Is it coming out of the closet to admit I am a feminist and a totally sold-out born again Christian? I kind of feel like maybe I need to find a Pride event to march in if I am going to publicly admit I am a feminist. I do like rainbows...can I use that symbol too? Deep breath...here goes: I am a radical feminist.
Oh trust me, I was in the anti-woman closet for a long time before I admitted what I really am. I spent years pretending that women were second class citizens to men, and trying to pretend to not being very smart in case I threatened a man so much I might not get married, and trying to make sure that I never had an opinion or an original thought. I did try to concede to being born not quite as good, but still pretty good, if I didn't want to achieve very much or be as important. I remember as a child being told to not let men know how smart I was one day and the next being told I could be anything I wanted to be, as long as it wasn't something like a doctor, lawyer, or president, because, well of course those were only men's jobs. I should never aspire to being a CEO or a business owner. Oh! Ooops!
When I was a waitress I consistently made 20% less than the male waiters. When I was in college I was told by my math professor that I got lucky to get a good grade. When I was in high school I tried so hard to pretend I didn't know or let alone use all those big words. I tried not to care too much if the guys I dated were as smart as me, because it didn't matter, as long as I never let them know how smart I am. And the entire time I squashed down all of my natural God-given gifts of leadership because...well...I am a girl after all so that could not be what God actually gave me. I must need to continue to search for my real gifts.
In 1991 I married my husband Pete. Guess what he liked the very best about me? He actually liked that I am really smart! He liked it when I knew things he didn't, and he values me for being really capable. He supports me in being strong, intelligent, independent, and even a leader. He made me bloom and showed me the truth about myself.
Guess what? I got to choose to have babies, and wear lace, and be feminine and build a national company too! I get to have him support me in doing the things I am good at, and I get to support him doing the things he is good at. He doesn't see me as a girl. He sees me as a person uniquely created by God to do important things.
More than that, God sees women that way! I was brought up to believe that women were lesser and that we must have a man to be complete, and that only men can be leaders. I was taught that women must submit to men to the degree that whatever I thought was completely irrelevant and that only a man's opinion mattered. I have seen women abused, dismissed, and shamed by the Christian church because they dared to think or have an opinion. More than that, it wasn't always the men who did so. The women themselves keep each other in place, by saying that there is only one way to be, and it is submissive, subservient and subjected. I knew that God created me to be one way, and I never understood how He could create me this way with these gifts only to waste them by making only men able to be what I am.
Jesus saw women very differently than our present Christian culture and tradition claims. He valued women, and saw them as important members of His church; leaders with and alongside men. God appointed Deborah in the old testament to lead the nation as both a spiritual and temporal leader.
I am a pastor and a teacher. Not because I am ordained but because that is what God made me. I lead and guide people in my sphere of influence because I am a natural leader, and because God gave me those gifts. We, as human beings, can only thrive when we are allowed to be who we truly are, and what we are innately and originally created to be.
I am thriving as a fully out of the closet Christian Feminist, and I teach my daughters to be everything they were created by God to be. No matter what that is.
Even me.
