Teach Our Boys to Value Women
If something good has come from our world of Social Media activism, it is the #metoo viral movement. The #metoo movement was an outpouring of pain and admission of trauma from women around the world who had been sexually assaulted at sometime in their life.
The #metoo messages swirling around the internet, caused the issue of sexual assault to be forced to the forefront of the social conversation with high profile men being revealed as sexual predators. None more appalling as the case of Larry Nasser and his horrifying abuse of minors who came to him for sports related treatment. The #metoo movement set the stage for a maximum sentence to be levied against him and justice to finally be served.
The movement has rightfully caused the Church to look at itself as well. Calling for the purging of leaders who used there power to influence and abuse women, connecting the world in a worthy pursuit to honor and respect women.
Teach Our Boys to Honor Women
If you have daughters, this conversation and the sin of sexual harassment and assault being brought to the light, should bring you some hope and a measure of relief. The world our girls are growing up in is taking a stand on how they will be treated, and allowing the collective voice of all women to be heard.
But if you have boys, then this movement has given us a renewed responsibility. The problem that the #metoo movement has attacked head on is not an isolated generational problem. It is a problem that comes from an over sexualized society that our boys encounter both in and outside our homes; and is even in our churches.
We must teach our boys to value and honor the women around them.
In the creation story, God bestows His own image on both men and women. In a very real way, we all walk this earth as divine images bearers. To dishonor the image is to dishonor the subject of that image. We must teach our boys then, that women are deserving of honor precisely because God gave them value when He created them.
The Conversation Turns to Purity
This conversation at some point must turn to purity. The purity in which our young men view and interact with women is paramount to their success in honor and respect. Studies are bearing out that consistent viewing of pornographic images creates a false and damaging impression of women, leading young men to believe that women are to be used to fulfill their hearts desire.
If we allow our boys, whether by ignorance or by being bad examples, to view images and videos that display women as objects to be at best enjoyed, and at worst conquered, it becomes natural to degrade and abuse women.
Fathers, there is no excuse. Our boys will follow our example and the purity to which we handle our relationships with women will define the way that they do. We men need to step up and stand strong in purity for the sake of the honor and respect that women deserve.
Teach your Boys to be Heroes
The world ahead has a chance to be a world where sexual morals make a come back, limited as it may be. Our boys must be a part of the solution. If you have young men in your home, train them to spend their strength protecting women and make them heroes in the fight for true honor.
