Q&A Forum - April 2011 (best of Elise)

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You are totally correct in that men have perverted religion and have used it to rule over women. A woman will not obey a man on her own because she knows he is not superior to her, yet a woman will submit to a man if she believes that by doing so, she will be pleasing God. Thus the woman is not submitting to a man, but she is submitting to God. The patriarchal system has used women’s spirituality against them by instilling into them that the will of God is for men to rule. This thought process begins when a woman is a little girl and innocent. She looks up to her natural father and she believes that all men will love her like her father. She is told that God is her heavenly father and she should obey men, especially her husband, because that will please her heavenly father. It is not easy for a woman to overcome that kind of religious and societal programming that is passed down from generation to generation.

Likewise, a man who has the desire to submit to women has difficulty reconciling his desires with his religious upbringing because he believes that to submit to a woman is to sin against God. This makes no sense when one reasons this out and when one studies the scriptures as they were originally written. But tradition is such a powerful force. The religious man with the desire to submit to women struggles because his inner man wants to submit to women but he must wrestle with that need to be accepted by God and society.