Have you ever watched a little girl when she thinks she’s alone? I have four younger sisters and countless little girls I babysit, and I love to stand quietly in the doorways to their rooms, watching. My heart warms to hear the soft humming as they set up a game, the tender care for a doll, the intense concentration as they make a gift for a friend. I smile when I catch them glancing in a mirror with eyes full of either surprise and wonder or disdainful criticism. The soft sigh as they finish reading a fairytale and the glow of hope in their eyes as they dream of their own prince and castle someday. The fierce determination over a wayward piece of knitting or an unruly math problem—intent on completing their project well. The sweet concern for a sick friend or sibling, and the almost motherly delight over a new baby. There are certain instinctive desires in every girl’s heart— to be pretty, to feel loved, and to make others happy by loving and caring for them.

Like so many other girls, when I was small, I dreamed of becoming the sort of lovely woman who was not just beautiful, but also made the world around her beautiful by her spirit and the works of her hands and the love she gave to all.

What is it that makes a woman a woman, and what is it that God has called us women to be as His creation, made to glorify Him? What is the heart of biblical femininity?

Society has many definitions of what it means to be a woman, and many ways to go about discovering oneself. The feminist movement has risen up, demanding to know “Who am I?” Elisabeth Elliot shakes her wise grey head at this, and challenging us to look for the answer in a deeper place. If we look into our shallow, frail souls to find out what we were intended to be, we will only come up with handfuls of dust and no good answers. “In order to learn what it means to be a woman,” says Elliot, “we must start with the One who made her.”(Let Me Be A Woman, pg. 4) The right question, she argues, it not “Who am I?” but rather “Whose am I?” We are not free agents, able to do as we please how we please. “Womanhood is a call. It is a vocation to which we respond under God . . .” (Let Me Be A Woman, pg.53) We don’t define it. God and His Word do, and we are called to humbly submit ourselves to the principles that He lays out for us in His Word.

What we believe about God defines us. If we believe that God’s Word is truth, that God is our Creator and Sovereign, good LORD, then we are required to believe that His plan for what a woman is to be is good, perfect, and complete. We may be fallen, but we are redeemed by the good Savior to glorify Him and fulfill His purposes. As redeemed women, seeking the Lord’s good will in our lives, we are free to delight in His perfect design for us. Biblical femininity is not dull, cumbersome, or bondage-inducing. Biblical femininity is not all fierce independence and the ultimately frustrating go-go-go of climbing the career ladder (and maybe the walls). Biblical femininity is grounded in the confidence of God’s perfect will and sovereignty, His true, steadfast and personal love for His children, and His perfect, good plan for each and every woman—just as she is, a precious, beautiful child of His own, made to bring Him glory.

John Piper draws out the Biblical definitions of femininity and masculinity in his book What’s the Difference? as follows:
“At the heart of mature femininity is a freeing disposition to affirm, receive and nurture strength from worthy men in way appropriate to a woman’s differing relationships.” (pg. 22)

This is a rather dense definition (and is much better expounded upon by Piper himself in his book), but notice with me what is not said. Piper does not say that “mature femininity” means being submissive to the point of being a doormat, or a life restricted to the confines of a home. He also does not say that femininity is defined by independence or a successful career or education. Being a woman of God does not line up with the world’s standards for a successful life, but neither does it mean weakness or a bland life of spineless deference to everyone else. Mature womanhood does not bind us to the kitchen or to a dress suit. It’s freeing and God glorifying.

If mature femininity according to the Bible isn’t legalistic or feminist, then where’s the middle ground? If we’re submitting ourselves to the Word of God, we must seek out what it says this should look like. Genesis tells us that man and woman were made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), which implies equality before God. They are not the same, but they are equal in value and worth, and equally made bearing His image. Later in Genesis, both man and woman became sinners and were evicted from the Garden, equally under God’s judgment and equally sinners. Both men and women are in the same predicament of bondage to sin, and need Christ and His salvation in exactly the same way. Femininity defined by the Bible is not subservient or degrading, for both men and women are broken, crooked and fallen—sinful creatures deserving the wrath of God.

The Bible lays out complementary roles for men and women that stand firmly against the presuppositions of our feminists today, and line up with reality and nature in a glorious manner. When Adam was made, he was made first, and saw and named the animals on his own. And Adam noticed something, the Genesis tells us. “The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.” (Genesis 2:20, ESV) The story continues: “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’” Woman was that helper made just for man, and the Lord blessed them and called it very good. Man was ultimately given the leadership of their union and the responsibility for creation. Woman was made to be his helper. When they sinned, Adam, not Eve, was the one God first addressed and called to account for their disobedience. Adam, not Eve was held responsible. Biblical femininity follows this precedent set in Eden—women are made to follow, to submit, to nurture, to affirm and to receive. Men are the leaders, the initiators, the protectors and the providers.

Have you ever watched a couple ballroom dance? His strength compliments her grace. He leads joyfully, because she is following him joyfully. He initiates the dance and takes charge of where they go and what they do, and it’s made beautiful because she follows with ease and gladness. Men and women were designed to work together as in a dance, complimenting each other with joy and equally partners in the dance. There is no competition or anxiousness or demeaning the worth of the other partner, but instead a sweet union of purpose and movement that is glorious to see. God designed us for these roles, and gave us the desires and instincts that nudge us in the direction of His original intent for us as men and women for His glory.

The desires in a woman’s heart find their fulfilling in God’s perfect design for femininity. I want to be beautiful; He tells me that beauty is found in a gentle and quiet spirit (which doesn’t mean spinelessness, but humility melded with love and grace)—a gift from Him that He will give me if I ask for it in faith. I desire to be loved—He demonstrated His fathomless love for me on the cross and has redeemed me and adopted me into His family and will see to it that I have everything I need for life and godliness. I want to love and nurture others, and He has designed women to be mothers and wives and sisters and daughters and friends and called us to live in community with each other to encourage and build each other up in the faith. God has designed us to desire these things, and through His Son’s redeeming work on our behalf, we have access to the joy of seeing these good desires fulfilled in Him.

The trouble with the views on femininity expressed today is that they don’t ask the right question, and because the foundation’s crooked, the whole framework for the answers that are laid forth is faulty. We must first understand who we are in relation to God. All things hold together in Him (Col. 1:17, ESV) and that includes how we define ourselves as women. Once we have right thinking about God and how we related to Him (as His creation, made to glorify Him), then we can go on to correct faulty views of femininity. How biblical femininity looks in the details of everyday life might look different from woman to woman. But there will be uniting principles laid out in the Word of God that define it in such a way that enables us to avoid the pitfalls of crooked views of femininity.