christian movement has their fair share of atrocities committed by extremists:

This is to mention nothing of Christianity’s history of the Crusades and inquisitions, indulges, and slavery that was justified in the name of Christianity.

Now hear me, I am not arguing that Christianity is evil. Shoot, I am a Christian myself. My only argument is that we cannot define another movement by it’s worst, without doing the same for our own.

Feminism has a bad rep in many circles, it’s true, but so does Christianity. At their cores, I think both are good and holy movements. It’s why I call myself a Christian Feminist.

Also, there are plenty of amazing people who talk about this in-depth, please check out resources like:

Here’s also a list of prominent Christian Egalitarians as taken from Wikipedia:

• Linda Belleville, author of Women Leaders and the Church (2000)
• Gilbert Bilezikian, author of Beyond Sex Roles (1985), Christianity 101 (1993)
• Christians for Biblical Equality
• Greg Boyd, theologian and Senior Pastor of the Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, author of Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution (2009)
• Shane Claiborne
• Bob Edwards, author of Let My People Go: A Call to End the Oppression of Women in the Church (2011)
• Mary J. Evans, author of Woman in the Bible (1984) and co-editor of The IVP Women’s Bible Commentary (2002)
• Gordon Fee, contributing editor to Discovering Biblical Equality (2004)
• Frank Stagg, co-author of Woman in the World of Jesus (1978)
• George Fox
• Kevin Giles, Vicar of St. Michael’s Church in North Carlton, Australia, in the Anglican Church of Australia; author of Jesus and the Father: Modern Evangelicals Reinvent the Doctrine of the Trinity (2006)
• Stanley Grenz, author of Women in the Church (1995)
• Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, co-editor of Discovering Biblical Equality (2004); author of Good News for Women (1996) and Women Caught in the Conflict (1997)
• Trevor Huddleston
• Paul King Jewett, author of Man as Male and Female (1975) and The Ordination of Women (1980)
• Craig S. Keener, author of Paul, Women and Wives (1992)
• Catherine Clark Kroeger, co-founder of CBE; co-editor of The IVP Women’s Bible Commentary (2002); co-author of Women, Abuse and the Bible (1996), I suffer not a Woman (1998)
• Scot McKnight, Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University; author of The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How you Read the Bible (2008)
• Roger Nicole, Emeritus Professor of Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, Florida.
• Roger Olson Professor of Theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary of Baylor University
• Carroll D. Osburn, Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Abilene Christian University; author of Women in the Church: Reclaiming the Ideal (2001)
• Philip B. Payne, author of Man and Woman, One in Christ (2009), New Testament Scholar and professor at Fuller Theological Seminary (North West)
• Ronald W. Pierce, co-editor of Discovering Biblical Equality (2004)
• Aida Besançon Spencer, author of Beyond the Curse – Women called to ministry (1985)
• Ruth A. Tucker, co-author of Daughters of the Church (1987)
• William J. Webb, author of Slaves, Women and Homosexuals (2001)
• Ben Witherington III, Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary; author of Women in the Earliest Churches (1988) and Women and the Genesis of Christianity (1990)
• F.F. Bruce, Biblical Scholar and professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis

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*husband’s math that was verified by several other mathematicians, here is his explanation: Ok here is the math and sources behind the stats. First you take number of rapes and attempted rapes each year from DOJ 2015 statistics. 321500/year in the US. 90% of all victims are women. so 289350 women/year. You then you take US census data and find that that equates to a 0.1741% chance for a woman to be raped or attempted to be raped each year. You take the annual chance and extrapolate over a lifetime (I considered a lifetime to be 72 years because all the rape statistics are for women 12 and older and the US female life expectancy is 84 years.) that extrapolation brings a woman’s lifetime chances to 11.791%… Ok for the men. You start again with the annual number of rapes and attempted rapes against women of 289350. The RAINN statistic of 6/1000 rapists are incarcerated. Which gives you 1736.1 incarcerations/year. Their were 5 studies that I found between 2008 and 2016 that ranged in sample size from 100 cases to a years worth of police data from LA. The average % of false reports was 4.52%. So if the justice department is (really low estimate) 60% effective at not sending innocent people to jail. you end up with 31.389 false incarcerations for rape per year. Taking US census data again that gives a man a 0.000019657% chance of being falsely incarcerated. You extrapolate that over the adult lifetime of a man (18-80) and a man has a 0.001219% chance of being falsely incarcerated. And that puts a woman’s chances at 9673 times more likely to be raped or attempted to be raped than a man is to be falsely incarcerated for rape. This was the exercise I did to get an estimation, feel free to challenge my logic or thought process but that is how I arrived at those stats.