2021.05.09 | Woman as Warrior
Bulletin for May 9, 2021
“Woman as Warrior”
Rev. Pepper Swanson
Eden United Church of Christ
Today’s scripture reading reminds me of a favorite passage from the novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It’s been included in every movie version I’ve ever seen and I think I’ve seen them all so you may remember this one if you’ve seen any of the movies.
Miss Bingley, with the help of Mr. Darcy (still in his reserved judgmental phase), spells out the true upper class definition of an accomplished woman:
“A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, all the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved,” said Miss Bingley.
“All this she must possess,” added Darcy, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”
To which Elizabeth Bennett (still in her I can’t believe I’m talking with these snobby people phase) replies: “I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any.”[1]
In the 2005 movie version of Pride & Prejudice, Elizabeth’s next line was altered slightly to modern standards and she says bluntly: “I never saw such a woman. Surely she would be a fearsome thing to behold.”
I think it’s highly probably that today’s scripture reading evokes much the same response from millions of women who have heard it read many times in Church on Mother’s Day.
Being a latecomer to church and then trained as a lectionary preacher, it wasn’t until I started researching today’s reading, which I thought was interesting, that I realized I had stumbled into quite the Christian tradition of reading “Ode to a Capable Wife” on Mother’s Day. There are probably some women among us who have endured this reading many times before and silently or publicly declared: “Well, that’s not me and if you ever see a capable wife, she’ll be a fearsome thing to behold.”
So to provide us a little relief from the very high praise heaped on the idealized woman in Proverb 31 and how she is or isn’t like us, I will attempt to debunk a few ideas about this passage:
First, it’s not really an ode to any particular woman or to all perfected women. Most of the Book of Proverbs is an ode to the mysterious Lady Wisdom (capital W), who is the personification of wisdom (small w), i.e. “smarts.” There are many theories about Lady Wisdom and her appearance here in Proverbs. She may be the Biblical version of other Middle Eastern wisdom goddesses such Ma’at or Isis and/or she may be the precursor of the Greek Sophia (feminine) or Logos (masculine) philosophical concepts of wisdom and logic which found embodiment in Holy Spirit and Jesus, especially in the Gospel of John. After 30 chapters of instruction on how to embody wisdom if you are a man, the Book of Proverbs concludes with this lengthy passage on how it might look if Wisdom was embodied in a woman.
Second, in the debunking category, the word that we often see translated as “capable wife” is the Hebrew words “eshet hayil,” which the editors Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler of the Jewish Study Bible point out would be better translated as “woman of strength.” since “hayil” refers to strength of all sorts, including military prowess and bodily strength as well as all other emotional and psychological powers.[2]
The Protestant feminist theologian Katherine Bushnell, an expert “sex bias” in Biblical translation rips the translation bandaid off “eshet hayil” more quickly by pointing out that “hayil” “occurs 242 times in the Old Testament and is translated “army” and “war” 58 times; “host” and “forces” 43 times; “might” or “power” 16 times; “goods,” “riches,” “substance” and “wealth” in all 31 times; “band of soldiers,” “band of men,” “company,” and “train” once each; “activity” once; “valor” 28 times; “strength” 11 times.
Those are just the noun forms. As an adjective, it is translated “valiant” and “valiantly” 35 times; “strong” 6 times; “able” 4 times; “worthily” once and “worthy” once.
In other words, “hayil” is obviously a Hebrew word that is translated as strength or prowess or might, excepting the four instances in which the word is used in describing a woman, when it is translated as “capable.”[3]
While Proverbs 31 may not be an ode to a capable wife, it is an ode to a certain ideal woman who is more warrior than capable.
Third, whether she is capable or a warrior, a wife or goddess, it’s important for modern Biblical readers to ask themselves: is this a realistic portrayal of womanhood, marriage and parenthood? One parent (the mother) is off at the market, buying real estate, planting vineyards, running her business, supervising her household staff, selling her cloth and the other parent (the father) is happy, well-dressed, and spends his time sitting among the elders of the land. Modern mothers and fathers would be right to wonder: if this is the model woman in the model marriage, who’s taking care of the children?
It is often said that the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed our economic inequalities, showing us the disparities between low income service workers and middle income office workers. The pandemic has also revealed and exacerbated something else we haven’t wanted to look at or deal with: gender inequality, both here in the US and worldwide. Consider just a few less-than-fun facts about how the pandemic has impacted women:
The McKinsey Global Institute reports: “By our calculation, women’s jobs are 1.8 times more vulnerable to this crisis than men’s jobs. Women make up 39 percent of global employment but account for 54 percent of overall job losses. One reason for this greater effect on women is that the virus is significantly increasing the burden of unpaid care, which is disproportionately carried by women. This, among other factors, means that women’s employment is dropping faster than average, even accounting for the fact that women and men work in different sectors.”[4]
The Kaiser Family Foundation reports: “One in ten women report quitting a job due to a pandemic related reason and almost half said that one of the reasons was because they felt unsafe at their workplace. School closures had a substantial effect on working mothers’ ability to fulfill work obligations. One in ten working mothers with children under 18 said they quit a job due to COVID and half of this group cited school closures as one of the reasons. Three out of ten working mothers said they had to take time off because school or daycare was closed. In addition to juggling new, increased home and work responsibilities, many women went without pay due to school closures. Almost half (47%) of working mothers said they took unpaid sick leave because their child’s school or daycare was closed. This rose to 65% among low-income mothers and 70% among those working part-time jobs.”[5]
And closer to home, the San Jose Mercury News reported: “Between March and May 2020, the number of Black women working in California declined 23 percent from the previous three-month period, while the number of Latinx women working dropped 22 percent, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data from the California Budget & Policy Center. That’s nearly twice the rate of Black and Latinx men and more than three times the rate of white men.” A full year later, the Mercury News reported that Bay Area has recovered less than a third of lost jobs and that a full economic rebound was years away, which could mean financial disaster for many of the women of color who lost jobs in the initial phase of the pandemic.[6]
Perhaps the only positive aspect of this dire news about COVID’s impact on women is that the McKinsey Global Institute reports of three possible scenarios for addressing inequality of women (those being: do nothing, take action or wait to take action), taking action now was the clear winner for women and for the global economy as well.
As they report: “The best option is the “take action now” scenario, which amounts to a substantial economic opportunity. Policy makers would take decisions, in 2020 and beyond, that would significantly improve gender equality over the next decade. We estimate that the global value of achieving best-in-region gender-parity improvements by 2030 could lead to $13 trillion of incremental GDP in that year, an 11 percent increase relative to the do-nothing scenario. Across our six focus countries, the increase ranges from 8 percent to 16 percent. This scenario would also raise the female-to-male labor-force participation rate from 0.61 in 2020 to 0.71 in 2030—with the creation of 230 million new jobs for women globally, compared with the do-nothing scenario in 2030.”
Thirteen trillion dollars and 230 million new jobs for women globally could be achieved by addressing five policy areas that affect women and their ability to participate in the economy the most: education, family planning, maternal mortality, digital inclusion, and unpaid care work. For example, in just the area of unpaid care work, which we have seen radically impact women during COVID as they left the workforce to care for children unable to attend school, not only is it time but there is a significant economic benefit to:
Provide employer- or state-funded provision of childcare or tax policies that encourage both spouses to work
Adopt family-friendly policies, including flexible programs and part-time programs, to support workers experiencing an increased childcare burden during the pandemic and beyond
Rethink performance reviews and promotions, as well as senior- and middle-management buy-in to ensure the widescale adoption of changes
Professionalize the childcare industry, with public-financing support, and
Change social norms about who bears childcare responsibilities[7]
And, that’s just one policy area that needs to be addressed now, rather than later, for women so they can not only provide for themselves and their families but also so they can contribute to rebuilding the economy both here at home and abroad.
My friends, all women can be capable and all women can be strong and all women can be warriors, whether they are wives or mothers or not. Jane Austen would add: But, let’s be realistic — we should wonder why so many women must struggle to meet their daily needs, let alone the high standards of an economy that doesn’t seem to value their work or their families or, for that matter, their marriages.
In this, our scripture reading gives us good advice: There is wisdom in recognizing and rewarding female strength. There is wisdom in remembering that we all benefit when women are strong. And there is something beyond wisdom in building a family, a society, a world where everyone is given the opportunity to learn, to grow, and to succeed. Amen.
[1] Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, New York: Barnes & Noble, 2003, p. 39
[2] Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, The Jewish Study Bible, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 1497
[3] Katherine Bushnell, “Sex Bias in Translation” (lesson 78) in God’s Word to Women: One Hundred Bible Studies on Woman’s Place in the Divine Economy (Oakland, CA: Katharine Bushnell, 1923), n.p.
[4] McKinsey, COVID-19 and Gender Equality, https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/covid-19-and-gender-equality-countering-the-regressive-effects#, accessed May 7, 2021
[5] Kaiser Family Foundation, Women, Work, and Family During COVID-19, https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/women-work-and-family-during-covid-19-findings-from-the-kff-womens-health-survey, accessed May 7, 2021
[6] San Jose Mercury News, Black and Latinx Women, https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/13/coronavirus-black-and-latinx-women-in-california-have-lost-work-at-three-times-the-rate-of-white-men, and Bay Area Recovery Years Away, https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/03/17/covid-economy-bay-area-jobs-recovery-years-away-tech-hotel-restaurant, both accessed May 7, 2021
[7] McKinsey, COVID-19 and Gender Equality, https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/covid-19-and-gender-equality-countering-the-regressive-effects#, accessed May 7, 2021