The New Eve - Lewis Robert [14]
Added to this are new assertions of what it means to be a woman. Hillary Clinton set the tone for the new woman when she quipped on her husband's 1992 campaign trail that she was not about “to stay home and bake cookies” and “be some little woman standing by her man.” Actress Sharon Stone went ever further. She reportedly said, “As I see it, the choice today is between being feminine and equal. I choose equal.” Everywhere today new voices like this are redefining and reshaping what it means to be a woman.
As a Christian woman, you cannot help but be influenced by the sweeping sociological changes presently taking place. Indeed, in our postmodern world it's easy to think of being a woman as nothing more than a personal choice. But if you are a woman of faith, personal choice should first yield to deeper questions, such as: How does God define me as a woman? Is there a basic pattern for womanhood that supersedes my preferences and choices with divine call? I believe the Scriptures offer life-defining answers to such questions for any woman who has the ears to hear. But that's for later.
Here the issue is the significant status changes that have marked the lives of women since the 1950s. They have been as dramatic as the changes in women's hairstyles. While salons during this time moved from the beehive to Charlie's Angels to “the Rachel” and beyond, a woman's social identity has shifted as well from one role paradigm to another, as illustrated below.
The Traditional Role
Typified by the sitcoms of the 1950s, this was an era of Ozzie and Harriet, strict social decorum, well-defined and separated gender patterns, and patriarchal authority. Young girls played with dolls, put on practice teas, and paid close attention to etiquette. In school they studied hard enough, but very often their primary aim was to wed and have a family. The sooner, the better. Women who desired to pursue careers outside the home were rare. So were single women. “A woman's place is in the home” was the slogan that carried the day. That not only meant that a woman best served society by getting married and staying home with her children, but it also strongly implied that a woman should leave the broader world of professional ambitions to men. This stereotype was spiritually endorsed by many churches as being the biblical model of what a woman should be, despite biblical examples to the contrary (Judg. 4:4; Prov. 31:16; Acts 16:14; 18:1–3, 26).
My mom went a different direction. She married late and continued to work full-time as the office manager of a law firm even after having three boys. And though she had to hire help to care for us when we were young, the close proximity of her office and the gentle pace of a small southern town allowed my mom to miss little, if any, of my adolescence. I never thought my mom wasn't there for me. She was. But she was also the exception as a working mother in the ’50s. Most women were stay-at-home moms.
The Do-It-All Role
Social mores were shattered in the radical ’60s and the psychedelic ’70s. In this era almost everything for a woman came into question: her role, her place, her value, her virginity, and even the sacred ground of marriage. Why not merely live together? It was a wild time of free love for many women and men, and some unfortunately paid for it later. But at this moment freedom from traditional restraints was intoxicating.
Married women were liberated too. They were told they could have it all, especially when it came to work and home. “If I have to, I can do anything. I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman,” proclaimed Helen Reddy in her hit song. From this age of idealism, the concept of the supermom was born. This idea, however, was short-lived. By the end of the ’70s, working moms were tasting the bitterness of reality and exhaustion that doing it all brings.
One such mom confessed to Oprah Winfrey, “I tried hard to be the supermom, but frankly