Why I Care about Women's Issues
#YesAllWomen
"Women’s issues" are a hot topic.
In an increasingly pro-women society, you can’t even watch the Super Bowl anymore without seeing media campaigns elevating the dignity and worth of women. One of the most popular commercials of this year’s Super Bowl was the “Like a Girl” campaign put out by Always, a feminine products line. Seeking to show how the phrase “run like a girl” influences women and men from an early age, Always hit a nerve with its audience.
But it wasn’t just the Super Bowl. Throughout the NFL season, countless commercials from the Silent No More campaign were aired, aimed at bringing awareness to the problem of domestic violence that plagued the league this season. Sexual violence against women and sexism has been a constant theme in the news recently, even leading to a Twitter campaign designed to bring awareness to the pervasiveness of the problem. Women and men everywhere took to Twitter to say that #YesAllWomen are impacted by sexism.
While these are boisterous examples of the issues women are talking about, the sentiment behind them is valid. As Christians, it can be tempting to dismiss #YesAllWomen and #LikeaGirl as simply arms of the feminist movement, but I think they are on to something. Christians should be the first to step up in support of the difficulties women face, not because we are feminists, but because we believe that women bear the image of God. When women are hurting, taken advantage of, or mistreated, it is a mark against their Creator and it should grieve us.
I care about women’s issues, first and foremost, because I am a Christian.
The Only Hope for True Restoration
The reason we continue to come up with hashtags to voice our indignation or revamp the feminist movement to adapt to our shifting culture is because we fail to fully understand the depth of humanity’s fallen nature. While God created humanity in his image, declared us equal in worth and value, and called us good, sin distorted it all. As a result, we live fractured, broken lives. Women live in conflict with the men we were intended to rule and reign alongside. We face injustice, oppression, and mistreatment.
The Accidental Feminist
Courtney Reissig
Combining personal narrative, practical examples, and biblical teaching, this book pushes back against both feminism and 1950s stereotypes related to gender roles in an effort to help Christians recover God’s good design for women.
But feminism isn’t the answer. God is the one who created us, declared us equal with our fellow men, and gave us the responsibility to rule and reign over his creation. Therefore, we need something more powerful than feminism or are any other human attempt to establish true and lasting justice in this world.
I care about women’s issues because I care about God’s glory displayed in the image bearers he has made. But the hope for women’s issues is not found in fighting against men, overpowering them, or rendering them useless. Hope for women is only found in the God-man: Jesus Christ. The promise that was declared in the Garden—that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent (Genesis 3:15)—is our hope for restoration in this battle of the sexes we often find ourselves in. Christ came to make all things new, including our fractured relationships (Revelation 21:5).
So I will stand up for women who are oppressed, broken, and alone. But, in doing so, I will also hope in the God who promises to make all things new.
