then he might find one in Michele Bachmann:
"Bachmann is seldom described in those terms; the conservative Minnesota congresswoman and Tea Party darling might cringe at the feminist label.... [S]he exemplifies an evangelical feminism that is producing more female leaders in ... politics, even as more traditional gender roles prevail in evangelical homes and churches. 'It’s not that evangelical feminism is entirely new,' says R. Marie Griffith, ... 'But this lack of fear going into top positions of power is new and astonishing and exciting for this segment of the population.' ... Even as more evangelical women pursue top jobs in politics, there is little sign that they will be invited into similar roles in evangelical churches, which continue to be led by men, with some exceptions. Some evangelical denominations, including Southern Baptists, have recently moved to put more restrictions on women serving as pastors."
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"While evangelical feminism has taken a number of different directions since then, it typically leans moderately left on most political issues, which is one reason why it has captured the wrath of hardline complementarians like Wayne Grudem and John Piper. ('Complementarianism' is the view that God designed men and women not to be equal but to be complementary, with men as the leaders and women as helpmeets.)
[Sarah] Palin and Bachmann decidedly do not lean left. What is 'feminist' about them, for those who want to use that descriptive, is their belief that God calls women no less than men to fight His battles against Satan on earth. Women hold awesome power as spiritual warriors, in this worldview; they're not doormats, nor should their godly duties be confined to the domestic sphere. This is its own sort of egalitarianism, to be sure, but it is one far more compatible with the complementarian theology of arch-conservative Protestantism than with the feminism of liberal religion. After all, Bachmann and Palin have both made much of their roles as wives, mothers and churchgoers in a way meant to show that their political leadership will not upend the gender hierarchy so crucial in the conservative evangelical home and church sanctuary."
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"Michele Bachmann explained her decision to pursue tax law. It wasn't her choice, exactly. God had already told her to go to law school; God had also told her to marry a fellow named Marcus Bachmann. Now Marcus told her 'to go and get a post-doctorate degree in tax law.' This was not a particular desire of Michele's ('Tax law? I hate taxes!'), but she was certain God was speaking through her husband.
'Why should I go and do something like that?' she recalled thinking. 'But the Lord says, "Be submissive wives; you are to be submissive to your husbands"'....
This apparent contradiction—how you can be leader of the free world and yet subordinate to some guy —has proved no less confusing to the nation's conservative evangelicals. For them, the justification for a Bachmann presidential run lies in a very careful, some would say tortured, theological interpretation that emerged during Sarah Palin's vice-presidential candidacy in 2008.
The solution to the 'Palin Predicament,' as it's been called, is laid out on the website of the influential Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. The council, which was established in 1987 to fight 'the growing movement of feminist egalitarianism,' espouses something called complementarianism—the idea that while men and women are equal they nevertheless must play different (read: unequal) parts. Men are destined to occupy leadership roles at home and at church, while women are obliged to 'grow in willing, joyful submission to their husbands' leadership.' But the civic sphere is distinct from home and church and governed by different rules, these evangelicals reasoned, and if the Bible didn't explicitly 'prohibit [women] from exercising leadership in secular political fields,' neither would they."
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"She is clearly a trailblazer for women, throwing her hat into the highest ring in politics. But while Michele Bachmann became the first female presidential candidate of the 2012 campaign this week, she does not, interestingly enough, view herself as a feminist.
Unlike Sarah Palin, who has brandished the feminist moniker and spoken of an 'emerging conservative feminist identity,' Bachmann told me in an interview Tuesday that she wouldn’t call herself a feminist....
Bachmann seemed loath to engage in the kind of girl-power rhetoric utilized by Palin and Hillary Clinton, who both invoked the perennial—and so far unbreakable—presidential glass ceiling."
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"From the perspective of her religion, Republican candidate-to-be Michele Bachmann is something of a conundrum. Although she draws much of her strength from her evangelical Christian roots, the strict gender roles that accompany these same roots would seem to preclude her serving as the United States’ commander-in-chief."
