Letters To Young Women: What is a Woman?

Dear Young Woman,

Once upon a time, there was an infant king. This man was created fully grown physically, but he was immature. His father, the Great King, gave him a realm to rule. It would take time for him to mature to the place where he could do all that his father wanted him to do. His father would be patient, giving him everything needed at each stage of maturity to accomplish his mission. When the infant king recognized he didn’t have all that he needed to move to the next stage of the mission, he would patiently wait for the father to give him the gifts he needed.

The first need was recognized within several hours of his creation. The infant king was alone. With the vastness of his domain and what was required of him to accomplish his father’s mission, the infant king couldn’t do this alone. The father knew that it was not good for his son to be alone, but he also wanted his son to recognize that it was not good. So, in one of his first tasks as an infant king—naming animals—he noticed how God made them in pairs, males and females. The fact that his father made the animals in these complementary pairs was his revelation that he always intended for his son to have another creature like him but different. His father hid it from him at first but made it easy for him to figure it out. And he did. Without any scientific studies, the man recognized that he was male and there was no corresponding female.

After he recognized his first need, his father gladly gave him the gift he needed. The infant king’s father put him to sleep, cut open his side, and from his side he made an infant queen, his wife. She was created to be his helper, his glory. She took his name, and with that name, she submitted to the mission God gave her husband. She received a name from her king, “woman.” As the infant king named the animals, revealing his lordship over them, so he named this new creature who was like him but different, revealing his lordship over her as well as the fact that she was a part of his mission (though not its totality). The queen was a gift from the Great King to his son so that the mission for the newly created world might be completed.

If you are familiar with the Scriptures, you know that this is taken from Genesis 2, the story of the original creation of the man and woman. This story is not merely a great tale but with no relevance to us. This story tells us who we are as man and woman, not merely our origins, but also how we are made, for what purpose we are made, and how we are to relate to one another to accomplish the mission of dominion God has given us. When Jesus instructed the Jews concerning issues surrounding marriage and divorce, he referenced the original creation as defining the nature of the marriage relationship (Mt 19.1-9; Mk 10.1-9). Paul references the order and purpose of the original creation as establishing the relationship between males and females in authority structures such as the church as well as within marriage (1Cor 11.2-14; 1Tm 2.8-15). The manner in which we were created, the order in which we were created, and everything that was spoken at our creation define us and our intersexual dynamics.

These creational realities are just that: realities. They can be denied, resisted, rebelled against, suppressed, cursed, derided, hated, and scoffed, but they do not change. Our creation is accomplished through the eternal Word of God (Jn 1.1-3), and that Word is reality. You might as well say that the sun or moon doesn’t exist … or that you can walk into a brick wall without ill effects … or that you can scrape your tires against a curb without the rims being scuffed. Reality is a stubborn thing because it is rooted in the character of a God who does not change, who upholds all things by the word of his power (Heb 1.3). You only have two choices: 1) accept reality or 2) rebel against it. There is no third choice of changing reality.

A fundamental act of faith for you as a female is to accept your feminine calling. Yes, your creation as a female is a calling, or, in older English, a vocation. You have a particular purpose in this world, and that purpose is not sexless or androgynous. Whatever your purpose is in the world is fulfilled through being female. Genesis is clear that God made them “male and female” (Gen 1.27). We are different sexes with particular roles to play in the larger mission.

Please don’t misunderstand. Being female is not merely “a role.” It involves a role, but it is not only a role. You are female. From the time of your gestation in the womb through the resurrection and into the world to come you were, are, and will be female. Everything about you is female down to the smallest part of your DNA. Your entire person—body and soul—is female. Your body has thinner skin than males. Your bone structure and density are different. You obviously have different genitalia. However, you are not merely a shell of a female with a sexless soul stuffed into it. You are completely, thoroughly female. You are different from the male in every respect. You think differently. You act differently. You have a different perspective on the world. You are different. Yes, there is overlap between males and females because your God-created origins are from the male, but you are distinct. This is God’s gift to you and his world.

These differences should not be points of envy and contention. Your distinctions ought to be cultivated and glorified so that they may mature into everything God intended for them. Because of the presence of sin in the world, this is a fight. As I alluded to in the first letter, Feminism plays upon the latent envy that first reared its ugly head in the Garden. The woman desired to rule the man, to take his position. God, in his grace, restored his original order when he told the woman that even though she would desire to rule over her husband, he would rule over her (Gen 3.16). That wasn’t a part of the curse but a blessing of grace. The female wasn’t made to be a man or replace the man. She wasn’t built to do what a man does, and it would be cruel to allow her to destroy herself trying to be a man. Acting in faith, she is to recognize herself as a female with all that God intended for females.

So, what do we learn from the original creation about who you are as a female? The first word associated with the female, even before she was called “woman,” is “helper.” Specifically, you are a helper for the man. Women hear this and, for some, it makes the hair on the backs of their necks stand up. “You mean that I am ‘the help,” like those servants depicted in the 2011 film The Help?” Not exactly. Unlike the movie in which some humans were characterized as almost less human than others, God makes the man’s helper comparable to him. No, it doesn’t mean that she is a fifty-fifty partner with him. She doesn’t have nearly the responsibility that he has as the head. Consequently, she doesn’t have the same authority. However, she is not like the animals. Remember, the man couldn’t find a helper comparable to him among the animals. She is equally human, both of them sharing the divine image and given the same name, “Man” (“Adam”). But just as the Father is not the Son, so the woman is not the man. Her function is different. Her feminine mission is “help.”

If you think that this title is still demeaning, you need to know that the Hebrew word used in Genesis 2.18 that defines the woman is used of God himself elsewhere in Scripture. He is Judah’s and Israel’s help (Dt 33.7, 29; Hos 13.9). He is the help of the king who cries out to him (Pss 70.5; 121.1-2; 124.8; 146.5). If God himself takes on the title “help(er),” it cannot be demeaning. It means that you, in your female calling, reflect a God in a special way through your femininity.

“Helper,” however, does have the connotations that we would expect. The helper is there to aid another. The helper is made for the other. Paul makes this relationship quite clear in 1Corinthians 11.9 when he says, “Nor was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.” The man needed help. God had given him a task, and that task could not be completed alone. So, he made the woman to help him with the mission. That mission included being fruitful, multiplying, and taking dominion over the earth and all its creatures (Gen 1.28). This mission is the primary responsibility of the man. We know this from the fact that it is through Adam that sin entered the world (Rom 5.12), and it is by one man that the sin of the world is conquered (Rom 5.18). Just as Christ is the head and the church is his helper (not his co-Lord or co-redemptrix), so the woman is man’s helper, reflecting this Christ-church relationship to be revealed later (see Eph 5.22-33).

Created as the man’s helper indicates that as a female you are oriented toward the male and his leadership. That has many implications, more than I can explore in this letter. As I mentioned earlier, the way in which we were created as much as the order and the words spoken at creation tell us about ourselves. The man is created from the dust of the ground. Later, when God restores man to his position after the fall, he tells him that he will cultivate the ground. Man is oriented to the dirt, the world, to make it a fruitful place, fighting the thorns and thistles, clearing and making a place that is fruitful and habitable like the original Garden. The woman is made from the man and is oriented toward the man. She is a part of his mission, and her created inclination is to join a man in his mission, helping him. When God restored her after the fall, he re-oriented her to the leadership of the man (Gen 3.16). In that position, she also expects that she will be protected and provided for by the man. She is created from the man in the Garden and is part of the Garden. Several times in Scripture garden imagery is used of the woman. She is a walled garden that provides enjoyment for her king in Song of Songs (Song 4.12, 15-16; 5.1; 6.2). She is a springing fountain in the garden in Proverbs 5. Adam was called to “guard and tend” the Garden (Gen 2.15). She is part of that garden that needs protection and tending. For this reason, as a female, you are wired to want and expect this from a man.

Since the first man handed the first woman over to the serpent, women have not trusted men to protect them. However, this doesn’t change the fact that this is a fundamental female need. You will consciously or unconsciously test the men in your life, whether fathers, potential mates, boyfriends, or husbands to see if they will protect you. (I’ll talk more about this in a future letter where I will write about hypergamy.) When the men in your life aren’t good protectors or positively evil, that creates anxiety, which only adds to the baseline anxiety females have. Women who don’t have a good relationship with some man because of abuse, abandonment,  or neglect, become anxious and angry. Some of them become bitter and hard, losing the softness of femininity. I have even heard it said that women who don’t have the protection of a man will grow thicker and tougher skin, creating almost a shell of protection. If you have seen older, bitter women as I have, you might believe this to be the case. This anger can move all the way to a complete rejection of men and becoming a lesbian. Almost without fail, if you ask any lesbian, “What man made you angry?” she will probably answer you without questioning your assumption.

Your orientation toward the man is part of your created design. You want his protection, and you want to give your female gifts back to him to aid him in his mission. One of those gifts is children, a unique gift that can only be given by you. Women can sear their consciences by repressing their God-given desires, but their desire to marry and/or have children reveals itself pretty consistently. Even women who are wild and crazy in their late teens and twenties, when they hear that biological clock start ticking louder around thirty, become anxious to have children. Women know that, unlike men, they won’t be fertile all their lives. Feminism tells them that they should be equal to men in everything. They should be on the same biological clock, have their careers, put off having children, and be able to have children well up into their forties and fifties … like men. They will freeze their eggs and do everything they can to keep up with the boys, but it doesn’t work. Statistically, the conception of children becomes riskier after the age of thirty, and, for many, the chances of getting pregnant diminish. Some women repress this desire, but it is there.

Why do you desire to have children? Because that is one purpose for which God made you, not the only purpose, but a significant and unique purpose. And when you find a man you love (or, at least, strongly attracted to), you want to have his babies. You want to glorify him and aid him in his God-given mission of glorifying the earth by filling it with people.

As I mentioned earlier, these are realities built into you as a female. Submitting to your female form and function is a fundamental act of faith. You are saying, “God, I thank you for who you made me to be, and I will work to cultivate my femininity so that I make it as glorious as I possibly can.” As I mentioned in my first letter, Feminism has lied to you and told you that the way to be truly happy is to be like a man. You have been told that you don’t need a man, that you should compete with men on their turf, and that you are equal to men in every way. Many women have bought into these lies, and the consequences are that women are more unhappy today than they were several decades ago. Just look it up on the internet. There are academic studies as well as popular articles that speak of the trend of the general unhappiness of women. Women have everything that Feminism promised, and it has left them empty. It is because they are working against reality, the way God made, sustains, and the purpose for which he created females. You can follow Feminism’s path, but it doesn’t end well.

That raises the question, What exactly is femininity? Let’s start with a basic definition. Femininity is a female’s whole person conforming to the traits and mission given by God to females. You submit to the way God made your body, the way you think, desire, act, dress, and the relationships with men that he ordains. You deliberately conform to your female nature, cultivating it into mature glory. So, for example, you dress like a woman. (I will deal with modesty in another letter.) Your body is shaped differently than a man’s body. You need to accentuate your female form. This doesn’t mean dressing like some thirst trap on Instagram. But the other ditch is deemphasizing your female form by looking butch, homely, or completely hiding the female form as strict Muslims do. There is an art to accentuate without becoming seductive or ostentatious that reveals the glories of femininity. Stop trying to be like the guys in whatever way you are trying, and glory in the way God made you.

Femininity is not a one-size-fits-all mold any more than all females are the same. There is a spectrum of the way femininity is expressed, but there are certain traits that are built into the female form and should be embraced and developed. Because the woman is created from the man and for the man, feminine traits contrast with masculine traits in a complementary fashion. That is, we fit together, in the words of Rocky Balboa, “to fill gaps.” When we come together as male and female the way God intended, we are more than the sum of the parts. God teaches us through his principles, precepts, and commands, as well as the male and female forms the nature of this intersexual relationship and, thus, how femininity and masculinity work together to accomplish our mission.

Femininity is characterized by receiving and responding. Man’s God-given responsibility is to lead. As I said earlier, to him is given the primary responsibility for the mission. The woman is to be in submission. Our English word captures this beautifully: she comes under his mission; she joins him in his mission, responding to and following his leadership. You were made to receive direction, protection, and provision from a man. Submission is easily mistaken for subjugation today; you are a slave being dragged around. Biblical submission, however, is more like a dance in which the man leads and the woman follows his lead. Both are active but in different ways. She responds to his leadership gladly so that they beautifully move as one. Your deep desire is to dance with a man like this. You may need to dig through bad experiences with men and all your anger, but you long for a man to lead you like this. That’s how God made you, and it is good.

God reveals this receptive nature of femininity through the female form. The woman receives the man into herself, for example, through sexual intercourse. He is the initiator. The man gives seed (sperm) and the woman receives it. This receptive character of femininity is not relegated to the physical act of sexual intercourse but embodies what it means to be feminine. This receptivity expresses itself in a “softness” and “delicacy” that is beautiful in females and repulsive in men (effeminacy, which is not the same as being feminine). This softness doesn’t mean that she is a fragile porcelain tea cup. Females can and should be strong psychologically, emotionally, and physically (think about what it takes to give birth!), but they are soft and bring a delicate touch to situations that men don’t and, many times, shouldn’t have.

I suppose one of the best ways to illustrate this is by way of contrast. Whenever a man, for instance, sees a “hard woman”– boisterous, cursing, overly muscular, domineering, “badass,” and such the like–unless the man has serious mommy issues, he is not attracted to these types of women. (Ladies, you don’t want a man who has serious mommy issues. You may be attracted to him for a while, but it won’t last. I’ll deal with this more extensively later). A woman with long hair, wearing a dress, presenting herself with grace, and keeping her physical form well is the softness of femininity embodied. This kind of softness shows that she desires to be attractive to and ready to be led by a man.

Receptivity fits into the purpose of femininity. For you to fulfill your feminine mission you need what the male provides. (This is not one-sided. For the man to fulfill his mission, he needs what the woman provides.) This began in creation. God took the male’s side and created the woman. The woman, being created from the substance of the man, is then the glory of the man (1Cor 11.7). Receiving from him, you make the man more than he was. Once you receive what he provides, you then have these feminine powers that multiply and glorify what is provided. The man provides a microscopic sperm, and the woman gives birth to a baby forty weeks later. A man clears the space and provides a home, and the woman makes it beautiful. A man provides money, and the woman makes meals to feed him and the children.

Femininity is also characterized by nurturing. This doesn’t mean that men can’t be nurturers, but, relatively speaking, we are not the soft nurturers that women are. Whenever one of my sons would come to me with some minor injury, I would tell him that I had had worse in my eyeball. He needed to suck it up and deal with it. Mom may do some of that, but she would also be gentler. (Both are needed, by the way). Women are the primary nurturers. They nurture a growing baby in their wombs for forty weeks. When the baby is born, their bodies are made to continue to nurture the child. Nurturing is a fundamental calling of femininity.

Lastly, femininity is characterized by wisdom. Wisdom is knowing how things ought to fit together and the skill to make them so. Wisdom is a master craftsman, present in the beginning with God, forming and filling the world, putting everything into a proper relationship (Pr 8.22-31). Wisdom is personified in Proverbs as a woman. She stands in contrast to Harlot Folly, so it is not a given that all women are wise. However, there is something about genuine femininity that personifies or images eternal Wisdom. Proverbs ends with a description of this Lady Wisdom (Pr 31.10-31). The context of Proverbs is that of a father (Solomon) teaching his king-in-waiting son how he is to fulfill his dominion mandate. At creation, God provides a woman for the son in a way that there was no choice to make. As history progresses with sin in the picture, the son now must choose between two women. Solomon encourages his son to choose Lady Wisdom. She brings something vital to the mission. The woman’s intuition, her focus on relationships, her ability to make much out of little, and her ability to bring disparate things together in harmony are all part of the wisdom that the man needs to fulfill his mission. As you cultivate this wisdom, you flesh out what it means to be feminine.

This letter has gone on a little long, so I’ll conclude here for now. I know that all of this raises questions about singleness and marriage. I will deal with those in the next letter.

For Christ and his kingdom,

Pastor Smith