CC: I think you're absolutely right.
I had a conversation with a young woman and she's just moved into a house.
So in her early 20s, just moved into a house with her husband.
They're setting up home together and she was talking about how exhausted she was and looking forward to the Christmas holidays and then was describing the things that she was doing.
And it was really evident that she's taking on most of the domestic stuff unthinkingly.
And you would really think that in 2023, a young woman in her early 20s would not be as easily sucked into that.
CR: It shows you the power and the longevity of patriarchy, actually.
And I mean, patriarchy is everywhere, but also the power of these role models and how difficult it is to break away from that, to be different.
Patriarchy, which is basically the rule of the fathers, that's literally what it means, is bad for everybody, men and women, because it dehumanises everyone.
But it's just so endemic.
It's the water we swim in and we don't see it and you actually have to call it out and name it to then think, OK, how can I work against this?
CC: Yeah.
Where does this model come from?
Because the pious domesticity thing, somebody made that up.
It becomes very quickly kind of deeply embedded culturally, doesn't it?
CR: It's normalised.
CC: It becomes the norm.
CR: In the West, as a society, we need much deeper and much more difficult, probably, conversations about what it means to be a man and a woman and what that looks like in terms of roles and family life and gender.
I don't think we've really had good enough conversations on that.
I'm talking, I think, something much more richer and deeper than that.
And that, you know, God is a God of love and God, there are many possibilities with God as to how we can live out who we're called to be.
It doesn't just have to be to pick on pious domesticity as an example.
It doesn't just have to look like that.
CC: Yeah.
And life is so much richer and better when you have the freedom to work out who you are and what it is that you are called to contribute and do that without false limitations getting in the way.
CR: Well, exactly.
And I think that feminism has alluded us to this.
Now, I know that feminism is a potentially dirty word in Britain, which I was surprised to discover it's not in New Zealand.
And of course, there's a range of perspectives on feminism, but feminism has definitely alluded us to some of the injustices to women and encouraged women to be who God has created us to be.
We don't have to be limited to the house, we're called.
But I mean, if that's what women want to do, nobody's saying you can't do that.
But there's so much more that we can be involved in.
And we need to be allowed to do that.
I mean, it really saddens me to be at churches where women are not allowed to speak or to be in leadership because, I mean, I just think that's bizarre.
And I think it diminishes the church because they're losing out on the gifts of half the human race.
You know, the richness and the diversity that we can experience if we could just relax and allow ourselves to operate, I think, in a wider arena of who we could be.
CC: Yeah, that's true, I think, for all of us, that having space to think about who you are, not who your culture or your society or your upbringing has suggested you ought to be, but to be much more aware of where those biases are coming from.
Because once you know that there's a bias, then you have the opportunity to sort of step back from it, don't you? And think what might be instead.
CR: Yeah, the first thing is to be aware of it and to name it.
And I think it's pretty hard, especially for young women in our society today.
There's so much pressure on body image and expectations and cyber-bullying and social media, and you've got to be your best self. But you know, we can be free from all of that in Christ, I think.
But where are the communities, the churches that are modeling this and offering hope for young women?
That is also a question, I think.
CC: Yeah, I think there are some.
I think there are some, but sometimes harder to find.
Well, thank you very much, Cathy.
That's been really interesting.
CR: You're welcome.
Yeah, I enjoyed it.
Good to have the conversation.
CC: Thank you.
Hope you enjoyed this episode of the Loved Called Gifted podcast.
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