(Missed part 6?  Read it here.  Or start from the beginning.)

First-Wave Feminism

Having talked about first-century Greek and Roman culture and Victorian culture, and made some fuzzy connections between them, author Rachel Green Miller then turns to the feminist movement.  The clear theme of this chapter is that first-wave feminism was all good and anyone who has concerns with it would prefer that everything be exactly as it was before the movement, when women were supposedly completely content.  This oversimplifies a complex issue, creating a false dichotomy between accepting first-wave feminism wholesale and rejecting first-wave feminism wholesale.

First-wave feminism is first summarized for us, referencing Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments.” “The goals included the right for women to vote (suffrage), the end of coverture, the right for women to own and manage their own property, access to better educational and employment opportunities for women, legal rights for women in divorce including custody of their children, an end to the double standard of morality, an end to the separate spheres, and improvements in women’s role in the church.” (p. 79)  The author later tells us that “these [things the movement did accomplish from that list] were all good things and improvements for women.” (p. 87)

But the second statement is a mere unproven assertion.  The reader is simply supposed to accept it as fact.  The former, on the other hand, is difficult to engage with in its current form, as there’s more than one idea contained within that single sentence.

There are some good things in that list.  There are still others that have good underlying goals, whether or not the proposed solutions are the best solutions.  But accepting that some of these things are good does not necessarily equate to accepting that all of them are good.

There is a significant shift in ideology underlying many of these goals that has nothing directly to do with women: a shift from a focus on operating as households to a focus on operating as individuals.  This ideological shift is one many Christians have — and had — concerns with, and it has nothing to do with whether they believe(d) there were abuses that needed correction.

“While first-wave feminists were concerned with many legal issues, the ones they are known for are women’s suffrage, the end of coverture, and the temperance movement.  Behind the drive for each of these was a desire to improve the lives of women.” (p. 79)

This “what” vs. “why” is an important consideration when making observations about those with whom we disagree.  Disagreeing with women’s (really, in most cases, with individual) suffrage, the end of coverture as a concept, and/or with the temperance movement does not prove an opposition to “improving the lives of women.”  I don’t think anyone who believes that was a bad goal or motivation is reasonably representative of conservative Christianity.  Godly people may legitimately differ in their understanding of how to effectively and biblically accomplish the same goal.

This failure to differentiate between problems and solutions produces a bias against anyone who doesn’t agree with first-wave feminism’s approach.  “[T]hey express a longing to return to the way things used to be before the feminist movement changed everything.” (p. 88)  In some ways, this is often true, but it’s misleading to imply a belief in an absence of problems on the basis of disagreement with the proposed solutions.

This section has little to nothing to say about what the Church at the time thought about any of these issues, so we’re getting an entirely secular view of the era.

(As a side note, the chapter also points out the perception that “denying women their right to vote was undemocratic.” [p. 80]  But the United States is not a [straight] democracy.  It’s a democratic Republic.)

Later Feminism

In segueing into the later waves of the feminist movement, Miller asks, “how did the feminist movement become practically synonymous with the sexual revolution and abortion?” (p. 90)  It is valid (and important) to differentiate between the various waves of feminism; however, the author is being inconsistent here in her historical hermeneutic (“method of theory or interpreation”).  The reader is asked to latch onto any small thread that might connect early views of women to modern views — yet no attempt is made to trace the patterns of thought that lead from early to later feminism.

What those threads might be is beyond the scope of the post.  For our purposes here, it’s enough to point out that we are supposed to assume that modern views of women are derived from the views that came before, but that later waves of feminism are completely disconnected from the first.

Despite that issue with the underpinnings of the thought process, this section about the later feminist movement, and about the rise of the term “complementarian” and a formulation of what is meant by that in response, is largely fair.  Until we get to the conclusions, where we see a couple of issues pop up.

First, we once again see the false assertion that “conservative Christians…believe that women were content until the feminist movement.” (p. 100)  Maybe somebody somewhere is saying this; if so, I don’t know who they are because I’ve never heard this claim.  It seems to be a misrepresentation of the view exemplified by the following quote: “Male-dominated culture, or patriarchy, isn’t the problem that feminism made it out to be.  It’s not the real reason women were unhappy, if they really were unhappy.  Why not?  Because if it were, women would be happier after the feminist movement’s successes, but they aren’t.”  (p. 100)

I suppose it’s possible that the refusal of Kassian and DeMoss to simply accept the statement that women “were unhappy” as historical fact as proof that they believe the opposite, although that is, itself, a logical stretch.  But I think the real issue here is probably that they say patriarchy isn’t the problem feminism made it out to be.  The problem with Miller’s conclusion is that this is not the same thing as saying there were no problems.  

Kassian and DeMoss didn’t say there were no problems before feminism; they said the root isn’t what the feminists thought it was.  This is an entirely different argument — the one most complementarians actually make — and an important one to honestly engage with if we’re concerned with bringing culture into compliance with Scripture.

Old Views?  Or New?

Here again we also see some confusion in the trajectory of the overall historical argument.  Remember that we’ve been hearing up ’til now that as of the Victorian era, both the culture at large and the Church had embraced ancient Greco-Roman views of men and women as their own.  (e.g., p. 63)  Now we’re told that “much of what’s being taught about the nature of women and men and gender roles in marriage, church, and society started out as a response to the feminist movement.” (p. 100)  So on the one hand we’re hearing that we’ve inherited our ideas from the ancients. On the other, we’re hearing that they’re novel.

Go to part 8.