What is a female? By dictionary definition a female is the one of the sexes that bears young and possesses feminine traits. What do feminine traits consist of? Feminine traits can be displayed physically or in a personality. Just a few traits considered ‘womanly’ are: submissiveness, weakness in any area, emotional responsiveness, sensitivity, and passiveness. Those are just the basic ideas of femininity, understood throughout almost the entire world to be related to femaleness.

Now that we’ve gone into what the dictionary says about females and what qualifies one as being feminine, let’s stop fooling everybody and really define what a female is and what societal roles they played in biblical times and roles they are playing now, and roles that they are supposed to avoid in today’s world.

Society expects certain things of women: what they must do, what jobs are best suited for them, and that women must accomplish everything and raise a family, too. Society also dictates that certain reactions are appropriate only for women in certain situations. The Bible, on the other hand, states clearly what a woman is to be. What is a woman, or more specifically a female, according to society in America today? What was she to be in old times? Do the Bible’s ‘old fashioned’ ways still apply to women today? First let’s take a look at the biblical definition on women.

A woman is a mother (1 Tim. 2: 15), as she has been for hundreds of years. She is supposed to be there for her children when they need her. She is to have a listening ear for their troubles and help to resolve them. She is to guide them along with love, yet be firm that they obey the rules that are set by her and her husband. She is to punish them fairly when the rules are broken to show that actions have consequences. She is to teach them the word of God, filling them with love for the Father, and teach them of right and wrong. She is to defend them when they are innocent and support their choices, even if they lead away from the right path; for a mother should also allow her children to live their lives and learn from their own mistakes. Above all she is to love them unconditionally no matter what errors they make. She does this with confidence and affection to show her love for God.

A woman is a good wife (Prov. 31: 11-13), a helpmate to her husband. She is a confidant, one who will never reveal his secrets or break his trust. She is to be there when he needs her and to try to help if she can. She is to obey his rules with respect and a humble heart, understanding that he is to be the head of the family. She is to be faithful to him and run the house under his leadership. She is not to shame her husband, but to be a good, honorable wife. She does this in submissiveness and respectively to show her love for God.

A woman is a housekeeper (1 Tim 5: 14), the ruler of the house beneath her husband. She oversees the cooking and the cleaning. She is to watch over the servants and to order the household as befits her vision. She is to do this with great care to show her love for God.

A woman is a provider (Prov. 31: 14-16), but not in the same sense as the husband. She is to make sure her family is taken care of. She is to purchase the foods to be cooked and make sure that her family is as comfortable as the situation allows it to be. She makes sure her family has clothing to wear and food to eat. She does this with surety and humbleness to show her love for God.

A woman is modest and does not needlessly decorate herself (1 Tim. 2: 9-10) (1 Pete 3: 3-4). She knows her good works will make her beautiful in a way that will not fade with age. She does this full of humility to show her love for God.

Though these, and other, virtues are highly respected and strived for by women in the Bible, today’s society has made many of them seem unattractive to women. “Why should we have such standards forced on us? Why must I have children? Why must I get married? I don’t want to!” Those are the excuses women give today, encouraged by feminists.

“I don’t want to have children!” Children are a blessing from the Lord. They are our inheritance, yet we reject them for our own plans. Society show that children are a burden, taking up time that could better be spent trying to put men below them “where they belong” or working to make more money. A woman is encouraged to ignore motherhood in favor of other pursuits that will supposedly bring happiness, even if it means killing an unborn child to avoid the ‘burden’, while it is stated that a woman “shall be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.” (1 Tim. 2: 15) That means that a woman will have a filling life if she raises children; she doesn’t have to act like the ‘man.’ But today, that is what she is striving to be.

“My husband and I are equal in our marriage! He shouldn’t call all the shots!” A woman is to be submissive to her husband. Feminists play that as the sexist card. They call out loudly that a woman is not inferior to a man, as the Bible suggests, and that we should have ‘equal rights’ all around. They twist what the Bible says about women. A woman is not inferior to the man, but it is her role in life and the marriage to be, not only submissive, but willingly submissive to glorify God. That is God’s purpose for her, not the implication that the man is superior and the woman inferior. A woman is under her husband’s leadership, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t need her help. A husband needs his wife just as the wife needs the husband. That is the way God intended it.

“Why should I have to take care of the housework?” Feminists make a point of bringing up how certain tasks are labeled for women and complain that women shouldn’t be the only ones who do them. After all, if women can be the ‘man’ of the house now, can’t the man act the ‘woman’ as well? It seems they are trying to completely reverse the way the household is supposed to be run. It’s not that a man can’t cook or clean, but he is meant to be the breadwinner of the home.

“How can I provide for my family if I can’t be the breadwinner?” Proverbs 31: 15 states in some translations of the Bible that the woman is to ‘provide’ for her family. Feminists use this verse to argue that women are allowed to work just as the man is. ‘Provide’ in this sense means to make sure the family has the food and clothes they need. She goes and buys them with the provisions her husband brings in with his work, which he trusts her to do. It means she does her duties to take care of the house and all in it.

Perhaps the most twisted of the Lord’s commands for women is the one for modesty. The attire of women today is much too revealing, leaving, as my mother says, “nothing to the imagination.” Shirts cut too low, shorts cut too short, and feminists and women everywhere will argue that “It’s my body! I can do what I want with it!” This immodesty has led down a path of sexual impurity so deep that even young girls do it “because all the big girls do it.” Women are to show modesty for the Lord’s glorification (1 Tim. 2: 9), but society has made women nothing but sex symbols. Why then are women so angry when men get the wrong signals? It was them who wanted to be so immodest.

Women argue for their rights, feminists try to redefine, not only what the role of a woman in society is, but in essence a man’s role, and all the time the most important rulebook is ignored. Things have changed much through the long years. The question is whether women can handle the consequences of the changes they’re trying to enforce. I most definitely would say, with all due respect to my fellow females, that the answer is no.