Are The Women Right?
I suppose that this article will be almost like a sequel to my last article which was in regards to the western value of freedom of religion in light of Scripture. In that article, I delved into the dangers of the right to practice whatever religion one wants to in western civilization, how that can lead to western decline and also how that is not something that Scripture instructs us to pursue. It is very possible that one of the very rights that we hold so near and dear is currently being used as a weapon against us. The same may be said about the subject of today's topic.
I will probably infuriate a good number of people with this one. That is not my goal. My goal is to open the eyes of Christians everywhere to the ways in which we have actually strayed away from God's design for the world and how it was supposed to be managed, and how doing so has undermined the stability of our western Christian civilization. The freedom of religion and today's topic are likely merely two examples of this. I really haven't given this line of thought a lot of time to percolate, so I don't know how many more of these failings there are, but I suspect that there are many more than just these two.
For clarification, this is not something that I have been contemplating writing an article on, though I will admit that the base idea for this topic has been weighing on my mind for several years already as I have been watching the world go to sh*t. This actually came to the fore of my thoughts as I read in the Bible for my daily devotions just this morning.
I have been reading through the Bible again for a while now. I am not on a schedule, I just read a chapter or two each day and I'll finish whenever I'll finish. I am currently reading in Proverbs, which is a collection of wisdom. A large portion of the words in the Book of Proverbs were compiled by Solomon, who the Bible presents as the wisest man to have lived. This wisdom was granted to Solomon at his own request to God when God asked him what he wanted when King David had passed on and Solomon ascended to the throne of Israel (1 Kings 3:3-14). Unfortunately for Solomon, he strayed from the ways of the LORD in his later years when he listened to the words of his many foreign wives and introduced foreign, pagan gods to Israel. This just adds weight to the argument that I will lay out to you.
We live in a world in which equality is viewed as justice, and social justice has been the flavour of the day for some time now. This has been most aggressively pursued in the western world by feminists since, well, it may be difficult to pin down when the movement actually began. I'm sure the internet has multiple answers to that question, but I doubt that those answers are necessarily correct. Let me explain.
When I think of feminism, my mind actually goes back to the original Walt Disney movie, "Mary Poppins" which is set in turn of the century London. The mother of the the Banks family is among a corps of women who are fighting for the rights of British women to vote in political matters. Now, is this factually accurate? It seems like it could be. Women were granted the vote in 1918 in London. In the movie we see that Mrs. Banks is ferociously focused on this matter, but that her husband is not pleased with the notion, so she restricts herself to acting only when it will not perturb her husband. The fact of the matter is that Mr. Banks does allow his wife the latitude to pursue this thing that perturbs him, and historically, eventually the women succeed in their efforts.
I am tiptoeing gingerly into this topic, if you can't tell, but I guess it's time to take the plunge and (I hope that you continue reading) announce that I think it was likely a mistake to allow women to have such a significant voice in the ways that communities and nations are run. This has not always been my position, and quite frankly, I know a good many women who are sensible and with whom I would have no particular issue with them participating in political matters. But let's be honest here, when we look around us and we see the madness that is growing in western societies, who is generally at the center of it all? It's women. And I would argue that it is predominantly loud, obnoxious, liberal women who are driving the worst changes in societies today.
This morning I read Proverbs 9, and in verses 13-18 we read that, "The woman of folly is boisterous, She is naive [simple] and knows nothing. 14 She sits at the doorway of her house, On a seat by the high places of the city, 15 Calling to those who pass by, Who are making their paths straight: 16 “Whoever is naive, let him turn in here,” And to him who lacks understanding she says, 17 “Stolen water is sweet; And bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” 18 But he does not know that the dead are there, That her guests are in the depths of Sheol."
I will draw significantly from Matthew Henry's commentary as I discuss this passage because he uses some very apt wording in his explanation; wording from a different era which, I think, expounds on this passage better than I could do myself.
"The woman of folly" is the focus of this passage. I think that this phrase can be understood in two ways. In the context of the rest of the passage, it appears at least possible that the writer is talking specifically about any actual woman who portrays the attributes that he describes, but I also want to offer another possibility. Many times in Proverbs, Wisdom is portrayed as a woman; is it really a stretch to consider that so too is Folly? I offer this possible understanding because it should be recognized that foolishness and folly are not remotely only in the realm of women. Men are every bit as capable of acting foolishly in myriad ways, and in the context of this article, I would offer that though women may be the source of many of the foolish ideas that we are seeing gain popularity right now, it is foolish men that allow those ideas to gain roots and to grow to be the problems that they are. I would also offer that this is allowed because the foolish men see a way in which they can benefit from either the idea or the solidarity that he shows with the foolish women.
Foolish men act largely at the behest of foolish women. Women do not generally have the power to enact their foolish ideas, so they co-opt men to do their bidding. It has been pointed out that while women have the same rights and freedoms as men do in the western world, it is only due to the benevolence of men that this is the case. Should men decide that women no longer have those same rights to exercise, are women capable of defending or reclaiming those rights in any way? No, they are not. Men hold the balance of force, and the ability to enact force is what maintains stability. If women decided that men were to lose their rights, they would not be able to enforce it because men would rise up and flip the tables on women due to their natural strength advantage and their ability and willingness to act with violent force.
All of the aforementioned being said, I will be focusing the rest of this article on the position that the writer was referring to any actual woman that displays these attributes.
"The woman of folly is boisterous". I looked up the meaning of boisterous just to be sure of the nuances of the word, and boy does this match what we are witnessing today. Boisterous is defined as noisily turbulent: rowdy. How often do we see women at some parade or protest or march acting out in noisy and disruptive fashion? But...this is not always the case, is it?
Let's consider women who march for abortion versus women who march in the March for Life. The women who want to protect their "right" (which is not an actual right) to kill their unborn child are often obnoxious and loud. They yell, they scream, they use bullhorns to make sure that anybody within earshot knows that they are there and what they want. Their signs and placards are garish and bold and their very presence is anything but peaceful.
Contrast this with the women who march to protect the lives of the unborn. The marches are calm, organized and quiet. There might be some singing, but it is on-key and performed with gentle voices. The signs are neat and orderly with easy to read script and gentle wording. There are no vulgarities or insults, just statements of fact regarding the humanity and value of the unborn. There is no demand for allegiance, just a calm statement that life is precious and should not be flippantly thrown away. The women who are standing for righteousness with God are not boisterous or rowdy. They are not women of folly; they are women of wisdom. Are you seeing the contrast already?
"The woman of folly...is naive [simple] and knows nothing." Matthew Henry states that "she has no sufficient solid reason to offer". Consider again the arguments for abortion. The strongest reasons that abortion supporters can offer are that the child is a parasite and "My body, My choice". The child is not a parasite. A parasite uses the host to the detriment of the host; this is the scientific definition. A child relies on the mother until such time that it is born and then it beautifies the mother's life with it's very existence. Also, the child is a completely different body that the woman seeks to assert her own dominance over. In the case of a female child, does she not get the option of having a say in whether she lives or not? "Her body, Her choice" seems to fit aptly to that unborn little girl too, but that doesn't fit the narrative, so the argument is ignored.
Or consider the argument that is offered against deportation of illegal aliens. The foolish woman argues that even though the person broke the law just by entering the country as they did, they are not a criminal. If you intentionally break the law, that makes you a criminal by definition. Even if they are living a quiet life, their very existence where they are is illegal. These women argue that families should not be separated by deportation. I agree. If a parent is being deported for illegally entering the country, all the children should go along. One illegal action ruins it for everyone involved. Laws exist to protect a nation and the failure to enforce those laws leads to chaos and dissolution of the nation, as we see happening right now in numerous cases.
And what happens when the arguments that the foolish woman is presenting are systematically refuted with wisdom and logic? Do they go quietly away and reconsider their own position? Usually no, though there are some exceptions. Often there is a violent reaction or the foolish woman will seek an authority figure whom they hope will remove the offending wise person from their presence. Civil conversation and discussion of ideas are anathema to the foolish woman. "The less she [the foolish woman] has to offer that is rational the more violent and pressing she is, and carries the day often by dint of impudence." - Matthew Henry. That may be my favourite phrase of his that I will use. The archaic language is so perfectly descriptive here. Dint means that the standing is obtained by the use of force while impudence is marked by the contemptuous or cocky disrespect of others. Just watch some interactions online of conservative voices trying to make their views known among those who disagree and you will see this played out in real time over and over again. This is such a perfect description of what we see daily.
"The woman of folly...sits at the door of her house". Matthew Henry equates this to the woman watching for her prey to pass by. This position is supported by verse 15 which states that the foolish woman is "Calling to those who pass by, Who are making their paths straight". She actively seeks to mislead those who are astutely following the path of wisdom that was laid before them by their parents and their teachers, but she wants to lead them instead down her own path of foolishness. This is a picture of a busybody, a woman who does not fulfill her own duties to her family but who rather inserts herself into the business of others and who is otherwise unproductive. Contrast this with the Proverbs 31 woman who manages her home and her children well, she cares for her own household and also for those who work for her. She has an astute business mind and is productive with what she has while also reaching out to care for the truly needy around her. Proverbs 31 goes on describing the things that "an excellent wife" is and does, and this is in stark contrast to the foolish women that we see all too often these days.
The writer also states that they foolish woman sits herself "in the high places of the city". This is where political discussions were held and important matters were weighed out. Culturally, this is not where she is supposed to be. Ancient cultures were hugely patriarchal, which is not a bad word, by the way. The foolish woman inserts herself where she does not belong, as if she had authority, and it is noteworthy that the foolish man allows her to remain and does not remove her from a place where she has no authority.
What does the foolish woman do when she sits in her doorway or in the high places? She call out to whomever views himself as naive or simple, whomever is seeking knowledge but does not know where to find it, and she offers her own knowledge, which is corrupted, in order to corrupt others as she is. Jesus speaks of people such as this when He challenged the scribes and Pharisees of His day for doing the same as the foolish woman is doing in Proverbs 9; “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves." Matthew 23:15. The foolish woman does not seek to better the one whom she calls; she merely seeks to create a co-conspirator of her ways, regardless of the outcome. Her appetite is disgusting and bottomless in her desire for self aggrandizement and power. Again quoting from Matthew Henry; "she calls to those seeking understanding and corrupts their ways".
The foolish woman speaks of stolen water and secretly eaten bread as things to be desired, though these are things that were once disdained by those who had been travelling on straight paths before they became enticed by the woman and her ideas. Matthew Henry states that her view is that "dishonest gain is preferred to that which is justly gotten", "Her guests, that are treated with these stolen waters, are led captive by Satan at his will" and "He
that so far wants understanding as to be drawn aside by these
enticements is led on, ignorantly, to his own inevitable ruin:" Verse 18 of Proverbs 9 states, "But he [the foolish man seeking wisdom or the naive man] does not know that the dead are there, That her guests are in the depths of Sheol." Following the ways of the foolish woman is a path to death and destruction, for the individual and the nation that chooses to follow her.
This passage jumped out at me this morning, and I thought of things that have been shown in the media in the last several months and even years. Things such as the women who have stood in solidarity with Lindsay Clancy, who strangled her own three young children and is seeking to avoid justice by claiming postpartum delusion. There are hundreds, even thousands of women who are defending her even while many of the them are holding their own young children. There is no wisdom there!
We see the people who are interfering with immigration officers in the U.S. who are trying to fulfill their occupational duty by removing those who are in the country illegally. A large portion of these activists are women, who should be supporting their families through productive means, but instead are actively protecting those who have flaunted long standing laws and whose presence in the U.S. present a threat to the nation in numerous ways, even if they are otherwise good people. As a result, these women act impetuously and dangerously, themselves flaunting laws, interfering directly with law enforcement officers and endangering themselves, sometimes ending in tragedy.
Think of Renee Good, whose actions lead to officers believing that she was using her vehicle as a weapon against them, and it resulted in her own death. This woman was a mother. She was also a lesbian and her partner was at the demonstration with her, and had even shouted instructions to Renee to drive away, which ended up with her driving her SUV directly towards an officer, leading to her getting shot. This was entirely avoidable if Renee had simply understood that the officers were acting under legal authority, if she had just remained in her own area and had not injected herself where she did not belong. Just because these women did not like the outcome of legal actions against those who had acted illegally, this did not justify their actions. Again, there was no wisdom there!
We look across the pond to Germany, France and Britain, where the invasion of fighting aged Muslim men is being encouraged and supported by, again, largely liberal women. They do not understand that their culture is being erased, that they and their daughters are being threatened, assaulted, raped and killed by these men, and that the life that they have known and enjoyed up until this time is on the verge of being destroyed, possibly forever. They have no understanding of Islam and what it means for them and the purpose of the invasion. All they see is an outlet for their toxic compassion and they act accordingly. There is a dangerous lack of wisdom there!
These are just three fairly recent and ongoing examples of the compassion of women overcoming their good sense. It is not that these women are necessarily stupid, but they have lost sight of the larger picture. Men are better at keeping the larger picture in sight and making decisions with that in mind, and thus, I think that men are typically better at running the critical aspects of societies and nations because men are better able to make and enforce the hard decisions.
This is how God arranged things. This is His design. In the Garden of Eden, Adam was created to manage the earth and the animals, and Eve was created later to be his helpmate. Adam was placed in charge, Eve was his subordinate, and they together had rule over the earth. When this original design is turned on it's head, things go wrong.
In the Garden of Eden, the serpent did not approach Adam, he approached Eve. He lead her astray by appealing to her nature, and Adam did not assert his authority over Eve. I have sometimes wondered what would have happened if Adam had rejected the fruit that Eve had offered to him. Would mankind have been spared the penalty of death and women alone would have borne some punishment? What if Adam had spoken up to the serpent and defended the woman from the serpent's words, as Adam should have done? Of course, we'll never know.
Also look at Abram and Sarai. They were promised a son by God, who always fulfills His promises, but it took longer than they expected it to. By an earlier calculation that I did, I believe that it took about 16 years for God's promise to be fulfilled. In the meantime, Sarai grew impatient and acted as she thought was fit, giving her servant Hagar to Abram to have a child with her. Abram did not reject this plan as he should have, and as a result, Ismael was born and there is an argument that he was the first of the line of peoples that leads to either the Arabs or the Palestinians who are historical enemies of Israel and with whom there are still tensions today, millennia later.
As previously mentioned, Solomon, though he was the wisest man to ever live, allowed himself to be lead astray by his foreign wives, which ultimately lead to the nation of Israel being split in two and eventually overrun completely by foreign nations. You can read about all of this in 1 Kings 11.
I am sure that we could find many more instances of the desires of a woman who was acting foolishly leading astray a man who had otherwise followed God closely, and it leads to pain. We also have seen that God set men over the earth and women are to be our helpers, yet we have allowed women to usurp our role to too much of a degree, and this is largely because men have failed to fulfill our role as we have been called to do. Now we are living in a world where we are witnessing what appears to be the madness of foolish women leading to the destruction of what once were strong Christian nations. Weak and foolish men have allowed this, but I still maintain that many or even most of the foolish ideas are rooted in the compassion that God created women to display. This compassion however, when aimed incorrectly and foolishly, has far reaching implications.
We are at a point in time when we need wise, strong men to rise up and make the hard choices. To wrest control of the nations out of the hands of foolish men and women, and to set things right again according to the standards that God set out from the beginning.
Yes, this means that I believe that women should no longer have the right to vote. This also means that women should not hold political office at any level. The place for women is to advise their own husbands in the privacy of their homes, and the place for men is to make the decisions that affect communities and nations, decisions that are made dispassionately and for the good of the nation. Men will tend to act without compassion, so we need the input of women to add that aspect of thought to our decision making processes, but ultimately, the weight of the management of this earth should rest on the shoulders of the men.
As much as this argument may offend you, this is Biblical, and we have strayed far away from this standard. We are already paying the price of this failure, and the bill has not yet come due. So I guess the answer to the question that is the title of this article is no, the women are not right, and we were wrong to give them a seat at the table.
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