Gender and Education

Feminism has come to mean different thing for different people. For some it is fighting for equality while for some others it is fighting to demonstrate which of the gender is superior, yet some are quite happy with the status quo. The debate on gender, however, has to do, and must be, with removing inequalities which have been constructed by the society. It is not about who is able to give birth and who cannot? because nature has endowed certain differences between male and female. And these differences are about biology. And there is no point fighting about the way nature has endowed us. However, gender inequalities need to be addressed. The evil system that exploits women must be torn down. And the boundary between social construction and natural endowment must be maintained to make the debate meaningful.

Throughout the ages different societies have constructed different way of exploiting women. Aristotle, though considered as the father of biology because of his works The History of animals and The Generation of Animals, considered females as imperfect males, accidentally produced by the father’s inadequacy or by the malign influence of a moist south wind. The ancient Jews would not consider woman as a person, but a thing. A Jewish man would thank that God had made him a Gentile, a slave or a woman. The ancient Romans would marry of their daughters by 12-14 years, and in many cases girl child would be left in dung heaps to die. No wonder even if millions of men die in war male far outnumbered women due to widespread practice of female infanticide. And almost all civilizations inherited the tradition of female oppression and practice it without realizing its negative side.

The biblical idea of gender equality is a profound one. Many Christian theologians debate whether women should be allowed to preach in the church or not. However, that is never an issue in our poumai churches because we allow women to minister without any reservation. Egalitarian defends women’s ministry, and complementarian argues against it. And our churches go for egalitarian pattern. Praise the Lord! Amazingly, however, the issues we face are something which both egalitarian and complementarian would not fight about. Take domestic abuse (wife beating), both egalitarian and complementarian would not hesitate to blast those males who physically assault their wife. Or even take female infanticide, which is very common is certain parts of India though uncommon in our place probably due to absence of technological know-how, every biblically literate person would call such act as murder of babies.

What does the Bible, then, say about gender equality? In the creation account we read of man (in generic sense) i.e. it includes both male and female, being created in the image and likeness of God himself. That is to say both male and female have spiritual thirst, moral awareness, creative power, relational need etc. And we also read of God giving them the mandate to “be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it…” (Gen 1:28 NIV) and to rule over sea creatures, sky creatures and land creatures. The mandate was not given to male alone, but to both the sexes. And God united them to build a home. However, the effect of sin as seen in Genesis 3 disturbs the entire environment. And we still observe in our surrounding scores and scores of cases where the effect of sin is played out: Rape, prostitution, wife beating, dowry system, female foeticide, etc.

God’s answer to all these effect of The Fall is The Cross. Jesus bore the sins of the world on the cross and he redeemed us from the curse by becoming a curse for us (Gal 3:13). And this healing from the effect of the Fall or curse is extended to all Jews and Gentiles, slave and free, male and female. Christians who call themselves followers of Christ, therefore, must practice a different lifestyle. Not repeating the kind of sinful life that one used to practice before coming to Jesus. Since Christ has dealt sin on the cross the entailment requires us to go back to Genesis 1-2 to find out God’s initial design for male-female relationship. And Genesis teaches us equality of worth though different in our biology.

I consider knowing this theological truth as profoundly liberating. ‘Secular’ education definitely brings liberation to women, but without knowing the theological element the liberation will not be complete. Education of both theological as well as non-theological elements need to go hand in hand to bring out the full force of liberation. And this twin force is a desperate need for our society today.

Education nowadays has become the fourth element of our human need-- after food, shelter and clothing. According to United Nations Development Programme Human Development Index is measured on the basis of three parameters viz. Literacy Rate, Life Expectancy and Per Capita Income . According to 2001 Census Report literacy rate for India is 63.38%. And if we further break it up literacy rate for male is 75.85% and for female it is 54.16%. For Manipur it is 68.87%, and for male 77.87% and female 59.70%. And for the world according to 2002 Report it is 79.7%, and for male 85.2% and 74.2%. What we notice in the statistics is that female are more illiterate than male. Literate women are less likely to be beaten, to be sold for prostitution and raped. Empirical work in recent years has brought out very clearly how the relative respect and regard for women’s well-being is strongly influenced by such variables as women’s ability to earn an independent income, to find employment outside the home, to have ownership rights…^1. These factors, however, depend upon education of the person. An illiterate woman can never achieve of such welfare.

There is no doubt that education is liberating. But I think we need to further dig down why we are not able to provide education. Poverty, it seems to me, emerges as the main culprit. But why poverty? Too many children. Why too many children? Because of illiteracy. So we have here a vicious circle. Poverty results in illiteracy that results in poverty. How then do we get out of this vicious circle? We need to address the issue at various levels. God has given us a self-sufficient kind of economic infrastructure. We never experience drought nor thunderstorm that destroy our crops. The soil is so fertile that whatever is sown sprouts. But so is also the female womb. Our parents are never satisfied with two children. Two children norm, I believe, needs to be vigorously promoted in our society. Even if both the children are girls we need to learn to be satisfied. And that takes us further to the issue of preserving or rather dismantling the patriarchal system. I would not get into sociological dimension in addressing patriarchy. I hope some other contributor would take up the challenge. I would, however, like to take up one biblical passage that male chauvinists use to justify exploitation of women.

Ephesians 5:22 says, “ Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” (NIV). However, v 22 says, “ Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” And between v 21 and v 22 in NIV there is the heading “Wives and Husbands”, as if vv 22-33 forms a paragraph. The Greek Bible reads otherwise. Verses 21 to 24 come as one sentence. And the heading “Wives and husbands”,therefore, must come before v 21, i.e. between 20 to 21. The New Living Translation gets it accurately which unfortunately NIV does not. Here we read of Paul underscoring the idea of mutual submission to one another and then goes on to give further explanation. It is not only the wife who is to submit to husband, but husband also needs to submit to wife.

The issue gets further complicated when Paul uses ‘head’ (Gk. Kephale) to elaborate the nature of wife’s submission to husband. The Greek word ‘kephale’ can be translated in different ways. It can be translated either as chief/ruler or it also be translated as source/beginning. John Stott goes on to argue this way which it seems to me makes sense. “… headship must be compatible with equality. For if ‘the head of the women is men’ as ‘the head of Christ is God’, then man and woman must be equal as the Father and the Son are equal. On the other hand, headship implies some degree of leadership, which, however, is best expressed not in terms of ‘authority’ but of ‘responsibility’. The husband’s headship of his wife, therefore, is headship more of care than of control, more of responsibility than of authority. As Christ gave himself for his bride( the Chruch), in order to present her to himself radiant and blameless, so the husband gives himself for his bride, in order to create the conditions within which she may grow into the fullness of her womanhood. ²

The mark of a Christian man and woman is (not are) “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” ³ When we live a Spirit-filled Christian life there is no place for domination, but only gentleness; no place to shouting, but only self-control; no place to be angry, but only love. If man shouts and punches that may appear masculine, but if woman does that oh! she is no place in the society. But the Bible does not differentiate between man and woman in this kind of behavioral issue. Biblical values are virtues we all need to cultivate, both male and female.

(Published in Dziila)