The New Eve, page 20
8. What is the best piece of man wisdom you will take with you from this study and discussion? Explain.
Post-discussion Takeaways
Now that you have read this chapter and had your discussion time, what personal applications (new beliefs, priorities, behaviors, ways of thinking, etc.) will you leave with? Take a few minutes and record them in the space below.
Session 8
Discussion Questions
Chapter 11
Writing out your initial answers to these questions before your small-group meeting will enhance the quality of your discussions. Take a moment to record your answers.
1. What impacted you the most as you read the biblical outline for marriage on pages 166–67? What specifically appealed to you on that list? What did not? Explain.
2. What would have to change in your marriage for it to better align itself with the biblical outline on pages 166–67? What would be a good first step for you to move in that direction? Ask the group what advice they might have for you.
3. What specific responsibilities did your wedding vows charge you and your husband with in order to be married successfully? Explain. If you could rewrite your vows now, what would you want them to say? If you are single, what will you want your wedding vows to say?
4. Look at the biblical diagram for marriage that’s on page 171. Do you see marriage this way? If not, what is the outline you are working from for your marriage (or future marriage)? Explain.
5. Share your thoughts about helper and head. Are you comfortable with these terms for your marriage or your future marriage? Why or why not?
6. What one or two things stand out to you from the research on marriage provided in chapter 11? Explain. As you observe couples around you, would you say their marriages confirm or challenge the findings of this research? Explain.
7. What is your greatest takeaway from this chapter? Explain.
Post-discussion Takeaways
Now that you have read this chapter and had your discussion time, what personal applications (new beliefs, priorities, behaviors, ways of thinking, etc.) will you leave with? Take a few minutes and record them in the space below.
Session 9
Discussion Questions
Chapter 12
Writing out your initial answers to these questions before your small-group meeting will enhance the quality of your discussions. Take a moment to record your answers.
1. Take time in this final session to review the previous eight discussions you have had together as a group. What has this New Eve study meant to you? What new insights do you believe you will leave with? Be specific.
2. In what ways has this study changed your perspective as a woman?
3. What practical applications from this study do you honestly think you will use?
4. In keeping with the story in chapter 12, what is your biggest challenge to becoming a New Eve?
5. What will be your first bold move?
6. How do you plan to work this bold move into your life? What will be your practical steps? How do you see this bold move changing the way you live life? Explain.
7. Conclude your New Eve study by praying for one another and the bold moves each woman intends to take.
Notes
Chapter 1
1. Douglas B. Sosnik, Matthew J. Dowd, and Ron Fournier, Applebee’s America: How Successful Political, Business, and Religious Leaders Connect with the New American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 224.
2. Celinda Lake and Kellyanne Conway, What Women Really Want: How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live (New York: Free Press, 2005), 2–3.
3. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children (New York: Talk Miramax Books, 2002), 133.
4. Peg Tyre and Daniel McGinn, “She Works, He Doesn’t,” Newsweek, 12 May 2003.
5. Obtained from the Center for Women’s Business Research, based on an analysis of data from the 2000 census.
6. Tyre and McGinn, “She Works, He Doesn’t.” Also see Matt Krantz, “More Women Take CFO Roles,” USA Today, 13 October 2004.
7. See “Women Are the Backbone of the Christian Congregations in America,” the Barna Group, 6 May 2000.
8. Michelle Conlin, “The New Gender Gap: From Kindergarten to Grad School, Boys Are Becoming the Second Sex,” BusinessWeek, 26 May 2003.
9. “The Growing Gender Gaps in College Enrollment and Degree Attainment in the U.S. and Their Potential Economic and Social Consequences,” a study prepared by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, May 2003.
10. Tamar Lewin, “At Colleges, Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust,” New York Times, 9 July 2006.
11. “The Condition of Education,” a 379–page report of federal statistics, June 1, 2006.
12. National Center for Education Statistics, http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/ display.asp?id=72.
13. Mary Beth Marklein, “College Gender Gap Widens: 57% Are Women,” USA Today, 19 October 2005.
14. Obtained from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business and The Detroit News, “Female MBA Students …,” 29 July 2004.
15. “Full-Time Women MBA Students Outnumber Men for First Time at UNH,” available from the University of New Hampshire’s Media Relations Web site, 14 September 2005.
16. “Female Enrollment in U.S. Medical Schools,” in Modern Healthcare, 24 May 2004.
17. Ted Gest, “Law Schools’ New Female Face,” in U.S. News and World Report, 9 April 2001.
18. Peg Tyre, “The Trouble with Boys,” Newsweek, 30 January 2006.
19. Will Durant, Caesar and Christ (New York: MJF Books, 1944) is the source for most of the information on women’s roles and rights in middle and late Rome. On the dramatic increase in divorce, sanctioned adultery, and abortion, see 134, 211, and 396. On the unpopularity of maternity, see 222. On women becoming doctors, lawyers, gladiators, and professionals of every sort, see 370.
20. Ibid., 438.
21. Simone de Beauvoir, quoted by Estelle Freedman in No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women (New York: Ballantine, 2002), 331.
22. Caitlin Flanagan, To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife (New York: Little, Brown, 2006), xvii.
23. Daniel Altiere, “Ubersexuals Leaving Metrosexuals at the Spa,” http:// www.foxnews.com, 24 October 2005.
24. Maria Shriver, Ten Things I Wish I’d Known—Before I Went Out into the Real World (New York: Warner, 2000), 61, 71.
25. Jeff Chu, “Ten Questions for Meredith Vieira,” Time, 27 August 2006.
26. Joanne Kaufman, “Rachael Ray’s Recipe for Joy,” Good Housekeeping, August 2006.
27. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children (New York: Talk Miramax Books, 2002), 3.
28. Transcript, Oprah, 16 January 2002.
Chapter 2
1. David Kupelian, “The War on Father,” 9 October 2006, WorldNetDaily, http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52314 (accessed 3 January 2007).
2. Mary Ann B. Oakley, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (Old Westbury, NY: Feminist Press, 1972), 17.
3. Stanton, quoted by Estelle B. Freedman, No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women (New York: Ballantine, 2002), 17.
4. Jane Fonda, My Life So Far (New York: Random House, 2005), 496.
Chapter 3
1. Transcript, Oprah, 16 January 2002.
2. Carolyn Heilbrun, Reinventing Womanhood (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979), 196.
3. “She Works, He Doesn’t,” Newsweek, 12 May 2003. See also “Dad’s Home Work Aids Cable’s Career Women,” Multichannel News, 21 July 2003.
4. Michelle Conlin, “Look Who’s Bringing Home the Bacon,” BusinessWeek, 27 January 2003.
5. The compromised position of males in contemporary society has become a popular subject in recent years, and female authors are among the most important voices raising the alarm. Susan Faludi, author of Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Male, argues that men have been robbed of their sense of manhood by cultural confusion about such things as sex roles. In The Trouble with Boys, Angela Phillips explains how feminism has weakened manhood.
6. Linda Hirshman, “Unleashing the Wrath of Stay-at-Home Moms,” Washington Post, sec. B–1, 18 June 2006.
7. Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage (New York: Viking, 2005), 4.
8. David Brooks, On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (and Always Have) in the Future Tense (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 171.
9. Debra Rosenberg and Pat Wingert, “First Comes Junior in a Baby Carriage,” Newsweek, 4 December 2006, 56.
10. Anne Kingston, The Meaning of Wife: A Provocative Look at Women and Marriage in the Twenty-first Century (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004), 1.
11. See also “Women Desire a Balance Between Career and Family,” PRNewswire, 5 September 2000, which reported on a poll indicating that 62 percent of female respondents in California who work full-time would prefer to work part-time and from home.
12. “Census: More Women Childless Than Ever Before,” AP, 25 October 2003.
13. Peter Drucker, “Managing Knowledge Means Managing Oneself,” Leader to Leader, 16, Spring 2000.
14. Pamela Norris, Eve: A Biography (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 402.
Chapter 4
1. John Stott, Decisive Issues Facing Christians Today (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1990), 120.
2. George Barna, The Future of the American Family (Chicago: Moody Press, 1993), 121.
3. Lisa Bergren and Rebecca Price, What Women Want: The Life You Crave and How God Satisfies (WaterBrook Press, 2007).
Chapter 5
1. Michael Lemonick, “Everyone’s Genealogical Mother,” Time, 26 January 1987.
Chapter 6
1. See Men’s Fraternity: The Quest for Authentic Manhood, available from www.mensfraternity.com.
2. Timothy George, “The Blessed Evangelical Mary,” Christianity Today, December 2003.
3. A. T. Robertson, The Mother of Jesus: Her Problems and Her Glory (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1963), 13.
4. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children (New York: Talk Mirimax Books, 2002), 42.
5. Ibid., 4.
6. Lisa Belkin, “The Opt-Out Revolution,” New York Times Magazine, 26 October 2003.
7. Barbara Bush’s commencement address is available from the Wellesley Web site, http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Commencement/1990/ bush.html.
8. Danielle Crittenden, What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us (New York: Touchstone, 1999), 183.
Chapter 7
1. “Hooking Up, Hanging Out, and Hoping for Mr. Right: College Women on Mating and Dating Today. An Institute for American Values Report to the Independent Women’s Forum,” http://www.americanvalues.org/html/a-pr_ hooking_up.html.
2. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children (New York: Talk Mirimax Books, 2002), 89.
3. Adapted from Hewlett, 301–2.
4. www.brainyquote.com
5. Stan Guthrie’s interview with Brad Wilcox in Christianity Today, “What Married Women Want,” October 2006, 122.
6. “Hardwired to Connect.” Purchasing information can be found online or from the Institute for American Values; 1841 Broadway, Suite 211; New York, NY 10023.
7. From an NPR report by Vicky Que, 22 September 2003. The report can be accessed at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story. php?storyId=1438731.
Chapter 8
1. Because they are doing missions work in a nation that officially bans Christianity and all varieties of missions work, the real names of this husband-and-wife team cannot be revealed out of concern for their safety.
2. Philippe Ariès, trans. Patricia M. Ranum, Western Attitudes toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), 92.
3. National Center for Policy Analysis, November 2003, http://www.ncpa. org/pub/st/st264/.
4. Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking (New York: Random House, 2005).
Chapter 9
1. Dr. Edward Diener, in Marilyn Elias, “Psychologists Know What Makes People Happy,” USA Today, 10 December 2002. Dr. Diener is a psychologist at the University of Illinois.
2. Dr. William Sheldon, cited by Huston Smith, Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief (San Francisco: Harper SanFrancisco, 2001), 26.
3. Peter De Vries, Let Me Count the Ways (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965), 306–307.
4. Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 98.
5. David Brooks, On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (and Always Have) in the Future Tense (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), 168.
6. Bob Buford, Finishing Well: What People Who REALLY Live Do Differently (Nashville: Integrity Publishers, 2004), xvii.
7. Linda Carroll, Her Mother’s Daughter: A Memoir of the Mother I Never Knew and of My Daughter, Courtney Love (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 279.
8. The story of Blandina and the other Christian martyrs of Lyons is recounted by Eusebius Pamphilius, the bishop of Caesarea (b. AD 265), in his book Ecclesiastical History. See book 5, chapters 1–3. Remarkably, Eusebius’s source is a letter that was written by the handful of Christians who remained in Lyons and the surrounding area after the persecution fires died down. The letter majestically begins as follows: “The servants of Christ dwelling at Lyons and Vienna, in Gaul, to those brethren in Asia and Phrygia, having the same faith and hope with us, peace and grace and glory from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.” A helpful summary with additional information is found in Kenneth Curtis and Daniel Graves, Great Women in Christian History: 37 Women Who Changed Their World (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 2004), 57.
9. This chart is adapted with author’s permission from Bobb Biehl, Focusing Your Life: A Proven Personal Retreat Guide Based on the “Life Blueprint Chart” (Quick Wisdom Publishing, 2001), 135.
Chapter 10
1. Christopher Andersen, The Day John Died (New York: William Morrow, 2000), 32.
2. George Gilder, Men and Marriage (Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 1993), 10.
3. Willard F. Harley Jr., His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage (Grand Rapids, MI: Revell, 1994), 77.
4. Will Durant, Caesar and Christ (New York: MJF Books, 1944), 370.
5. Harley, His Needs, Her Needs, 43–44.
Chapter 11
1. Steven L. Nock and W. Bradford Wilcox, “What’s Love Got to Do with It? Equality, Equity, Commitment, and Women’s Marital Quality,” available in digital form from http://www.amazon.com. Other helpful information is found in Wilcox, Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
2. “What Married Women Want,” Christianity Today, October 2006.
Postscript
1. Carle C. Zimmerman, Family and Civilization (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947), 801.
2. Stanley Kurtz, “Polygamy versus Democracy,” The Weekly Standard, 5 June 2006.
3. Zimmerman, Family and Civilization, 810.
4. William Golding, Lord of the Flies (New York: Putnam, 1954), 40.
Robert Lewis, The New Eve
