Are We Feminists?

Lots of interesting discussions and even debates have emerged among Christians with Sarah Palin's nomination to the vice-presidency. It is difficult to not be engaged in the conversation, whether at church, the office, or my mom's birthday dinner celebration. But the tension that many conservative Christians are feeling over all of this was most clearly verbalized at a dinner party we attended Saturday evening with several couples from our church.

We had finished dinner, and our hostess asked if we would like to watch a Fox News special about Palin that was airing right then. We agreed that we would, and we gathered around the huge screen to see what new information we would learn about our heroine, Sarah. A little background on the couples: The hosts are two working professionals with no children; the wives of two of the couples are work-at-home, homeschooling moms with several children each whose husbands work outside the home; and us--with me holding down a full-time job outside our home, Henry expecting to do the same in the near future, and two teens.

Everyone in the party was expressing excitement and enthusiasm over Sarah, with her conservative, no-nonsense approach to politics. We watched the special, which gave background on Palin, her upbringing, her early experiences in politics, and her interactions with her family (the next installment Sunday night would cover everything up to the nomination). After the program was over, one of the work-at-home moms asked the big question: Have we become feminists? If the Democrats had nominated a mother of five with a special-needs child to be vice-president, would we be more critical?

And I'll answer as I did that night: I hope not. For me, a woman who works outside her home forty hours a week, it would be hypocritical to answer otherwise. And I suspect that the question really being asked is how can we be supportive--even enthusiastic--about a woman with young children at home, one of whom has special needs--who accepts such huge responsibilities that presumably take her out of the home for a number of hours of the day. Shouldn't women with children be working at home--regardless of circumstances? Isn't Palin's greatest responsibility--indeed, obligation--to be at home tending immediately to the needs of her husband and children?

These are the questions I had to deal with when I was, in a sense, forced out of my work-at-home role when, as a widow, I became the sole financial provider for our family. And I found a meaningful and, I believe, biblical answer to this problem when I read When Life and Beliefs Collide by Susan Custis James. Her understanding of roles for women is based on her study of the word used for helper in Genesis 2. The Hebrew word that is used, ezer, most frequently refers in the Old Testament to God, as the helper of his people. In some instances it refers specifically to women, and in some uses, it has a military connotation, which suggests that the type of helper here is extraordinarily strong, one who fights alongside.

James points out that the word used here is generic; it defies coming up with some kind of official list of specific responsilities for women. And while James acknowledges that tasks such as companion to a husband, childbearer, mother, homemaker, and supplementer of family income certainly are important responsibilities that fall under the idea of being a helper, the word actually refers to much more. If these were the only legitimate responsibilities for women, many women wouldn't be able to fulfill the calling of woman: single women, women who are unable to bear children, women who are disabled, women whose children have grown up and left the nest. The other thing that James observes about the Hebrew word for helper is that it is often associated with military might.

James comments, "Working [outside the home] women . . . are condemned for having skewed priorities, for having turned their backs on their home for selfishness and greed. Some have even blamed them for the moral decline of the country. Recently, an advertisement for a book on Christian parenting listed indicators that our culture has 'rejected biblical standards of morality.' It named 'working mothers' first on that list . . . Such statements devastate godly working mothers who . . . are pouring themselves out for the sake of their families. We forget that historically women have always worked alongside the men and that selfishness, greed, and poor parenting are pitfalls for either sex, no matter where we spend our time."

So I don't see myself as a feminist because I work outside my home and because I applaud Sarah Palin and hope that she will be this country's next vice-president. I would agree that in many instances, families are best served when mothers take seriously their tasks at home as wives and mothers and when their life circumstances allow them to serve in this way--but working at home doesn't guarantee a mother will do her job well any more than a mother working outside her home guarantees that she is neglecting her family. And even though the vast majority of this culture (even many Christians) would not understand this, I would not be supportive of Palin's (or any woman's) becoming an elder or deacon in her church. (That's a place where God has specifically spelled out roles and functions, and we must not play fast and free there.) But if Sarah Palin and her husband have agreed that they can together meet the needs of their children and she can serve her country in this way with the obviously extraordinary talents, abilities, and qualities that God has blessed her with, then who are we to question? We Christians must be on guard not to create moral tensions that don't exist. We can be wholeheartedly thankful that God is still calling people like Sarah Palin to serve her country with integrity and strength without feeling like we are compromising moral principle.