I’ve been thinking about a column my wife read to me a
couple of days ago called The War on Men, by Suzanne Venker. Her ideas led me
to wonder if men and women really do have natural talents and inclinations
towards traditional gender roles.
Our parents and grandparents seem to think so. In their
eyes, a woman’s primary role is that of caregiver. This is based on the
assumption that women have natural talents men don’t have. Men’s role in
society is that of ambitious career-seeker to provide for his family. We live
with these enforced gender roles because we buy in to society’s assumption that
men are better at one thing, while women are better at another. Media creators
know they can get an easy laugh simply by combining a man and a baby. Look, he’s
holding a bottle! Look, he’s duct-taping a diaper! That’s ridiculous, isn’t it?
Women have it just as bad in film and television, where to
have a career is synonymous with being selfish and stuck-up; the higher the
office, the higher the heels, and the louder the walk. Think Sandra Bullock’s
character in The Proposal before she finds the joys of family…in the family’s
mansion, in an Alaskan town owned by the family. Even Cruella Deville would
grow a heart under those circumstances.
But the career-woman stereotype will have to disappear
because now, for the first time, women have surpassed men in the workforce.
Women do better in school and get more advanced degrees than men. This feminine ambition is nothing new, however.
A close reading of Genesis shows us it’s merely a rebirth of the actions of Eve,
who I think was the world’s first feminist.
Shortly after God made Eve, her and the serpent have a
conversation:
2. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the
fruit of the trees of the garden:
3. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of
the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it,
lest ye die.
Eve’s explanation to the serpent fascinates me. Not only has
God commanded her not to eat; he has commanded her not to touch. Why
would Eve receive this second commandment which Adam did not? Could it be that God
knew the temptation of His knowledge would be greater for Eve than for Adam?
Was Eve the ambitious one in the Garden of Eden?
The serpent responds:
4. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not
surely die:
5. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then
your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as the gods, knowing good and evil.
6. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for
food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make
one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her
husband with her; and he did eat.
She ate the fruit in her desire for knowledge. And that
knowledge probably included the realization that she would be kicked out of the
Garden of Eden for her disobedience. But why did Adam eat?
And he [God] said, Who told thee that thou wast naked?
Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not
eat?
And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with
me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
The words “to be with me” give Adam’s motives away. He knew
he needed to cleave unto his wife, and the only way to do that was to
gain her knowledge and follow her out of Eden. He traded the comfort of the
garden for the toils of living by the sweat of his face. He adapted. But
it took the ambition of Eve to push Adam forward. That’s why it is not good
that man should be alone.
Feminism is not the end of men. It is an opportunity for
men. It gives us a chance to do what societal norms never allowed of us: to be
a fulltime father, or a part-time employee who leaves early to pick up his kids
from school and start dinner. We can
finally show the world we are more than one-trick ponies. Let’s fight sleep to
rock a crying baby and cut the crusts off of
sandwiches. At the front door, let’s hear “Daddy, I’m home!” for a change. Let’s
make that old joke about the guy who can’t change a diaper obsolete.
