As a convert to Orthodoxy and father who raised a daughter (baptized as an infant) in the Orthodox Church, the narrow and rigidly defined boundaries of what the feminine is and is not did my daughter no favors (and likely traumatized her). Holding definitions of what a woman is and should be so tightly can be very harmful. As I understand it, each individual is unique and made in the image of God who has no limits, is infinite, and is beyond definition. Some females conform to this narrow definition very well. Glory to God for that! But others do not. Shouldn’t we give glory to God for them as well instead of forcing them to fit a Procrustian bed? Too narrow and rigid a definition of female risk making many girls outside that definition feel at their core less than, broken, and bad. And this is felt at one of the most formative and vulnerable periods of their life. As a man and a protector of my family, one of my biggest regrets was not protecting my daughter from using a narrow and unrealistic definition of the feminine to measure herself. She was fearfully and wonderfully made and I hate that she doubted this.

It’s taken many years to come to terms with this and I repent for it.