*Originally posted under the title “50% Makes a Difference” on take-it-from-kayla.blogspot.com on 10/16/16*
What do you see when you look at the women around you?
Do you see moms, daughters, friends, wives, grandmothers, or aunts? Do you see a doctor, a nanny, a teacher, a cashier, or a scientist? Do you see a smear of lipstick with a skirt that’s a little too short? Do you see a girl that giggles a little too much when that boy talks to her? Do you see a flawless complexion and curves that make your head spin?
I want you to actually evaluate this before you read on. What are words you would use to describe the women around you? Beautiful? Sweet? Cute? Nurturing? Comforting? Smart? Sarcastic?
I have no doubt that you have some really great women in your life. You probably have some really great friends that are women. Who are those women? And even beyond your own inner circle, I’m sure you have women in your life that you see pretty regularly. Like that one librarian that always checks your books out or that lady at church that you talk to once in a while.
Whoever those women are and however you view them, I want to take a few minutes to challenge your thinking a little bit. Before I do, I want to throw a couple of statistics your way to think about.
This first statistic is one that is sure to shock you. Seriously guys, prepare for your minds to be blown: Women make up half of the world’s population. Woah, I know! Crazy right? For those of you who want more specific details, as of 2015, 49.5% of the world’s population is made up of women, and that percentage raises to 50.4% in North America. [source]
All joking aside, one thing that many people forget is that all those articles and Facebook status’ ranting about ‘women’s issues’ have a lot more legitimacy than we want to give them because women’s issues affect 50% of the entire world’s population, so women’s issues are world issues.
I’m not talking about wage gaps or dress codes or gender stereotypes or even beauty standards. Those are all things that are important and need to be talked about, but those issues have voices around the world speaking up and starting discussions about them. What I want to ask you today is about something that runs much deeper, but is so often invisible.
When you think of those women in your life, and all the words you would use to describe them, is survivor on that list of words? How many of those women do you look at in your daily life and see as survivors?
Maybe you can list one or two of your friends who have some rough backstories. Maybe this is a word you rarely use to describe those around you, but when you think of the vague faces of women around the world, its a word that’s on your radar. Maybe it’s not a word you’ve used at all. Let me share with you a truth that I hope sticks with you in the days and weeks to come: many if not most of the women you meet are survivors.
Let me say it one more time: Many if not most of the women you meet are survivors. Let me tell you why.
85% of domestic violence victims are women [source]
40-45% of women in abusive relationships are raped or abused during the relationship. [source]
70% of women worldwide will experience physical and/or sexual abuse by an intimate partner during their lifetime. [source]
1 in 3 women have been victims of some form of physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. [source]
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1 in 5 women have been raped in their lifetime. [source]
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82% of juvenile victims of rape and 90% of adult victims of rape are female. [source]
1 in 5 girls are victims of child sexual abuse. [source]
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Every nine seconds in the US a woman is assaulted or beaten. [source]
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Do you realize the devastating implications of these statistics? The majority of women have been victimized, often by the men in closest proximity to them. And these statistics are only covering a small segment of issues. This is not talking about eating disorders or depression or self harm or divorce. Those would add even more women in pain to our discussion.
Let those statistics sink in for a minute and apply them to the faces of women in your life. Think of Rachel, or Grace, or Sarah, or Kylie, or Brianna, or Hannah, or Katie, or Barb, or Linda, or Deb. Have they been victimized in these ways?
The truth is, while these statistics themselves are devastating, they are not even scratching the surface of what women suffer worldwide. When we start talking on the global level we have to start considering that in many cultures, wife beating is a normal part of marriage, and giving birth to a baby girl is considered a disgrace. In war zones rape is used as a weapon. In many cultures worldwide, women are voiceless and suffer atrocities we can barely even start to imagine.
When we look at women globally we have a whole new set of statistics to consider. Women make up 1/2 of the world’s population, do 2/3 of the world’s work and make 1/3 of the world’s income. 60% of the world’s illiterate are women. Women are thought to have less value and less to offer to the society. Therefore, globally women make up the majority of the world’s poor and oppressed people.
Maybe you’ve heard statistics like these before. Maybe you haven’t. But the truth is: These statistics change things. Or at least they should. Knowing these facts should change the way we view the world and it should change the way we act towards the women around us. Especially as the body of Christ!
While we might expect that these statistics would be different within church walls, the sad fact is that they aren’t. Women in the church face the same brokenness that women in the rest of the world do. Little girls in Sunday school have already been sexually abused. Teenagers in the youth ministry have been raped. And that women within the congregation has worn long sleeves to cover the bruises left by her godly husband. But let me clue you in on a little secret: women are strong. Broken women don’t always look like broken women. Sometimes the most positive, most encouraging, most loving women are the ones that have faced the greatest hardships. And honestly, women have grown accustomed to being shut down, shut out, and silenced by the men around them, even if its in subtle ways. But this should not be, especially in the church!
Just look at the way Jesus treated women. He encountered broken women everywhere he went, in a culture where women were silenced, poor, and oppressed. In that culture, you had no hope or place in society if you had no husband. Jesus lived in a culture where sinful women were stoned, and husband-less women were poor and hungry. Women had no voice or authority in society. And yet Jesus did not treat women as society viewed them. He encountered women that were at the lowest position they could be at, and he still treated them with dignity and value. Think of the women caught in adultery. She was not alone in her sin, yet it was only the woman they brought to Jesus. To them, she was only a device they were using to catch Jesus in saying something that went against the Scriptures, and yet they intended to stone her. To them her life was worthless. But Jesus saw her and he had compassion on her. He did not speak to the men about her. He spoke directly to her. He gave her a voice. He silenced her oppressors. And instead of condemning her, he sent her home telling her to “sin no more”.
It was the same with the Woman at the Well. The woman’s first impression of Jesus was one that made her question why he was treating her so nicely. He was a man, and she was a woman. He was a Jew, and she was a Samaritan. There was no reason he should even glance her direction, much less start a meaningful conversation with her. Especially since she was such an outcast even in her own town. Even the other woman didn’t want to come collect water with her. And yet Jesus comes and starts talking with her as if none of these things matter. And even when the elephant in the room comes up, that she has had five husbands and the one she was living with now wasn’t even her husband, Jesus treats her with the utmost love and dignity. As if her worth is not defined by what she has done or what she has suffered. *Gasp* What a concept!
Not only did he treat sinful women with dignity and gave them a voice, but he included women in his ministry. Jesus had women disciples. Not within his group of 12 apostles, but within the 72 you better believe there were some women sitting there! In Luke chapter 8, it even mentions several notable women that supported Jesus’ ministry financially, which was something only men did back in that day. And as we see in the story of Mary and Martha, Jesus was delighted to have women sitting at his feet and learning from him.
It’s time we started not just reflecting Jesus in how we pray or make disciples, but reflecting Jesus in how we treat women!
The sad fact is that when we discuss women’s roles in the church, we rarely discuss these aspects about Jesus ministry. When the topic of women comes up in Christian conversations, it is mostly because we are arguing whether or not women can preach or be pastors. Where are the discussions about how we can serve our sisters in Christ better? Where are the discussions about how we can give dignity and voice to broken women like Jesus did? When did women in the church become more of a political argument than a group of broken people that we can serve?
Also, there is a very key verse in Genesis 1:27 that we often forget about: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” This does not say that God only created men in his image and women are just the icing on the cake. This is how we act sometimes, though. The verse says that men and women were equally created in God’s image. Male and female are distinct genders with unique differences to them, but both are equally created in God’s image. So to most fully reflect the image of God to the world, men and women must work together. That’s how God created it. There are aspects of maleness that enable men to reflect God is ways that women can’t. And in the same way, there are aspects to femaleness that enable women to reflect God in a way that men can’t. So to reflect God in the most powerful and tangible way possible, both men and women must be present, have a voice, and be empowered to use the gifts and abilities God has created them with.
Now I certainly hope that I’ve already challenged your thinking to some extent. I have been praying even as I write these words that God would use my writing to speak His truth to you. But I’m not going to stop here. To really make my point I need to get practical. And to do that, I need to address each gender separately. So men, forgive me. I will be addressing the women readers, but I have a lot more to say to you. This is not because I want to condemn you or point fingers at you. I know a lot of blog posts of this nature do that, and I’m sorry. I have a very different message to share with you, but you’ve got to hang in there for just a moment while I address the women in the crowd.
Women,
I don’t doubt that these statistics were no surprise for you. I know you know women who have dealt with these things and I know many of you have faced these things in your own life, and I am so sorry. I see you. Your pain is not invisible. I know that pain is isolating, but can we work to change that. What if the church was a place where pain and brokenness brought us into community? If we change the way we see other women, we can be part of changing the fact that so many women carry around this burden of invisible and isolating pain. As I was talking about this blog post with my roommate, she said something that I think is so true. “Almost all women are women in pain.” What if we saw that when we looked at the women around us? What if we let this fact inform the way we do women’s ministry? What if instead of doing tea parties where we talk about how to be the perfect Proverbs 31 woman, we hosted prayer nights where we fought on our knees for the desperate women in pain around us?
And how much more can we let this affect our relationships. When we look into the face of our friend that just said she was “good”, will we choose to see the fear and sadness in her eyes? Will we be bold enough to be good listeners? Will we hold our sisters and cry with them, even if healing is a slow journey? Will we give them space to lament and doubt why God lets bad things happen? Will we be their voice when they have no words from being silenced for so long? I challenge you from this day forward to see the women in your life differently and to let this knowledge inform your actions. If we all did this, how could we change the culture around us and be Jesus’ hands and feet to a hurting world?
Men,
I beg you to wrestle with the things I’ve said in this post and as the Lord what He is asking of you. I know many posts of this nature end by telling you to stop treating women badly. And, I mean, yes please do stop if you find yourself in that place. But that’s not what I’m here to tell you.
Instead, I would like to take this time to tell you something I don’t think you get told enough: You, as men, have such immense power and potential to positively impact the women around you. I need you to know that this is not just a women’s issue. There are women all around you that need healing, and God can use you for His glory in that process.
One example of this is shown through what God is doing to restore women who have been sex trafficked. God can bring all the women in the world to these shattered girls to minister to them, but there is something powerful in men stepping in and treating them differently then all the prior men who merely saw them as sex objects worth raping. When a man steps in and looks at her as a human and talks to her as if her voice matters, there is a certain aspect of her healing that begins that no woman could have made happen.
Men, you have the same power in the lives of women around you. In fact, I saved a specific statistic just for you. And I did so to make a very important point.
Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime. Most often, the abuser is a member of her own family. [source]
I would like to add something to this statistic, and that is this: most often the abuser is male. This is not always true. But statistics show that it is often the case. There are a lot of bad men in the world that use their position of power to hurt and use the women in their lives.
Why am I telling you this? Well first, I want to thank you for being the good guys. There are a lot of bad men in the world, but you are not one of them. But second, I want to explain why a lot of women feel like there are no good men in the world.
When a woman is so deeply hurt by a man in her own family, it shapes the way she sees all men. God created girls to grow up with their fathers and brothers and uncles and cousins being examples of what men are like. As she grows older, she will get to know more men that are outside of these roles, but the men in those roles will forever color the way she sees all men. If such a vast majority of women are so deeply hurt by the men that they are so intimately acquainted with, how are we to expect women to respond? Why are we surprised when most women find it hard to trust the men around them?
This is where I call upon the men of the church to act. God can use you to help heal and restore some of this damage that has been done. As you serve the women around you, God can start to restore their faith in men by showing them how he created men to treat women.
God can use you to remind his daughters that men were created to be
protectors instead of abusers
humble servants instead of greedy rapists
and empower-ers instead of silencers
God can use you to empower the women around you and give them a voice so they can be equally involved in reflecting the image of God to the broken world.
I know I’ve laid a lot of heavy information out for you, and now you want to know how you can fix the problem. So I’m gonna break it down for you in some really practical ways. These do not even come close to scratching the surface, which is why I ask you to wrestle with God about what He’s asking of you, but here they are:
1. SEE the women in pain around you. This sounds simple, but it makes a world of difference.
2. PURSUE the women in pain around you. I’m not using this word in the cliche romantic way we’re so used to. What I mean is don’t shy away from relationship when women fail to trust you. Trusting you is going to be very hard if she has experienced abuse of any kind from a man that was close to her. Pursue her even when she has not reciprocated the favor. Ask her how she’s doing even if it takes her a year to give you a real answer. Show her that you won’t give up on her like other men have. Show her that you care about her as a person, and not just for what benefit you can get out of the friendship.
3. LISTEN to the women in pain around you. I know you want to fix it. And there may come moments when you can step in and take action. But the most powerful thing you can do for her is listen to her talk about what she has suffered and say, “I’m so sorry that happened to you. That should never happen. I’m here.”
4. FIGHT for the women in pain around you. This can come in many different forms. One huge way you could fight for women is to stand against the things that victimize them. It’s not just a woman’s issue when a rapist gets a couple months probation instead of getting locked behind bars. It’s not just a woman’s issue when sexual assault gets blamed on what the girl was wearing that day. It’s not just a women’s issue when she comes to work flustered because a group of guys catcalled her on her way there, and now her guy friends are telling her “to be flattered”. It’s not just a women’s issue when the guys are punching each other and joking about abuse, when three of the women watching have actually been abused. These are not just women’s issues. These are world issues. And you can be a part of standing up against them. Let’s make the church known for standing up for what’s right. Let’s let the church stand out for fighting for the truth. May the church be the place on earth where sisters fight for their brothers and brothers fight for their sisters.
That’s what I’ve got. I’m sure that there is more that could be said and I’m sure that it could have been said more eloquently in many cases. But may the Lord use these words to open your eyes, and change your hearts about half of the church’s population. May we stand up for what’s right, cry with those who cry, and follow in Jesus’ footsteps even in this. May the church be known for being vastly different from how the world’s inter-gender relationships function.
I truly believe that inter-gender relationships are something Satan has been using since the Fall to cause great division and deep hurt, but we can be different.
So I ask you, what words would you use to describe the women around you? Because there’s one word you should add:
Survivor.
