Alright, I’m gonna talk about sex for a minute here.
Over the past few years, I’ve heard about a drop in young people having premarital sex. I first heard about this in the context of pornography, which has been shown to damage sex drive. But over the past few days, I’ve seen a few tweets linking the drop in premarital sex to female empowerment.
The Economist tweeted an article blaming the economic crisis leading to more career-focused generation of women. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded, claiming that “disempowerment and silence” was what led to high sexual activity in the past.
This is one of the intersections of feminism and Christianity (there are more than you’d think.) I think it’s safe to say…AOC is right on the money here. The Sexual Revolution started, in my opinion, as a misguided attempt to free women from existing oppression. Getting rid of marriage doesn’t get rid of controlling men. They just find different ways to control.
The narrative then was that marriage confines men and women, therefore we need to liberate ourselves through “free love.” It seems that now women are realizing those ideas lead to more deviant behavior in men and different forms of female oppression.
So this leads us to ask ourselves: What causes oppression of women and what is the solution?
In answering this question, we tend to argue in dichotomies. One side believes in this ideal 1950’s past where men and women lived in perfect nuclear families. Another side believes those families were actually oppressive and believe in this ideal future where no one is oppressed.
Arguing like this causes a relentless tug-of-war between the two camps, ending in more division.
The reality is, oppression has always been there and will always be. It just takes different forms. Evil doesn’t relent, it just changes its tactics. We were warned in Genesis 3:16 that men will “lord himself” over woman.
This isn’t a good thing. This is a consequence of our sinfulness, and we need to constantly work to overcome that consequence. When Christ came and died, He restored that brokenness and gave us the Holy Spirit to overcome all divisions and heal all wounds. Even between the sexes.
It’s important to note that the goal is not just to “un-oppress” women. The ultimate goal is to heal the wounds of oppression. It turns out that not oppressing women is rather easy. Much easier than oppressing them. Healing those wounds is the part only God can do.
Trying to heal this wound without the Holy Spirit will result in more wounds and divisions between the sexes.
We should keep talking about ways we can do, individually and nationally, to create a fair society. We should also keep asking the Holy Spirit to use us to heal broken hearts.