Viewing feminism and egalitarianism as a diminishing God’s design, complementarians have written extensively seeking to describe distinctions of womanhood: notably, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood edited by Wayne Grudem and John Piper, Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot, Womanly Dominion by Mark Chanski, Creative Counterpart by Linda Dillow, Feminine Appeal by Carolyn Mahaney, and many others. Most of those works center on a woman’s roles and stereotypical traits, often truncating womanhood into a functional definition or a list of gender-essentialist qualities. Women whose inclinations and aptitudes diverge from cultural norms may question the congruence of their identity with the prevailing definition of womanhood and perceive contrasting definitions of manhood to be superior and more desirable, leading to a struggle with gender dysphoria. By contrast, rather than defining womanhood primarily in functional terms, Gracilynn Hanson argues that womanhood should be defined ontologically. Her 2022 dissertation, “Establishing a Framework for Female-Gendered Embodiment in a Redemptive Context,” provides a theological starting point from which to develop a more compelling biblical view of female gender identity which can alleviate the tensions of significant perceptions and desires driving female gender dysphoria (FGD).
In this paper, I will argue (as a complementarian myself) that inadequate views of womanhood taught in the context of complementarian churches can create or exacerbate the struggles of FGD, making womanhood hard to bear by unbiblically diminishing female flourishing which should be common to humanity. To advance my thesis, I will first describe the experience of FGD considering four perspectives: the diagnostic criteria of the DSM-V, Holly Devor’s clinical psychological framework, two personal narrative accounts, and my assessment of the interplay between perception and desire. Second, I will draw from a wide sampling of conservative evangelical sources to summarize three ways that womanhood is presented as hard to bear: (1) defining ontology by function, (2) imposing stereotypes on scriptural interpretation and application, and (3) ascribing causality to female embodiment for the moral actions of men. Third, I will briefly present Gracilynn Hanson’s theological definition of female-gendered embodiment as an alternate starting point from which to describe womanhood: “Female-gendered embodiment is the state of being particular, social, dependent, gendered embodied people who were created as the imago Dei in the female-type of humankind and who engage the purpose, mandate, and virtues of humanity with uniquely female expression.” Further work remains to develop what constitutes “uniquely female expression.” However, Hanson’s work issues a needed corrective to the over-simplification of defining womanhood by functions and stereotypes, providing pastors and counselors with a range of questions by which to understand and engage the desires and perceptions of women in their churches who struggle with gender dysphoria.