Gender Roles Are a Result of the Fall

“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” 1 Corinthians 15:22

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In the beginning, God created a world where man and woman were perfectly equal. Both were created in the image of God, neither above the other. There were no gender roles – no “you must do this because you are a  man and you must do that because  you are a woman.”

Then Satan came and threw a wrench into everything.

We talk about the results of Satan’s meddling as a “fall”. A fall implies a transition to a lesser state. The fall introduced sin and death into the world. It also introduced gender roles. Far from being the will of God, gender roles are a telestial invention, yet another messed up part of living in this lone and dreary world. God is good, and a good Being does not subjugate half of humanity to the other half for all eternity just because a pair of people ate a fruit they were told not to eat. [1]

When God describes the condition of the newly fallen world to Adam and Eve, God isn’t describing the blessed and eternal state of how things should be. What we get is a recitation of the state of mortality – the warning label on Earth life.

Here are some of the effects of the fall that we see in the scriptural account:

Adam is told that he will have to sweat and toil in order to eat
Eve is told that she will have pain in childbirth
Eve is told that Adam will seek to rule over her
Sin is introduced into the world
Death is introduced into the world

The Good News is that Jesus came to reverse the effects of the fall and to restore us to the equality that existed at the time of the creation. We talk a lot at church about how Jesus saves us from sin and death. We also understand that advances in science are gifts from God to improve our lives. Many fewer people have to scrape out an existence of subsistence farming. Many fewer people experience pain and death in childbirth. We rightly rejoice in these developments.

We see the other effects of the fall mitigated, yet people still insist that female subjugation is the will of God.

How do we ascertain the will of God toward women? By observing the example of Jesus Christ, who is God With Us. [2] Jesus said “the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.” [3]

Jesus rejected gender roles. He treated women with the dignity, equality, and respect that is owed to individuals who bear the image of God. Three of the most striking examples are how he related to Mary of Bethany when she wanted to learn the word, how he replied to a congregant who praised His mother Mary for her fertility, and how He described Himself.

Mary of Bethany

Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, wanted to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn the word of God. We often read the story as a domestic squabble between sisters about who was going to do the dishes, but the story is much more revolutionary than that.  At the time, the privilege of sitting at the feet of a Rabbi and learning the Torah was reserved solely for men. Mary was transgressing the gender role society had imposed upon her. Martha approached Jesus confidently, sure that Jesus would back up her attempt to enforce gender roles on Mary – because after all, everyone knew gender roles came from God. Jesus responded radically. While he was, as always, kind and loving to all parties involved, he made it clear that Mary was not doing anything wrong by seeking to do something that society, even religious society, had reserved for men. He praised Mary for her choice. “Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” [4]

The congregant who praised Mary of Nazareth

Jesus preached a sermon that those assembled received with joy. At the end of the sermon, a woman in the congregation was so moved that she exclaimed about Jesus “Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.” [5] This unnamed woman expressed her joy at the message of Jesus by praising the breasts and uterus of Mary – reducing her to a reproductive object. Basically, Mary was praiseworthy because she was fertile and produced a righteous son. Jesus responded, again kindly and gently, that praiseworthiness is not a result of fertility. It is a result of righteousness. “[R]ather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.” [6] A woman’s honor does not come from her body, her fertility, or the life choices of her children.

How Jesus described Himself

When Jesus described His despair at the wickedness of society, lamenting that He wishes He could have done more to save them, He used maternal imagery. ” O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” [7] The Son of God chose to describe His love for humanity in terms society would deem female. If gender roles came from God, why would God made flesh transgress them?

Conclusion

When Jesus taught us how to pray, one of the things He instructed us to pray for is “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. [8] As we see from the life and ministry of Jesus, assigning people to roles and tasks based on gender is not the will of God. And when we become Christians, we are to reject those roles. We are reminded that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” [9]

If someone were to assert that God requires all men to be farmers because God told Adam at the fall that he would till the earth, we would laugh at the ridiculous argument. Asserting that God requires women to be subordinate to men and to devote their pursuits solely to hearth and home because of what God told Eve is equally ridiculous. It’s convenient to those in power, but it is in contradiction to the example of Jesus, who was perfect.

We can’t baptize inequality and call it good. Declaring gender roles to be the will of God is taking the name of God in vain. Gender roles came about as a product of a fallen world. Jesus came to remove the effects of the fall, so insisting that God requires adherence to gender roles is a rejection of the marvelous atoning power of Christ.

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[1] Not to mention, in Mormon theology, we’re taught that Eve did a good thing, not a bad thing, so punishing her, and by extension all other women, for doing a good thing is illogical and ridiculous. It also flies in the face of the spirit of the Second Article of Faith. If men aren’t punished for what Adam did, why would women be punished for what Eve did?
[2] Matthew 1:23 – One of the names of Jesus is Emmanuel, which means God With Us
[3] John 14:10
[4] Luke 10:42
[5] Luke 11:27
[6] Luke 11:28
[7] Matthew 23:37
[8] Matthew 6:10
[9] Galatians 3:28, emphasis added