How Women and Men Can Heal the DivideSýnishorn

How We Feel and How We Live

Finding healing for the divide between women and men is not a women’s issue. It’s a human issue that runs straight to the heart of the brokenness at the center of humanity. When women are treated unfairly, not only do they suffer, but all of us suffer. The crisis has been exposed in the public realm, and with it an unprecedented opportunity for healing. We can finally stop the pain and heal the fundamental relationship between the genders. The church can have a key part in this vision for the future, pointing people to the cross where true power is on display for the deepest wounds of the world. The cross is the only place we can meet; it is our only hope of restored relationships. 

This opportunity for forgiveness and reconciliation requires movement: moving your position, prejudice, perspective, attention, priorities, or your posture. If you change nothing, nothing will change. Two areas where this movement begins is in how you feel and how you live. To act on your belief will require you to confront your fears—those differences in people that make you uncomfortable. When we take one difference and emphasize it out of proportion with our other wonderful human differences, we digress toward prejudice. It’s that simple. Sexism works the exact same way.

What if difference wasn’t something to fear? What if it was a gift rather than a threat? Gender is a difference, but it is only one difference among many. When we see each other only through the gender lens, we overemphasize that one distinction, and it distorts our ability to see each other as humans. When we can confront our fear and approach difference with imagination and faith, we quickly discover difference as an opportunity and gift. This opportunity can lead us to mutuality—our need for each other to be the best we can be for the benefit for everyone. Our difference is our strength if we will choose to identify and use it together. 

Once we face our feelings of fear and see the opportunity to build mutuality, we can start the work of reconciliation. The first step is proximity. Rather than separating ourselves from those who are different, in this case by gender, we need to build proximity where men and women can be better together. 

While there is a time and place for unique messages intended for separate audiences, on the whole, gender segregation is not helping us. We can either pretend like it isn’t a problem, or we can move toward each other. You can hold all the opinions you want on gender equality, but without an integrated leadership team, you will not be part of transforming the future. We need proximity to move toward the solution of getting to know each other, to repair what is at the deeper roots of broken relationships.

Proximity is always the best path to healing, though not the easiest way. It’s time to resist the urge to separate. Instead let’s take the time, make the space, and expend the energy to draw closer to each other.

Respond

How do you feel about the differences between women and men? How can these differences make you stronger?

How does Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross serve as a starting point for reconciling all relationships?

How have you seen proximity work in overcoming a fear? How do you see it work in building gender equality?