What is a woman’s role in society? What is her role in the Church or the family?

Can, or should, women serve in governmental positions in the Church or the State? Can, or should women serve in leadership positions? Can a woman be the head of a household?

This is the first in a series of posts that I will address such questions.

I have asked these several questions, in different terms, since I was in grade school. I remember pondering why only men were pastors since it seemed like women could preach from the pulpit as good as any man. Growing up, I remember my mother expressing her discontentment with how she felt that men were selected over her not only in the workplace, but also in the church. My mother has always felt slighted, as her dream of playing as a professional bassoon player ended by discovering that all the symphonies were only comprised of men. Instead, my mother became a music teacher, as women make great teachers. The discrimination that my mother always felt looming over her head seemed to me like a figment of her imagination.

Despite my mother’s insistence that gender discrimination was a reality, I never encountered it. I often stood alone in my college courses highlighting the tremendous change in a woman’s position in society over the course of history. I have never seen women as victims of society or men as brutish dominators.(Yes, this is a message I heard often at WU.) I’ve never felt like a victim. And if anything, I’ve received preference because of my gender. So, yes, there is discrimination, but in a woman’s favor.

Dr. Alber Mohler’s recent blog entry More on the Mommy Wars discusses Kay S. Hymowitz’s article reviewing Caitlin Flanagan’s book To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife. Hymowitz’s writes, “Flanagan believes that feminism’s doctrine that ‘caring for children and husbands and households constitutes subservience’ is at odds with women’s continued long for domestic satisfactions.”

Society makes it seem as though being a mother isn't enough. Why isn’t motherhood depicted as worthy “occupation”?

My University counselor looked at me with confusion when I said I wanted to be a mom. She said, “Well, it only takes 9 months,” as if being mother is just a couple weeks off from a “real” profession.