A short time ago I was signing up my family for a new phone plan. I commented to the lady who was assisting me that the holder for the phone I was getting was very well designed. She responded, "A woman likely designed it." And, of course, she made me think. (If my sons are reading this, they'll say, "Yeah, so what's new?)
Stereotypically, it seems as if women tend toward the pretty and men toward the practical. ("Stereotypically" means "in many cases", so please don't offer the exceptions and please go back to the first sentence.) Buy a guy a power tool (practical) and he's happy. Buy a woman a vacuum cleaner (practical) and she's miffed. Buy a woman a ring (pretty) and she's happy. Buy a guy a sweater (pretty) and he's miffed. I see it over and over. Men tend toward the practical, and women tend toward the decorative.
It seems, in fact, that there are many such differences between men and women. One of the most obvious is in how they relate to children. Women are the ones who nurture; men are the ones who discipline. (Now, before you jump on that, realize that my own mother is an exception. Go back to the first sentence.) Generally speaking, women are the comforters, and men are the disciplinarians.
We could go on and on about these differences. You, of course, could likely throw up a barrage of exceptions. I suspect, however, that you know as well as I do that God made men and women different. Here's my suggestion: Maybe that was a good thing.
Think about it. Let's say a man and a woman got together to do something simple like design a purse. A man would design it practical, and a woman would design it pretty. If they worked together on it, you would have a purse that was both practical and pretty. Is that a bad thing? Too often, you see, we think it's "either/or", when more often than we care to realize, it's "both". Do children need nurture or discipline? The answer is, "Yes!" Thus this odd design by "nature" (known to us theists as "God") of a two-parent (male and female) family. Children need both nurture and admonition. Hey, wait, maybe that's not an original concept on my part:
Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4).Interesting. So children need both nurture and admonition.
Too much time, in my opinion, is spent trying to dispel the differences between men and women. I say, "Why not embrace the differences?" I would venture to guess that the Designer knew what He was doing when He made Man and Woman. I would further venture to guess that if we worked with our differences, the products of that work would be far superior to anything we try to turn out in conflict.
2 comments:
Exactly; the lines today seem to be very blurred, (I guess we have feminism to thank for that?) but men are men and women are women, with distinct and sometimes subtle differences too. Many women can do many things as good as most men, but, sadly it seems often today, we have a society that doesn't recognize the gifts both men and women can bring individually based on their gender, and expect it to be a one size fits all kind of thing. Yet, it never is.
Also in part, it may be not just feminism at the root, but there is a breed of man today, (and not just in these days but going back a little) who side steps all responsibility in the family as the head of the house, and is just a passenger really; and all family affairs, nurting AND discplining of children is left to the mother; and she's as good as a one parent family in many ways, in how the father opts out of his duties. As men seem to marry often, and then expect to carry on living their lives as they always had done as a single person. Sadder still, you see this now extending to some women in families too. And that's even more against the creation for a woman to put her pleasure before her family, IMO, than many things even today.
but we generally seem to have a gender blender society where the lines between each have become very blurred.
Yes, isn't it sad when we blur the distinction between men and women which blurs the distinction between father and mother which allows Man, in his sinful condition, to go the next step and say, "Well, I'm not going to do anything that is required of me ... as a father or a mother." One sin seems to lead to another.
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