Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

In 1975, Dobson took it upon himself to articulate the “critical difference” between men and women. “Males and females differ biochemically, anatomically, and emotionally,” he asserted. “In truth, they are unique in every cell of their bodies.” He portrayed the distinction in stark terms: Men liked to “hunt and fish and hike in the wilderness” while women preferred to “stay at home and wait for them.” Men played sports as women watched, “yawning on the sidelines.” But perhaps the most profound difference between men and women, according to Dobson, was their source of self-esteem: “Men derive self-esteem by being respected; women feel worthy when they are loved.” Five years later, in his book Straight Talk to Men and Their Wives, he expanded on this theme. Echoing Marabel Morgan, he explained that because of a man’s fragile ego and “enormous need to be respected,” together with a woman’s vulnerability and need to be loved, it was “a mistake to tamper with the time-honored relationship of husband as loving protector and wife as recipient of that protection.”