After losing her campaign to become the first woman president, Hillary Clinton said, “To all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.” My 7-year-old daughter read this quote the other day in a book we got her that tells stories about courageous women in our world and she said, “I want to be president someday.” To which I responded, “You can be anything you want to be.” However, when we read through scripture together, I have to dance around passages that tell her she cannot be anything she wants to be unless she first gets permission from her husband to be it. “The Bible says what?” Are women really meant to be quiet in worship; are they really meant to cover their heads; were they really created to be submissive to their husbands? What does the Bible really say about these rightfully alarming passages that, when used wrongfully, stunt the growth and potential of the women in our world?

Photo by Garry Knight