How can a homemaker be femininely strong and not fat? The modern American approach to exercise is (of course) egalitarian. Christians should believe for males and females: different bodies, different jobs. In daily life, a homemaker would easily do many tasks like moving furniture, vacuuming, washing walls, mopping, washing a twenty pound dutch oven, carrying laundry up and down stairs, lifting a twenty pound baby, running and playing with children, and the many, many other parts of home and property beautifying.
On my instagram, we got into some discussion of debating the truth of this statement: “If you kept your home deeply cleaned everyday you would have no need to go to the gym.”
I took a poll and the results were 48% agreed with the statement, 35% disagreed, and 17% wanted to see the poll results without committing to an answer.
I think exactly if a woman needs formal exercise depends on variables:
- how large, productive is the household she is overseeing
- does she eat too much
- does she have an injury that needs to be recovered
My answer to the poll is: In general if you 1) don’t eat too much and 2) keep a high producing house in very good order and play with kids – you would not need to do anything further to be femininely strong and not fat. The woman who bemoans she cannot lose the weight because there’s no time to go to the gym with all these kids lacks creativity. Start with cleaning the baseboards, a game of capture the flag, doing a squat whenever you need to pick something up, and self control for gluttony.
What definition of a “high producing household” am I working from? Broadly speaking, working, creating, building, beautifying. And of course, above all OFFSPRING.
Beyond the above, exercise is a hobby, which can be great, or selfish. Men are different; their bodies are made for different roles.
If a woman likes a type of exercise as a hobby, that would be put into the regular filter of discernment mothers and wives need for how much time to spend on any of their hobbies. Is a type of exercise that is your hobby to leave and do something the family can accommodate and you can do without failing to keep up on first things? Does it have your husband’s blessing? How much do its side effects bless the family?
There can be benefits to women lifting weights, but she should not do it in a masculine way and keep a body that is feminine. The way men lift weights together, there is a lot going on verbally, fraternally, and of course physically that is part of what it means to be male. Women shouldn’t try to do all the same things just with smaller dumbbells.
A typical American gal’s instincts of exercise come from what the pagan medical academy has outlined and what feminist government schools have normalized in sports and gym class. One of their starting points is that women are just small men and they will be in the workforce doing men’s jobs. Of course their vision and recommendation of exercise is going to be off. We should not be going for women doing mostly the same sports and exercise as men.
Do everything you can to love the sexual distinctions. God made them. 🌈
