I give you my honest testimony of now over 20 years of Christianity. I have never met a Christian female in the church or out of it who understand even some of the simplest things of the Bible. I have met thousand upon thousands of women who claim to believe in Christ, but I have never met a woman who actually has that special gift called a 'backbone'. I've many who would claim such, but the reality? I've simply never witnessed it. It may exist. I have searched earnestly for it. But I have never seen it. And I can at this very hour, in all honesty of my sould, claim with Solomon the King:
Though I have searched repeatedly, I still haven't found what I'm looking for. One in a thousand men have I found, who adding one thing to another can find out the reason of a matter, but not one woman have I found among them all. -- Ecclesiastes 7:28
This is a true statement from my life experience. It is not sexist. It is sadly my very life experience.
I could almost wonder if the narratives of Deborah and other such women were not fantasms of the wish fulfillments of men in Judea.
In all my time in university, in life in general, in the churches, I have never seen a woman like Deborah, Ruth or Esther. Not one. Not in 37 YEARS! NOT ONE! And I've been looking! Not judgemental. Not overly costic towards people, but honest to goodness just trying to find one among my generation who actually understands--ANYTHING!
And alas, not even one have I ever even seen. And this is my honest testimony. Nor at this time do I ever expect to witness such. They simply do not exist anymore. My joy in life is to understand that once, long ago, there were a few women like Deborah. And that at least gives me some comfort in knowing that God did not make them utterly degenerate, illogical, ortish flakes of humanity. Is there even one female example who has ever lived that has had any glimmer of Truth within her? The answer, thankfully, is yes. And so I can die in peace knowing that not all human females were utterly, totally void of reason or truth within them.
It is a sad state of affairs but you are largely correct. I am often embarrassed at being a woman when I see what they do, and I don't mean out there in the world - I mean in the realm of Christianity and yes, in cc. When I see how women usurp authority, get a big head, and think they are great servants of Almighty God and try to teach other women the distorted view of a woman's place, it makes me a little sick inside. And they go on to act like they
must teach because men won't, which has a certain amount of truth to it, but not as much as women like to adamantly scream it from every possible venue. Women have a place and because they jump out of that God-ordained place, we have a mess in the Christian community today. I have had fierce encounters with other women, one in the women's forum of cc, which only women can get to, and it was awful. They tend to get arrogant and brag about their knowledge, position, accomplishments, etc.- not that men don't - they do too, but it seems like women are fighting either an imaginary battle to be "equal" (they really mean "superior" but equal sounds better) with men, or blatantly trying to prove they are more Godly.
So, my honest opinion is that you have a point but I do think you are being a little too hard on women in that there are many who are sincere and strive to keep the place God gave us, and who do have understanding of much in the Word - some not so simple. Granted, I haven't seen a Deborah, but we do live in a different time and culture here in 21st century America.
I am 62 years old, been around the block a time or two, and saw the growth of the "feminist" movement in America, and I can tell you it has contributed greatly to the downhill slide of our country.
And finally, if you really believe what you are saying, pray and ask God for a woman to fit in the slot you have in your mind. If you are pure of heart and in His will, He will do it. You might want to carefully read the thread about Unanswered Prayer. Furthermore, there is NOTHING in the Bible that falls into the category of "fantasms."