Vive la difference
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”
There is one overwhelmingly obvious truth in these passages, a truth which is observably clear even to this day: men and women were designed to be different.
Different. Not “better and worse.” Not “superior and inferior.” Different. And it is in those differences that the beauty of God’s plan shines through.
Men and women are different biologically and anatomically. They have some very important different parts. Men are generally bigger and stronger. That is why no one bats an eye when a woman hits a man, but the entire world comes unhinged if a man hits a woman. This does not mean women are not strong; many certainly are. It just means that men and women are different.
Women can do something men cannot do due to that different biology and anatomy; they can give birth and thus ensure continuation of the species. For all of the strength of men, if men had to be the ones to give birth, if they had to endure the pain of labor, I suspect that no family would ever have more than one child.
Men and women are different emotionally. We five Wagners sat down to watch a movie recently. It was a movie we had already seen before. Everyone sitting in that living room knew what was coming. And yet, when the tragic death occurred, three Wagner women sat bawling uncontrollably (again), and two Wagner men sat there dumbfounded, wondering what trouble we would get into if we switched the channel to a movie with less teary things like guns and fights and bombs detonating.
The differences go on and on. Men and women do not normally react alike or think alike or feel alike. So what are we to do with those differences?
We could try and determine which one is superior. In so doing, we would be wasting time in the same manner as trying to decide whether or not the Monet is fine art or the Rembrandt is fine art.
Both men and women are God’s artwork, made exactly as he designed them, with unique brush strokes that are not at all in competition one with the other.
We could also try to erase those differences. We could mandate that everyone walk on eggshells to ignore the obvious, we could label gender specific pronouns as sexist, we could castigate baby gender reveal ceremonies as harmful. In short, we could re-weave The Emperor’s New Clothes with all modern fabric, and then send the brave little child who innocently speaks the truth to sensitivity training, rather than acknowledge the wisdom of the words being spoken.
Or we could do something truly sensible: we could celebrate the differences. We could realize afresh that it is in the differences that we find the beauty and vibrancy of life that God has for us.
We could exalt both femininity and masculinity, realizing that neither are toxic.
I say vive la difference.
Bo Wagner is pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church in Mooresboro, N.C., a widely traveled evangelist, and author of several books, including a kid’s fiction book about the Battle of Chickamauga, “Broken Brotherhood.” He can be emailed at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org.