Can You Fix My Son?
And Other Gender Roles Perpetuated by the Church
by Jen Arens
"Can I talk with you alone?" That question is never a welcome one, but often
seems more ominous when it comes from a parent. "I need help with my son." As
the words came out of her mouth, I did a quick evaluation of her middle school
preteen. A nice kid, never really a problem, always respectful, gets a long
with others, what could be the problem? Oh yeah, he struggles a little in school—maybe
she wanted me to find a tutor for him. "Sure," I said, "what's up?"
"I need you to fix my son. He really needs help."
"Excuse me?" I asked. "I don't understand, what do you mean, you need me to
fix him?"
"His dad and I think he is really too feminine, and since you are his youth
pastor, could you show him that the Bible wants him to be more manly and tough?"
What do you say to a parent like that? Was her son too feminine? Did he need
to be fixed? Does the Bible tell us that men are supposed to be manly? Was she
actually just worried that her son might turn out gay?
Why was she asking me to fix her son? I'm a woman; what do I know about being
manly? All of my childhood insecurities came to the surface as I did a quick
personal assessment—does she see me as masculine? Is she thinking I could
make him tougher because of my infamous escapades as a soccer goalie or my college
scholarships for field hockey? Or possibly because I'm the only woman she knows
who played tuba, or maybe the fact that my booming tenor voice often resonates
through her dreams at night.
Then I thought about my own son. Just two years younger than this kid, he takes
piano lessons, dabbles in classical ballet and Irish dance. He's considered
the star of our church hip-hop group, and his only athletic pursuit consists
of dodging his mother's frantic hand jabs when the Red Wings are in the NHL
playoffs. Sure, I thought, my son's a little sensitive, but most 10 year olds
love to hold their mother's hand, hug their mothers in front of other kids,
and still enjoy skipping to school, right?
Whoa, can I fix her son? Perhaps my gender roles were the ones that were broken.
Am I too boyish? What was I doing to damage my own kid? What biblical principles
was I violating by allowing my son to be completely and totally girlie while
I'm unwavering as the ultimate in-your-face, take-charge chick? Then I thought
about it. What is girlie or manly anyway? Where did we come up with the idea
of how men and women should act? Has the church just perpetuated stereotypes
that have haunted us for centuries but have no biblical foundation? Did I, and
this kid in my youth group, as well as my own son, need to be fixed? Or does
the church need to reevaluate the way they project gender roles to their congregations?
The first thing I did was go to my on-line Bible. Certainly a high-speed cross-referencing,
concordance/commentary/lexicon (does anyone but theology students use lexicons?),
Bible-toting Web site would be the answer to all of my questions. I tried to
pull up the words masculine, feminine, and gender in 35 different translations,
and do you know what I found? Only two examples of the word gender, both of
which did not denote gender as the difference between sexes, no hits on the
word masculine, and only one quotation by Solomon to the word feminine (and
that was completely in the context of a woman's body and not her actions). So,
what does the Bible say about gender roles?
If I couldn't find the words masculine or feminine, I thought I would explore
some of the stories that provide a biblical basis for stereotypical gender roles.
You could always study Samson; every man's man—virile, macho, and downright
cool. If Samson lived today, I think he would be a lot like Joey Tribiani from
Friends. Can you imagine Delilah getting the "How you doing?" from Samson? Every
young boy dreams of becoming a guy like Samson. I mean who wouldn't want to
kill a bunch of bad guys with the jawbone of an ass (frankly, I just think little
boys like to say the word ass, but I digress). But do we really want our young
men growing up like Samson? Do we want them to be so in love with women that
they leave their morals behind? Is Samson really the gender role we want to
project to the guys in our youth groups?
And what about the young women in our youth groups? What is a story that they
can follow? Who led a life that they can emulate? What about Esther; who wouldn't
be feminine after one year of beauty treatments? She was considered beautiful
beyond compare. The king fell in love with her at first sight, but is that the
kind of woman we want our young girls to emulate? Sure, she did the right thing
in the end, and God used it all, but here was a woman who hid her faith, was
willing to become part of the king's harem (the penalty if he didn't marry her)
and, frankly, really got in the Bible because she married right. Are we trying
to teach our girls the importance of marrying right, or of being godly women?
So I probed a little further. Could I find any biblical basis against stereotypical
gender roles? Are there any stories about God's children who don't fit into
our societal norms that we have so willingly accepted?
There's Solomon; sure he was a womanizer, but he wrote some great poetry. He
wrote a lot of poetry, and the poetry he wrote was exactly what women like to
hear. What self-respecting macho man today would be able to talk to women the
way Solomon did? But then again, if Solomon lived today, the world would tell
us he was trying to hide something (wink-wink), and that he really just married
all those women as a way to fight his true feelings.
Then there was Deborah, a woman who was in leadership before Paul could tell
her she was wrong. She was tough. She was a military leader. Joan of Arc had
nothing on Deborah, and yet if she lived today, she would be taunted or teased
or even questioned about her sexuality. Can you imagine Deborah at a woman's
Bible study in your church? How would she get along with the teens in your youth
group?
When did we start accepting cookie cutter Christians? At what moment in our
church history did we decide being different meant you were weird, or even worse,
wrong? Is there a place in the church for passive men and strong women? Or have
we become strict adherents to the idea that Jesus said that men need to be the
rock of the church and women need to be the rockettes?
Did the church just bury its head in the sand during that whole affirmative
action ruling, or was there some big church summit that I missed in which people
of faith came together to decide that equal gender roles are a thing of the
world and that we do not want to be that worldly? Seriously, if you took a genuine
inventory of the ministries offered at your church, would you find equal opportunities
for both men and women? Who does the majority of the leading and disciplining
in your congregation? Do the young girls in your youth group know that there
will be a place for them in your church to serve, or do they have to resign
themselves to the nursery or Sunday school? Or, even worse, do your young men
know it's okay for them to work in the nursery or as Sunday school teachers
not just as teens, but also as a lifetime ministry opportunity?
Besides my current dilemma of being responsible to "fix" the young man in my
youth group, one of the worst issues I've ever had to deal with was what happened
to my friend, John. John was a handsome young man who spent his summers working
within my children's programs. A theatre major in college, John was the antithesis
of macho. He was sensitive, sweet, could sing like an angel, and yes, he was
a little effeminate. But gay? The thought never crossed my mind. Then one day
he asked me out for coffee. He needed to talk he said, and he was looking for
my advice. We talked for hours and finally he opened up, only to tell me a horrifying
story.
"I think I am gay," he said.
"What do you mean?" I replied, because his statement took me completely off
guard.
"Well, I never thought I was gay," he explained. "I've dated and all, but then
my youth pastor pulled me aside at our retreat and asked me if I was gay. I
mean—think about it, all the signs are there—I am in theatre, I cry
at the drop of a hat, and you know I am not very athletic, so maybe he's right.
Maybe I am gay."
"John," I said calmly, "Are you attracted to men?"
"Well, no," he said without any hesitation.
Wow, what are we doing to our kids? Why do we naturally jump to the conclusion
that anyone who is different needs to be fixed? Here was a young man who was
seriously considering changing his whole way of life because his youth pastor
didn't know how to deal with someone who was different. It concerns me that
in the Christian church as a whole, we leave very little room for non-traditional
gender roles. Additionally, it seems as if the church in general is extremely
anxious that unconventional personalities automatically influence our sexual
preferences.
So, how do we look past gender biases and into the hearts of our kids? What
do we do when a parent asks us to fix their kid?
1. Don't buy into stereotypes. We need to remember that a person's outward
personality has nothing to do with their inward feelings. There have been many
professional football players and beauty queens who have admitted to being homosexual,
and at the same time there have been many famous people with non-traditional
gender traits who have surprised the world by getting married to a person of
the opposite sex. No one can tell from outward actions how a person is feeling
inwardly. Don't allow yourself or your youth to stereotype those who don't fit
the "norm."
2. Do a legitimate self-evaluation. How do you view others who may not
fit into your own stereotypes of how men and women should act? Have you allowed
yourself to fall into the fear and trepidation about anyone who is different?
Do you sometimes judge, even subconsciously, the feelings or sexual preferences
of others just by the way they act?
3. Be open for anything. Have you already pegged the girl's soccer captain
as a lesbian waiting to happen? How would you react if the quarterback of the
football team told you he was gay? How open and ready for anything a youth leader
is will directly reflect upon your youth group's actions and thinking. If you
are not tolerant of name calling, the kid who is being teased at school will
feel comfortable sharing his hurts and pain with you. Likewise, if you do not
allow your youth group to be judgmental of others' lifestyles, kids who actually
are struggling with lifestyle choices will feel at ease with talking with you
as a nonjudgmental person.
4. Cut the crap. How do the kids in your youth group talk to each other?
How tolerant are you and your leaders of name-calling? Has the phrase, "that's
so gay" become commonplace in your youth group? Would a homosexual teen feel
welcome amongst your kids if he was seeking Jesus, or would he feel isolated
and rejected?
5. Remain calm. This is probably the best advice anyone can give. Don't
jump to conclusions about what any of your kids are dealing with. If a kid in
your youth group was dealing with substance abuse or even being an extreme gossip,
how would you handle it? Most likely you would deal with either issue in a calm
and nurturing manner. Kids struggling with gender issues or sexual preferences
are in need of the same kind of treatment. If a teen comes to you with these
struggles, don't blow it off as something they will get over or something that
is a huge catastrophe. Deal with it in the same manner as you deal with all
youth issues. Love them first, and above all, remain calm.
So, how did I deal with the parent who wanted me to fix their kid? As a Deborah-like
woman, I wanted to tell them to…um…I guess I couldn't say that as a youth worker,
so instead I was honest. I told them that as a kid, I was a person who could
have gone either way with my lifestyle choice. I told them that if my parents
had nagged me about being too tomboyish, I probably would have rebelled and
become more masculine than I already was. Most likely, as a teen, if my parents
had harassed me about my mannerisms, I would have emphasized those mannerisms,
because teenagers often do things just to tick their parents off. I also told
them that my job was not to "fix" anybody but love them for who they are. My
job, and the job of every parent, is to give our youth moral compasses that
they can follow, and hopefully because we have shown them love and compassion
despite their uniqueness, they will grow up believing they are loved by God
for who they are and not for whom the world tells them to be.
Jen Arens is an urban youth worker for The Salvation Army. Her San Francisco
neighborhood, original home of the U.N, is home to youth who speak 19 languages
and come from 52 countries.
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