Chapter 3
You’ve Come a Long Way Baby!

I remember well the commercial to which the author alluded. I was around ten years of age and aghast that women felt a sense of entitlement not to their own cigarette, but also to doing things their own way. The demands placed on society by the female gender have been humorous in some instances—young girls desiring to join boy’s sports teams, women demanding levels of rights previously unheard of and the list go on. Let me hasten to say that the Gospel of Christ always raises the status of women; He never intended that women be trampled under the feet of men. However for society to function effectively, God designed an order as laid out in I Corinthians 11:3-4 “The head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God.”
I believe one of the biggest problems in depicting true womanhood is television. The idealized family of the 1950’s was portrayed in Leave It to Beaver. Ward went to work; the Beav and Wally went to school, and June stayed home cooking and vacuuming all the while “dressed to the nines.” This gave way to the blended family of the Brady Bunch of the 1960’s and early 70’s, but it was still mom and dad and kids pulling together. The 1970’s provided a tremendous paradigm shift in the television family. While we laughed at and enjoyed Happy Days, but in retrospect, I cannot help but wonder if there weren’t elements of satirizing the slice of Americana provided by Leave It to Beaver. Let’s face it—Mrs. Cunningham was no Mrs. Cleaver. The women portrayed in the shows of 1990’s and 2000’s were a far cry from their predecessors, given my limited viewing experience. I believe that television tragically reflects what is happening in society. We have gone a long way –in the wrong direction. It is God who can turn the hearts of women back to the paths of biblical womanhood. Let’s not give in, give up or give out until we have pursued this plan for true womanhood.