By most people’s standards, Sweden is a paradise for liberated women. It has the highest proportion of working women in the world, and women earn about two-thirds of all degrees. Standard parental leave runs at 480 days, and 60 of those days are reserved exclusively for dads, causing some to credit the country with forging the way for a new kind of nurturing masculinity. In 2010, the World Economic Forum designated Sweden as the most gender-equal country in the world.

But for many Swedes, gender equality is not enough. Many are pushing for the Nordic nation to be not simply gender-equal but gender-neutral. The idea is that the government and society should tolerate no distinctions at all between the sexes. This means on the narrow level that society should show sensitivity to people who don’t identify themselves as either male or female, including allowing any type of couple to marry. But that’s the least radical part of the project. What many gender-neutral activists are after is a society that entirely erases traditional gender roles and stereotypes at even the most mundane levels.

Activists are lobbying for parents to be able to choose any name for their children (there are currently just 170 legally recognized unisex names in Sweden). The idea is that names should not be at all tied to gender, so it would be acceptable for parents to, say, name a girl Jack or a boy Lisa. A Swedish children’s clothes company has removed the “boys” and “girls” sections in its stores, and the idea of dressing children in a gender-neutral manner has been widely discussed on parenting blogs. This Swedish toy catalog recently decided to switch things around, showing a boy in a Spider-Man costume pushing a pink pram, while a girl in denim rides a yellow tractor.

The Swedish Bowling Association has announced plans to merge male and female bowling tournaments in order to make the sport gender-neutral. Social Democrat politicians have proposed installing gender-neutral restrooms so that members of the public will not be compelled to categorize themselves as either ladies or gents. Several preschools have banished references to pupils’ genders, instead referring to children by their first names or as “buddies.” So, a teacher would say “good morning, buddies” or “good morning, Lisa, Tom, and Jack” rather than, “good morning, boys and girls.” They believe this fulfills the national curriculum’s guideline that preschools should “counteract traditional gender patterns and gender roles” and give girls and boys “the same opportunities to test and develop abilities and interests without being limited by stereotypical gender roles.”

Earlier this month, the movement for gender neutrality reached a milestone: Just days after International Women’s Day a new pronoun, hen (pronounced like the bird in English), was added to the online version of the country’s National Encyclopedia. The entry defines hen as a “proposed gender-neutral personal pronoun instead of he [han in Swedish] and she [hon].”The National Encyclopedia announcement came amid a heated debate about gender neutrality that has been raging in Swedish newspaper columns and TV studios and on parenting blogs and feminist websites. It was sparked by the publication of Sweden’s first ever gender-neutral children’s book, Kivi och Monsterhund (Kivi and Monsterdog). It tells the story of Kivi, who wants a dog for “hen’s” birthday. The male author, Jesper Lundqvist, introduces several gender-neutral words in the book. For instance the words mammor and pappor (moms and dads) are replaced with mappor and pammor.”

Rothschild finishes her piece discussing practical ways Sweden is trying to remove the concept of gender from its society.

What is the importance of gender in a biblical worldview? How do we share that truth with others in our respective countries and cultures?

I begin here: this is simply the best discussion of the roles of a married couple I have read. A robust theology — christology and trinitarian thinking — is every where and it avoids simplicities that seem to find their way into discussions of roles. So here are some points from the chapter:

1. Every marriage, or close to that, discovers that men and women are different, and this is not only a statement about bodies. Defining that difference is complicated and often resorts to eye-rolling sighs. The reason this difference is important is because it is inherent to who we are to be gendered. (She disagrees that gender roles are simply social constructs.) And the woman was created according to Genesis 2 to be a “strong helper” (ezer kenedgo). This means each sex/gender is created to contribute to the other.

2. The paradigm for these roles is Christ — in Philippians 2:5-11. The equal person surrenders for the glory of the other, and that leads to the “submitter” to be glorified in turn. Christ’s voluntary servanthood is the model for women. Women, she says, are called — as are men — to the “Jesus role.” Men as servant leaders and women as servant helpers. There are her designations of roles: leader and helper.

3. Christ’s role is also seen in John 13:1-17, the towel and basin. This is the model. Her point is the big one for me: “Jesus redefined all authority as servant-authority” (177-178). “All authoritarianism of authority laid to rest” (178). This so redefines submission so radically that everything changes, and makes me wonder if the word “leader” ever works when submission is so redefined.

4. Her most controversial — at least for some — statements will be how she defines the gifts of women vs. the gifts of men. She sees — “using all the qualifiers in the world” —  the woman as gifted with interdependence and men gifted with independence. Women sinfully chase clinging dependence or individualism while men chase alpha male individualism or dependence. Postmodernity, she says, emphasizes particularities and she sees these roles as something postmodernity ought to consider.

5. This otherness that is gendered is often incomprehensible to one spouse. But Christ embraced the other and that embrace is the model for marriage and for learning to love the incomprehensible. The home is the safe place to learn how to love the other, and there are very few details in the Bible on what this looks like (more below), and the details are not culturally shaped ideas that have prevailed in the West or in the Christian West or in the 50s.

McKnight finishes by listing some hesitations he has about some of the Kellers’ ideas, including caution about focusing too much on gender roles:

Any discussion of marriage that spends too much time on roles gets things out of order. Frankly, I don’t have much problem with her beliefs that independence and interdependence are features of our genders but those must be swallowed up again and again by discussing them as dimensions of love or arenas in which our love plays out. Well, I don’t want to suggest that Kathy Keller does not talk about love, for she does — and I think she talks about it well. In fact, when she’s talking about roles she sees them as ways to love one another. I’d like that to be more prominent. I don’t think God gave us roles so much as he created us to love and he made us in gender and loving the other gender works itself out in differing ways, and that I see as the “role.” Most of the time.

What do you think about Keller’s suggestion that “woman as gifted with interdependence and men gifted with independence“?

What is your reaction to McKnight’s concern about over-emphasizing gender roles?

Last January Mary Kassian broached the topic of flirting on the Girls Gone Wise blog:

The “look.” The tilt of the head. The flip of the hair. The sway of the hips. The deliberate caress of a curve. The cross of the legs. The leisurely forward lean. The titillating exposure of skin. The brush of the bottom lip. The cat-like stretch. The lingering touch … by the time a female reaches adulthood, she’s typically been well-versed in all the classic flirt moves…

The Sage Father warns his son about women who try to capture guys with their “eyelashes”—that is, with their flirtatious, coy glances. (Prov. 6:25) And in Isaiah, the Lord soundly rebukes His daughters for their provocative body language—outstretched necks, wanton looks, wiggling hips, and mincing feet. (Isaiah 3:16)

The New Testament repeatedly identifies “sensuality” as a sin (Gal. 5:19, Rom. 13:13, Mark 7:21-23, 1 Pet. 4:3). It’s a behavior that Christians are to repent of and turn from (2 Cor. 12:21). Seductive body language could have been one of the sins Paul had in mind when he told the believers in Ephesus, “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality or of any kind of impurity… because these are improper for God’s holy people.” (Eph. 5:3)

What’s the big deal? What’s the problem with flirting and showing off your womanly wares? You might defend your flirtatious behavior by claiming that you don’t intend to seduce a man to have sex—you’re just playing and are not really serious. But suggestive body language implies or hints at something improper. A woman who gives any man (other than her husband) a “come-and-get-me” look is effect telling a lie. She is thumbing her nose at God by hinting that illicit sex is desirable and exciting. She is sinning by willfully enticing a man’s thoughts away from the path of virtue. Body language that implies or hints at a wrongful sexual act is just as offensive to God as performing that sexual act…

But is ALL flirting wrong?

Body language is part of the romantic “dance” between a couple. The glances, the smiles, and the playful interaction are important elements that signal interest and move the relationship along. Nonverbal communication is an important part of all face-to-face interaction. Some psychologists say that it conveys 55 percent of the overall message. The point of paying attention to our body language is not to get rid of body language, but to make sure that what we say with our bodies is just as holy as what we say with our mouths.

In defense of my sex — some of us missed the memo for Classic Flirt Moves 101. Other girls who come off as “flirty” without trying. Not every tilt of the head is a come-on, and a lack of body language doesn’t always equal a lack of interest. Get to know a girl before making assumptions about the motivations of her heart.

That said, I’ve seen flirtatious behavior get out of hand, even in Christian circles.

Kassian closes her blog entry with some good questions:

• Is the idea that women should be careful about flirting outdated and prudish?
• How can you tell when your body language crosses the line from sending an “I’m interested in you” message to sending a “Wouldn’t it be fun to have sex with me?” message?
• Is flirting ever okay?

What do you think?