One aspect of The Eve Syndrome is the woman not being seen as anything other than alive to support others or another's life and well being (husband, children) and/or not knowing supporting your own life is a high priority.
Michele Bauchman should not in any way be seen as a victim of the Eve Syndrome. She has had a dynamic and sucessful career.
Minnesota Congresswoman and 2012 presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is a Republican congresswoman from Minnesota who came to national attention during the presidential election of 2008, after a television appearance in which she encouraged the media to "take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America?" She was running for re-election in Minnesota's 6th district that year, and the remarks sent more than a million dollars in donations to her opponent in the race, but Bachmann won anyway. A former lawyer for the U.S. Treasury Department, Michele Bachmann began her political career in the 1990s as an advocate for charter schools and a critic of taxes. She was elected to Minnesota's state senate in 2000 and for six years made her name in local politics as an opponent of taxes, gay marriage and the teaching of evolution in public schools. Although a newcomer to national politics, Bachmann's congressional campaign in 2006 was strongly supported by the Republican National Committee, and she had help in her campaign from such luminaries as Karl Rove and then-president George W. Bush. Her re-election in 2008 looked like a done deal until her remarks about anti-American representatives in congress on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews. In the same program she said candidate Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama concerned her because of their "anti-American" views. Howling critics have called her the reincarnation of Senator Joe McCarthy (and worse), but Bachmann has a fan base of conservative "tea party" Republicans who don't mind her factual blunders and intemperate remarks. She announced in June of 2011 that she was running for the Republican nomination for president; she stayed in the race until January 4, 2012, when she dropped out after finishing sixth in the GOP Iowa caucus.
She ran into what some may consider a pitfall when it came to the intersection of her marriage and religion.
One of the most talked about moments at Thursday night's GOP debate on the Fox News Channel came when Bachmann of Minnesota was asked a question that raised some eyebrows. The question stemmed from a speech she gave in 2006 when she was running for Congress. Bachmann told a church in Brooklyn Park, Minn., that she hated taxes, but went on to study tax law in order to be "submissive" to her husband.
"My husband said, now you need to go and get a post-doctorate degree in tax law. Tax law, I hate taxes. Why should I go and do something like that? But the Lord says, 'Be submissive.' Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands," Bachmann told the crowd at the Living Word Christian Center. "Never had a tax course in my background, never had a desire for it, but by faith, I was going to be faithful to what I thought God was calling me to do through my husband, and I finished that course of that study."
The teaching is rooted in the fifth chapter of Ephesians in the New Testament: "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything."
It's open to different interpretations, but a supporter of Bachmann said he believes Bachmann would run the country as other women in authority have, using the example of Queen Elizabeth, who acts as the head of state in the United Kingdom, but reportedly lets her husband make family decisions.
And just as John F. Kennedy said he would not take direction from the Vatican in the White House, Bachmann would not run the nation under husband Marcus' authority,
Debra White Smith of Real Life Ministries in Jacksonville, Texas, who has written five books on Christian marriage and lectured and written extensively on the topic, said there are two camps on the submissive wife issue, and she only teaches one point of view. She says some evangelical Christians -- incorrectly, in her point of view -- believe in a "subordinate, insubordinate" relationship between the husband and wife.
"There is a strong camp within Christian evangelicals that have a dysfunctional view on submission where literally the husband is the head of the wife and is responsible for her as a father is responsible to a child," White said.
Micheles also demonstrated her faith in her marriage and motherhood roles.
Michele Bachmann bore five biological children and didn't stop there -- she and husband Marcus welcomed into their home the at-risk offspring of other mothers who also chose to grant their babies the gift of life. Not only that, but the Minnesota congresswoman also shared her commitment to the "dignity of life from conception until natural death," which is a view that -- especially on the cusp of ObamaCare, the costs of which are sure to run over budget -- is not only ill-timed, but most assuredly unappreciated.
What could be worse for pro-choice America than a woman with a brood of children, smiling and firmly proclaiming without obfuscation, wavering, or uncertainty the following belief: "I am 100 percent pro-life. I've given birth to five babies, and I've taken 23 foster children into my home. I believe in the dignity of life from conception until natural death. I believe in the sanctity of human life."
Even after all of the tenacity and courage Mrs. Bachmann demonstrated throughout her campaign, proudly displaying her religious convictions, marriage, and motherhood capacity; she was struck with a blow she could have never forseen.
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Santorum staffer questions whether God wants women presidents by Lily Kuo Jan 18, 2012 10:11 EST
A staffer in Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign is under fire for an email suggesting a female commander-in-chief could be at odds with the Bible’s teachings.
The Des Moines Register last week reported that Santorum’s Iowa coalitions director, Jamie Johnson, sent an email over the summer asking, ‘Is it God’s highest desire, that is, his biblically expressed will … to have a woman rule the institutions of the family, the church, and the state?”
Michele Bachmann, a social conservative who campaigned heavily in Iowa, competed with Santorum over the conservative evangelical vote in the Iowa caucuses. She dropped out of the race after a dismal finish in the Iowa race.
This weekend Peter Waldron, Bachmann’s faith outreach coordinator, said the email was proof that Santorum had engaged in a “sexist strategy” to sabotage Bachmann. He demanded an apology from Santorum and called for Johnson’s firing.
The recent spat brings the issue of sexism in conservative politics to the fore again. When Bachmann ended her campaign, political observers wondered whether conservative perceptions of women and Bachmann’s own alignment with the Christian right and disavowal of feminism had been her undoing.
The Des Moines Register said that in the final weeks of her campaign Bachmann’s aides began to complain that sexism was a problem in Iowa’s religious conservative community, even as her aides deflected questions from reporters on the topic
Despite the bad press, Santorum has not issued a response and Johnson is unapologetic. In an interview with NBC he said his ideas were based in “classical Christian doctrine.” “They were reflections on over 25 years of formal, theological study,” Johnson said.
This is just an example of the trials Christian women can encounter during their religious journey. Will society forever determine the voice and active hand of God? Where is the place for a Christian woman in our world? No one stood firmer for the beliefs of Christianity and yet in the end it came down to the fact that she was a woman without authority to govern men.
Will Mrs. Bachmann's attention turn to be a better more worthy Christian life or will she seek to reconcile there is no place outside of marriage and motherhood for a gifted Christian woman. Questions I am sure her loyal followers have been pondering themselves.
