The New Eve - Lewis Robert [15]
The Sameness Role
In the ’80s and ’90s a new form of femininity arose. One more realistic but also more aggressive and assertive. Women would no longer try to do it all. Instead, they would demand that men share every facet of life with them fifty-fifty. Away with gender distinctions at home, work, and play! Columbia University's Carolyn Heilbrun argued for this idea in her book Reinventing Womanhood. A husband's career should not take priority over his wife's, and his care-giving duties at home should match hers exactly, said Heilbrun. She justified her “symmetrical family” model on the claim that gender differences are a sociological contrivance, not the result of divine design. A mom's tender femininity reflects the manipulative forces of social persuasion, not her nature. And if men balk at being motherly, it's the culture, not nature, that's to blame. The no-roles sameness model was “scientific,” said the social critics, and “destined to be the dominant family form of the future.”2
Adding fuel to this flame for Christian women was the emergence of Christian egalitarianism. This new theological movement within the church espoused “sameness” among men and women as God's ideal before sin entered the world. This theology soon caught fire. Men were no longer to be the heads of their homes or the overseeing leaders (that is, elders) of the church. Role differences were out—even sinful. Everything was to be shared equally—fifty-fifty.
While all this sounds fair and balanced, the problem is men and women are not the same. Equal in value? Yes. Equal in sharing God's divine image? Absolutely. But we are different by God's design (Gen. 1:27). And those differences mean something, both practically and theologically, whether or not we want to face it.
During this time women also encountered another hard lesson. As they sought to be like men in the workplace and vied for promotion and advancement, they learned something men had long known: companies want more. The concept of sameness may have advanced many women's professional lives, but after hours it quickly became a home breaker. And children were the ones wounded by it the most. In truth some career women have ended up becoming the very person the 1950s homemaker chronically complained about in her husband: he works too hard, he's gone too much, he's home too little.
So how can a working woman make home and career work for her? For many women that's the million-dollar question. For other women the social pendulum has moved on to something new—role reversal.
Role Reversal
As the twenty-first century breaks upon us, a new evolution of woman is arising. It's a feminine transformation defined by a social realignment occurring more frequently between men and women. And what exactly is that? Simply this: men and women are switching roles. It's the ’50s traditional model in reverse. More and more women are leading the men in their lives. More and more women are the primary breadwinners of their families. And more men are working less and staying at home with the kids. Newsmagazines confirm that this is a growing trend.3 Thirty-four percent of men polled say they would consider staying at home if their wife earned more money. Studies show that of the fifty most powerful women in business, a third of them have “trophy husbands,” men who stay at home full-time to take care of domestic duties. More broadly speaking, 51 percent of the men whose wives outearn them do the majority of the domestic work. Businessweek magazine assessed this trend by concluding, “Finally, more career women are getting the one thing they say they need most