Should Women Be Police Officers?

Should Women Be Police Officers?

A woman asked John Piper if it was okay for women to become police officers. He answered her here. I will give a few comments from his article and then respond.

“And here’s my conviction: to the degree that a woman’s influence over a man — guidance of man, leadership of man — is personal and directive, it will generally offend a man’s good, God-given sense of responsibility and leadership, and thus controvert God’s created order. To an extent, a woman’s leadership or influence may be personal and non-directive, or directive and non-personal. I don’t think those would necessarily push the limits of what is appropriate.

“That’s my general paradigm of guidance, and you can see how flexible it is, how imprecise it is, so let me give some examples. A woman who is a civil engineer might design a traffic pattern in a city so that she’s deciding which streets are one-way, and therefore she is influencing, indeed controlling in one sense, all the male drivers all day long. But this influence is so non-personal that it seems to me that the feminine/masculine dynamic is utterly negligible in this kind of relationship.

“On the other hand, a husband and wife relationship is very personal, and hence the clear teaching of the New Testament that the man should give leadership in the home, and that she should give glad partnership in supporting and helping that leadership come into its own.

“On the other hand, some influence is very directive, and some is non-directive. For example, a drill sergeant might epitomize directive influence over the privates in the platoon, and it would be hard for me to see how a woman could be a drill sergeant — ‘hut two, right face, left face, keep your mouth shut, private’ — over men without violating their sense of manhood and her sense of womanhood.”

I agree with him for the most part. I would have liked for him to clearly state that a wife isn’t into “partnership” but is called to be a help meet (helper suitable for her husband) and live in submission to her husband. He watered that down too much in my opinion. He is way too soft on male and female roles. Voddie Baucham and John MacArthur are strong on these issues.

God created men to be the ones in authority all throughout the Bible. Deborah is the exception, but this doesn’t negate God’s will. Women are to be silent and not preach in the churches, because Adam was created first. God put men into authority. All of the priest, prophets, patriarchs, apostles, elders, deacons, and husband were and are men. Patriarchy is God’s clear design. God built them to lead. He built women to follow.

I don’t believe women in masculine roles such as CEO, boss, police, and so on are fit for femininity nor are they God’s design for women. They must be authoritative in these positions which is the opposite of being feminine and having meek and quiet spirits. I have seen too many marriages ruined with women in authoritative positions. It takes most of their time, so they have little time to be the wives and mothers that God has called them to be, plus they have an impossible task of coming home and living in submission to their husbands. In the police force and military, the women must dress and act like men. This isn’t God’s design for us. He wants us to dress and act like women.

“As women learned self-assertion and aggressiveness, men learned to feel guilty about being men and began to back off. Those whom God created to be initiators, protectors, and providers no longer understood their assignment, and women wondered why there were not being sought.” (Elisabeth Elliott)

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.
Isaiah 3:12

17 thoughts on “Should Women Be Police Officers?

  1. I totally agree with you and I do think he watered it down a bit. The bible supports patriarchy. We shouldn’t blur the gender roles/lines.

  2. Concerning engineers who design traffic flow, no one is an island. Piper may be correct in that it would not personally influence a majority of men but it does personally influence many men. This woman engineer would be a part of a firm or city government. A low level engineer is not the one who gets to decide which way traffic flows. She would be influencing many men in order to decide which way traffic flows.

  3. I would have thought that physical size and strength would be a problem for policewoman. Because of this, they are more likely to be assaulted, and are more likely to require the need to use a weapon.

    This being said, throughout Christian history, it has never been suggested that prominent women could not have male slaves, servants, or employees. When Queen Victoria insisted her Prime Ministers stand in her presence, it was never felt that this was a violation of their sense of manhood.

    On the other hand, when her wedding was being planned, the archbishop wondered whether the vow to “obey” be dropped. To this she replied: “I want to be married as a woman, not as a queen.” These days, too many women want to be married as queens rather than as women.

  4. In an ideal world, there would be no women in authority, ever. That means police, teachers, scientists, women owning their own business employing men and so on. But, having said that,most senior roles in nursing are taken up by women. Indeed, most nurses are women, and only a few men. What is the biblical stance on that?

  5. I believe the Bible teaches that a woman’s place is in the home, but regardless, I found his explanation here confusing. It’s wishy washy and back pedaling. It’s like trying to nail jello to the wall, and he didn’t want to take a firm stance on the subject. If this man is a pastor, I wouldn’t enjoy his teaching.

  6. “I don’t believe women in masculine roles such as CEO, boss, police, and so on are fit for femininity nor are they God’s design for women. They must be authoritative in these positions which is the opposite of being feminine and having meek and quiet spirits.”

    Amen! Couldn’t have said it better.

  7. Jackie,

    I believe it’s okay for women to be nurses IF there are no children in their home. Their children need and want their mothers home full time with them. The unfortunate thing these days is that many women must go into a huge amount of debt to become nurses which keep them in bondage to this debt for many years and keeps them away from God’s will of being home with their children. It is a hard and exhausting job too. They work 12 hour shifts which seems inhumane to me.

  8. Community college offers nursing degrees at a much more affordable price than an expensive, private Christian college or a big name public university. Just an idea for an unmarried, single woman with no prospect of a husband yet at 18. And if she marries, her husband won’t have any college debt of hers to take on. 🙂

  9. Jackie –
    Most senior roles in nursing are taken by women because most nurses are women. However, for their numbers, men are overrepresented in senior roles. This is just the way human nature works. Men naturally tend to gravitate to the top positions due to the fact that (a) they have stronger instincts for dominance, and (b) they are more likely to be the major support for their families.

  10. I was thinking that women working in a police department are good, the same criteria as you mentioned with nurses.
    Not as officers, but assisting with rape and child victims. There are times at a PD when you need a woman and nurturer, not an authority figure.

  11. In my opinion, there should be no female teachers, researchers, scientists, sports people, police or firefighters, or business owners. It’s quite explicit in the Bible that women should be at home. Why is this so difficult!

  12. So much of this comes back to birth control. A woman who has the physical fitness to be a cop should be bearing and raising strong, healthy children as her highest calling. Healthy and fit young women are blessed with strong sex drives for a reason — it’s all part of God’s plan to bring them into submission to their husbands. Without birth control, these young women would be guided by their own natural yearnings into their highest calling as the mothers of children strong, brave and true.

  13. These women who try to take men’s jobs need husbands who are virile enough to keep them barefoot and pregnant. After six or seven children even the most committed feminist will learn the basic lesson of human biology that a woman’s proper role is in submission to her husband.

  14. No, they should not be. Ever, under any circumstances. It is both an abomination and illogical.

  15. I agree with Karl — there’s no arguing with a woman’s biology. My brother married an attorney believe it or not who was actually a prosecutor. We invited them to go camping with us soon after they were married and somehow her diaphragm disappeared out of her bag. (Hmmm, I wonder, I just can’t imagine who could have searched through her bag to find that handy-dandy little baby barrier and then had a good chuckle throwing it in the trash. Oops!) Well they were newlyweds and we were camping for a week. The look on her face was priceless when I told her, no we didn’t have any condoms, and she realized she’d be sharing a sleeping bag with an amorous husband for a week without any contraception. She had their first nine months later.

  16. I totally agree with Karl (had to look up what virile meant though- learned a new word today!!) In my little housewife opinion, I don’t think women need to be in the workforce, period. We need to be at home tending to our families and being in total submission and obedience to our husbands to make sure his needs are met so he can take care of and provide and protect his family. I certainly don’t want to offend anyone, as I can only speak from my own experiences with my own opinions. Being at home is all I’ve ever known. Is my husband virile enough to keep me home barefoot and pregnant? Absolutely! He’s been doing it for nearly 25 years (well not the pregnant part anymore) and I love him and adore him for it! He even gave up trying to get me in flip flops for church years ago!!!!

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