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What Makes a Woman a True Woman?
- 10/15/10
- 8
What is a true woman? How does a woman earn that one-word descriptor of true? It occurs to me today that as a culture we really have no hope of answering the question. After all, we have trouble defining a woman, not to mention a true woman.
In today’s A La Carte post I shared a link to a story about a transgender golfer, a “woman” who used to be a man. Lana Lawless, a former SWAT team member, was born male but underwent gender reassignment surgery (also known as a sex change operation). She changed her name (I’ll use the female pronoun here simply for sake of ease), changed her genitalia and now lives as a woman. And as a woman she now demands the right to participate in sports as a woman.
Society plays along with all of this. We all call her a “she” and society demands we do so. If she says she’s a woman, she’s a woman. Period. That’s her right. Don’t be old fashioned and pretend that chromosomes and genetics and genitalia define us. We can be who we feel we need to be.
But there’s a problem. Lana is a golfer, you see. She is a pretty good golfer and it may just be that some of her success owes to the fact that she has the body and the muscle of a man, even while saying that she is a woman. Society may tell us that Lana is not a man, but it can’t erase the fact that a man’s body is very different from a woman’s body (even if we can remove the male genitalia and replace it with something that looks like a woman’s). And so she is suing the LPGA, demanding recognition as a woman—demanding the right to compete as one.
And really, I think I have to side with her on this one. As long as our culture continues with the insanity of pretending that gender is not innate, that gender is something that can come and go (I’ve heard that some university health centers no longer ask if you are male or female but instead ask you to describe your gender history), it seems to me that she ought to have the right to say, “I’m a woman because I say I’m a woman” and have the right to compete on that basis. We can’t have it both ways.
To loop back to where we began, I wonder, how can we possibly understand what a true woman is if we can’t even figure out what a woman is? Paula Hendricks of Revive Our Hearts hit the streets to ask people what a true woman is. Here are the results:
Confusion reigns, doesn’t it? That’s why I’m thankful for the True Woman Manifesto. It may not completely answer the question, but it is certainly a very good beginning. In the midst of all the confusion, it roots womanhood in the purposes of God. And when we begin at the right place, we’ve already half won the battle.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
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Comments (8)
A true women is one that fears the LORD.
“And really, I think I have to side with her on this one. As long as our culture continues with the insanity of pretending that gender is not innate, that gender is something that can come and go (I’ve heard that some university health centers no longer ask if you are male or female but instead ask you to describe your gender history), it seems to me that she ought to have the right to say, “I’m a woman because I say I’m a woman” and have the right to compete on that basis. We can’t have it both ways.”
But why concede that in the first place? Why not just look at “society” and the folly of assigned or constructed gender, and say, “That’s stupid”? And then form your view on Mr. Lawless’situation from an accurate standpoint, rather than based on a concession to an accursed kind of confusion.
I realize you’re not conceding it in point of fact, but you seem to be conceding society’s position on it and going from there. But why do that? You wouldn’t say “as long as society has decided that the unborn are non-persons, how can we insist people not kill them? We can’t have it both ways.”
I chafe at definitions like Victor’s, since it reduces women who don’t fear the Lord to what? Fake women? False women?
On some level I feel like a woman is a woman is a woman, even if she does things one might consider extremely atypical (and/or sinful) for a woman to do. A lesbian Anglican priest is still a woman, despite operating far outside God’s plan.
On the other hand, there are some genetic cases that make it harder to determine from a purely physiological standpoint. For instance, people born with both sets of genitalia. Women born with a Y chromosome. Etc. Parents sometimes have to choose, at birth, whether a given child will grow up as a boy or as a girl. Do these children already belong to one gender, and the parents “choice” is essentially a false one? Or are they something different, neither male nor female? Or do the parents actually assign the child’s gender in a very real and theologically significant way?
The words “true” and “false” don’t always means “real” and “non-real,” though. A false teacher isn’t someone who isn’t really a teacher, for example. Saying someone has a true heart does not imply that most other people are running Jarvik-7s.
So a “true woman” isn’t so much “one who is truly a woman, as opposed to one who isn’t,” but a woman who is “true, rather than false” in her person. And it seems me that fearing the Lord is the beginning of being “true” in that sense. Calling someone “false” in that sense is rather out of fashion, but maybe it shouldn’t be.
My concern is that they are saying that a sister who would take exception to - or even modify - any element of their “manifesto” isn’t a “true woman.”
Biblical womanhood has gone from being a “female who is a disciple of Jesus Christ” to being a woman who fits certain norms or believes certain things about how a Christian woman ought to behave.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ, I want to be a woman who is true. That is, I want to be without artiface, honest, committed to living and proclaiming truth, faithful and God-fearing. I want to display the One whose image I bear and in whose likeness I am created with increasing accuracy.
I’m increasingly concerned with the subtext of the “biblical womanhood” movement - a subtext that seems to say that we are all supposed to “measure up” to or judge our value in comparison to someone other than Christ. Whether a True Woman blogger or any number of other prominent evangelical womens conference speakers, it seems like there are many Christ substitutes set up for evangelical women to model themselves after - in a way that leads to condemnation rather than grace. Women can come away w/ a new set of moralistic commands that threaten to crowd out Christ in our hearts. I’ve been tempted so many times this way that I usually avoid Christian women’s books / events now. Christ + changing your name + baking bread + natural childbirth + breastfeeding + coloring your hair right + daily exercise + homeschooling + perfect wifely sexual availability / initiation / flexibility + helping husband w/ his goals + doing bible study early in the morning + ironing his shirts + (and every speaker seems to have her own pet “plus”)…
None of these things are wrong and many of them are very good but they are not what makes one a Christian woman or disciple of Christ. And one can be a Christian woman without doing some of these things at all and without doing any of them like so-and-so does.
I attended the True Woman conference and must say that in no way were we encouraged to emulate what these other women are and that thought never even crossed my mind. The Bible is clear about how a woman is to “behave” as was used earlier in the above post. The problem is that women have not been taught what the Bible says. I am so thankful for the ministry of Nancy Leigh DeMoss and her fellow co-workers in Christ for bringing forth the truth of scripture.
This video shows that women have no idea of who they are. For me it took years to figure out what is my role in this world.
What I have learned that is the true womanhood brings happiness and inner peace to a woman because she fulfills her divine purpose.
Like some of the other commenters, I’m very uncomfortable with the idea that we get to define what a true woman is and isn’t. We’re the creatures, not the Creator. All definitions of who and what we are, are given by and grounded in Him.
And what does this definition do to women who aren’t believers? Is it supposed to draw them to Christ in the hopes that someday they might just get to be “true women”? (I’m suddenly reminded of Pinocchio and his wish!) I’m afraid that the implication that they aren’t already “true women” is more likely to push them away.