Be a man challenge: Real men don’t beat their wives. Real men act respectfully with women. Real men help around the house. Real men don’t make family decisions without discussing it with their wives. Are you a real man?
The thing about living in a huge and overcrowded city in India is that you can’t really hide your life. Many parts of it are often on display, because there are so many people around, and in and out of your house at all times. I remember one of the Ending Gendercide (EG) staff recall what a stir it caused in his neighborhood when he decided to hang his family’s wet laundry out to dry on the balcony. What in the world?! A man hanging laundry? A husband doing housework? I also remember when my Hindi teachers, a young married woman and her sister-in-law, told me after months of coming to my house at lunch time to do lessons with me that they found it funny and kind of shameful that my husband was getting our lunch ready in the kitchen while we were studying. It should be my responsibility. It’s not men’s work.
For some of the past years the EG team conducted the above-mentioned “Be a man challenge” on March 8th, International Women’s Day. They handed out little notes like that, confronting people’s ideas of what a real man is like and daring them to cross some boundaries and be different. This year they wanted to take it a step further and challenged men to spend more quality time with their families, to take their wives out on a date, to open a bank account for the women, and to be interested and engage in activities their wives enjoyed.
The pastors who have been part of the EG church training preached about issues around women on that first Sunday in March based on stories from the four gospels. They encouraged their congregations to respect women and live out the truth that they were made in an equally valuable way by God. The sermons drew attention to the way Jesus treated women and the role women played in His ministry.
It has been encouraging for the EG staff to see change in some of the participants through the course of the training. For example, one pastor has recently started bringing his wife along to the training. It might seem like a small thing to a Westerner like you and me, but it is a big and important step in the culture here. As he explained, “It means that I find my wife important, she can do more than housework and caring for the children, she can learn, and I want her by my side to grow with me.” Change is slow and often subtle, but we need to celebrate and be thankful for the good steps we see!
What struck me in our last conversation with the EG team is this realization they had: We are not trying to start a movement of men who cook and clean. That is just one small aspect of what a healthy and gender-equal society looks like. And as we kept on talking, I envisioned a strong, tall tree in my mind. Husbands who share in the housework is one flower on that tree. Fathers who spend time with their children is a beautiful fruit. Marriages devoid of domestic violence and growing in love and understanding is a strong branch. But the roots are the beliefs, the way Indian culture sees the world and everything in it. That’s where all else grows from.
Looking at all the different social, spiritual and cultural issues that need change and solutions will overwhelm (and does regularly overwhelm) all of us. How will all these long-standing traditions change? How can we help eliminate dowry, abortion, the preference for boys, husbands ruling it over their wives? What seems to be God’s way of bringing change is forming communities of people who grow together in studying, living out and reflecting His character. We let God examine our hearts and seek how our lives, our daily practices and relationships, our core beliefs and family traditions manifest His ways. Then as church families who are learning and growing, we let and invite others to see and participate in our changing lives.
There are many churches here where people worship God and testify with full hearts of His healing love. It is wonderful. But often many aspects of believers’ lives remains unchallenged and unchanged. Violence against women, the giving and receiving of dowry, aborting baby girls might go on just the same in churches. There is a deep need for discipleship, for sound teaching, for accountability, for honesty.
One of the most important roles of the EG church trainings is to provide a safe space for pastors and church leaders to be honest about their own views, questions, temptations and struggles. These times of training and then one-on-one conversations help bring self-reflection and possibilities for change.
So as we reflect on International Women’s Day in India, let us not just pray for the individual issues concerning women, although certainly we should do that. But let’s plead for church leaders and church families to dive deeper in growing in His character, His heart, and His ways. “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” (Col 2:6-7)
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