Feminist Confessions: 1) I hate men! 2) I want to be one.

In 21st-century America, women are told that the way to freedom is to gain authority over men in the home and the workplace, to freely and openly express their sexuality, and to abandon the 'oppressive' duties of motherhood.

So I want to know...has this promise of freedom and happiness delivered???

No. It never will. Just like the Victorian ideal, the Shakespearean notion, and the Grecian 'goddess' mentality, all failed to deliver on their promises to women. Same lie, different twist.

The problem is not one of gender, but one of sin. And the problem is not a modern one; rather, it is an ancient one which began with the very first husband and wife.

Let's go back to the Garden of Eden. There was a man and there was a woman. They were both made in the image of God. They were both assigned duties and responsibilities. They both enjoyed communion with God. They were perfectly happy with life and with each other.

John Piper elaborates:

This is the way God meant it to be before there was any sin in the world: sinless man, full of love, in his tender, strong, moral leadership in relation to woman; and sinless woman, full of love, in her joyful, responsive support for man's leadership. No belittling from the man, no groveling from the woman. Two intelligent, humble, God-entranced beings living out, in beautiful harmony, their unique and different responsibilities.

Now Satan knows that this is a beautiful arrangement. He knows that God's pattern of life is designed for man's good. But Satan hates God and he hates man. He is a liar and a killer from the beginning.

Why did he approach the woman in Genesis 3:1? Why did he draw her into discussion first and make her the spokesman for the couple? Why did he lure her into being the moral guardian of the garden? Was it because she was easier prey? Is woman more gullible than man? Or could the answer be: Satan drew the woman in first, and made her the spokesman and the moral guardian, because that is exactly what should not have been done? And Satan laughs to himself and says, "Now I have created such a confusion of roles they will never sort this out... they will never get to the root of the problem."

But in Genesis 3:17 God goes right to the root of the problem. He says to the man, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you." In other words, "Adam, you were listening when you should have been leading." God is not confused about what Satan did.

And he doesn't want us to be confused either. He created man first; he gave him the moral pattern of the garden first; he held him accountable for failure first; and he punished him for falling right in line with God's archenemy when Satan lured man and woman into a great role reversal at the fall.

Femininity has been out of sync since the Fall. In God's curse upon Eve, He declares that she (and all her offspring) will desire the authority of man (Gen. 3:16). Has it not proven to be our curse!!

Women struggle with the nature of womanhood because of sin... our sin. Our sin.

I am not happy with the nature and role of womanhood, not because of its inherent nature and role, but because my sin nature rebels against and hates God's design.

If your definition of being a truly happy, free, unoppressed, unopposed person is spelled M-A-N, you have believed the lie. The lie that God's design is stifling, chauvinistic, repressive... He is a 'He,' isn't He?... He doesn't care about women. He made them as an after-thought. He kept all the desirable human functions for men. He watches women be crushed and repressed and dismissed by men without a care...

LIES.

We must do what we do with all sin that the Spirit lovingly convicts us of: repent.

Perhaps we might commit to practice the following:
1) Rejoice in the fact that God created me as an image-bearer of Himself. This ensures that I am an eternal soul with unspeakable dignity, worth, and value.

2) Confess my sin of unbelief in the wisdom of God in creating men and women with distinguishable roles and His goodness in doing so for His glory and my joy.

3) Determine to a) fill my mind with God's perspective and truth and b) avoid any and all environments, relationships, television programs, books, magazines, music, hobbies, education, clothing, and any other thing that attacks the Biblical understanding of womanhood. (This is understood to be in the spirit of a 1 Cor. 5 'purging from among us,' not a call to cut ourselves off from unbelievers. We will inevitably be 'in' the world...but we must not be 'of' the world.)

I am self-deceived and blind. God is perfectly wise and perfectly good. If my perceptions, feelings, and inclinations oppose what God says, I must, MUST repent of my unbelief and trust Him Who loves me. And God's love is manifested in this way: He sent His Son to bear my sin.

The answer is not that Christ sets us free from the bondage of womanhood. Christ sets us free from the bondage of sin, enabling us to love and live in the way God designed us to be.

Let us ponder the glory of Christ more and the difficulties of womanhood less. For one is eternal and the other temporal. I think we will find that the latter fades into the distance as the former comes into view.