Dominion Orientated Femininity: Part Three

This post covers all of the second point in Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin's podcast "Dominion-Orientated Femininity".   The Botkin Sisters are solid public speakers, but would greatly benefit from one or two classes in public speaking.  The lecture/conference breakout session/podcast covers the ten most important points about dominion-orientated femininity - but the discussion of two of the points take up half of the time.  Since the introduction to the topic took 25% of the podcast's running time, this left seven topics to be covered in about 6 minutes. 

Somewhere in the melee, point three got lost all together.

I'm really curious - but will likely never know - if the error occurred at the original conference and no one noticed in post-production....or if point three was lost during post.   I find it depressing that a family that prides themselves on starting an alternative media empire missed a mistake as obvious as this one.  Was it too much effort for one of the brothers to listen through the entire 37 minute podcast and pay attention?

Well, here we go:

Point number two is: a dominion woman understands what the difference is between real femininity and false femininity. This is important.

There are a lot of theories of femininity going around that we need to examine Biblically. For example, some people say, "Femininity is the opposite of masculinity". Well, certainly, we are supposed to be different from men, but that doesn't necessarily mean opposite.

Another one is some people think femininity is whatever the feminists have rejected. Well, that's bad hermeneutics. "Cause we have to be careful that we don't build our philosophy of womanhood or of anything else on a knee-jerk reaction to something bad as though the thing that's bad is what actually determines our morality. The Bible is our only standard and it should be our motivation to do right.

Some people say that Biblical femininity is any picture of womanhood that was around before the Woman's Suffrage Movement. Well, the thing is feminism has been around since the garden of Eden and it's had advocates in every single century.

This is entirely personal preference on my part - but do not give counter-examples before giving me the working definition. 

I agree that morals and principles should be defined positively instead of in reaction to negative things.

I've been thinking really hard about Genesis 1 +2 and I have no idea why Eve's decision to eat the apple counts as a feminist act.  No idea at all.   Adam ate the apple, too, then attempted to shift blame to Eve.  Does that mean failure to own and accept responsibility for one's actions is a masculine trait?  (You know, in CP/QF land, the answer to that question might be "yes" - and that scares me even more.)

So the actual meaning of femininity is really extremely simple and we see it in the first couple of chapters of the Bible. So here in Genesis 2 God reveals to us the essence of femininity when he shows us how Eve was meant to correlate to Adam. He said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him." So, here we see the woman was made for the man like it says in 1 Corinthians 11:9. We see she's a different creature. She's made for a different purpose and her role is different which we see in Genesis 3. She is supposed to look different as we see in Deuteronomy 22:5. And we should rejoice in that difference because that is the difference that makes us complimentary to the man. And the purpose of this difference which we call femininity is to help masculinity and to suit masculinity. To compliment it and complete it. And the two of them together will be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it. We could sum up by saying, "True femininity is about helping men fulfill their calling. "

Who's up for a round of Bible Bingo?

Anna Sofia/Elizabeth Botkin starts out by quoting Genesis 2:18 - which is a strange choice out of all the options in that chapter.  The next action that follows God's statement isn't the creation of Eve, but the creation of animals meant to be partners for Adam.  None of the animals are suitable partners for Adam so God created Eve from his rib.   When Adam awakes, he doesn't proclaim "I've got a helper!".  No, he recognizes and rejoices that he has another person who is made of the same flesh and bone as him.    The major moral I've always heard from that story is that males and females are partners in doing God's will since God commanded Adam to care for the garden - and created Eve because humans need friends.

No discussion of female submission is complete without 1 Corinthians 11:9 "Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man."  Oddly enough, people who pull the previous verse generally miss 1 Corinthians 11:11-12 "Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman.  For just as the woman came from man, man comes through woman; but all things come from God."  Equally important, verses 2-16 are discussing which genders should keep their heads covered during prayer.   The full argument follows that God created Adam in God's image, but Eve was created in Adam's image only so men who are the image of God should keep their heads uncovered during prayer while women who are images of humans should cover their heads.     Since Genesis 1:27 explicitly states that God created male and females in the image of God, we can safely disregard the questionable logic within 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 about female submission.

I'm very worried about what I'm going to find in Genesis 3 because I think Anna Sofia/Elizabeth has confused the gendered curses for eating the forbidden fruit with God's purpose in creating humans. 

*drums fingers nervously while waiting for a page to load*

Yup.  Yup.  Anna Sofia/Elizabeth has confused women's curse of the pain and danger associated with pregnancy and childbirth and men's curse of physically crushing subsistence agriculture with God's purpose for creating men and women.   I'm blushing on behalf of Anna Sofia/Elizabeth right now; I would have gotten marked down SO badly if I screwed that interpretation up in a high school essay.  I can't even imagine the level of embarrassment if I did that in my one college level religion class. 

OT: English needs a word for the emotion of embarrassment felt on behalf of another person who is completely oblivious to the fact that their action was awkward or inappropriate.  Do we have that word? 

And, yes, Deuteronomy 22:5 does state that men and women should wear different clothing.  That's the same chapter that states that it's immoral to plow with a donkey and an ox yoked together, immoral to plant a second crop in a vineyard and that linen-wool blend clothing is also immoral.  So...yeah.  Some Biblical precepts are not as universal as others.

The definition of "femininity" is "helping men do stuff".   How does that work in day-to-day life -even CP/QF life?  When a guy helps his friend do a project, is the first guy behaving femininely?  Is every man who works for wages feminine? 

I don't think the Botkin Sisters have really thought this definition out very well. 

Any departure from this is a departure from Biblical femininity. Throughout the Bible and throughout history we actually only see two kinds of womanhood. The kind that devotes its identity to helping men fulfill their calling and the kind that wants power over men. The first one lives a life of self-sacrifice; the later wants to have its own way. The later is what we call feminism.

 A lot of us think of feminism as being ugly and androgynous, but feminism appears in many guises throughout history. Sometimes it's trying to subdue masculinity with its womanly wiles and charms. Sometimes feminism is vain and narcissistic and self-absorbed. It's ornamental. It's useless. And it's not interested in helping men take dominion. It's interested in itself. And sometimes, it's trying to compete with masculinity and out man it. But there's one thing that consistent in all of these manifestations. Feminism is always independent and always self-seeking and its desire is to weaken and dominate men.

The Botkin definition of feminism is "women who want their own way in a self-important method for the aim of weakening and dominating men."   (That's the best working definition I can cobble together from the word salad in the last section of the podcast.)  In Botkin-land that definition makes some sense because they treat all rights as being a zero-sum game.  If women gain the right to vote, men lose.  When women work outside the home, men lose.  Clearly, that's not how the world works.  When women became voters, men had more potential voters to motivate to support ideas that were important to the men.  Having women in the workforce benefits male employers through the largest possible pool of qualified candidates and benefits male workers who are married by having a second income in the family economy. 

The argument that feminism is never self-sacrificial makes it clear that the Botkin Sisters have never cracked a history book open.   Issues that everyone agrees are feminism issues like voting rights, property rights and economic rights for women moved forward because groups of women were willing to sacrifice their time, energy and talents for the greater good of the movement. 

Of course, in writing the last two paragraphs, I've put more thought into the subject than the speaker ever has.  My rationale for that is that Anna Sofia/Elizabeth claims that CP/QF women believe that feminism was "ugly and androgynous."  That is a shallow and trite description even if feminism was horrifying evil that stretched over millenia that the Botkin sisters attempt to make it. 

On the other hand, perhaps the lack of depth in the description reflects cursory education of the speakers.  That might be more disturbing.

I generally listen to the podcast straight through at least twice while walking before trying to transcribe it.   I remember very clearly listening to this part and thinking, "Is she going to make a reference to Delilah?  She's not walking into that trap, right?"

Understanding this is extremely helpful when it comes to sorting through all the images around us. And there are two in particular that we believe are leading girls away from Biblical femininity. One is floozy femininity which uses its beauty to show off and try to gain power over men. It's what the world call femininity, but we cannot let it confuse us. It's distinct from masculinity, but it's not gentle and quiet. It's not modest and discreet. We should ask ourselves, "Is this an asset to mankind or is it a liability? Is it like Mary the Mother of God or is it like Delilah?" If we ask these questions and judge by these standards, it becomes clear that this kind of femininity is not Biblical femininity.

And then in the opposite camp, we've known girls who have turned away from femininity because they learned from Barbie dolls that femininity is for bimbos. And so they become bitter about their God-given femininity. They become ashamed of it. They try to hide it under men's clothes. Sometimes they become bitter towards men as well. And they're not complimenting men and filling that which is lacking.

Femininity is the process of getting things done for men (as defined before) - so why does gentleness, quietness, modesty and behaving discreetly have anything to do with femininity?  Sometimes a problem needs someone who can be loud and assertive.

Putting Mary the Mother of God as an opposite to Delilah is a hoot.  To her neighbors, Mary was an engaged woman who got pregnant by someone who was not her betrothed.  Later in life, Mary ordered Jesus to turn water into wine at a wedding after he had specifically said it was not time for him to reveal himself yet in John 2:3-5 and brought his siblings along to meet with him once he was preaching in Mark 3:31-35.   That's hardly the quiet, docile woman idolized by the Botkin Sisters  Delilah, on the other hand, was completing the job given to her by the leaders of her people the Philistines; she was finding out how to defeat the best warrior of her enemies according to Judges 16:4-6.   As near as I can tell, this means Delilah was a dominion-oriented woman since she helped men achieve their goals and Mary was a raging feminist because she placed her goals ahead of Jesus.

So this is the challenge of trying to rediscover Biblical femininity, trying to sort through all the images and stereotypes from the past. Looking for good examples. There are many great legacies for us in history if we can find them. We have to remember no era and no image is perfect.

We have an amazing opportunity before us right now to build a new culture of femininity. Something completely new and different on the foundation of the Bible alone. Now, Reverend William Einwechter who's one of our favorite theologians, he explains, "The Hebrew word for help - as in helpmeet - ezer- comes from two roots. The first meaning "to rescue or save" and the second meaning "to be strong". It indicates one who is able and who has what it takes to come to the aid of someone who is in need. Thus God created the woman so that she would be able to come to the aid of the man and be his support and help". She's only going to figure out her purpose if she realizes his. "And thus it is absolutely keeping with Biblical womanhood, imperative even, for a woman to understand and appreciate men and their world."

One request to the universe: I never, ever want to read another CP/QF book that includes a discussion of the root basis of the Hebrew word for "help meet".   Those kind of discussions can be fascinating when there is some disagreement over the basis of the word or when there isn't a great English equivalent for the word.  When the words "help meet" is pretty darn close to "ezer", the author is simply wasting time and increasing the word count. 

And so people have often asked us, "Is it feminine for girls to be inspired by the masculinity of their brothers and their fathers and to enjoy the things that their brothers are doing?" I would say the answer is yes. I think it's feministic for girls to grow up having a contempt for those things. And girls who are trying to understand their position as women need to eschew the false notion that women live in different worlds. We were created to be different, but we live in the same world we have the same goal. And in our pursuit of being women, we need to make sure we don't abandon our men and one thing we need remember is that brave adventurous men need women who can come alongside them in the rigors of their lives. And sometimes that means going outside and helping your brother build a tree fort. Sometimes it means when you're married helping your husband build his house. Femininity is not all about staying inside the house and feeding upon sugar and cream and and cross-stitching. That's another thing that Elizabeth and I had to figure out along the way.

Anna Sofia has painted herself into a corner again.  The Botkin definition of femininity is "helping men do dominion-oriented tasks" so presumably the definition of masculinity is "initiating and doing dominion-oriented tasks."   Female humans of all ages are supposed to feel inspired by men who do dominion-oriented tasks and should lend a hand.   I can follow the logic - such as it is - up to this point.  But why shouldn't women also initiate and complete dominion-oriented tasks?   According to Anna Sofia, women do not have a unique set of skills like being sheltered and cross-stitching that needs to be preserved.  If that's the case, why shouldn't a girl build a tree fort even if her brothers aren't into that? 

I think Anna Sofia and Elizabeth have only worked out part of the puzzle and I hope they figure out the rest this side of heaven.