Complementarianism's "Equal but Different Roles" Hypocrisy

When words don't mean what they mean

Complementarianism has a big problem.

For those of you who don’t know, complementarianism is the belief that God placed men in authority over women, in marriage and the church (some complementarians only believe men are in authority in one sphere, but most believe both).

To make this belief sound kind and normal and not-at-all unfair, they use pretty words for it, like this:

God made the genders totally equal in essence, but with different roles.

Today, I’d like to take a look at that claim, and show how both sides of it—that the genders are equal, and that complementarianism is just about different gender roles—don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Let’s start with the last one first.

Do complementarians believe in different gender roles?

That’s the claim—that God created men and women for different things.

But here’s the problem: If there are honestly different gender roles, then there would be things that men can do that women can’t, and things that women can do that men can’t.

But there aren’t. In complementarianism, there are only things that men can do that women can’t (pastor, lead groups of both genders, have authority in marriage). There’s nothing that men are excluded from doing, only things that women are excluded from doing.

In Brandon Sanderson’s Way of Kings novels, the men are the warriors and the leaders, and the women are the only ones who read and write, so they are the philosophers, historians, and scientists. That’s what different gender roles would look like.

But in complementarianism, we don’t see things that women do that men are forbidden from doing; only the opposite.

So complementarianism is not about different gender roles; it’s about restricting women.

People often push back with “But women give birth!” Yes, women do. But that’s a biological function, not a gender role. You can’t say “women give birth, so men pastor” because that’s saying, “because she has this biological function, she’s excluded from this social role.” That’s comparing apples to oranges. For that analogy to work, pastoring would have to be a biological role, too, which means men would have to pastor with their penises. Which is horrifying.

I also hear people say, “But God designed men to lead and protect, and women to nurture and serve.”

Except that, as Dorothy Littell Greco shows in her new book For the Love of Women,

“Statistics show that companies with more women in their leadership tend to be more successful across many metrics, including innovation, creativity, lower turnover, and higher productivity. A 2016 study found that increased gender diversity in the highest corporate offices led to a 15 percent increase in profits. When the International Monetary Fund conducted a study of more than two million private and public companies, they found that “on average, replacing just one man with one woman in management or on the board led to a 3 to 8 percent increase in profitability.”

(And she has citations to peer reviewed studies for all of these claims too, because she’s a journalist who wrote this book the right way!)

In other words, women make great leaders.

And men make great nurturers, too! In fact, we need men to nurture. The two times the Greek word for “nurture” is used in the New Testament it’s directed at men—in Ephesians 6:4 to fathers and in 1 Timothy 4:6 to Timothy.

Though women give birth, there is nothing stopping men from caring for babies and toddlers and children, and we need men to do this! By teaching that nurturing is a feminine thing, which the Bible never does, we cut men off from an important part of themselves, and end up hurting everyone in the process.

But besides this, the argument “men lead and women nurture” doesn’t even hold up to scrutiny, because while women are forbidden to lead, even the staunchest patriarchalists don’t forbid men from nurturing.

Again, it’s not about different gender roles; it’s merely about restricting women.

Now let’s look at the other part of the equation:

Complementarians don’t believe women are equal in essence

The argument they make is that while the roles may be hierarchy based, women are still equal in essence. So while men are superior and women are subordinate in terms of roles, in terms of value men and women are equal.

They often use the example of a boss and an employee, or a pilot and co-pilot, or a lieutenant in the army and a captain. Even though one is subordinate to the other and one is superior, they are both still equal, right?

Well, sure, but this analogy doesn’t hold up. The reason a boss or pilot or captain are superior to the employee, co-pilot or lieutenant is because of a function that is true at a moment in time. An employee may one day be a boss; every captain started out as a lieutenant, and a co-pilot may be a pilot.

But a woman may only ever be a woman. She is subordinate because of something she cannot change—her very essence.

You cannot say “the genders are equal in essence,” but then make one superior and one inferior on the account of their essence.

If she is unequal because of her essence, then her essence, by definition, is subordinate and inferior.

Here’s how Rebecca Grothuis explained it in her wonderful essay Equal in Being–Unequal in Function: The Gender Hierarchy Argument:

In female subordination, the criterion for who is subordinate to whom has nothing to do with expediency or the abilities of individuals to perform particular functions. Rather, it is determined entirely on the basis of an innate, unchangeable aspect of a woman’s being, namely, her female sexuality. Her inferior status follows solely from her essential nature as a woman. Regardless of how traditionalists try to explain the situation, the idea that women are equal in their being, yet unequal by virtue of their being, simply makes no sense. If you cannot help but be what you are, and if inferiority in function follows necessarily and exclusively from what you are, then you are inferior in your essential being.

Complementarians use pretty language to obscure what they believe

Saying “equal but with different roles”—which is awfully similar to “separate but equal”—sounds much better than “we believe women are inferior to men and so we restrict them because of that.” And yet that is exactly what they believe, and what they do, even if they won’t admit it. The logic to their argument just doesn’t hold up.

And so it shouldn’t be surprising that complementarianism bears bad fruit in practice too. Women who attend complementarian churches lose the health benefits of religiosity, while men do fine.

We found in our survey of 7000 people for our new book The Marriage You Want, couples who function with hierarchy, believing that the man is in authority and should make the final decision, have lower marital satisfaction, and higher markers of emotional immaturity.

We need to stop letting complementarians pretend that their doctrine sounds fair and pretty, when it obscures something quite ugly, and bears bad fruit. Now, to be fair, I don’t think most complementarians realize they’re doing this. I think they want to believe they’re the good guys. But when you actually examine it, it’s quite ugly.

This isn’t of Jesus, and it’s okay to push back and say, “it’s wrong to believe that women are inferior to men.”

Watch this week’s Bare Marriage podcast, episode 305, for more on the way complementarians obscure what they really believe!

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You may also enjoy:

• Our podcast asking, “Are We Making a Strawman out of Complementarianism?”

• Our healthy sexuality rubric, showing how evangelicalism’s best-sellers scored on markers of healthy sexuality

• Our new book The Marriage You Want, showing what a healthy Christian marriage looks like, with a video series and study guide you can use for a small group curriculum too!

• The 5 Point Faulty Foundation in Most Christian Marriage Books

• My husband Keith’s series on the Danvers Statement, the founding document of complementarianism