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The Full Rights of Sons
 
Preface:My Story, 1965 - 1990.
(The following is taken from a presentation I made to the 1990 women‟s convention of my denomination. The theme for that convention was “The Women Of Our Church: 1890
-
1990.” I examined the last qu
arter century using my own experience to tell the story. I share itwith you now as an introduction to the pages that follow.)In 1965 I was twenty years old, a junior at Geneva, a small Christian college in BeaverFalls, Pennsylvania.Wore skirts almost all the time, certainly always to class or a meal. It was required.Shorts were forbidden everywhere except in the gym. A good trench coat was a necessity for
“skirting” the issue.
 I had to be in the dorm by 10pm. This was a lot of freedom compared to the freshmen
who had to be in by 9pm. But there were no rules at all for the boys‟ dorms. That was a puzzle
we had discussed numerous times at home. My parents said it was based on the theory that if you kept the girls under control, the boys would be
have. That didn‟t quite make sense, curtailingthe girls‟ freedom so the boys would behave.
 Perhaps this inequity seemed strange to me because no one in my family ever led me tothink I was inferior in any way because I was a girl. Oh, I had my share of disagreements withmy siblings, but because we were all girls, gender never came into it. We had to think of otherways to insult each other.There were four girls in our family. I remember my father took occasional ribbing abouthis lack of a son, but his responses always made me feel good. He would chuckle along with thekidding, but in the end he made it clear that he felt very blessed rather than deprived.
In 1965 I was majoring in biology and education. I don‟t remember really thinking very
hard about career choices. There was teacher and there was nurse. Now that seems like alimited selection. But rather than limiting, I think my family pushed these occupations becausethey were highly respected professions.My parents were adamant that a woman should have a profession, so she could supportherself if necessary. My grandmother had been widowed at a very young age and alwaysworked to support herself and her family, without benefit of a college education. So my motherwent to college and so did her daughters. I thought some about becoming a doctor. But I knew I
didn‟t have the will for it. I wanted to get married and I realized I probably couldn‟t do both.
 
My high school had no girls‟
sports whatsoever. In 1965 intramural co-ed volleyball was just beginning at Geneva. The girls were always very carefully selection for these co-ed teams.It helped if you had a boyfriend on a team. The rule was that a girl had to hit the ball before itwent back over the net. It was a great step forward for women in the national pastime of Christian youth groups everywhere - volleyball.My reflections on volleyball at that time include countless memories culled from manycamps and youth activities. First there was the line-up. It was always carefully choreographed.
 
 
Preface: My Story, 1965-1990
 
“Hey, there are two girls together on the back line. Get a guy in there.” You could usually
estimate your worth as a volleyball player from the line-up. It was always inversely proportionalto how good the guys were on either side of you. I can still feel the claustrophobia of the frontrow. The net right in front of me and two boys, usually taller, on either side who both went up inunison meeting as an archway over my head as any ball approached.
Perhaps you remember too. You‟re on the s
econd or third row, the ball is coming yourway, large hands fly in your face amid much shouting. Even larger bodies sail through yourperipheral vision toward you. The ball is saved. Or perhaps the ball drops through this heap of humanity with you at t
he bottom. As you all untangle and rise someone coaches you, “Don‟t beafraid of the ball. It won‟t hurt you.”
 After graduating from Geneva in 1967 I attended the Reformed Presbyterian TheologicalSeminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in preparation for going to Nicosia, Cyprus to teach at amission school. A pastor came to the seminary as a special speaker. In an informal session he
talked of his congregation‟s ministry to single women who lived together while being discipled
by other more mature women. As a part of the program the pastor, or an elder, inspected eachapartment weekly to see that things were kept in an orderly fashion. It was explained that sincethese women had no husbands as yet, they needed someone to act in that capacity to be sure theywere doing what they should.I found this truly shocking. I wanted to raise my hand and ask if these stand-in husbandswould also promise to love, honor and cherish these women for a lifetime, or was authority theonly thing husbands really did? I was furious. I was scandalized. I was amazed at theassumption that a woman needed a man to validate her work, her being.Now perhaps this pastor would have said I misunderstood, but never-the-less he wasdefinitely saying that every woman needed a man to help her run her life and keep her straight.Happily, I did not hear much more of this discipleship system. However, this was myintroduction to what I now consider to be the great backlash against women in my owndenomination and throughout the larger Christian community.For a number of years there were many Bible studies about the meaning of womanhood.I was encouraged to read the books and attend the groups. Everyone wanted to tell me how to bethe good little woman, not a good Christian teacher, not a good Christian biologist, not a goodChristian citizen, not even a good church member, just a good little women. I grew very tired of 
the issue. I didn‟t want all my Christianity summed up in my sex.
 Maybe hemlines were the real problem. Or maybe they were just a weather vane caughtin the storm. As the feminist movement grew louder and more demanding the hems went up. Iremember hearing some young men te
ll a group of high school girls they couldn‟t wear their 
skirts so short because it drove the boys crazy. Short skirts made boys think impure thoughts anddrove them mad with desire. It was thrilling to hear we girls were so desirable and powerful, yetinfuriating that again women were being made responsible for the thoughts and actions of men.Perhaps we should have thought more about modesty. Maybe short skirts really did drivemen crazy, because as the hemlines went up the rhetoric in the church about women beingsubmissive to the authority of men escalated too. This was new to me since I had grown up in achurch with a long history of high respect for the position and status of women.This high respect for women predated modern feminism by hundreds of years. Instead,feminism was an outgrowth of Christianity and the freeing power of the gospel. History showsus that every expansion of position and responsibility for women throughout the ages has grown
 
 
Preface: My Story, 1965-1990
 out of the truth of the gospel, and a maturing Christian faith. ...That women are humanity, notproperty; monogamy; fidelity for both women and men in marriage, education; property rights;and political voice. In non Christian-influenced societies these things either still do not exist, orhave been implemented in imitation of cultures under Christian influence. The roots of modernfeminism can be traced to the great Christian reforming movements of the 19
th
century whichincluded the abolition of slavery, temperance, free public education for all, and equal suffrage for
all, including women and minorities. Today‟s secular feminists, because
many are still inunbelief, have driven this movement to wrong, self-serving and destructive ends, as will happenwith any good idea apart from God.
My own experience reflected the church‟s confusion. I was taught to read. I led youth
group meetings of both boys and girls from the age of six. I became a Bible school helper at agetwelve. I was an officer of the church youth camp. I went to Leadership Training School andserved on missions projects. I attended college.When I attended the seminary I was required to take a class in learning how to preach.While my male classmates gave sermons in class, I fulfilled the same assignment by giving
„talks‟. When the men had student preaching before the faculty and student body, I did „chapeldevotionals.‟
But to someone uninformed about these crucial labeling distinctions, thepresentations looked very similar. I have written Bible study curriculums, participated in churchministries, and even served on a national church board.How could this happen? How could this happen if I really was only to be silent, alwaysunder the authority of a man or men?I believe I, a girl, was pushed, urged, encouraged to learn, do, contribute, and participatein the church because the experience of our church community, both men and women, has beenone of wonderful reconciliation in Christ. The men of the church really do love their women,
their sisters, wives and daughters. They really do respect us as individuals, created in God‟s
image and fellow-heirs with them in the Kingdom of God. They want us to develop our talentsfor the Lord. They want the church to benefit from our work, our insight, our gifts.
I don‟t think the backlash grew out of a desire to keep us women in our place or to put us
down. I believe it grew out of a commitment to orthodoxy, the dilemma of trying to make senseout of what appear to be the confusing, sometimes contradictory teachings of Scriptureconcerning women, and a great fear of liberalism in the church and feminism in the world.After finishing my preparation at the seminary I went to the island of Cyprus to teach.There I saw another culture, one where women were relegated to a lower position than I hadexperienced. Teenaged girls argued that abstinence from sex would indeed harm and injureyoung men. Boys needed to use the services of a prostitute for their education and well-being.The girls could not believe I knew of any young men over the age of fifteen who were stillvirgins. These girls thought I was naive.I thought they were brainwashed. The men of Cyprus had done a great job. Theirfreedom and promiscuity were accepted and even encouraged while the Cypriot women were notallowed to go out alone, without a father, brother or husband.The glimpses I caught of the place of women in the Islamic world were even moredisheartening. I quickly realized the position of women could be far worse than the one of dignity and respect I had always taken for granted.I was married in 1969. Now I had a man by my side. I liked it. The companionship, the
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