On the word "role"

In light of the recent and lively debate about the Eternal Subordination of the Son and gender, here is Kevin Giles on the word "role."

The French word role originated in reference to the part an actor played on stage. In the 1930s, it became a key term in functional sociology. It was only in the late 1950s and early 1960s, as the study of sociology became established in the universities, that the word began to be widely used in the English-speaking world. I can find no evidence of Christian usage of the word in theological discourse before this time.¹

Giles then gives an example of an officer and a private in the army. They have different roles, but the roles do not imply inferiority of one to the other. Likewise the roles are not intrinsic to the persons involved. A private may be promoted up the ranks. The officer may be demoted.² Makes sense, right?

A parallel cannot be made with the complementarian-hierarchical view of women. In this case, because a woman is a woman, and for no other reason, she is locked into a permanent subordinate role, no matter what her abilities or training may be. Who she is determines what she can do; her sexual identity determines her role... Once we ask why this is so, we must infer some permanent inability in women. It has to be understood that a woman essentially lacks something given only to men; in some way she herself is a subordinate person. Introducing the sociological term role in this argument for the permanent functional subordination of women does not negate the fact that women because they are women and for no other reason, are subordinated. Against its usual connotations, the word role is recast in essential terms. Cleverly worded phraseology cannot avoid this fact. If a woman's role is not essential to her nature or being, then it can change. If it cannot change because it is basic to her nature or being as a woman, then it is not just a role she performs... The assertion of equality remains just that - an assertion... Construed in this way there is no way to meaningfully maintain the claim that women are created equal.³

So when you get down to ontology, our essential being, if one holds to the permanent (eternal) functional subordination of women:

Does this imply two different beings? Or one species and one subspecies?
Do men and women have different original sin since women by their very nature have been deemed usurpers?
What does this say about redemption? Am I redeemed by Christ alone or does this require submission to man to be who God made me to be?

The doctrines we believe form a complex tapestry. Pull one thread and others may begin to unravel.

For more on the negative impact of ESS on half the church, please read this post by Wendy Alsup and Hannah Anderson - The Eternal Subordination of the Son (and Women).


1. The Trinity & Subordinationism: The Doctrine of God and the Contemporary Gender Debate, Kevin Giles, InterVarsity Press, 2002, pp. 179-180.
2. Ibid.181-182.
3. Ibid.182.