A Return to Authenticity

She Said...Before looking at specific roles like fatherhood and addressing what has damaged it, I'm interested in knowing what men believe it means to be an authentic man, and how they want to see women supporting them in their roles. I invite the women to discuss what it means to be truly feminine, and how we envision men protecting our femininity. If we begin first by discussing masculinity and femininity, I think we will better see the pitfalls of where things have gone wrong in roles like fatherhood because we will expose the imbalance caused by straying from the natural traits and behaviors specific to our sexuality. In a nutshell, God intended man for certain roles and woman for others based upon our fundamental nature, so when we divert from the natural order, of course relationships and interactions between men and women, child and parent, and ultimately man and God suffer.

So what has Christ taught us about our fundamental nature? What is it that men think makes a man a man?

For women, there are many beautiful passages in the bible that speak to femininity and what God requires of us as women.  For instance, Proverbs 31: 28-31 is a beautiful message to women, "charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting; the woman who fears the Lord is to be praised". Even before that it is written in Proverbs that "she is clothed with strength and dignity"(Prv 31:35). We have all witnessed women in social settings displaying themselves in a far opposite manner than with strength and dignity. It's sad because these women are judged by what they wear and act, and it isn't necessarily what is written in their hearts; and yet it is what they are projecting. It is women's behavior that can draw men away from virtue and from being men who respect the dignity of women. After all if we do not respect ourselves, how do we expect to earn it, or to have others see us as worthy of respect?

However, I think that as women we are called to change the culture by how we dress and act, and the Lord wants us to do this because He tells us exactly the kind of women that we should be; the kind that is worthy of praise. Although, when we present ourselves as objects, we are not only inviting men to be tempted by what is not virtuous, but we hurt those women who are striving to lead virtuous lives. When we as women do things that do not help men grow in virtue, in a sense we are affecting how one man may behave with every other woman he meets down the road after you. To relate this to the post on fatherhood, I believe women have the influence to shape society for good or bad, based upon how we treat and view our sexuality and human dignity which affects dating, marriage, and parenting. There are so many factors that go into shaping a man for fatherhood, and how he views women, love and service prior to marriage influences his behavior as a father. Having said this, what can we expect of men, if prior to marriage we as women collectively create an environment that says it's okay to objectify women?

Do not misunderstand me, I do think that men are personally responsible for their actions, and at the same time I ask how do our actions, as women, hinder or help the men to be virtuous leaders in society and in their family?  I believe that women have a great influence over the rise and fall of a society and certainly over the rise and fall of her family, and if the current culture and history teaches us anything, it is that women have the ability to build men up to be virtuous or to lead them astray. Look at the course of how women have been exploited and objectified in the past 30 years, the men did not do that alone...we allowed ourselves to be objectified; I say that we willfully participated, and for what? gender equality? How foolish we are to think that when we stray from our fundamental nature that there will not be negative consequences. On a side note, thankfully there are movements in our culture saying that they have had enough of this, but we need more of these types of groups to be vocal.

Lastly, just something to think about, men and women born in the 1960s or later have been bombarded by feminist thinking which has shaped how we view our sexuality today, which has me wondering how has feminism damaged the roles of men and women? From the man's perspective, how has it damaged fatherhood, marriages, family, and dating?