THE GENDER TRAP
Really, having either just men or just women rule the world would probably be a disaster. And yet, we've gotten to the point in our culture where there's almost an open war between men and women. At least this is how the media paints it…
The whole basis of the movie "What Women Want" is the idea that if you know what other people want you will also know basically how to please them. But I want us to think about that for a moment. And the first question to ask is, 'Is our life made up of getting what we want?' Is that the sum of our happiness? Do we live and die by how much we got what we wanted? What is the problem with this idea that we are what we want
And perhaps the bigger question to ask is, do we really know what we want? You see I've seen enough 2 year old tantrums when it came to bed time to know that as children we often think we want one thing when in fact what we really want is another. And the Bible is very clear that this syndrome isn't confined to young children! Throughout the Bible we have example after example where the people gave in to their own desires completely and what followed was disaster.
Matt 23: 37"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.
38 Look, your house is left to you desolate.
Jer 32:33 They turned their backs to me and not their faces; though I taught them again and again, they would not listen or respond to discipline.
34They set up their abominable idols in the house that bears my Name and defiled it.
35They built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molech, though I never commanded, nor did it enter my mind, that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin.
In fact, it becomes clear in the New Testament that giving ourselves to our desires is a one way street not to satisfaction but to depravity and the loss of one's life.
Romans1:24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.
However, it is important to recognize our desires and to admit them and to see them for what they are. Not all desires are evil by any stretch. Many, in fact, may be motivated by a desire to serve and to be useful to our community or society.
So if we can't sum each other according to our desires we are still left with the question how can we relate to each other. I want to give you three possibilities tonight. Each of these has an element of truth in them but only the last is the one I would say is unequivocally supported by the Bible. Let's start with the first and most common approach…
1. Focus on the differences:
Our culture over the last 40 or 50 years has tended to define maleness and femaleness largely over against each other so that the things which are emphasized are the differences. And there are differences…
But there are also some very well known emotional and social differences…
2. Danger of the differences:
Problem with emphasizing difference is that we usually end up doing one of two things with these. Either we
a.) Over-emphasise the differences and the problem these cause or…
b.) under-emphasise these differences and we don't take account of the strengths difference can bring to a relationship. When we over emphasise the differences we end up making problems out of things that need not be problems.
Huge problem with viewing the male/female thing only through our differences is that we so easily end up stereotyping the other gender. Not all females are Left brained and males right brained. Much humour and hate is built on stereotypical understanding so of what it means to be male or female.
No matter how much we focus on the differences it won't 1.) make them go away or 2.) help us to form relationships except if we are prepared to work with those differences. So, no use rejecting but also no use simply ignoring them either. There has to be a better way.
3. Biblical position: Complementarity.
What does 'complementarity' mean.
Doesn't mean that you're always this and I'm always something else.
Doesn't mean that we always fit together nicely, work together nicely, play together nicely.
Doesn't mean that we were 'made for each other.'
It does mean that…
- We're different
- Those differences can be made to work for our relationships or against it.
- We have a duty to understand those differences if we want to make the most of them.
Differences are recognized and valued as an aid to relationship. Of course this is how it's meant to be and often not how it is…