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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Christian manliness
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Dinghy Sailor
Ship's Jibsheet
# 8507
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
'Gender' differences are just personality type differences taken advantage of by capitalism. Introverted men will like similar things to introverted women, and vice versa.
I think it's got a lot more to do with biology than capitalism. Also, since when did you get to speak for me, or for any other man out there?
Like it or not, feminism is not a religion with precepts that can be followed universally. Men are not always the advantaged group: if the congregations of churches are anything to go by, men are going to be under-represented in Heaven - and that's a really massively mega-serious issue.
Also, if anyone who thinks that "I don't live up to the stereotype" or "Some men/women don't like this stuff" is a reason for dismissing the differences between men and women, they need to go and look up the difference between a centred set and a bounded set.
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Preach Christ, because this old humanity has used up all hopes and expectations, but in Christ hope lives and remains.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Posts: 2821 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
![[Confused]](confused.gif) wtf has capitalism got to do with it?
If you're referring to my post about the Thatcher woman, I don't know, but I was thinking of her judgementalism and militarism, which have been mentioned on this thread as 'male' characteristics. IMHO this is closely connected with capitalism, but you might disagree and it's not worth derailing this thread to discuss it.
[PS just noticed that you were responding to Jade Constable and not me. However...]
[ 06. August 2013, 16:21: Message edited by: Angloid ]
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
ButchCassidy: You have noticed that toy soldiers are a kind of doll? They're just ones boys are allowed to have. But yes, males are more aggressive on the whole than females.
Your assumption that church discusses emotions because women want to seems to be on weaker ground though. Church leadership is hugely male. If men don't want to make people discuss emotions, why does it keep happening?
Off the top of my head I'd guess that those men have learned to speak the ecclesial and emotional languages of their congregation members which, I wouldn't mind betting, are majority female. They are emotionally bi-lingual.
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
No, it was a question in response to Jade Constable's assertion which Dinghy Sailor has rightly called on.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
ButchCassidy: You have noticed that toy soldiers are a kind of doll? They're just ones boys are allowed to have. But yes, males are more aggressive on the whole than females.
Your assumption that church discusses emotions because women want to seems to be on weaker ground though. Church leadership is hugely male. If men don't want to make people discuss emotions, why does it keep happening?
Off the top of my head I'd guess that those men have learned to speak the ecclesial and emotional languages of their congregation members which, I wouldn't mind betting, are majority female. They are emotionally bi-lingual.
But why would they want to do that, unless they were predisposed to think in that way anyway?
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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ButchCassidy
Shipmate
# 11147
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
ButchCassidy: You have noticed that toy soldiers are a kind of doll? They're just ones boys are allowed to have. But yes, males are more aggressive on the whole than females.
Your assumption that church discusses emotions because women want to seems to be on weaker ground though. Church leadership is hugely male. If men don't want to make people discuss emotions, why does it keep happening?
I used to prefer the plastic soldiers (with whom to make mass WAR etc) than the action-man type, so I can't really speak for them, though I do think Action Man is more story driven (and, importantly, has enemies. Could they sell a Barbie-rival? Apart from Sindy..).
I think the rise of passive emotional church is a few things, haven't thought too much, but off the cuff, things like the old clergy/laity split and the passive structure of the Mass (the 17th century Puritans with discussion groups and lay leadership are a brief glorious aberration) combined with the emotionally driven but still clergy-led Methodism/Anglicanism of the 19th century? Obviously, some things are excellent (even the most manly men need a personal relationship with Jesus) but some things create passivity.
And now, I think it is so difficult to change. For me, when I'm asked to prepare intercessions, it is so difficult to think away from that soft passive language. That is the culture we are in at the moment.
Again, those are random thoughts. And obviously passivity is not automatically feminine. But 1) mass culture does see it as so, and 2) the modern church needs to be more male-welcoming. Those are the facts.
Posts: 104 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2006
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
IME, although the leadership may be male, I reality it's women who run the show more often than not; if they didn't, church life would grind to a halt pretty quickly
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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S. Bacchus
Shipmate
# 17778
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ButchCassidy:
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Most importantly, there is, whether you like it or not, a gender imbalance in churches.
Do we though? As I mentioned above, that's far from my experience in a vast range of Anglican churches, nor is it true in the Roman Catholic or Orthodox parishes I've known. It does seem to be true for the URC churches round these parts, though.
In re the matter of 'masculine' songs: on Sunday our three hymns were one Wesley (I don't remember which one, I'm afraid), 'Jerusalem the Golden', and 'Guide me, O thou great Redeemer'. None of those hymns seem to me 'feminine', even if we do accept the normative definition of femininity. But those are by and large the sort of hymns that people who sing hymns tend to sing. In the New English Hymnal (by far the most commonly used hymnal in this area and I think in the CofE more broadly, at least outside of markedly evangelical parishes) I can think of maybe one hymn that is 'feminine' in the way I presume you mean, and it is not among the most sung (I mean 'Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown'). There's a reason for this: the people who edited hymnals have a very low tolerance for what hymns they saw as 'sentimental' or, yes, 'effeminate'.
Posts: 260 | Registered: Jul 2013
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argona
Shipmate
# 14037
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
Weirdly enough, support for my contention that men and women's brains are physiologically as well as psychologically different finds support among those who work with transgendered individuals. The common theory is that certain individuals really do have the 'wrong' brains in the wrong bodies. It is a physiological issue. This theory of transgenderism suggests to me that men and women do think differently and that this thinking is very closely linked with the physiological aspects of gender identity.
How do I know this? Because members of my church run a charity for transgendered people and this is the theory which they advocate.
I used to go along with this, took some of the brain-gender tests that were popular in the media a few years back. Mostly questionnaires, where the questions were typically so transparent they were really just a test of self-image.
But the real problem is the matter of how far brain development, which continues into the early/mid twenties, is influenced by experience, including of course early socialisation. That certainly happens. To what extent? The jury's still out.
Posts: 327 | From: Oriental dill patch? (4,7) | Registered: Aug 2008
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by S. Bacchus:
My one visit to a large and well-known conservative Evangelical church seemed to suggest that their congregation was pretty equally mixed with regards to gender (they were uniformly under 30 and seemed very middle class, as well as somehow managing to be notably better looking than the average population, 'evangelical are all fitties' was a comment I heard later).
Many many visits to all sorts of ordinary evangelical churches suggest to me that men make up between about a tenth and a half of the congregation depending on where you are.
Here in London evangelicals aren't younger or more middle class than other Christians though they are blacker. Also black men seem to be more liekly to go to church than white men (though still a lot less likely than black women) So as our church has got more African over the last 20 years it has also got less female - though women still outnuimber men by nearly two to one most Sundays.
quote:
I wonder if 'men don't attend church' isn't code for something like 'real men don't attend church', which seems like a variant of the old 'no true Scotsman fallacy'.
No, its the plain truth.
A bit of non-anecdotal evidence. In this week's Church Times there is an article about a "London Church Census" done by Peter Brierley that claims that new women attending churches in London outnumber new men attending by five to one.
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
... the reality is this: men and women aren't just physically different; we are essentially different ...
I think you need to explain what you mean by "essentially".
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Alright, then, 'blokey blokes'. The sort I have a pie and a pint with 'dahn the pub' every fourth Thursday.
But what's the point in turning the church into a pale parody of the pub in order to attract men who can just go to the pub anyway if they want? I mean we go to church to worship God. If we want to stand around boozing and shouting at people and being blokish we go to places where you do that. (And I'm off to a Millwall match in a couple of hours...)
There's no inherent value in being present at a church service just to make up the numbers. And no point in turning chuirch into a place of entertainment just to attract people who'd rather be in a nightclub or a football match or a library or walking in the country or having a long lie-in. Those are all fine things to be doing and if they want to do those things let them. There is no need to set up our church as some kind of Sunday Morning TISWAS for Grown Ups just in case some bloke wants to pop in for a quick sacrament rather than do any of those other things.
Evangelism ought to be about conversion, not churchgoing. (I'm old-fashioned enough to still sometimes think of it as "soul-winning"). We don't do it because those missing men ought to be coming to church on Sunday mornings. We do it because we think everybody ought to be in a relationship with God. If someone is a believer and then wants to come to our chruch thats fine as well - but we don't want them to be converted just so as they can come to church.
quote:
Originally posted by argona:
I've never had much sense of gender identity. I'm male, heterosexual and entirely content with that condition, but in all my life I've never felt that those two things imply anything much beyond dress, sexual behaviour and personal hygiene.
That's because being male and heterosexual are the unmarked state. I can't say I have a "masculine" identity either. Any more than I have a "white" identity. Or much of a national identity (though that does to stand out a little more because of the internalised tensions between being British and english) Because being male and white and English are the normal default case in our society. its what we assume everybody is unless there is some reason to disbelieve it. So if you are those things you aren't so likely to worry about identity, or to have yout identity challenged, than if you aren't.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ButchCassidy
Shipmate
# 11147
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by S. Bacchus:
quote:
Originally posted by ButchCassidy:
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Most importantly, there is, whether you like it or not, a gender imbalance in churches.
Do we though? As I mentioned above, that's far from my experience in a vast range of Anglican churches, nor is it true in the Roman Catholic or Orthodox parishes I've known. It does seem to be true for the URC churches round these parts, though.
In re the matter of 'masculine' songs: on Sunday our three hymns were one Wesley (I don't remember which one, I'm afraid), 'Jerusalem the Golden', and 'Guide me, O thou great Redeemer'. None of those hymns seem to me 'feminine', even if we do accept the normative definition of femininity. But those are by and large the sort of hymns that people who sing hymns tend to sing. In the New English Hymnal (by far the most commonly used hymnal in this area and I think in the CofE more broadly, at least outside of markedly evangelical parishes) I can think of maybe one hymn that is 'feminine' in the way I presume you mean, and it is not among the most sung (I mean 'Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown'). There's a reason for this: the people who edited hymnals have a very low tolerance for what hymns they saw as 'sentimental' or, yes, 'effeminate'.
I really don't think its a debated issue that there is a gender imbalance in UK churches. A Google search brings up Tearfund reports and journal articles discussing it. Not to say that all churches are: it often seems to be the active shrine-churches that draw men: IME, churches like St Helens Bishopsgate for the evos and Brompton Oratory.
I note that the hymns you used are largely the old classics, and I agree they did tend to favour more manly imagery (being the age of manly Christianity after all).
Thinking about intercessions, I remember drafting some and finding I had written 'Lord, help us to be more vulnerable and open to you', not only ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif) but also unhelpful and not how I (or I think many men) approach God in private prayer. But we are trained in that language, I agree, it is religious bi-lingualism.
Posts: 104 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2006
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S. Bacchus
Shipmate
# 17778
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by S. Bacchus:
My one visit to a large and well-known conservative Evangelical church seemed to suggest that their congregation was pretty equally mixed with regards to gender (they were uniformly under 30 and seemed very middle class, as well as somehow managing to be notably better looking than the average population, 'evangelical are all fitties' was a comment I heard later).
Many many visits to all sorts of ordinary evangelical churches suggest to me that men make up between about a tenth and a half of the congregation depending on where you are.
Here in London evangelicals aren't younger or more middle class than other Christians though they are blacker. Also black men seem to be more liekly to go to church than white men (though still a lot less likely than black women) So as our church has got more African over the last 20 years it has also got less female - though women still outnuimber men by nearly two to one most Sundays.
This was in London. At one of London's more famous Con. Evo. parishes. And the congregation had about the same portion of black people as normal in any London parish (although a larger number in absolute terms). If my impression was correct, though, there were more Nigerians and fewer people with routes in the Caribbean.
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
that new women attending churches in London outnumber new men attending by five to one.
'New men' and 'new women' presumably referring to post-op transsexuals? ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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'It's not that simple. I won't have it to be that simple'.
Posts: 260 | Registered: Jul 2013
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Ken, just to respond to your point addressed to me: I think I gave the example of the two men who weren't just effectively evangelised but also disciple through to effective ministry, This happened - and happens - through a variety of means, this being not a one-club round of golf in any. There was/ is the pub (on occasions we have indeed had 'Church Down the Pub' where we've scrapped our Sunday evening services and let the congregation do various things they wanted to do 'in the community' in lieu, in our case having a pint and a sing-song for Jesus), there were/ are the breakfasts, there were/ are real, solid male friendships formed involving mentoring in some cases, plus the dads' group, but also Sunday morning church services, with a mix of worship songs and styles.
So it's not an either/or by any means...
Anyway, enjoy the match!
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I grew up in a working class MOTR Anglican church in the choral tradition. There was a very strong social aspect to choir membership which extended way beyond Sunday worship. The families spent time with one another socially (i.e. drinking) and even holidayed together. Oh, a quite a few of the men were gay, especially the organists and their boyfriends. Not saying it's like that everywhere but I suspect that others will recognise the pattern.
Not saying that there aren't a large number of gay men in choirs, but that doesn't fit with my experience. In fact, the choirs I know have quite a history of the choirmen marrying the choirgirls. I guess having a love of music doesn't apply to all men but, for those that have, it's a much stronger call than one related to sexuality or gender.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
ButchCassidy: You have noticed that toy soldiers are a kind of doll? They're just ones boys are allowed to have. But yes, males are more aggressive on the whole than females.
Your assumption that church discusses emotions because women want to seems to be on weaker ground though. Church leadership is hugely male. If men don't want to make people discuss emotions, why does it keep happening?
Off the top of my head I'd guess that those men have learned to speak the ecclesial and emotional languages of their congregation members which, I wouldn't mind betting, are majority female. They are emotionally bi-lingual.
But why would they want to do that, unless they were predisposed to think in that way anyway?
Because they want to keep the flock they've got? Because they've adopted the emotional language of the majority group? Because they were pastored in the faith by women from the cradle to the day they went to university? Because they don't want to incur they wrath of the Mother's Union by talking a different spiritual dialect? Because they've lost touch with the tougher, more challenging, dare I say more offensive face of Jesus Christ?
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
ken, by essentially I mean that the intrinsic nature of maleness is different to that of femaleness. Yes, we equally bear the image of God. In that we are essentially united in our humanity. But we are also created male and female. In that we are essentially different in our gender. And those differences are more than physical. Those differences are spiritual, emotional, and mental and they extend to our emotions and our affections.
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
But they are differences on a spectrum. You can say that on average, men are taller than women, but there are many men shorter than many women. Similarly more men may possess some of the characteristics you define as masculine (or to a greater degree) than women, but there will be many women who outrank many men on that score too. Whereas we are all equally in the image of God : no spectrum there.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ButchCassidy:
I note that the hymns you used are largely the old classics, and I agree they did tend to favour more manly imagery (being the age of manly Christianity after all).
So if sentimental stupid language is what is driving men away and if churches used to be more manly, then then the more old-fashioned the church the higher the male to female ratio should be. Except it doesn't work that way. As noted, most churches have more men regardless of churchmanship.
I rather presume that the church's gender imbalance is more a lack of peer pressure--every other man is most obviously not doing it--and that men are less interested in being told what their duty is. Either way I see no evidence that church style is related to why men do or don't go to church. For one thing, I avoid churches with that sort of sentimental language when I can and I have not found that my sort of church is more attended by men that average.
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
In that we are essentially different in our gender. And those differences are more than physical. Those differences are spiritual, emotional, and mental and they extend to our emotions and our affections.
I think that even gender is pretty much on a spectrum - not set in stone.
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
I've been thinking about the claimed dichotomy - that liberalism portrays an insipid, harmless Jesus and conservatism portrays a robust, dangerous one. Leaving aside the perennial question of how we're defining liberal here, I'm not sure it reflects my experience of teaching in what many would consider liberal churches.
Firstly, God does get angry. He gets angry at injustice; he gets angry at a lack of compassion; he gets angry at people left starving, lonely or in pain. He gets angry when we mistreat each other, when we betray each other. The difference is in how we believe he responds. Conservative teaching has God lash out in rage, with punishment and the threat of punishment drastically out of proportion to the offence. Liberal teaching say this is inconsistent with God's nature of both justice and mercy. God's response to our failure is, yes, anger, but it is the anger of a loving Father, rebuking and correcting; breaking down and remaking, but most of all calling us back and forgiving us. God's agenda is radical and dangerous; much more radical than mere sexual continence or tithing (for all that those things may be beneficial). It is about the transformation of our every interaction, our approach to every aspect of our lives. It means businesses that serve people rather than money; it means trade that benefits those with the least more than those with the most; it means freedom from oppression based on race, gender, health, wealth, or sexual orientation. It means work for everyone who can work, and help for those who can't.
I don't consider that to be feminine (or masculine for that matter).
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Dinghy Sailor
Ship's Jibsheet
# 8507
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Posted
... and I don't recognise your stereotype.
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Preach Christ, because this old humanity has used up all hopes and expectations, but in Christ hope lives and remains.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Posts: 2821 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Trickydicky
Shipmate
# 16550
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Posted
ButchCassidy wrote:
quote:
Thinking about intercessions, I remember drafting some and finding I had written 'Lord, help us to be more vulnerable and open to you', not only [Projectile] but also unhelpful and not how I (or I think many men) approach God in private prayer. But we are trained in that language, I agree, it is religious bi-lingualism.
I also find some of the language like this most unhelpful. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote something along the lines of needing to speak to people in their strength. Maybe the problem isn't bei8ng 'feminised' but infantalised?
Posts: 57 | From: Greater Manchester | Registered: Jul 2011
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
Don't get me started on 'being infantilised'! I sometimes think we are all being jollied into having such a good time in church that we don't realise there is no content to what is going on.
I notice that many of the touchy feely approaches to Christianity seem to have best effect on those from highly privileged backgrounds whose mummies farmed them out at an early age to nannies and then to boarding school, where they became so buttoned up they were unable to express their emotions. Something about the cathartic nature of being encouraged to let it all out (not just in Christian charismatic circles, but also in the secular Primal Scream movement) became attractive to those who needed to get back in touch with their emotions again, however traumatic that might be. As boys were more likely to be sent away to school early and were encouraged much more to hide their feelings, perhaps they were greatest affected?
I'm not approving of the method - far from it - but making an observation.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
Well, if the feminisation of the church sounds unacceptably derogatory we could speak instead of the emasculation of Christian men. The fact that so many people will jump onto the "there's no such thing as masculinity" bandwagon simply serves as evidence that the job is nearly complete.
[ 06. August 2013, 18:45: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
I'm still struggling with a definition of masculinity that would be positive for men but wouldn't be equally positive for women. And if it's not positive, then surely it's masculinity that needs to change, not the church?
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
In that we are essentially different in our gender. And those differences are more than physical. Those differences are spiritual, emotional, and mental and they extend to our emotions and our affections.
I think that even gender is pretty much on a spectrum - not set in stone.
Jesus says that we were created male and female. That doesn't sound like a spectrum to me. Sure, human sexuality appears to be on a spectrum, but not gender.
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
In that we are essentially different in our gender. And those differences are more than physical. Those differences are spiritual, emotional, and mental and they extend to our emotions and our affections.
I think that even gender is pretty much on a spectrum - not set in stone.
Jesus says that we were created male and female. That doesn't sound like a spectrum to me. Sure, human sexuality appears to be on a spectrum, but not gender.
Even physically it's pretty clear that some people aren't obviously male or female. I'm also not sure that 1st century Palestine had a concept of the separation of sex and gender.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
You do understand we don't think there is one femininity either, right?
I know pretty much what you think, but I don't agree with your conclusions.
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
, Pope Boethius,
Boethius, bless him, wasn't a pope. As far as I recall, he wasn't even a Christian, though frequently cited in the middle ages as if he were.
But apart from that...
John
[ 06. August 2013, 18:56: Message edited by: John Holding ]
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
In that we are essentially different in our gender. And those differences are more than physical. Those differences are spiritual, emotional, and mental and they extend to our emotions and our affections.
I think that even gender is pretty much on a spectrum - not set in stone.
Jesus says that we were created male and female. That doesn't sound like a spectrum to me. Sure, human sexuality appears to be on a spectrum, but not gender.
Even physically it's pretty clear that some people aren't obviously male or female.
It's pretty obvious that these exceptions simply prove the rule. Please note that I'm not saying that God created people masculine and feminine. I'm saying he created them male and female.
However, the concepts masculinity and femininity are tied to physical gender and in this sense they are a creation ordinance. Of course, it's always possible to run a different Operating System on the same hardware if you do enough tinkering. But it's not really the norm.
[ 06. August 2013, 19:02: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
However, the concepts masculinity and femininity are tied to physical gender and in this sense they are a creation ordinance. Of course, it's always possible to run a different Operating System on the same hardware if you do enough tinkering. But it's not really the norm.
I disagree. They're tied to societal expectations. Classic examples include "blue for boys and pink for girls", which is a relatively recent phenomenon. I don't think football is a more naturally male sport than hockey, but societal expectations tell us it is so. I don't think long hair is more naturally female than short her, but societal expectations tell us it is so.
Calling the prejudices of modern (well, a half century ago anyway) society creation ordinances seems a bit out of whack.
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daronmedway
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Posted
The fact that men in our culture generally love football and not hockey is down to historical happenstance, I agree. The fact that men rather than women gather together in large numbers to watch some form of competitive sport cannot be explained in the same way. Oh, and just for the record, I happen to be one of those men who knows nothing about football and doesn't particularly like crowds or competitive sport. Do I think this is explainable - at least in part - by socialisation? Yes, I do. Do I think it is the only variable in the equation? No, I don't.
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Dinghy Sailor
Ship's Jibsheet
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Posted
You're really grasping at straws there, IACHMR. The division of life into male and female is one of the most successful ideas in biology: look at what sexual reproduction and its resultant form of evolution have created. Denying that our species is split into male and female because there are a few individuals who defy the norm is making the tail wag the dog.
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Preach Christ, because this old humanity has used up all hopes and expectations, but in Christ hope lives and remains.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Crœsos
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# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
The fact that men in our culture generally love football and not hockey is down to historical happenstance, I agree. The fact that men rather than women gather together in large numbers to watch some form of competitive sport cannot be explained in the same way.
So human preference for one socially-constructed form of interaction (football and the watching thereof) over a different form of socially-constructed interaction (hockey and the watching thereof) is itself socially-constructed, as we'd expect. The idea that a gender divide in participating in socially-constructed interactions must be at least in part biologically based seems counter-intuitive.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
No. Engaging in mental gymnastics in order to deny the plain and obvious is what's counter-intuitive.
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
No. Engaging in mental gymnastics in order to deny the plain and obvious is what's counter-intuitive.
Sorry, what's you're plain and obvious point? That there's a near-universal dislike of athletics among women and a near-universal rate of participation among men?
I'm reminded of an article I came across earlier today. Short version: a girl who had played (American) football at her school for the past five years gets kicked off the team because an administrator doesn't think it's something girls should do.
Now one might think this was a socially-constructed idea (girls/women don't do sports) being reinforced by an authority figure buying into daronmedway's idea that there's something unnatural going on here. Of course, if there were such a natural, biological division such external enforcement would be unnecessary.
[ 06. August 2013, 20:16: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Of course, if there were such a natural, biological division such external enforcement would be unnecessary.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
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Also, from the article:
quote:
[The school administrator] told Cassy Blythe, Madison’s mother, that boys were going to start having lustful thoughts about Madison, and if she were to continue on the team, she might overhear some “locker room talk”. ”Men and women are created equal but different.” Stuart (photo left) told Ms. Blythe. He said he’s been praying about Maddy and came to the conclusion that he was making the right decision for the school.
I wonder if he ever prayed on what was right decision for his students?
If Mr. Stuart feels his boy have a lust problem, why isn’t Strong Rock removing the offending BOYS from the team, to teach them the valuable lesson of how men are supposed to behave toward women? If the problem is BOYS with potty mouths; why isn’t Strong Rock teaching its young Christian BOYS to speak with respect, instead of removing the girl from earshot? Why is the girl deprived of an opportunity to play a sport she loves, because Mr. Stuart fears the boys around her might misbehave?
I've worked with kids of a variety of ages, and my experience is, given firm examples of equal treatment, sport is a great equalizer. Once the kids get used to the co-ed situation, the adapt pretty quickly-- when you are in the game, you are less concerned about lustful thoughts than about who is best positioned to get the ball in the goal. And the more you have to rely on someone for things like goal-placing, the more your stereotypes become cumbersome.
I think the admin in the story above really sold his boys short. Something similar happened at my Neph's school and when the girl in question was dropped from the football team, a contingent of the team's loudest boys showed up at the coach's office to protest. Because they were not just manly men-- they were menschim.
[ 06. August 2013, 20:30: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
The fact that men in our culture generally love football and not hockey is down to historical happenstance, I agree. The fact that men rather than women gather together in large numbers to watch some form of competitive sport cannot be explained in the same way. Oh, and just for the record, I happen to be one of those men who knows nothing about football and doesn't particularly like crowds or competitive sport. Do I think this is explainable - at least in part - by socialisation? Yes, I do. Do I think it is the only variable in the equation? No, I don't.
Even if such a gender-biased preference existed (and you would have to both demonstrate it because it is most certainly not obvious) it is tiny in comparison to the social reinforcement of the same. I played and followed football as a child because it was a heck of a lot easier than putting up with being bullied for not doing so. The social pressure to conform to gender (and other) norms is enormous, particularly among young teenagers.
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The Midge
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# 2398
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
IME, although the leadership may be male, I reality it's women who run the show more often than not; if they didn't, church life would grind to a halt pretty quickly
You mean that behind every great pastor there is a greater congregation of [mostly]women?*
*Picking up all those lovely admin and hospitality tasks
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Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
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I am actually of the opinion that it is not gender activity that is biologically motivated, but the very urge to seek gender templates is very much so. When there is variances in what constitutes a gender expectation from group to group, there is also variance in behaviour. But the desire to model same-gender behavior seems deeply ingrained. ANd there are always certain kids that role play opposite-gender behavior-- and they also seem compelled to do so.
So-- many moons ago, in my area, only men surfed. So, little girls who begged to jump on a board were told to buzz off. There hasn't been that kind of gender divide for decades, and if you asked a groups of guys on Linda Mar beach if it bugged them to surf with women, they would look at you like you were nuts. so, kids of both genders show interest in and take up surfing.
Likewise, at every preschool I have worked at in the last-- oh say, ten years, there are always, ALWAYS boys in the kitchen area lugging around baby dolls. When I was a new teacher, you might have actually seen olde teachers taking the dolls away from boys and scolding them to leave them for the girls. Now playing daddy is pretty normative, in my area. The one glaring example of gender based play I see is that boys seem to dominate Legos-- and that is because whenever a girl goes near them, they snap, "Girls don't play Legos!"
Basically, when we give kids options, they take advantage of them.
[ 06. August 2013, 20:43: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
IME, although the leadership may be male, I reality it's women who run the show more often than not; if they didn't, church life would grind to a halt pretty quickly
You mean that behind every great pastor there is a greater congregation of [mostly]women?*
*Picking up all those lovely admin and hospitality tasks
** which are ever so conveniently ingrained impulses.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
John, I posted that without checking, and thought that name was a bit odd in the context. I derived the list while researching not for here, but a history of the sort of thing that has been fouling Twitter of late, to show it had a long heritage. So when I found it, I did have indignation goggles (or possibly googles) on, and was not as careful as I should have been to check the individual quotes. The site I used had a more extreme bias than my own, but served my primary purpose.
Must do better.
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The Midge
Shipmate
# 2398
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
IME, although the leadership may be male, I reality it's women who run the show more often than not; if they didn't, church life would grind to a halt pretty quickly
You mean that behind every great pastor there is a greater congregation of [mostly]women?*
*Picking up all those lovely admin and hospitality tasks
** which are ever so conveniently ingrained impulses.
personally I am fairly good at the cooking but don't make the grade at cleaning up.
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Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Actually sex and gender are on a spectrum and this is backed up by the Bible. In Genesis when God created people 'male and female' the Hebrew used is not putting people into two groups, one male and one female. It is saying that God created all sorts of people from male to female, as a spectrum. Since Jesus is quoting Genesis, Jesus is a-OK with gender being a spectrum (as He would be, since all things have their being through Him including people who are neither male nor female).
Regarding capitalism, gender as imagined by society has been divided to sell things, not because those divisions naturally exist. For example, young girls having everything pink and purple and princess-themed - this isn't because all girls need a pink version of say, lego to be able to play with it, it's so the parents have to buy two versions! The pressure group Pink Stinks is well-known for tackling this sort of thing.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
Friend Jade, that is not an interpretation of Genesis which would have occurred to me.
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
I am actually of the opinion that it is not gender activity that is biologically motivated, but the very urge to seek gender templates is very much so. When there is variances in what constitutes a gender expectation from group to group, there is also variance in behaviour. But the desire to model same-gender behavior seems deeply ingrained. ANd there are always certain kids that role play opposite-gender behavior-- and they also seem compelled to do so.
I remember hearing of a study a few years back that tested small children's reactions to a gender-neutral play object (a white handkerchief) based on whether or not they were told it was meant for the opposite gender. Being told "white handkerchiefs are for [boys/girls]" apparently discouraged opposite-gendered children from playing with it.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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