Disclaimer: This post doesn’t apply to married women. When I refer to women below, I mean young, unmarried women. But I’m just going to say “women” for brevity’s sake.

Are women really more moral than men? Let’s take a look at the attitudes of men and women on five of the most prominent moral issues of our time: gay marriage, divorce, abortion, war, and crime.

Gay marriage, divorce and abortion

Here is Pew Research on gay marriage as of 2016:

Women favor gay marriage by a margin of 58% compared to only 52% for men.

Here is the Austin Institute on divorce in 2014:

Women initiate about 70% of divorces, even though they freely chose the man they married, and vowed to stick by him through all circumstances.

Here is Gallup on abortion as of 2015:

About 75% of young, unmarried women vote for the Democrat party – the party of unrestricted, taxpayer-funded abortion.

Abortion ignores the needs of unborn children. Same-sex marriage ignores the need of children for a mother and a father. Divorce devastates children, causing all sorts of negative effects. Men are more willing to judge all three of these bad behaviors than women. Men are more concerned about protecting the weak than they are about feeling compassionate and being perceived as “tolerant”.

What about war and self-defense against criminals?

Women are also more liberal than men on war and self-defense. You can just look at what happened in the Middle East to the Yazidi girls who are being raped and sex-trafficked to understand the consequences of this anti-war viewpoint. To be anti-war when the war is just is to be pro-evil. Just ask the Christians being tortured and murdered in Syria whether they are happy that American troops were withdrawn from Iraq. Just ask the victims of crimes like rape whether they wish they had been armed when they were attacked. Men are tougher on terrorists and criminals than women are.

Blaming men for what women choose to do

This data shows that men should be challenging women to improve their views on these important issues. But Christian pastors and scholars often discourage men from challenging women on moral issues, preferring to blame men when women take the wrong side of moral issues.

For example, here’s Mark Driscoll explaining how men are to blame for single motherhood:

Part of it is the unintended consequences of divorce. Forty percent of kids go to bed at night without a father. Not to be disparaging toward single moms, but if you’re a single mom and you’re working 60 hours a week, and you’ve got a boy, and he’s home all by himself with no parents and no dad, he’s just going to be hanging out with his buddies, feeding himself pizza rolls.

The number one consumer of online pornography is 12- to 17-year-old boys. What that means is he’s home eating junk food, drinking Monster energy drinks, downloading porn, masturbating and screwing around with his friends. That really doesn’t prepare you for responsible adulthood. That’s a really sad picture, especially if you’re a single gal hoping to get married someday. You’re like: “Seriously, that’s the candidate pool? You’ve got to be kidding me.” That’s why 41 percent of births right now are to unmarried women. A lot of women have decided: “I’m never going to find a guy who is actually dependable and responsible to have a life with. So I’ll just get a career and have a baby and just intentionally be a single mother because there are no guys worth spending life with.”

This practice among Christian leaders of blaming men for the actions of women is one of the major reasons why women have the views that they do on abortion, divorce, gay marriage, just war and self-defense. Men have been cowed into silence by man-blamers like Mark Driscoll and James Dobson. This message actually weakens the moral leadership of men, and creates a worse world.

This lack of moral leadership by men is particularly problematic with “pro-life” men who try to blame men for abortion. Abortions occur (in non-rape cases) because a woman makes two choices: 1) choosing a man who only wants recreational sex, and 2) choosing to have recreational sex with a man who has shown no interest in commitment or parenting. Speaking as an unmarried virgin somewhat advanced in years, there are plenty of good men out there who don’t believe in sex before marriage, and who have prepared very well for the traditional male roles of protector, provider and moral/spiritual leader. If women insist on choosing the wrong men, and choosing to do the wrong things with those men, it makes sense to hold them accountable. The bad men were bad before the women chose them, and so they should have been recognized and avoided by the women before any need for abortion occurred. A woman cannot expect a bad man to suddenly turn into a good man after he is given recreational sex. Recreational sex does not make a man who is not interested in marriage and children somehow become interested in marriage and children. And women need to be told this by pro-life men who are not cowards.

Men really need to shed this perception that there is something wrong with them, and challenge women on areas where they have immoral views. Men: don’t let yourselves be manipulated into silence in order to get affection, approval or sex. If you must have affection, approval and sex, then choose a woman who puts moral standards above feeling happy and being perceived as compassionate.

Disclaimer: This post doesn’t apply to married women. When I refer to women below, I mean young, unmarried women. But I’m just going to say “women” for brevity’s sake.

Are women really more moral than men? Let’s take a look at the attitudes of men and women on five of the most prominent moral issues of our time: gay marriage, divorce, abortion, war, and crime.

Gay marriage, divorce and abortion

Here is Pew Research on gay marriage as of 2016:

Women favor gay marriage by a margin of 58% compared to only 52% for men.

Here is the Austin Institute on divorce in 2014:

Women initiate about 70% of divorces, even though they freely chose the man they married, and vowed to stick by him through all circumstances.

Here is Gallup on abortion as of 2015:

About 75% of young, unmarried women vote for the Democrat party – the party of unrestricted, taxpayer-funded abortion.

Abortion ignores the needs of unborn children. Same-sex marriage ignores the need of children for a mother and a father. Divorce devastates children, causing all sorts of negative effects. Men are more willing to judge all three of these bad behaviors than women. Men are more concerned about protecting the weak than they are about feeling compassionate and being perceived as “tolerant”.

What about war and self-defense against criminals?

Women are also more liberal than men on war and self-defense. You can just look at what happened in the Middle East to the Yazidi girls who are being raped and sex-trafficked to understand the consequences of this anti-war viewpoint. To be anti-war when the war is just is to be pro-evil. Just ask the Christians being tortured and murdered in Syria whether they are happy that American troops were withdrawn from Iraq. Just ask the victims of crimes like rape whether they wish they had been armed when they were attacked. Men are tougher on terrorists and criminals than women are.

Blaming men for what women choose to do

This data shows that men should be challenging women to improve their views on these important issues. But Christian pastors and scholars often discourage men from challenging women on moral issues, preferring to blame men when women take the wrong side of moral issues.

For example, here’s Mark Driscoll explaining how men are to blame for single motherhood:

Part of it is the unintended consequences of divorce. Forty percent of kids go to bed at night without a father. Not to be disparaging toward single moms, but if you’re a single mom and you’re working 60 hours a week, and you’ve got a boy, and he’s home all by himself with no parents and no dad, he’s just going to be hanging out with his buddies, feeding himself pizza rolls.

The number one consumer of online pornography is 12- to 17-year-old boys. What that means is he’s home eating junk food, drinking Monster energy drinks, downloading porn, masturbating and screwing around with his friends. That really doesn’t prepare you for responsible adulthood. That’s a really sad picture, especially if you’re a single gal hoping to get married someday. You’re like: “Seriously, that’s the candidate pool? You’ve got to be kidding me.” That’s why 41 percent of births right now are to unmarried women. A lot of women have decided: “I’m never going to find a guy who is actually dependable and responsible to have a life with. So I’ll just get a career and have a baby and just intentionally be a single mother because there are no guys worth spending life with.”

This practice among Christian leaders of blaming men for the actions of women is one of the major reasons why women have the views that they do on abortion, divorce, gay marriage, just war and self-defense. Men have been cowed into silence by man-blamers like Mark Driscoll and James Dobson. This message actually weakens the moral leadership of men, and creates a worse world.

This lack of moral leadership by men is particularly problematic with “pro-life” men who try to blame men for abortion. Abortions occur (in non-rape cases) because a woman makes two choices: 1) choosing a man who only wants recreational sex, and 2) choosing to have recreational sex with a man who has shown no interest in commitment or parenting. Speaking as an unmarried virgin somewhat advanced in years, there are plenty of good men out there who don’t believe in sex before marriage, and who have prepared very well for the traditional male roles of protector, provider and moral/spiritual leader. If women insist on choosing the wrong men, and choosing to do the wrong things with those men, it makes sense to hold them accountable. The bad men were bad before the women chose them, and so they should have been recognized and avoided by the women before any need for abortion occurred. A woman cannot expect a bad man to suddenly turn into a good man after he is given recreational sex. Recreational sex does not make a man who is not interested in marriage and children somehow become interested in marriage and children. And women need to be told this by pro-life men who are not cowards.

Men really need to shed this perception that there is something wrong with them, and challenge women on areas where they have immoral views. Men: don’t let yourselves be manipulated into silence in order to get affection, approval or sex. If you must have affection, approval and sex, then choose a woman who puts moral standards above feeling happy and being perceived as compassionate.

Disclaimer: This post mostly targets young, unmarried women.

Let’s start with famous pastor Mark Driscoll explaining how men are to blame for single motherhood:

Part of it is the unintended consequences of divorce. Forty percent of kids go to bed at night without a father. Not to be disparaging toward single moms, but if you’re a single mom and you’re working 60 hours a week, and you’ve got a boy, and he’s home all by himself with no parents and no dad, he’s just going to be hanging out with his buddies, feeding himself pizza rolls.

The number one consumer of online pornography is 12- to 17-year-old boys. What that means is he’s home eating junk food, drinking Monster energy drinks, downloading porn, masturbating and screwing around with his friends. That really doesn’t prepare you for responsible adulthood. That’s a really sad picture, especially if you’re a single gal hoping to get married someday. You’re like: “Seriously, that’s the candidate pool? You’ve got to be kidding me.” That’s why 41 percent of births right now are to unmarried women. A lot of women have decided: “I’m never going to find a guy who is actually dependable and responsible to have a life with. So I’ll just get a career and have a baby and just intentionally be a single mother because there are no guys worth spending life with.”

First, notice how Driscoll is apparently clueless about the fact that many single mothers have lots of children precisely so that they don’t have to work, and can just live off of welfare. But that doesn’t fit his narrative.

My main point, though, is that the Bible says that premarital sex is wrong for men and women, but Mark Driscoll knows better – he thinks that it is only wrong for men. And that the consequences of it can all be blamed on men. Driscoll also says that Christian women who choose to have recreational premarital sex with non-Christian men should expect those men to commit to them. He also has said men should not pass over single mothers, although the sociological data shows that single mothers are more likely to divorce if they do marry, which is bad for men financially. The same is true for women who cohabitate – there’s a higher risk of divorce if they do eventually marry the person they are cohabitating with.

If you look at the sociological data, single motherhood by choice is extremely harmful to the child- we should not be condoning this by telling women “it’s not your fault, it’s the fault of bad men, so just go on and keep choosing bad men!” As my friend and fellow woman-blamer Dina would say, “No, Baby, No!”

To respond to this problem, here is a post was written by Lindsay.

First the picture she posted:

Now here is what Lindsay says about the image above:

Focus on the Family recently posted this meme on their page.

At first glance, many people might be tempted to agree with it. But the statement in the poster is actually false.

The truth is that there are plenty of loving, gentle men who are worthy of respect but whose wives are not responding properly to their love and gentleness. Plenty of women have fallen for the feminist ideas that they should never submit or let a man lead them and will be difficult to live with, no matter how wonderful their man is. Even among women who are not feminists, it’s difficult for many women to follow a husband’s leadership because our sinful nature is in rebellion against God’s plan.

Submission and following our husbands is something that must be learned, not something we’re born with or develop naturally. Women aren’t naturally good and kind any more than men are. We’re all fallen. We have to work to develop good habits and learn to do what God wants of us.

It certainly is easier for women to follow a loving, gentle man, but the poster is wrong in assuming that the only barriers to a woman following her man are his flaws. That simply isn’t true. Women also have to overcome their own flaws that stand in the way of the proper relationship they were meant to have.

Unfortunately, this attitude that women are naturally good and that men are the flawed ones that need to change is very prevalent, even among Christians. Imagine the outrage people would have if the scenario was reversed and the poster said something like this:

“Men are usually comfortable being kind and loving to their wives if their wives are submissive, keep up their appearance, and respect them.”

People would be up in arms over such a statement that assumes that men are always wonderful if women will just behave as they should. Why is it any different if the assumption is that women are always wonderful if men are behaving properly? Both are wrong. Both sexes are responsible for their own actions, regardless of what the other person in the marriage does.

Note that the Bible does not qualify the command in Ephesians 5 that women should submit to their husbands by making it conditional on anything that a man has to do. A man has separate duties, and those are not conditional on anything a woman has to do, either. He has to get up and go to work to provide for the family, whether she does what she is supposed to do or not. It’s a moral obligation. The command to not deny each other sex except temporarily and by mutual consent is not conditional on anyone’s behavior. NO SEX-WITHHOLDING, if you believe the Bible. It doesn’t matter if you are feel happy or unhappy, you are obligated. That’s what it means to take responsibility to perform an obligation!

What I have been seeing lately is older Christian women telling younger Christian women not to take seriously the obligations of complementarianism, but to instead make sure they choose a man who will let their desires rule. As someone who is used to not getting my own way, but instead putting God first, I find the idea that my resources will be redirected to making my wife feel good rather than serving God as a team to be absolutely horrifying and unacceptable. I have been entrusted with significant resources by God, and much is expected of me and my marriage. I really wish women would understand this – I have a Boss and my purpose in life is to serve him effectively. We are in a battle here in this culture, and there is a lot I want to do. I want a wife who will sacrifice her own happiness and needs as much as I have, and help me to serve my Boss. She needs to have experiences that prepare her character for that role. I am not asking for any more self-denial and self-sacrifice than I am willing to do myself, and I am not asking for her to do these things for me, but for our Boss.

As someone who has made sacrifices to prepare for marriage in areas like chastity, education, career, savings, apologetics ministry, etc., I am often shocked when I meet women who have – throughout their entire lives – always done what felt good to them. And yet many of those women tell me what a great Christian wife and mother they would make. I often find a huge mismatch of education, career, financial assets and chastity between men and women in relationships, and I believe that much of it results from pastors and church leaders giving Christian women this implicit green light to let their feelings and desires override the plain meaning of the Bible. Christian women need to understand that doing whatever feels good to you over and over is not consistent with the example of Jesus, nor moral teachings of the New Testament as a whole. Marriage is hard work, and you need to train yourself to get used to it by repeated exposure to experiences of self-denial, self-sacrifice and self-control. If your preparation for marriage is studying what feels good, working wherever feels good, spending money in order to feel good, etc. you are not preparing for marriage. There is no “happy path” to a great marriage.

Greg Koukl has a wonderful line: “the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle”. That’s right. Lindsay and her husband have been married for five years*, and they have never shouted at one another once. That takes wisdom. We ought to be listening to people like Lindsay and her husband about marriage. I know I listen to them. If you want to know what to do to have a good marriage, why don’t you just ask Lindsay? Similarly, my best friend Dina has an extremely stressful job dealing with difficult customers and life-or-death situations every day. She has so much responsibility at work that she makes my job look like a boiling an egg. And yet whenever I ask her for anything, e.g. – “play a game of Memoir ’44 with me”, she almost always does it, even when she doesn’t feel like it. I ask her why, and she says “because although you are very demanding, your needs are easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy compared to what I had to deal with today at work!” That’s why I encourage women to do hard things.

*=Today is their 5-year anniversary! Congratulations, Doug and Lindsay! I admire you both so much, and you make me feel validated about my vision for marriage, and my high standards.