It's a question almost as old as time itself. What is the difference between men and women? And there is no shortage of people ready to give an answer, from scientists to theologians, from counsellors to comedians. While campaigns for equality in the 60s and 70s stressed the equivalence of men and women, in recent years there has been a swing back to exploring and trying to define the differences between the sexes. Much of that has been profoundly helpful, leading to better communication and increased understanding between men and women. But is it all good? Or is there a danger that rigid definitions of difference, particularly ones with a Christian veneer, can actually perpetuate stereotypes, stifle diversity and drive us further apart?

How exactly are men and women distinct? John Gray popularised the difference debate with his 90s classic Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, his argument being that men and women are so different that they might as well have come from parallel planets. He focuses on the psychology of men and women, how they think and behave, and explores communication between husbands and wives - ideas that have been translated to other areas of life in his many subsequent books. Many people have found a resonance in his explanations that expose the assumptions that we make about each other and have led to greater clarity for both men and women in expressing their needs. Critics point out that ‘Dr' Gray's PhD was acquired at Columbia Pacific University, a correspondence school that has since been forced to close, and argue that he perpetuates stereotypes and justifies immature behaviour in both men and women.

A more recent addition to the debate is The Essential Difference by Simon Baron-Cohen, a Cambridge professor who is also the director of the Autism Research Centre. He argues that the female brain is predominantly hardwired for empathy, while the male brain is hardwired for understanding and building systems. Expressed crudely, these differences will be demonstrated in women getting together to chat while men play with their gadgets and put their CDs into alphabetical order. He argues that these differences are due to biological and social factors, both nature and nurture, with babies performing to type from a very young age. His description of the different tactics that teenage boys and girls use to establish dominance in a group will be recognisable to many youth workers. Boys tend to use physical force and overt intimidation to establish their place in the pecking order; girls tend to be more subtle and indirect, using bitchiness and manipulation with great skill to the same end. His book will carry more weight with many because of its scientific basis, but his conclusion that autism is a form of the extreme male brain is an easy target for parody and misunderstanding.

Of course Christians have also written on the subject. In their books, Wild at Heart for men and Captivating for women which seem to draw heavily on Gray's work, John and Stasi Eldredge argue that essentially men and women hunger after different roles in fairy tales. Every man wants a battle to fight, an adventure to live and a beauty to rescue. Every woman wants to be romanced, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure and to unveil beauty. These differences are not cultural, according to the Eldredges, they are the way that God created us. They encourage both men and women to recognise the wounds that life has dealt them, and to be honest about the way they have responded and the effect that has had on their souls. These are very popular books; many people find a resonance with what they are saying and their wisdom has helped people find deeper relationships with themselves, with God and with each other.

More recently, there has been a lot of discussion about the decline in the numbers of men attending church, particularly in the States, which leads to assertions of what true masculinity and femininity entails. According to some writers, the biggest threat currently facing the church of Jesus Christ is women. In his book Why men hate going to church David Murrow asserts that ‘you cannot have a thriving church without a core of men who are true followers of Christ. If the men are dead, the church is dead.'

There is wisdom in Murrow's book, and there is no doubting his passion, but there are also sweeping generalisations that dishonour both men and women. He says that the church has become feminised in spite of being led by men for centuries because male church leaders are usually effeminate and not ‘real men'. He paints a world where men are so insecure that they are threatened by any hints of women taking initiative or being innovative. His suggestion that pastors should send the women out of church early so that he can give extra teaching to the men that they then pass onto their wives would be funny if it wasn't meant seriously. And his strategy for church growth of targeting the needs of men because you'll get the women coming along anyway is dismissive of the identity of half the human race and extremely short-sighted.

So what are we to make of the ‘difference' debate? It seems to me that there is a real need to discern true wisdom for the 21^st century from a call to return to mythical traditional roles in the guise of biblical authority. Here are my suggestions for moving toward a better understanding and appreciation of each other.

We need to celebrate the diversity of men and women

When I look at the men and women with whom I live, work, relate and worship I see as much difference between some of the women as between the women and the men. What heartens me about Baron Cohen's book is that he is careful to talk about the diversity that is found within genders. He doesn't claim that all women are wonderfully empathetic, just that on average females spontaneously empathise to a greater degree than do males. Some men can be very good at empathising but that doesn't make them effeminate. He says, ‘Looking for sex differences is not the same as stereotyping. The search for sex differences enables us to discover how social and biological influences act on the two sexes in different ways but it does not tell us about individuals... Stereotyping in contrast judges individuals according to a set of assumptions about a group and is pernicious.'

Sadly that balance and generosity seems to be missing from many Christian books on the subject. Instead of diversity, we are dealt the absolutes that evangelical Christians are so fond of which detract from the genuine insights of the writers. From Wild at Heart: ‘Like it or not, there is something fierce in the heart of every man.' From Captivating: ‘Every little girl... is asking one fundamental question... Little girls want to know, Am I lovely?' If people don't fit these narrow definitions of what it means at heart to be masculine and feminine it is because they are damaged and in denial. If you're a woman who doesn't like twirly skirts, you just can't win. As I read these books, while agreeing with much of what they are saying, I have this horrible sense of being stifled, and stuffed into a padded box with frilly hearts on the outside.

The heart cry of Murrow and others who want the church to be more masculine is for authenticity, and it desperately needs to be heard. Reacting against the stereotype of wimpy Christian men, they want a place where they can be real before God instead of being squashed into pretending to be what they are not. I want to shout at this point, ‘Me too!' The trouble is that in stating their case so loudly, they require other men to conform to their personality type and women to confine themselves to a diminished role. Murrow rails against passivity in the church as a major turn-off for men, but then requires women to become even more passive for his solutions to be put into practice.

Nowhere does the Bible define what it means to be masculine or feminine. What it does give us is descriptions of men and women relating to each other within the cultures in which they live, often in ways that do not reflect the nature of God. Many of the pitfalls in Christian writing on difference between genders are a result of mistaking cultural differences for God-given qualities.

And rather than fulfilling the neat stereotypes, there is the same complexity to characters in the Bible that I see in my friends. David was the ‘warrior king' who came to the public's attention when he killed a giant, and whose last words to his son Solomon was to ask him to get revenge on David's enemy, to ‘bring his grey head down to the grave in blood'. But he was also a musician whose harp playing brought Saul relief from an evil spirit and whose poetry and songs are still sung today. Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the temple in a passionate rage and challenged the religious leaders with strong words that caused offence. He willingly faced a horrific death, suffering brutal pain without complaint. But he also welcomed little children, in contrast to his disciples, said that the meek will inherit the earth and instructed people to turn the other cheek rather than fighting back.

And most of the women in the Bible acted outside of the expectations of their culture in order to follow the vision that God had inspired in them. That needs a lot more unpacking than there is room for here, but think of Esther risking her life to speak up for her people, Mary sitting at Jesus' feet to learn instead of helping her sister in the kitchen, Moses' mother and Shiprah and Puah the midwives disobeying Pharaoh and lying in order to protect the next generation, the ‘sinful woman' who anointed Jesus' feet with perfume and so on. These women were not well behaved, compliant or tame. They were responding to what God had called them to be, discovering the truth that being good, being sweet, being nice does not cause life to sing.

Discussions of difference can be key in helping men and women to relate to each other better and to co-operate more, but the danger is that we use stereotypes as an instruction manual for how to behave rather than taking the time to listen and to learn, to interact with the uniqueness of the real people with whom we live and work.

We need to recognise that church is not a great place for many women to be either

The feminisation of the church debate implies that women love church because it's just how they want it to be. But Murrow himself admits that younger adults of both genders are missing from church. The type of church that he describes may suit older women or some of those whose primary concern is bringing up children because it provides a place to serve and a safe social network that values children, but it's not somewhere I would thrive. I look at my teenage sons' female friends who are Christians - intelligent, feisty, determined young women - and I wonder what role they will play in the body of Christ in the future. Where are the female role models who will inspire them? Has the church anything more to offer them than teaching Sunday School or being backing singers in the worship band?

In recent months, I've been talking with youth workers about women in youth ministry. I first became a youth worker nearly 20 years ago now, when there were few women in positions of leadership and responsibility within the church or in youth organisations. Looking around at the current youth ministry scene, it feels that little has changed. Men and women are pretty evenly represented as students on youth ministry courses but beyond that the picture is not very encouraging. Issues of concern include a female youth worker who is not allowed to attend leadership meetings where decisions are made about the youth work purely because she is a woman; meetings of youth workers where women don't make any verbal contribution because of the group dynamics and the unwitting dominance of the men; lots of women doing innovative, committed youth work but very few women in positions of leadership within organisations or in teaching roles where they are able to shape the future direction of youth ministry.

Is the answer to church decline to make church more masculine? I think the situation is different in the UK for a start, but when I look at the church I see both women and men who long for authentic expressions of Christian faith where they are challenged to take risks, where they are able to use their gifts and where they are empowered to engage with the world around them, regardless of their gender. As well as the needs of men being met, there is a need for women to be encouraged and equipped to reach the full potential that God has for them. We need to fight for a place where both happen, not sacrifice one in fulfilment of the other.

We need to offer each other an invitation to growth

From the creation accounts, we try to tease out what God originally intended for men and women. After God created Adam, he saw the first thing in his creation that was not good, the fact that Adam was on his own. And so he created woman, a counterpart to Adam, to work with him to fulfil the cultural mandate. Together they are to accomplish what neither of them would be able to do on their own. Genesis 1 and 2 offer us a vision of complementarity, partnership and a difference between the genders that means they complete each other when they walk in relationship with God.

But after creation comes the fall, and the consequences of Eve's and Adam's disobedience ripple out across the whole of creation. A relationship of equals is marred by competition, a scrabbling for domination and control and a separation of the tasks of humanity. As God describes the effects of their actions, we hear that the impact of the fall for Eve will predominantly be played out in terms of relationships and family life; for Adam the consequences are seen in work and the environment. The mandate meant to be worked out in partnership is divided as a result of the fall.

But that is not where we are called to live as followers of Christ. We are to seek first the kingdom of God, to establish God's reign in every part of our lives, including relationships between men and women. Instead of settling for the gender status quo, we need to fight for the complementarity and partnership that God offered us as gifts, but that we so quickly threw back in God's face.

And that can be a real challenge. I'm part of Grace, an alternative worship community in west London. A few years ago we realised that, in spite of having an egalitarian theology, we had got stuck in very traditional roles. The men had all the gadgets for use in worship; the women ran the café after the service. We acknowledged that these were our comfort zones and where our skills currently lay, but that it was not necessarily a healthy place to remain. We've deliberately tried to learn new skills, to encourage each other to participate in all types of activities and to strive for balance in the roles we play within the community. There's a difference between being called to and gifted for a particular role or position, and sticking with roles through laziness or comfort. All of us need to be honest about where we hide behind roles in a bid for security or hold onto them as a means of power and control. Neither does us credit.

There's obviously a lot we can learn from studies of gender, but I don't think we will ever be able to adequately define what it means to be masculine or feminine. Like the very nature of God, there will always be an element of holy mystery about what makes each of us tick. But I do think we need to keep working at relating to each other across the divide of our gender. Rather than retreating to safe stereotypes of what it means to be a man or a woman, the invitation we have to offer each other is to become more whole and more fully alive. That will be different for each of us, but my understanding of Genesis is that we all have something to offer to people of the opposite gender that calls them to a fuller expression of the image of God. Some of that will be along traditional gender divides - so those women who cling to safety have much to learn from the men who value adventure and risk; those men who withdraw to their gadgets have much to learn from those women with a flair for empathy. But equally there will be less predictable outcomes; for example, I have learned a lot about relating to people - a traditionally female area of expertise - from a couple of my male friends.

There will always be a need for single-gender groups for friendship and ministry. But God said that it was not good for man to be alone. Something holy and strong happens when men and women make the effort to live, work and play together rather than in competition with each other. This should be most evident within the church, but at the moment faith communities seem to be the place where women and men are most cut off from each other. We need to allow the difference debate to draw us closer together in co-operation and understanding not enclose us in stereotypical boxes. We need to work to break down barriers, challenge each other towards wholeness and rediscover the complementarity that God intended for us. I want to commit myself afresh to making that effort - I hope you'll join me.

© Jenny Baker
This article first appeared in Youthwork Magazine, August 2007 and is reproduced with permission. www.youthwork.co.uk