Recently I was speaking with a female staff member about another Christian school that – though a good school – has experienced more crises than ECS. She immediately quipped back to me, “That’s because of our men.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, drama just doesn’t gain traction with our men.” She then proceeded to rehearse a couple of recent examples where women were spiraling up drama until it hit one of our men and totally died. And none of this was crisis-level drama, just run-of-the-mill drama that didn’t get to swell into anything spectacular.
I’m not saying women are the problem any more or less than men. But when over-masculinization or over-feminization take hold in institutions or cultures, bad things follow.
In a recent article for Compact Magazine, Helen Andrews argues that the increasing wokeness in our culture is largely owing to the majority feminization of fields like academia, media, law, and medicine. Some of the stats are rather surprising, and the whole article is worth a read. Though Andrews does not appear to be a Christian, she’s definitely conservative, and her observations are both compelling and incisive.
Now, you may be looking ahead at the length of this article and going, “Oh no. Where’s he going with this…?” Fair question. The fact that Andrews’ is doing a polka on thin ice says more about the ice than the dancer. Why is this such a hot topic? Because she’s onto something.
I sincerely appreciate the women that we have working with us at ECS. Their presence is both welcome and helpful. Women with backbone help to promote the right sort of manliness even among the men while also fulfilling a vital role in any culture, including a school. That’s good!
But I also appreciate our men. When a little boy scrapes his knee at recess, it’s often a big girl who ushers him to the office where a woman (probably) will help patch him up. When that same little boy throws a pine cone at that same big girl at the following recess, it’s usually a man who privately counsels him on how to honor women. Both are important! If the men did all of this work it would not be as good as when the ladies share the load. Sometimes a boy needs some Neosporin and a band-aid, but sometimes he just needs to rub some dirt on it and get back to the game.
What Andrews is talking about is not the physical presence of men or women in the institutions as much as the over-feminization of these institutions (of which the female majority population is a symptom). When institutions are marked by feminine virtues, they are often institutionally frustrated. If institutions are a plant, women are water for the plant and men are the soil. While the illustration only goes so far, what happens when you have no soil? Nutrient-poor soil? No water? Too much water? Right. It doesn’t work.
I agree with Andrews that over-feminization in our culture is a big problem. In fact, it’s actually worse that Andrews suggests, because she makes no mention at all of the feminization of the Church which is perhaps a more harrowing example than all her examples put together. Still, acknowledging these issues does not require that I hate women (like Mrs. Andrews. Ha.).
But what about ECS? Glad you asked.
We are trying to provide a context for the flourishing of our students. If they can flourish in our walls, receiving an excellent academic education from an unapologetically Christian worldview punctuated with rich music, deep fellowship, playful laughter, and appropriately rough handling, they will do well when they leave. Those who have developed an appetite for meat are not easily satisfied with milk. Likewise, we are wanting for our students to flourish and then to pass that cultural baton to their own children.
Keeping the peace is a “peace” of cake compared to fellowship. All you have to do is establish who is afflicted and submit to her. Easy! There’s no need for repentance or figuring out who is actually right or wrong. This is a terrible and dysfunctional inheritance to hand our children.
Consider another example you could see in a school like ours. In a freshman Omnibus class, Janet declares that she’s offended by something thought-provoking suggested by Susie, demanding that Susie apologize. Susie has a choice: She can A) apologize, keep the peace, and tread lightly from now on, or she can B) respond that it was but a suggestion to provoke thought, which it evidently did.
And by the way, the rest of the class is paying rapt attention to this, taking notes for future reference.
But fortunately, the teacher in our scenario is not easily manipulated and puts the ball back in Janet’s court. His shepherd’s crook is ready for Janet:
- Janet, what do you find offensive about Susie’s comment?
- Should Susie’s aim be to not offend you, or to pursue the truth?
- If Jesus was offensive, should our aim be to avoid giving offense, or to avoid giving needless offense?
- Is Susie’s comment causing you or anyone else injury?
- How would you refute her comment using reason and Scripture?
If feminization held sway in this class, Susie would need to apologize for causing offense before any forward movement occurred. Rather, in this class, the masculine engagement in civil debate evidences that the pursuit of truth is the aim, and everyone is better for it.
Let me reiterate: institutions, fields, and communities need both masculine and feminine contributions by men and women. I could easily write an article about the abuses of over-masculinization, and the problems to follow would be dire…but that is definitely not our problem, no matter what the feminists say. Our problem is not too much initiative, nor too much sacrifice, nor too much rigorous debate in the interest of the truth and a way forward. No, our problem is the omission of these ingredients, as they’ve been replaced with emotionally-driven decision making and women who step into the void left by lazy men. These women are bearing a load different from what they’ve been designed to carry, and it’s as sensible as a man carrying a baby under his T-shirt.
As image-bearers (and especially as Christians), we get to glory in the uniqueness of manliness and womanliness as a display of God’s glory in creation. When one is neglected and the other is over-emphasized, things get out of whack.
What we see in today’s woke culture is a great example. Andrews says this: “Everything you think of as ‘wokeness’ is simply an epiphenomenon of demographic feminization.” She later remarks, “Everything you think of as wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine: empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition.”
Andrews is right: We must get our priorities straight or we too will suffer the consequences. It may not be the case that the masculine nerve our ECS is entirely owing to the presence of men on our teaching staff, but it sure helps! Having our men standing at the gates during recess or at the doors during lockdown drills brings a sort of sacrificial stability that is a good example for our younger men as well as a context in which all the students can be secure.
Even if we need to keep getting better, may ECS feature both godly masculinity and femininity.
Risus est bellum.
Jonathan