Christianity and Gender Roles by Brittany K. Butler
The early Christian movements began at a time in which many believers in Jesus Christ thought that apocalyptic times were very near. It is due to this basic fact that many hierarchical and patriarchal structures were ignored until much later in the establishment of the Christian Church. Due to apocalyptic thinking, many early Christians saw no need for designated roles in society based on gender.
It was not until later that the “forefathers” of the Christian church saw a need to place women in a more subordinate position with respect to their gender roles in society. Men did this in order to justify their dominance in religious leadership roles as well as power positions with in the family (Peach, 202-03).
According to Deborah Sawyer, who writes in the book "Women and World Religions," gender roles in Christian society fall under two different categorical theories; the constructionist-a theory that allows for creativity and deviation from generation to generation pertaining to the roles of a males and females in society, and the essentialist- a theory which argues that male and female roles were specifically determined at the point of creation and that gender roles should never deviate from God’s original intentions.
Carter Heyward, who writes in the book "Coming Out While Staying In," unintentionally makes the connection to Sawyer’s theories of gender by recognizing that some Christian churches have established societal norms based on an essentialist theory of gender that refuses to deviate from what they feel are God’s specified intentions for certain gender roles.
According to essentialists whether a person is born male or female determines the specified gender roles that they are supposed to fulfill through out their life. Carter Heyward concludes that due to the essentialist theory of gender that many Christian churches adhere to, many Christian communities do not allow gender roles to be constructed in a more creative way and the result has been the continued struggle for many gays, lesbians, and bisexuals in the Christian community.
In order to understand the constructionist theory of gender it is essential to understand the early Christian movements. Early Christian movements were not concerned with how to construct the church or even creating certain gender roles. Rather, they were purely concerned with spreading the good news of Jesus Christ in the efforts to prepare for the rest of the world for what they thought was the very near second coming of Christ. Therefore in this historical context men and women are able to work together in spreading the “good news” about Jesus’ life and resurrection.
In these charismatic communities that directly followed the Jesus’ movement women were allowed to take on optional roles in society and become a member of either the order of “Widows” or “Vestal Virgins.” As history shows, women sometimes took on these roles of abstinence not only to have the ability to move freely in society but also to avoid sexual harassment and assault in Christian societies.
Apparently, women were forced to take on these identities that presented themselves as non-sexual beings in order to exercise the same freedoms that men enjoyed in preaching God’s message as foretold by his Jesus Christ (Sawyer 216). These circumstances all suffice for periods of time in early Christianity in which women are given the opportunity to adapt their gender roles in society based on their needs, characteristic of the constructive theory of gender.
Constructive gender roles emerged during a time in which authority and power structures were forgotten due to the hopes of the imminent return of Christ. However the women that were permitted to gain an almost egalitarian role in society, were soon “put in their place” according to some Christian religious sects under a more essentialist theory of gender. Soon the idea that Jesus would return soon, began to dissipate and there began more of a focus on the church of this life rather than what happened after death. So man began to build his church based on a hierarchy that placed women at the bottom of religious power and men at the top. The early Christian church justified this patriarchal structure to conform to the beliefs of the essentialist theory of gender.
The following contextual image gives reference for these early Christian beliefs regarding woman, “For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is in the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman created for man.”(1 Cor. 11.7-9)
The essentialist theory of gender in the Christian religion emerged from the Judaic stories of creation. The Christian religion shared the idea that woman was in fact created from man and is therefore declared as subordinate from the point of creation. In addition, Eve is recognized by the “fathers” of the Christian church as the originator of sin. Since Eve was created into this character as the “originator of sin”, as a result women as a gender group were blamed for human sin and should therefore be held in constraint and protected by males in society. Woman is therefore distinct from man in this essentialist view and it is through her disobedience that she is no longer considered made in “God’s image” as man is.
It is through the story of Eve that man is able to regard women as the “second sex” and able to justify maintaining a sexual hierarchy in the traditional Christian family and established church. The early church actually established gender roles through creating this sexual hierarchy based on the idea that man and woman were created to fulfill certain gender roles (Sawyer 218-19). The essentialist allows absolutely no deviation from these intended male and female roles, they allow woman no way to escape from their restrictive roles and if they dare to do so they are defying God’s divine decree.
Under the constructionist theory women are allowed some creativity in their roles by giving them the opportunity to move about in society away from the men in their family, whether they were their fathers, brothers or husbands. However, under the essentialist concept associated with the more established Christian Church, women are not supposed to move freely in the public sphere because males are not there to protect and control their daily lives. The essentialist theory of gender believes that gender women roles are clearly defined and should remain unchanged. It is also through this essentialist theory that relates to the power and control over certain individuals, that a connection can be made to the arguments of feminist and liberator for the gay population, Carter Heyward.
Heyward makes the assumption that the origins of homophobia can actually be traced back to the early church’s need for power and control with in the Christian community by adhering to essentialist values that condemn any role of males or females that might deviate from God’s original intentions. Since power and control within the Christian community was somewhat obtained through the essentialist theory of gender, which placed women in a more subordinate role in relation to man. Heyward blames some Christian sects for allowing discrimination against lesbians and gays based on this idea that God never intended for gender roles to change.
Heyward argues that it is only through creating more constructive roles of gender that allow gays and lesbians to be a part of the Christian community, does the church adhere to the equality that Jesus ultimately intended for His church (Heyward, 111-113).
The power structure that still operates today within the Christian Church due to essentialist ideals, generates this generally accepted belief that it is through divine decree that women should not be allowed to claim any type of leadership role in their families or churches. Since this has been the generally accepted belief for so long, women have continued to accept their designated roles today. This is also comparable with some gays feeling that it is through God’s divine law that they not be allowed to practice their own sexuality and it is through this inherit tradition passed down through generations by the church, that gays not be allowed to take part in a Christian church.
Carter Heyward brings forward the stories of gays in the communities that are so ashamed of their sexual identity that they avoid churches completely. They feel unworthy to partake in a normal Christian setting, because they are “sinful”, “perverted” and “simply wrong” according to the essentialist idea that sexual identity should not deviate from certain roles no matter what the present context.
Heyward makes known the degree of sexuality accepted in the Christian church; that some Christians might communicate to gays and lesbians in the church that they accept their sexuality as long as they do not act on it. This view is similar to the early Christian idea that women were accepted for their sexuality as long as they did not act on it. This same idea that women could move through society as nonsexual beings by being part of the order of widows or vestal virgins is easily comparable to the present idea of the church that gays can be a part of the church only if presented as these “non-sexual” beings. Lesbians, gays and bisexuals can relate to some of the gender role constraints that are placed on women when they are put into a category with Eve as someone who is inheritably impure and evil. This is just one of the few unfortunate characteristics forced upon the female gender throughout history and that have remained there due to the unwillingness to conform to present times.
Gays and lesbians can relate to the struggles women face in being stereotyped as these sinners because they dare to deviate from their respective gender roles. Both Sawyer and Heyward encourage acts of radical liberation for women/lesbians/gays/bisexuals to reclaim themselves as no longer these people of sin and impurity that restrictive gender roles have sometimes placed upon them, but rather as people of goodness as well as holiness.
Carter Heyward and Deborah Sawyer’s arguments for liberation among oppressed groups are based on the competing concepts of gender roles in society and what these roles really mean to society. These two women recognize what many feel has been left unsaid in the Christian community. Some supporters of more constructionist gender roles might agree that Heyward and Sawyer are liberators. While some essentialists that believe that gender roles should always remain intact no matter what the circumstances and might agree that these writers extremists or radicals. Whether one believes in an essentialist or constructive theory of gender, one must recognize that these women do something profound in the Christian community by publicizing the struggles that many members of the Church are presently dealing with. It is for these struggling people’s benefit that both of these writers speak out against what has become inherently acceptable to some Christian communities.
1. Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels, vol. 1, From Gethsemane to the Grave, The Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 387, 391 n. 13. Brown discusses this matter in greater depth on pp. 130-33, 140-41. His views are similar to those of E. Best in The Temptation and the Passion: The Markan Soteriology, SNTSMS 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 173-77.
