Feminism and Christianity

Genesis 1:27-28 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 11:1-8 Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.

What do you think of the feminist movement? In particular women’s empowerment? Are you supportive of it? Do you think it is a good thing? What about the end results of the moment? In particular, things like empowering women to get jobs, get abortions, “not need a man,” etc.? Have those things made our society better or worse? Do we have more cohesiveness now between men and women, or is there more division and strife? Has empowering women in those ways led to more prosperity or less in our country?

I am young enough that I don’t think I ever lived in a time when women couldn’t or didn’t work. In fact, my Mom worked a second job (i.e., a job in addition to being a homemaker), for my whole life. Sometimes that job was one she could do at home. But later on, she worked outside of the home in manufacturing. I’ve had female managers. I might have even had more female managers than male managers in the places I’ve worked. There was no discrimination when it came to school either. Boys and girls all went to school and as far as I’m aware no one was kept out because of their biology. And so, the idea that women cannot find work, or shouldn’t be employed is something entirely foreign to me. That being said, many still believe it is necessary to advocate for a woman’s right to work outside of the home. But more than advocate for that right, they are pushing that it is just as good if not better for women to work and not have children or, at the very least, let other people raise their children so that they can keep their careers. They tell women that their lives will be more or just as fulfilled by working outside of the home than by having and raising children. Those arguments are not just foreign to me, but also curious.

First, it is curious and foreign to me because why do we need to advocate that it is better or equally good for a woman to work outside the home when they have been doing it regularly for more than 40 years (the time I’ve been alive)? It has been a part of our culture for so long that I seriously doubt we are in danger of forcing all women to be only barefoot and pregnant homemakers. And yet there is this incessant need to defend the lifestyle of working women seemingly in response to “tradwives.” They go so far as to make the case that women who stay at home are nothing more than slave labor. And yet curiously, the tradwife movement is a voluntary one. Those women believe they are living their best life that way and yet they are attacked. They are attacked as ruining the women’s movement and bringing back sexism. But, as I said earlier, our society in the United States allows for and accommodates women working for decades. And if there really is a man trying to force a woman to stay at home and not work, they can leave or get a divorce. The support structure for such women is immense and includes women’s only shelters, social media support, social services for women, etc.

But more than that, are women really trapped inside the home? Or is the opposite the truth? Are women actually trapped working outside the home? Let’s examine the facts. Well, consider the cost of living these days and the big arguments around wages. People want higher wages because the current wage system does not allow for an individual to buy a home or live comfortably. So, how do people overcome that? They overcome it by living in a communal property. In other words, a place where more than one person lives and has a job. That way multiple people working together can afford a home. The most common form of this is a dual-income household. That is a home where both the husband and wife (or domestic partners) work to be able to afford a single property, make ends meet, go on a few vacations, and perhaps be able to afford to have children. Can you imagine how you would make ends meet or what your life would be like if you or your spouse/roommate/partner didn’t work? What could you afford?

The sad thing about the arrangement of both men and women working is the unintended consequences it has on wages. To understand, let me go through some basic economics. If you have a lot of something, let's say candy, are you more or less willing to part with it? Probably more. After all, if you give away 1 piece of candy, but you still have 99 pieces left, it isn’t a big deal. But what if you only had 2 pieces of candy? Would you be so quick to give it away then or would you be more likely to keep it for yourself? In essence, that is the economic principle of supply. The more there is of something, the less value it has. That is why gold is more expensive than silver, and platinum is more expensive than gold. It is why the gas price goes up when the production of gas goes down.

However, what if all the candy you had was candy corn? You know the most despised candy there is. No one wants it. Do you even want it? With that candy, you may not even be able to give it away because there is no demand for it. But what if you had a giant name-brand candy bar? What is the value of that? Could you trade it for more or less than candy corn? Probably much more because people want that candy more because it is better. That is the second economic principle of demand. The more people that want something, the more expensive it is for them to get because of competition.

Another way to think of those two principles is an auction. When an item comes up for bid, if there are many of the items, people aren’t interested in bidding very high because they believe they can just get the next one. But when there is only one item, and people want it, the price skyrockets. Or, if no one wants an item, the price plummets until someone says, “Meh, I guess I’ll buy it.”

Let’s apply those principles to the workforce. Before men and women were both regularly in the workforce, what was the supply of labor? It was half what it is now considering women make up about half the population. What does that mean for the price of labor? It means what men got paid when no women were in the workplace would naturally be higher than after they were in the workplace. Or in today's instance, because more women are working, the wages for everyone go down because the supply of labor is twice what it was say 60 years ago (when women began entering the workforce in greater numbers). Although women entering the workforce isn’t the only factor in increasing the supply of labor. The other added factors include immigration (legal and illegal) and remote work. After all, people who work remotely not only compete with those within their community, but the whole country, and even the whole world (e.g., programmers or helplines in India). That being said, the supply of labor has not only increased, but when we add people to the country, the demand for goods and services has also increased. So, consider things like the price of housing, food, and gas. If we import a substantial number of people but also do not increase the amount of housing, food, etc. then the available supply of those things goes down. And with a decrease in that supply, the price to get those things up.

In other words, by adding people to the labor pool the unintended consequence is that the wages for everyone goes down. And once it is down it is more and more difficult to make it go back up because the workers are dependent on those wages. If one loses their job or doesn’t work to begin with, it is difficult if not impossible to maintain even a modest lifestyle. Moreover, it is why dual-income households are more prone to bankruptcy than single-income households. In other words, from an economic standpoint, women are forced to work outside the home to have a chance for their families to have a modest lifestyle. Therefore, the compassionate thing to do is not to encourage a society to have more dual-income households (more women working outside the home). We need to encourage more single-income households (among other things) to increase wages for all people.

The second way it is curious to me is the idea of empowerment. I suppose it is empowering for a woman to have the opportunity to work, and do something they are interested in. But how is it disempowering for women to not be employed? In other words, how is it disempowering for a woman to choose freely to stay at home to take care of the children? Is it not disempowering for them to be forced to get a job just so that the family can live a modest life? The whole thing is backward. But more than that, what does having a dual-income household do to that household? Yes, we’ve already identified it lowers wages and increases the threat of bankruptcy. But what about the other people there? Specifically, the children?

When a parent has to work, how does that affect their relationship with their child? Does it make it better to have them spend a large portion of their time outside of the home? Or does the parent who works miss a significant portion of their child’s life? So what happens when both parents work? Who is there to raise, educate, and build strong bonds with their children? No one. After all, the children end up going to daycare, school, etc. They may even end up spending more waking time with teachers or babysitters than their own parents. And those people move out of their lives significantly faster than their parents do. After all, the child will eventually change grades, schools, etc. Now that person is just gone and all they are left with are parents who spend more time working than with their own children. Is it any wonder then why parents and children have such a strained relationship these days? Is it any wonder why parents have no idea what is going on in their children’s lives and so they end up with the wrong crowd, depressed, or seeking a social structure on the internet/social media?

Unfortunately, the answer to childhood depression and the absence of parents is not, “How do we help parents spend more time with their children?” Instead, they encourage paying for more daycare and denigrating homeschooling. Or they tell women, or people in general, that they don’t have to have children to be fulfilled. Or more aggressively that it is better for people to not have children and for women to have abortions. After all, having children is hard, the world is ending due to climate change, etc. But from a Biblical perspective that goes against the very foundations of who we are. As it says in Genesis 1:27-28 when God created human beings He created them with the function and command of reproduction. In other words, that command is an inseparable part of our being because we were formed with it. It is written into our very DNA. That makes it different than the other commands that came later, like, “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” or the commandments of Moses which came later and from the outside. And yet, we as human beings have been revolting, even against that very first command from the early days of the world. And that first widespread revolt of the creation command occurred after the flood at the tower of Babel. There, the people intentionally decided that they would not be scattered across the earth (i.e., fill the earth). Instead, they would gather in one place and build a tower to heaven. So what did God do? Did He leave them alone because they didn’t break a command? No. Rather He did punish them by confusing their language and thus forcing them to spread out (a consequence we still deal with today).

Likewise, we shouldn’t expect that refusing to reproduce or advocating for anti-reproduction policies, government, or society is in line with God’s command. Those positions include encouraging women to work instead of having children, that they should get abortions, that being a stay-at-home mom is somehow degrading or slave labor, or that they don’t need a man. To be clear, those positions are anti-creation, anti-God, and will come with punishment. Therefore, as Christians, we shouldn’t be encouraging them.

That being said, I don’t advocate the fear of punishment being the primary motivator in our lives. So then, let’s look at the benefits of adhering to God’s command in that instance. Consider one of the main things that people want. They want purpose, to live or be remembered forever, to have an impact on the world, etc. Does working at whatever job you work at accomplish any of those things? Do they really bring you joy? If they do bring you joy, how long will that joy last? How long will your work be relevant? Let’s compare that with having and raising children. What lasts longer, the work you do at whatever employer, or the souls of your children? Will your employer even remember you when you are gone? Will they care if you leave? Will anyone? But how does it affect children when their parents abandon them? At the very least, who will remember and care more about you: your children, or your employer? Will your employer visit you when you are old or sick? So if you want purpose and to have a long-term effect on the world, being a cog in the corporate machine is not the place for you. Moreover, just having children is not enough. We must also learn to have a good, healthy, and God-pleasing relationship with them. That way the relationship is more impactful and lasts longer.

In the end, even though the feminist movement promises to be empowering and sensitive to the needs of women, the opposite is true. It leads them down a path that is vain and empty. But more than that supporting the feminist movement which denigrates and encourages people to abandon what God created is not what we should be doing as Christians. In fact, it is the antithesis of Christian living, which ultimately harms our ability to get more people to heaven.

Did you grow up or raise your children in a dual-income household? How did it affect the relationship you had with your parents or children? What are some ways that you overcame being separated from your family so much?

Note: I didn’t have time in this article to address one other main reason why people jump on the feminist movement. That reason is because of tyrannical men who did and do abuse, neglect, and take advantage of women. Moreover, many of those same men used the Bible to justify such treatment (e.g., the Christian Domestic Discipline movement). I hope to address that side of the feminist movement at a later date.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission.
All rights reserved.

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