One of the things we’re passionate about on this blog is making sure the advice that is given about marriage and sex in the evangelical world is healthy.
Over the last few years, our team has surveyed over 32,000 people, measuring how certain teachings common in the evangelical world about marriage and sex affect marital and sexual satisfaction.
And the results have not been pretty.
We’re asking the church to stop spreading harmful messages, and make sure that what is said is actually healthy. Because it is actually possible to write books that do not harm!
As we’ve confronted harmful messages, we’ve written two big books–The Great Sex Rescue and She Deserves Better.
We’ve also published a series of downloadable one-sheets on evangelical books that still sell well, but have been shown to contain harmful messages.
This is our most recent entry–For Women Only.
This series of books has sold more than 2,000,000 copies, with this book being by far the best-seller. It is frequently used as curriculum in biblical counseling seminaries. It is highly recommended at marriage conferences and churches.
However, it was also one of the most harmful books we measured (you can see our scorecard here). So many people told us that this book fuelled insecurity while also teaching women to enable immaturity in their husbands.
In this post, with a download option, I’d like to explain why.
This post is the text from our download, so it’s short, in bullet point form, and right to the point. We’ll be doing a longer deep dive into this issue tomorrow on the Bare Marriage podcast!
Synopsis of For Women Only
Discover the truth men want women to know so wives can adjust to their husbands’ struggles.
Summary of Issues with For women Only
- Uses substandard research practices throughout her surveys. Shares findings about men’s propensity to lust that have been debunked and shown to cause harm to marriages.
- Rather than showing how women can help create an intimate marriage based on emotional and relational health, encourages women to cater to men’s fragile egos by not challenging them.
- Bases the book on gender stereotypes, many of which are harmful or simply untrue.
For Women Only
One Sheet
Everything Harmful with For Women Only Summarized on One Sheet!
Subscribe today to get the free printout to share with your friends, family, and pastors
For Women Only is BASED ON POOR RESEARCH FOUNDATION
- Asserts “men need unconditional respect” based on a badly worded survey question her pilot study and survey designer both flagged as problematic. Declares a gender difference (that women want love instead) without surveying women. When other researchers asked women the same question, there was no gender difference. For a deep dive into this, please see the last segment of this podcast.
- Elicits inaccurate findings like “98% of men can’t not notice a woman with a great body”. One possible response included in the 98% was “It is impossible not to be aware that she is there, but I try to stop myself from looking,” (134) leading to an unsupported conclusion that all men constantly objectify women. Another possible answer was, “I openly stare at her, and drool forms on my lower lip”, typical of the unserious nature of her survey questions.
Here’s another example of a poorly worded survey question:
Note how this question is basically measuring nothing. The only men who wouldn’t care if their wives desire them or not are rapists–and even rapists would likely say that they care.
For an in-depth example of how we “fixed” one of Feldhahn’s survey questions so that they were in line with proper survey practice, please see Fixed It For You: We Fix a Survey Question so it doesn’t enable date rape.
- Bases the idea of the “visual wiring of the male brain” on outdated studies from 2001 and 2004. More recent meta-analyses of 61 studies including 1,850 participants (Mitricheva et al., 2019) and a huge meta-synthesis of three decades of MRI scans (Eliot et al., 2021) find no such gender differences.
- Feldhahn claims to be a “Harvard-educated researcher,” but her degree is in public policy, not social science research or survey design. In the first edition of her book, she admitted that she had tremendous trouble with her statistics class; this is omitted from the updated edition.
For Women Only spread harmful gender stereotypes without allowing for nuance
- Equates “this is how men are” with “God made men this way, so women must adapt,” such as in the way she frames men’s “hard-wiring” as responsible for men’s struggles, attitudes, and at times even actions.
- Warns that men have “mental photo files” of images of women that they have seen, and advises that women “accept his struggle with lust”, supporting them rather than trying to change them (151).
“Do we love the men in our lives for who they are or for who we want them to be? Do we want to support our husbands or to change them?”
She gives no caveat for dealing with persistent porn use or overt objectification of women in public.
- Portrays behaviors such as stalking an attractive woman through the aisles at Home Depot (135) or being preoccupied with a beautiful waitress while on a date with his wife (135) as normal for men. This, combined with the chapter that women need to keep up their appearance, feeds female insecurity.
“As we struggle with [the] hard truth [that when you take care of yourself, your expectation that ‘I only have eyes for you’ feels fairer and easier to accomplish], it might be helpful to remember that we’re not alone: We’re also asking our man to do something that is hard and goes against his natural instinct. The man who originally opened my eyes to this issue explained it this way: “We need to see that you care about keeping our attention on you–and off of other women. Sometimes it is so hard for us to look away. It takes a lot of work and a lot of effort. But it helps me so much if I see that my wife is willing to do her part and purposefully work toward staying in shape and looking good.”
- Declares that all men struggle with visually consuming women (131) (especially those who make themselves “eye magnets”). Our survey of 20,000 women for our book The Great Sex Rescue found that this belief lowers women’s libido, marital and sexual satisfaction, orgasm rates, and their trust in their husbands.
“Nearly half of the men on the follow-up churchgoers survey said they would try to stop themselves from looking [at an attractive woman]. It is vital that we understand just how much strength and discipline that choice requires so that we can appreciate what our men try to do for us every day in this minefield of a culture.”
- Includes stereotypes not supported by research, such as men are internal processors, while women are external processors. States universal struggles like impostor syndrome as male issues. Ignores her own survey data to spread the stereotype that men have higher sex drives (ignored her female respondents who said it was mostly shared), thus treating women as unreliable narrators of their own experience when it does not agree with what men say.
- Portrays sex as something a woman “gives” a man (172) to boost his confidence, rather than something they enjoy together. Implies that men get emotional connection only through sex.
“A man can’t just turn off the physical and emotional importance of sex, which is why its lack can be compared to the emotional pain you’d feel if your husband simply stopped talking to you.”
For Women Only INSTRUCTS WOMEN TO ACCEPT POOR BEHAVIOR FROM HUSBANDS
- Explains that women shouldn’t make an issue if men repeatedly fail to do things they promised (65), fail to fix a damaged kitchen wall (42), or refuse to care about the things his wife cares about (43) because if a husband ignore his wife’s requests, he’s showing “they just have different priorities.” (42).
“‘I asked him to do it. He hasn’t done it. I trust my husband. Therefore, there’s a reason he hasn’t done it.’ Just realize, although his reason for not doing the task may be different from yours, that makes it no less legitimate. Remember, half the men on the survey indicated that sometimes they just have different priorities than their wives do.”
- Paints men’s egos as the “most fragile thing on the planet”, so women must ensure he never feels challenged. Giving a husband directions when he is lost undermines his confidence (27). Expressing an opinion different from your husband’s conveys that you think he’s stupid (24).
“The next time your husband stubbornly drives in circles, ask yourself which is more important: being on time to the party or his feeling trusted? No contest.”
- Instead of warning women that fits of anger can be a sign of abuse, encourages women to blame themselves. “How do we know when we’ve crossed the disrespect line?…[T]here is one easy barometer: our men’s anger.” (18)
“If he’s angry at something you’ve done or said and you don’t understand the cause, there is a good chance that he is feeling the pain or humiliation of your disrespect.”
Insinuates that the reason men have affairs at work or turn to porn is because a wife hasn’t convinced her husband that “he’s the greatest.” (63)
“If a man isn’t convinced that his wife thinks he’s the greatest, he will tend to seek affirmation elsewhere. He may spend more hours at work, where he feels alive and on top of his game, or he may spend too much time talking to the admiring female associate…”Why else do you think so many men take sports so seriously?” one man asked me.”
- Tells women that even when they can’t physically respond to sex, they should encourage their husbands enthusiastically, and “let your words be heart words—reassuring, affirming, adoring.” (121) No instruction is given on how to tell a husband what she needs to feel pleasure.
- Fails to describe helpful ways to address problematic marriage dynamics, but instead advises women to concentrate on “verbally praising the positives.” (45)
Healthy Sexuality Score: 11/48
Infidelity and Lust:
5/16
Pleasure:
3/16
Mutuality:
3/16
For complete results, download our rubric and scorecard.
WHAT WOMEN HAVE SAID about For Women Only
“Based on this book, men are weak, insecure creatures that need their women to build up their self-esteem and look hot all the time. The most offensive part was about men being visually wired…[T]hey keep a memory file of all the hot women they have seen in their entire lives. So, are all women just doomed to live with a needy man-child that thinks about other women all the time?…I would rather be alone.”
“I followed what she said about not saying what you need/what feels good in bed to protect his “tender heart.” I endured years of pain and vaginismus, along with a heartbroken husband who knew something was off, but I refused to say what until I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“Used it in my marriage and it only made it worse. He absolutely loved everything I did from this book but it was emotionally exhausting. I could not constantly emotionally regulate my husband. If I had a bad day he was upset because I was not understanding his needs. It literally made him a large child.”
“The only time I ever felt insecure about my marriage was after reading this book. I never questioned my husband’s faithfulness (and he’s never given me a reason to) but this book caused me to believe that he was one moment away from cheating at any time. Let me be clear, he’s always been faithful. Always. Never even considered or wanted anything else but me. But after reading this book I spiraled into a season of doubt like never before. I wish I had just talked to him about it, but I took what she said as truth.”
“It would have been a more effective book if it was for men only…because then she could have said “alright men, according to my studies, you are weak, stubborn, insecure, and always in competition with other guys…These are not good things, so let’s work on it.” Instead, she took those findings and told women that they are responsible for being the answer.”
Man’s perspective: I would never have used it to excuse pornography usage or cheating, and I didn’t force her to have sex when she didn’t want to (as far as I knew) but absolutely took it as grounds to expect from her a far higher degree of gracious thanks for not using pornography or cheating, what we’d otherwise consider simple baseline decency that doesn’t really need that much gracious thanks.
Also, that and “Every Man’s Battle” had a difficult effect on my relationship with women. Though I never harbored “crushes” on her friends, I felt that lust and desire were just around the corner, I’m a visual creature after all, and so I kept my distance and likely came off as cold, distant and aloof, and frankly just awkward. It was clothed in the idea that I was protecting my marriage from my own supposedly lustful, visual nature, but like so many others have said, it made women out to be temptresses just for being women.
It leaves you feeling despair because instead of recognizing that every man and woman will encounter temptation, and their responsibility as a Christian is to obey the LORD and flee, the author paints it like men just can’t help succumbing to their biological urges because they’re just “wired” that way… Furthermore, the most disturbing point is that women have this huge ability or responsibility for men’s happiness, self-esteem and ego. It is up to us to be perfect and pleasing so that our men will not feel insecure or be tempted. HELLO?? It is downright DANGEROUS to suggest that a human being is responsible for another human being’s self-worth. This is codependency 101.”
SYNOPSIS OF FINDINGS
Based on problematic survey data and outdated research, For Women Only presents a picture of marriage that burdens women with the responsibility for preserving men’s “fragile egos” rather than creating healthy marriage dynamics. Instead of looking at how some of our struggles may be culturally conditioned or a result of sin, and seeing how one can act as iron sharpening iron to point a husband to look more like Christ (Romans 8:29), women are encouraged to accept men’s bad behaviors and not ask for anything for themselves—even pleasure in bed.
Instead of For Women Only, Choose…
The Great Sex Rescue by Gregoire, Lindenbach and Sawatsky
The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr
Boundaries in Marriage by Cloud and Townsend
The Emotionally Healthy Woman by Geri Scazzero
Download this material in a onesheet format that you can email or give to someone who recommends the book. Let’s change the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to something healthy!
For Women Only
One Sheet
Everything Harmful with For Women Only Summarized on One Sheet!
Subscribe today to get the free printout to share with your friends, family, and pastors
I read this book and Shaunti’s boom for young men hoping it would help me better relate to women. It did not work.
The ideas in this book and others, but especially this one, took a firm hold and contributed to me pushing through 20 years of pain with sex. I have a very trustworthy husband, but I’m just now, after 23 years of marriage, learning to really trust him. I feel a huge sense of loss when I think about the decades that I spent bound to these harmful ideas and messages, and am still trying to completely be rid of them. Years and years of these thoughts don’t go away quickly. You would think that the good news that I didn’t have to push through pain to protect my husband, that he wasn’t constantly fighting looking at other women, and that sex was for me too would free me to be rid of all of it quickly. But these messages are stubborn, and for me, even infiltrated my understanding of the Gospel. By the grace of God, I am learning a new way. But man, there is so much loss to navigate in the wake.
Oh, Ashley, I’m so sorry! I understand. We heard this from so many women. And the body keeps the score. It’s not only a matter of changing your mindset, but also of helping your body to feel safe. I’m so sorry you went through all this for so long. It is a lot to mourn.
Thanks for reviewing this book! I read it several years ago and it felt really icky to me but I had trouble explaining why.
I hope this helps!
Ok, this is a bit of a side issue, but have you noticed how these books always skew the examples to try and trivialise the wife’s concern?
“The next time your husband stubbornly drives in circles, ask yourself which is more important: being on time to the party or his feeling trusted? No contest.”
Actually, it’s pretty rude to turn up late to a party anyway, just because the driver is too arrogant to ask for directions. But realistically, how many times do most couples end up driving to parties compared to other things? What if he is driving his wife to a hospital for some important tests or an operation and she will go to the bottom of the queue if she misses her appointment time? Or they are picking up their child from a bus station after a school trip away and the kid will be left on their own, worrying, if they don’t arrive on time? But no, we have to present the wife as a silly airhead who is more interested in partying than in making her husband feel ‘trusted’…yuk!
Great point, Angharad!
Wow … now that I see it, I can’t un-see it!
The husband who won’t let you give him directions is the same guy who gets mad when you don’t. “Why didn’t you tell me when to turn?” Mine, if I say anything , will turn the other way and drive in random circles for 20 minutes, just to show me!
Sounds fun. You’d get there quicker if you’d called an uber!
This book normalized the behaviors of my emotionally immature, fragile ego-ed, selfish, neglectful, compulsive, sex addicted husband. Trying to follow the book’s advice (and others like it) almost killed me- literally. By the time I got myself into counseling, I was severely depressed, highly anxious, having daily panic attacks, hopeless, hormonally imbalanced, sleepless, racked with physical pain, and edging ever closer to suicide. I hated my life and my husband, and I blamed myself for all the problems in our marriage.
There was no room for me in my marriage. My husband’s trauma and behaviors took up all the space. I spent a lifetime trying to work around a man-child, and this book told me that God wanted it that way.
Oh, J, I’m so sorry. I hope you’re in a better place now!
I remember when I first saw the description for the book on Amazon, I actually thought I would like the book because it claimed that “sex for men is emotional.” One of the things I hated hearing was that sex for men was purely about physical pleasure, so I appreciated that this book set out to debunk this sentiment. However, upon reading the book it turned out that Shaunti essentially replaces “physical need” with “emotional need” and that men still “need” sex in a way that women can’t fathom. This, along with the entire “visual rolodex” nonsense, made it clear that the book was a massive disappointment (I’m a guy, and from my own experience, either the “visual rolodex” that Shaunti claims we have is nonexistent, or my rolodex is broken). And of course, the way the book portrays men as sex crazed animals who can’t help but slobber over women was just degrading and sickening.
Thanks for chiming in, S! It’s always good to hear guys say the same thing. This is what my husband and son-in-law say all the time, too. What guy is honestly like this? And how is that not a red flag?
Regarding Shaunti’s survey of men on how they’d react to seeing an attractive woman, most men said they glance and try to get a look but try not to gawk or linger. How exactly is that any different than how a woman would reacted at seeing an attractive man? Assuming we’re only talking about the mental thought process that goes into seeing someone attractive.
Exactly! Or even a woman seeing an attractive woman? I would totally look at an attractive woman, just as most guys would likely look at Ryan Reynolds. It’s not necessarily sexual!
I read this book after 25 years of marriage and after finding out that my husband had cheated while we were dating (never knew before this) and had had an issue with porn/masturbation for much of our marriage which he admitted after attending a men’s purity bible study. When he told me these things he sincerely wanted to be accountable and was making changes. I was devastated and confused because I had trusted him fully and never worried about him being interested in other people, porn, etc. I read every book I could get my hands on to try to make sense of how I was feeling. I bought For Women Only and when I say that this book screwed me up more than the actual revelation of what my husband had done, it is not an exaggeration. Everywhere I went, I started comparing myself to other women, thinking that my husband must have been staring at them throughout our whole marriage and I just hadn’t known. I cried every day. I have always been a person who smiles at everyone at the grocery store but I started to keep my head down, because it was too painful to see all of the attractive women who I was sure that my husband was looking at because “he couldn’t help it”. Even as he was getting free of his issues and truly trying to follow God, I was becoming a shell of myself because I was sure that there was no way he would ever change and I would continue to be in competition with all other women because “God made him that way” as the book said. I also read “Through His Eyes”, another book Shaunti wrote, and the first chapter about the man who literally spends all day trying not to sexualize/think about other women (even after it says he and his wife had sex the night before) traumatized me even further. To me, it was as if no man could ever stay faithful, not desire every other woman, etc. It was 2-3 years before I finally threw the books in the trash. I was still not free of the despair I felt but I could not bear to read these things again. It has been a process getting past all of this. I still sometimes worry that when we are out that my husband is admiring other women but we talk about it a lot and I believe he is being truthful when he says he is not. God did not create men to lust. He is a good God and would not doom all men to failure on this issue if it was not possible for them to change. I pray that other women do not experience the pain that this book caused me.
Wow, Kate. This is such a powerful comment. Thank you.
It really is sick how much distrust these books bring about towards men/husbands!
My husband didn’t admit his porn problem for ~20 years until I asked him point blank. Because he had cheated on me in that way, it meant that every other accusation these books cast landed on my husband, too. When one rings true, they all feel truthful.
Like Kate, I compared myself to other women. I saw them as unwitting strippers to my husband’s mind’s eye; as what he had to envision to get an erection when we had intercourse; that my body will never be good enough again because he has that whole rolodex to choose from. Sadly my husband rarely talks to me about these things and because he didn’t confess it to me of his own volition, I struggle to believe he isn’t hiding more and I am just too stupid to know the exact right questions to ask. However, I doubt most men tick off every single accusation these authors claim is all true of all men!
That is truly so sad. I’m sorry, Nessie.
Sorry, I missed making my full point. When these people claim *all* men do *all* these things, then when just one behavior is found to be true, it feels like all of them are true even if they aren’t. And that feels unfair to the guys out there that have done none or just one of the claimed “hard wired” behaviors.
I believe men (and women) should own up to their sins BUT I don’t think they should have to defend themselves against every other accusation just because these writers are so daggone wrong and have convinced their wives that they must be doing all the bad things.
Yes! We had a story by a woman we named Anne in The Great Sex Rescue that went over just this. She told us in a focus group how much this book affected her, because when she found out her husband had struggled in one area, she couldn’t trust him in anything. She read the book and thought, “Wow, I guess I have a unicorn of a husband who isn’t like this,” and then when she found out he was like that in one way, it all fell apart. Thankfully they recovered, but it wasn’t okay at the time.
> > “The next time your husband stubbornly drives in circles, ask yourself which is more important: being on time to the party or his feeling trusted? No contest.”
Let me take this to the next level…
The next time your husband tanks you into bankruptcy because he can’t handle the family budget and checkbook, ask yourself which is more important: being financially stable or his feeling trusted? No contest.
Good one!
zing!!
I’ve read books that say that.
I pulled that book out of my church’s library when I was a teenager and devoured it in a sitting *cringe*. Of course like a lot of teens I was thinking and dreaming about relationships all the time. But I was a good church kid, so I also wanted to learn everything I could about God’s Plan for Marriage. After all, it’s not like I was going to date a bunch of guys for fun or anything! Better just get right to the point-being a God Honoring Wife!
I wish I could go back and pull that book out of my teenage self’s hands! I second all the points here. I also think FWO normalizes terrible communication and avoidant behavior in relationships. After all, the whole premise of the book is that your husband can’t be expected to tell you what he really wants and needs! I recall there are also places where it explicitly tells the reader not to discuss some aspect of its content with her husband, or says something like “if he says he doesn’t think this he’s probably lying to you, because all men think this.”
It absolutely does! And then it gives contradictory advice, like he can’t handle hearing that you disagree, but also you need to speak up and tell him what you want. So which is it?
One thing I find frustrating about this kind of material is the double-speak when it comes to how women look and dress. On the one hand, a woman is supposed to dress like she cares about being attractive to her partner “to make it easier for him.” Or, it’s her fault if he betrays her.
At the same time she has to dress in a way that won’t possibly attract any of the naturally sex-crazed men who aren’t her partner who might happen to see her. Or it’s her fault if he assaults her.
It is impossible to dress for both of these dynamics at the same time.
Exactly! It reminds me of that document about 98 ways you can sin against your husband. And one was about being attractive, but one was also about not being offensively attractive!
It has gotten to the point where the mere mention Feldhan’s name sends me toward a rage. How could she be so smug and arrogant in the first place, and then when she was confronted with her errors, DOUBLE DOWN?! And call herself “Christian” to boot — as she deliberately misrepresents herself (the lies about her credentials) and outright >>lies<< to women and men about what God made them to be and how they are wired? Ghaaah!
“As we struggle with [the] hard truth [that when you take care of yourself, your expectation that ‘I only have eyes for you’ feels fairer and easier to accomplish], it might be helpful to remember that we’re not alone: We’re also asking our man to do something that is hard and goes against his natural instinct. The man who originally opened my eyes to this issue explained it this way: “We need to see that you care about keeping our attention on you–and off of other women. Sometimes it is so hard for us to look away. It takes a lot of work and a lot of effort. But it helps me so much if I see that my wife is willing to do her part and purposefully work toward staying in shape and looking good.”
This, to me personally, is the most damaging. I don’t share a lot of concerns with sex, hierarchy, and a lot of what is taught, my husband is secular and a safe man. My husband isn’t a man child and I can tell him if he is lost, though I never do because it’s me who can’t find their way out of a paper bag! We have a healthy marriage, but my self confidence is and always has been low. I am always worried that I am not attractive enough, especially with some of my health issues that cause me to be overweight. It’s so harmful to be told, even if our husband doesn’t act like a hormone laden goat in rut, that we have to constantly be attractive, and always trying to catch our husbands eye, that vows and love are not enough because he is always looking for someone more attractive. If god had made men this way, he would have made a really big mistake. As much as I don’t believe that God made that mistake, it’s still hurtful to be told you always have to be physically beautiful to be desired by your husband.
It’s also enraging that she equates the impossible task of fighting age, the results of pregnancy, and nature with the basic human decency of “don’t gawk at other women.”
I remember Jesus commanding men to not lust in their hearts. I don’t recall Him joining that to a verse commanding women to remain trim and hot. Can someone point me in the right direction?
That’s in the book of Esther — you know, the woman who was owned by/married to that godless king who raped women until he found one he wanted to make queen? In the Bible!
Yep!
Got your face scarred in an accident? Oh dear, your husband’s going to struggle to stay faithful.
Health issues confining you to a wheelchair mean your figure isn’t toned any more? Avoiding porn is going to be sooooo hard for him.
Put on weight because of the steroid meds you’re on? Hmmm, you know that is going to make living a godly life so much harder for your poor husband.
Grrrrrr!!!!!
The one that really bothers me is–got a mastectomy because of breast cancer? What ever will he do, because he’s a boob man!
Sadly, a lot of men do leave their wives when their wives get cancer.
I wish the Professional Evangelicals would actually address this problem and say it’s a problem. It’s actually the logical conclusion of everything they teach: women are to serve men, are second to men, have needs that are lesser than men’s needs, are obligated to give sex even when ill, and must remain hot and sexy.
It really was highly problematic.
“Juvenile” is such an apt description of all of Shaunti’s work.
One hallmark of maturity is accepting constructive criticism without getting whiny or egotistical. I’m unclear as to why we should expect that men can handle this in every area of their lives except for when it comes from their wives. You don’t always choose your teachers, professors, managers, or pastors (you often need to learn, hold a job, and worship, so it’s a “best of what is out there” situation, or “other things more than make up for this” situation), but they sure choose their wives.
Absolutely!
Whenever I read “Christian” books like this one, I thought I’d be much better off remaining single if God really created men to be lust-filled sex crazed maniacs. I had already experienced this harm in my first marriage and felt that I had to adapt to his immature behavior. After all, isn’t that what “being submissive” meant?
Thankfully, I chose to stop reading books like this over a decade ago. I felt that my relationship with God was strained because I got this view that God cared more about men than women. I am so thankful I never read this book, but I’ve read other Christian books with these same toxic teachings. In recent years, I have become leery of “Christian” marriage books.
Sorry I’m all over this comment section. Just had to add:
“In the first edition of her book, she admitted that she had tremendous trouble with her statistics class; this is omitted from the updated edition.”
LOL!! Okay, Shaunti, maybe lay off writing social science books then?
It also nicely explains a lot of her innate sexism: she’s so brilliant – Harvard!!! – and yet a fairly straightforward math class blows her mind. Larry Summers must have been right that math is hard for girls.
I was gifted this book and “For Men Only” shortly after my husband and I got married. So glad we never got to read both books. If “For Women Only” is this bad how could the paired book for men be any good either? It is such a shame there are books out there painting women to roll over. As for men struggling with this primal issue of hyper vigilance of undressing attractive women. Not ALL men struggle with objectifying women.
It’s actually interesting to compare the two. We may do a podcast looking at three sets of books–one aimed at women and one at men–to see how the advice compares. It’s quite instructive!
Yes PLEASE, please, please have a conversation also unpacking the For Men Only book!
Just want to put this here…I listened to a great podcast on complementarian theology this morning. I highly recommend it. It’s the Unshaken Faith podcast episode #21
Just listened. I’ve loosely followed both these women for years & appreciate some of their content. However, they seem to be completely ignorant that “Shannon’s misunderstanding” is what so many comps actually teach. It comes across as a critique of her singular misunderstanding versus understanding that these teachings are widespread. Using Shanon to straw man & minimize the real issue. In my experience all those things are typical and common. Their rebuttal points are ones I’ve never heard from comps, but I’ve heard all the things they are rebutting many times over in different circles. I see this podcast having some value in good points but part of a huge problem of comps ignoring & not confronting the big issues in their camp. Either I managed to live in very unfortunate realms of influence and they have managed to live in comp utopia or it’s a very concerning downplay of common comp teachings.
My answer to the “beautiful woman walks by”…
I would notice her, maybe feel attraction and desire, and maybe even harbor some inappropriate thoughts. But only in the short term, and then I would move on and forget about it.
There are a few on the evangelical side who would call that lust, but they’re wrong.
Yep.
I never read any books by this author (and thanks to this site I never will!) but I am just wondering why a so-called Christian author would write such horrendous things. I don’t know anything about Shaunti Feldhahn, but I can’t help but feel that there must be some underlying trauma in her life to make her see marriage and men, (and Christian men no less), in such deeply unhealthy ways. Is it a cheating spouse? Did her father abandon her when she was a kid? An abusive relationship? The woman clearly has major issues, and in my humble opinion, she should get counselling.
It’s not just Shaunti. It’s ALL Christian authors until very recently.
Glad to see you are calling out the problems with “For Women Only”. I read this book when I was in high school, and basically what I remember is that somehow it kept relating everything to “it’s so important for men to have sex regularly, women just can’t possibly understand” like that was the MOST IMPORTANT marriage advice for wives.
When I did start having sex, and it hurt (because of vaginismus), I felt like I had to come up with a really polite, positive way to communicate it, because it would be just terrible if my partner’s experiences during sex weren’t 100% positive, then he would feel rejected, his self-esteem would be destroyed, etc. (And that was more important than my pain…)
(I can’t totally blame that wrong thinking on “For Women Only” because A LOT of Christian marriage resources are saying the same things. But yes, I do remember “For Women Only” kept saying it over and over.)
This book made me feel awful about myself. As a young women in a difficult marriage, struggling with depression and young children and gaining weight her emphasis on looking good for my husband, along with some other Christian books, made me feel like of my husband didn’t want me or left me or cheated on me it would be my fault for not being attractive or thin enough ( she did say weight wasn’t as important as taking care of yourself, but it really screwed me up anyways, especially as I was struggling to care for myself too. ) it took years to think that my husband could like me if I was overweight. And the emphasis on sex made me feel like it was more true as I’m one of the many women in a marriage where I have had a higher drive then my husband. And I was sure it was all because I wasn’t attractive enough for my husband. I can’t even tell you the damage it had on me for years and years.
I am reading Wendy Alsup’s devotional “By His Wounds You are Healed.” It was going very well until the chapter that discusses Ephesians 5:33. She recommended “For Women Only” and all kinds of red flags went up. I immediately came here to find resources and thoughts on “for women only” and here it is. Thank you for your unwavering work to protect and heal marriages❤️
You’re so welcome!
I agree with some of this, especially the exaggeration of the advice to make men feel good, whether or not they deserve the praise. Reading it with my husband lead to a few conversations saying “well that’s a bit extreme”.
Having said this, I do feel it’s a bit unfair to judge the book on its own without reference to the counterpart “For Men Only” which I felt had some useful insights into women that I related to and was the reason I encouraged my husband to read the series. They should be considered as a whole I think.
We’ll be doing a side-by-side comparison of the advice to men vs. women in an upcoming podcast. It’s quite sobering.
Coming here in November to say that this book is most likely her trauma response to her own abusive marriage. She is married to a man who gets mad if she warns him on time not to miss a turn on the highway. A man who lusts after everybody (like Danah Gresh’s newly porn-recovering husband, and she wrote similar books). An article in the Guardian I once read called these type of women “double agents for the patriarchy” and I think it comes out of their own trauma. This is not meant to extend them any sympathy, since they’ve hurt so many people. In writing books to rationalize their own abusive marriages, they legitimized and prolonged many others that should have ended or never have happened in the first place. The comments from September confirm this. It is much easier to say “all men are just like that” than admit that no, they’re not all like that, but your husband is.
I also sometimes think about the all the editors and reviewers whose hands this would have gone through before publication. Were they all in similarly terrible marriages that not one single person thought, upon reading the manuscript, “Oh no, we better check on this poor woman.”
I wish that too! And I do agree with your assessment. That’s what we found in our survey for She Deserves Better, too. Adult women who believe modesty messages, believe that girls have to be the gatekeepers, etc., are more likely to be in bad marriages than those who don’t believe it.