On Doormats, Brain Trashing and Blow Up Dolls
I got a big kick out of the comments floating around the blogosphere after the True Woman conference last October. Many were astonished that anyone living in this day and age could possibly believe in the Bible’s directives for a Christian wife to cultivate a submissive spirit toward her husband. They concluded that the only people who would promote such an outrageous, horribly outdated notion are selfish, abusive, boorish men, or terribly misguided women who are passive, docile, and slightly brain-dead… a few bulbs short of a chandelier, so to speak.
I cut, pasted, and saved a few choice comments. Here’s a sampling:
[The True Woman manifesto is] a recipe for turning God’s beautiful, intelligent, and capable female creations into doormats. [It encourages] all women to be mindless, passive, incapable blow-up dolls doomed to a 1950s TV situation comedy existence in the suburbs.
Women are not doormats, punching bags, sex toys, cooktops or washing machines. We are individuals with a brain and any woman who follows this advice has lost her mind. And being a women (sic) with a brain, I can seperate (sic) fact from fiction and manure from the roses.
Women who would follow this crap are certifiably insane. All this does is promote exploitation and abuse of women, and if women go along with it, they just may deserve that abuse.
Any woman that would cow to such treatment has VERY low, if not worthless, self esteem issues, and should seek mental health professionals, IMMEDIATELY!!! Any husband who treats his wife as such, is not a MAN, but a selfish, emotionally-stunted-in-development, intellectually-challenged, CHILD, fixated on ego-massaging gratification, manifested in control, and domination over others – in fewer words – a real Loser !
It’s a common perception that women who believe in submission are either doormats or stupid. But I’ve believed in submission for a very long time, and I am neither. I’m a strong, opinionated, thinking woman. If you asked my friends and family to describe me, I would bet that “door mat” and “stupid” wouldn‘t appear on their lists. Forgetful, maybe (I can’t count the number of times that I’ve walked the parking lot aisles trying to remember where I left my car), but definitely not stupid.
When it comes down to it, I believe that living out biblical submission in this culture requires far more backbone and brains than acquiescing to popular reason. It’s one of the most radical, courageous, and intelligent things a Christian woman can do. Those who think that submission requires passivity, or women flicking their “brain-off” switch, simply don’t understand what biblical authority and submission are all about.
Over the next few days, I’ll provide you with a Mary’s Cliffs Notes (Or for you Canadians, Coles Notes… the guy who gave Cliff the big idea) overview of the biblical concepts of authority and submission. I think you’ll see that biblical authority is a blessing and not a bane, and that submission is the choice of the wise – and does not make women into mindless, passive, incapable blow-up dolls.
© Mary A. Kassian
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I guess the problem comes when the husband understand “initiate” as being the active role, and “respond” as being the passive role. Then he does want a wife who is passive, or at least obedient. If this man feels that his goal as a Christian is best served by his wife staying within the domestic and for the most part menial role, that is waiting on him, preparing his food and keeping his house, then she is to respond within that role only.
This woman, as I describe it, does become a doormat, because that is the response the husband asked of her.
On the more extreme end we have men who believe that in the home, the wife is not to say “no” to him. These women are totally and utterly damaged, in some cases beyond repair. These men never advance4 beyond the toddlerhood of not accepting the no answer.
This is the Christianity that I have had the privilege of observing all my life. It is the Christianity that the world sees.
There should be no church on earth which preaches submission without offering physical security guard help to the physically damaged women in the same sermon. They should be prepared to advance down the aisle and rescue the wife before the dreaded drive home from church, the hellish violence and the trauma.
I agree with you Sue. Satan tries to distort the truth of Scripture both ways – on the one extreme, those who think that authority and submission justify domination and passivity (and abuse), and on the other extreme, those who think authority and submission are inherently ungodly.
I feel sad that the former is the only type of Christianity that you’ve observed. The Christianity that I’ve observed has the power to heal women from the crazy brokenness of male-female relationships. It has divine power to build them up, restore them to a right relationship with God, and grant them freedom and joy.
Keep posted. I’ll be dealing with a lot of these thorny issues over the next few weeks.
So then we have many women who are destroyed by being on the receiving end. They are better off single. The single woman, then has no male headship obligations, especially when she knows no male Christian who has not given her damaging advice.
Yes, a woman is better off single than to marry a man who is not submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Having said this, those who are in tough situations, married to difficult men, are not without hope. The gospel has power to redeem the most difficult relationships. I’ve seen it happen!
Mary,
Thank you for writing on the topic of submission. I fear that so many women today, even among believers, shy away from the topic due to concern they will be labeled intolerant, a woman-hater, or old-fasioned at best. This breaks my heart, because as a young wife (1 and 1/2 years of marriage this month, yeah!), I can not fully express the joy and beauty I have found in embracing God’s design for us as women to submit joyfully to the loving leadership of a man seeking God’s best for both our lives.
Rather than viewing submission as a burden I must bear, instead, I find great shelter in submission. My husband values my insight on all issues and we jointly discuss every decision in life. In the end, however, it is his final decision that we go on. There is great freedom for me in this: 1) Because if it works out best, I too get to benefit from the wise decision; and 2) If it does not work out best, he carries the responsiblity of leading us down a wrong road. (This eliminates many marital battles I hear about when blame throwing occurs). My hands and heart are clear regardless of the outcome.
My worth as a woman is not determined by how much money I contribute financialy to our home or what achievements I earn outside the home (though both are greatly celebrated by my husband). Instead, I can rest knowing that he honors, values and loves me simply for who I am and out of respect for the value God-alone has placed on my life as his wife.
AMEN!
As someone once said (was it Carolyn Mahaney? McCulley? I can’t remember), it takes far more effort to be a submissive wife than it does to be a dominating one. The “brainless” job is letting my ego, my pride, my opinions, and my will dominate my relationships. That’s natural.
What’s unnatural, and God-given, is putting away “myself” and focusing on serving others: Christ, the community, and >most< importantly my husband. Even Christ did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.
You go girl, for exposing this messed-up logic!!
Submission does not mean that you become a doormat. It is supporting your husband. We are to submit to our husbands, and they are to submit to God. Our husbands are called to be servant-leaders. They are to love us as Christ loves the church (Eph 5:25); and to never treat us harshly (Col 3:19). I am not married (yet), but when I do marry I want to submit to my husband’s leadership. Submission does not mean that you have to stay at home either. That depends on your relationship, and financial obligations. If we are able I hope to be a stay-at-home-mother. I was fortunate enough to have my mother at home and very involved in my life while growing up, and hope to have the same involvement in my future child’s life.
Thankfully the pastors at my church have talked about this frequently, and while some women shut off when they say the “S-word”, many feel the same as I do.
God bless!
I am a married woman and new mother, in my twenties. I grew up in a world where women were sexually independent, financially independent, bowing to no one, and listening to the lie that womanhood is all about feeding all my fleshly desires. Believing that lie has brough much pain to me. It’s a lie that confuses women about our roles and contributions to society, making things like childbearing and being a helper to our husbands seem like demeaning and shamefull acts, relating these deeds to slavery. I know little about the feminist movement, I only know that it has contributed to the society that I was raised in. I can say this, though: there once was a time when sleeping around with tons of different guys was seen as shameful, but is now seen as liberating. There was also a time when women and men were seen as a team, complimenting eachother; a husband providing financially for his beloved wife, and a wife meeting his physical needs of being hungry after working all day, and so on and so forth. It seems now that staying home and cooking meals for your husband and children is seen as pointless, demeaning work, contributing nothing to society. I find that to be a big fat lie. Wives and mothers are raising up little minds, little souls, future leaders, future law makers, ect…
I submit to my husband because the Bible tells me to do so. If this offends people, it’s because they are not aware that the Bible also tells husbands and wives to submit to eachother. So there it is. By submitting to my husband, I’m trusting God, and being obediant, and God always blesses obediance, but it’s not in His nature to bless disobedience. God’s way for women is so freeing. Women strive, fight and labor to be seen as independent; promiscuity, being vulgar, aggressive, cold hearted towards men, this only leads us further from the nurturer God intends us to be, and leads to deeper bondage. It’s so freeing to not be held by those standards, to not have to live my life in the chains of feminist bondage. I am a woman, I dont need to go around roaring at people, because I have my purpose in Christ and am filled.
“1 Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. 3 Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel— 4 rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. 5 For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, 6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror.”
1 Peter 3:1-6.
The view you mentioned always makes me so angry! It’s a view that is centered on self… each woman putting herself first. Selfishness is at the root of sin and pride, which pulls men and women away from the Lord.
The above passage gives me so much hope! It’s saying that women can witness to men without saying a word! Women who are NOT dominating or pushy are treasured far more by their husbands (I’m just pretty darn sure of this) than one who nags or demands constantly (see the Proverbs for many truths on quarrelsome or troublesome wives ;D). It’s the idea that women are allowed to be girls and be beautiful and cherished and men can be boys who get to wield swords and protect what is precious for their entire lives instead of only in their childhoods!
I myself cannot wait until I have the chance to be married and can obey the Lord by submitting to my husband. I will submit gladly and in defiance of anyone who says that it is demeaning to women to do so!