We love to put each other into little boxes. Correct or not, it seems as though they make us easier to understand.
And if you grew up in church culture, chances are you’ve been taught a whole list of things about men before you had a chance to verify any of it yourself.
Though most of it comes from a good place, it turns men, even Christians, into a stereotype.
So, here are 7 things women of God were led to believe about men that aren’t necessarily true!
1. Lust Is Every Man’s Battle
These words get repeated so often, you’d think they’re part of scripture itself!
They reshape how we view the men in our lives. Although they might be following Christ, we’re taught to assume the worst before even getting to know them.
Instead of seeing a complex person, we’re conditioned to see someone who constantly has to fight sin and lose.
It’s far from the full picture, but it’s the identity many Christian women assign to men they barely know.
Clearly, tentazione is real for everyone, but it shouldn’t define a whole gender!
Men deserve to be seen as capable of being whole and pure-hearted.
If we don’t believe that’s possible, then how do we even define what a good man is?
2. Men Need Respect, Women Need Love
This little formula gets recycled all the time, and I’m not sure if it’s more offensive to women or men.
It suggests that men need nothing but admiration and performance to thrive, while women need nothing but tenderness.
As though we’re not complete individuals, who need both love and respect to be truly happy!
There are even certain Christian influencers who model this idea in their own relationships, and they strike everyone as positively miserable.
Splitting these natural emotional needs between genders is simply shallow.
It also gives men permission to stay emotionally guarded, and leads women to settle for receiving gifts and chivalry, without ever feeling entitled to genuine respect.
And of course men need tenderness and adoration. They want to be understood and pursued, just like the rest of us.
3. Men Have Physical Needs, Women Have Emotional
Another harmful stereotype that more and more Christians and right-leaning people are buying into.
It teaches both genders that the only way for men to feel connected is through physical touch, which is both limiting and dangerous.
It makes emotional connection feel like a neat addition, but not something that’s necessary. And more pressingly, it turns physical connection into something non-negotiable.
This kind of mindset creates marriages, especially among Christians, into arrangements that don’t allow much choice for men or women.
Women are taught to always be presentable and up for anything, and men are taught not to explore different ways to feel loved.
This is far from real intimacy, and it also promotes the dynamic where a couple doesn’t view each other as complete individuals, but as needs to be fulfilled.
4. Even Christian Men Get Reduced to Their Basic Instincts
This might be the most dehumanizing implication, and you can hear it in the media, among friends, and even in church!
It paints men, Christian or not, as moved solely by physical drive, with emotion and intellect tacked on as an afterthought.
But that’s simply a lie.
Men are complex individuals, with beliefs, principles, feelings, and desires. Neither one of these needs to be singled out as their defining trait.
And while Christian women are taught to assume the worst about strange men, this kind of view also penetrates our relationships.
We shrink men down to their instincts, so we stop expecting real complexity from them, and we stop giving them space to express it.
Then, after all that, we wonder why men struggle to open up and get in touch with their feelings.
5. Men Don’t Possess the Same Depth Women Do
This lie is sneaky because it sounds like a compliment to women, but it’s actually not.
You can often see men painted as people who have no real appreciation for beauty, unless they can somehow use or consume it.
The line between appreciation and oggettivazione gets completely erased.
Good men can look at a sunset or a beautiful person and simply appreciate what they’re seeing instead of needing to possess it or make it all about themselves.
Christian women are frequently taught to accept this as the status quo, but we should counter it by remembering that Jesus was a man, as well as His disciples.
How can we connect this shallow view of men with them, who were so pure, devoted, deep, and willing to sacrifice everything for a higher principle?
When we assume men can’t help themselves around beauty, we end up glorifying shame and policing women’s bodies, instead of raising our expectations.
6. Men Don’t Have Inner Peace
For decades now, Christian women have been taught to lower the bar. The image of a godly man became someone who could successfully keep his demons suppressed, most of the time.
That is such a bleak way to view half the population!
It overlooks the wholeness, kind deeds, genuine integrity, friendship, and so many other things that help a man create his inner peace.
Avere higher expectations gets labeled as modern and feminist, as though deciding that the bare minimum is already too much to expect isn’t actually offensive.
Another reason I can’t make peace with this stereotype is that I remember dozens of male thinkers and poets from history whose work shows they understood inner peace.
7. Men Don’t Have a Romantic Side
Christian women have been taught, subtly and not so subtly, to overlook how much men long for romance, too.
Somewhere in our collective imagination, romance became a girly thing, something that boys are shamed for liking.
A romantic man is frequently labeled as a simp, or there are questions about his true agenda. God forbid that a man enjoys doing things for others without expecting something in return!
If you bother to look beyond the surface, you realize that so many men wish to be pursued, appreciated for who they are rather than what they can provide.
When we don’t make room for that, we teach men that wanting closeness and romance makes them less masculine.
That’s one way to create miserable relationships.
A little Aquarius, devoted to writing and embroidery. Through my writing, I hope to empower readers to align with their true selves and navigate life’s mysteries with confidence.