There is Hope
April 22, 2006 Posted by Roger Overton
If the way I’ve described the roles and purposes
of men and women are accurate, then in a culture that has sought to distort
these roles any attempt to restore them should produce some positive results.
If the root problem has to do with man’s sin, then repentance of sin is part of
the solution. That is, we must restore the God crafted roles that sin has
corrupted. God knew what He was doing when He created men and women as He did;
meaning greater peace and joy will come from fulfilling what God has decreed.
God is God, and the culture’s attempts to deviate from His moral will can only
bring further devastation.
But we can go further than, “It will work because it’s what God intended.” I
think I can offer something more empirical. My dear friends Mark and Claire
have two beautiful daughters, Abigail and Sophia. Half the times I go over to
their house the girls are running around in pink or blue princess dresses. It’s
not because their parents are really weird, they’re not, it’s because the girls
want to be princesses. The beauty and magic of the fairy tales have captured
their imaginations and left them wanting more. They want the stories to come to
life, and they themselves want the starring roles.
Claire’s said that in many of the kid’s clothing shops they go to the princess
items are the most popular (since I don’t frequent kid’s clothing shops I’ll
take her word for it). It’s been a long time since Disney has produced stories
like Cinderella, The Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty, but their continued
success as products is a testimony to the timeless values they commend-
goodness, beauty, and truth. As long as these products remain popular we can
have hope.
Little girls, and perhaps big ones too, still want to be princesses. They still
long to look beautiful, to live lives that have a twist of fantasy and magic,
and even, to some degree, be rescued by Prince Charming. They are our little
Ariels, Princess Auroras, and Cinderellas, but where are their Prince Erics,
Philips, and Charmings? Who will rescue them? Where is the boy’s counterpart to
the girl’s dreams of princess hood?
Spiderman. I still see little boys running around Spiderman shirts, shoes and
toys. For years no prince or gentleman role model has been available for boys
(unless someone could point some out to me). That is until Spiderman was reborn
onto the big screen. Sure boys really like the web shooting, wall climbing and
fighting in the films, but the gentleman’s themes of self-sacrifice, humility,
loyalty and honor are so deeply embedded and apparent that they cannot be
ignored.
We can find hope in our children, in their dreams of becoming princesses and
Spiderman, but we would be remiss if we simply hoped. Too many other cultural
factors invade their imaginations and destroy the virtues the stories give
them. We must continue to seek the transformation of culture, tearing down
philosophies of men to proclaim the knowledge of God. And we must model
Christ-like living in our own lives. By God’s grace, there is yet hope.
Related posts:
- Book Review: An Emergent Manifesto of Hope
- Link Wars: A New Hope
- Interview with Devin Brown, Part II
- On the Equality and Inequality of the Genders
- Some Problems Feminism Helped Cause…
- Interview with Mary Kassian – Part II
Posted in Culture, Gender Issues, Main Page, Roger's Posts
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April 23rd, 2006 at 9:36 am
Exactly right Roger. My daughters all are CRAZY about the princess stuff. My mother-in-law tells me when she and her husband where raising kids in the 70s and early 80s Disney's princess line was passe b/c the feminists objected for the same reasons you and I find the current trend heartening.
Disney gets some credit for that, though I know they have more than one motive (not that there's anything wrong with that). And they still produce movies that have the same message as the Aristocats and Lady and the Tramp. The wayward roaming male needs to be responsible and, dare I say it, domesticated (but NOT feminized of course).
April 27th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
Roger, you're much to kind. Yes, my girls love to pretend they are princess. EVERY friend they play with also wants to be princesses.
You're right, it's much more fun to play “princess” when you have a prince.
In fact, part of the fun for them is when “prince philip” comes and kisses them, to wake them from their “sleep”.
It often strikes me that the point is that they need to have the masculine counterpart, to play off of that for the feminine princess.
We believe more and more that the “role” I play as Father and MALE, really helps then to understand how to fulfill their desires to be females.
I could go on and on.
April 27th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
While I agree that the resurgence of the princess thing is good, I also think such things can be taken to extremes. When boys are prone to think that girls must be pencil-thin beauty queens, it can be incredibly damaging to girls as they get older. Similarly, when girls think that boys must be like Spiderman, the Peter Parkers of the world lose out. I think our approaches to virtue need to have a balance which elevates the ideal but maintains an awareness of the fact that nobody will be able to live up to those virtues all the time.
August 5th, 2006 at 8:36 pm
You seem to combine two things which are not necessarily linked. Should little girls ideal be a 'pencil think beauty queen' at all? Certainly that is nothing of what I want for my daughters. The Proverbs 31 woman, as exemplified in their own mother, my lovely wife, is what I point them too.
I disagree that we need to 'balance' virtue per se with our children. Children need to idealize, and then as they grow older in maturity and wisdom they naturally see the strengths and weakness of those in authority over them… except for Christ, the perfect model. We should strive to 'be perfect' as we are instructed; our failures can be brought to Him, we need not anticipate them.