Do Egalitarians Believe Women and Men Are Interchangeable?

Editor’s note: This essay won an honorable mention in the 2023 CBE Writing Contest.

Don’t you sometimes wish you could help people understand you better? Or at least that, when disagreeing with you, they would engage your actual arguments and not straw-man versions of them? Today, I want to draw little pictures to help correct a common misconception about egalitarianism: the idea that we think women and men are inherently the same.

A Common Misperception of Egalitarians

Rebekah Hargraves demonstrates this incorrect idea in her article, “Why I’m Neither an Egalitarian nor a Complementarian”:

I am not an egalitarian because egalitarians are of the belief that there are no inherent differences between the genders in how they are to operate. . . . An egalitarian believes that men and women are, more or less, interchangeable in regard to roles and functions in the home and church.^[1]

Similarly, in “A Marriage Made in Hell,” Greg Morse writes that “‘homofunctional marriage’ consists of two different sexes that function identically. . . . [They become] interchangeable. . .”^[2]

This is not what egalitarianism means! To explain where this perception comes from, we first need to remember what complementarians say.

Complementarians believe in both gender roles and hierarchy: We could say they see one slot that all women should fit into, then another slot which all men should fit into. My diagram below has the male slot somewhat bigger because his supposed role as leader and decision-maker is not as constricting as the woman’s role. Referring back to the first diagram, we could say that complementarians see the group of women on the left of the picture, and then assert, “The roles of these women are interchangeable; I see no difference.” They then look to the right and see the men, and they say: “The roles of these men are interchangeable, I see no difference.”

True Egalitarianism

Egalitarians tear down and throw away the moulds! We do not force people to fit through one-size-fits-all-women and one-size-fits-all-men slots. But those who think of life as fitting into a slot may be horrified when they hear this. “No more separate slots for men and women? Wait, should we all fit into one slot, then?” Because they think in terms of roles, the options are either one role for all men to fit and another for all women to fit, or one single role to expect of all men and women.

But egalitarians do not erect a new, singular mould at the spot where the other two were torn down; we encourage everyone to live out their own gifts.

We Want to Break Down Gender Roles Exactly Because Men and Women Are Not Interchangeable!

When two or more things are interchangeable, nobody agonizes over which one is chosen: It doesn’t matter at all which teaspoon in the kitchen is used most often and which one dropped down behind the cutlery drawer, not to be seen again for the next three years.

But men and women are not interchangeable, which is why we need both:

• If there were no inherent differences between husband Peter and wife Pamela, it would really not matter if he were the final decision-maker on everything. His decisions would be from the same perspective as hers, equally wise and equally right for her too. But a marriage needs two capable decision makers, because each has their own strengths and their own knowledge base.
• If there were no inherent differences between Rob and Rita’s parenting, it would not matter if their children spent 100 percent of the time with Rita and none with Rob. Rita would be everything to them that Rob could be. But in reality, it is preferable for both parents to be involved in child-rearing, because the father has qualities the mother does not.
• If your congregation has two people called by God to preach, Jill and Josh, silencing Jill would hardly be an issue if Jill and Josh were interchangeable. You would hear all the sermons from Josh you could possibly hear from Jill. But because Jill is not Josh, because she hears from God in other ways and is interested in other areas of Scripture, the congregation will miss out if her voice is silenced.

No, egalitarians do not see men and women as interchangeable. We believe every man and woman has unique giftings:

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. (I Corinthians 12:4–7

Limiting all women to the same ministry areas and all men to another set, based not on gifts but on gender, will waste the good things God put into each of us—individually.

[1] Rebekah Hargraves, “Why I’m Neither an Egalitarian nor a Complementarian,” Hargraves Home & Hearth, May 18, 2018. https://www.hargraveshomeandhearth.com/why-im-not-an-egalitarian-or-a-complementarian/

[2] Greg Morse, “A Marriage Made in Hell,” Desiring God, October 15, 2018. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/a-marriage-made-in-hell

Main photo by fauxels. All other images in the article are creations of the author.

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