Pointing out the obvious is bound to get you into trouble these days. No matter how well intentioned you might be, good faith debate across the aisle seems harder to come by. This stifling atmosphere has contributed to a sense of confusion with regard to how Americans, particularly in younger generations, view God’s creation. And few issues are plagued by confusion more than the concept of sex.

People once understood that men and women are not the same. To have proposed that the sexes are identical would have resulted in laughter just a few generations back. Only the most committed feminists—then a rare breed—might have tried to argue otherwise.

The truth is that innate differences exist between men and women, and there’s nothing wrong with pointing that out. Study after study has revealed that, on average, women display more empathy than men. Women are also typically more interested in people, whereas men show more of an interest in things. This people-things difference is even noticeable in infants, disproving the claim that it’s merely the result of cultural conditioning.

Great physical differences exist between the sexes as well, which is clear in the gap in athletic performance between men and women where men consistently outperform women. This isn’t to say that women cannot be great athletes. But it does explain why an under-15 boys soccer team beat the U.S. Women’s National team in a scrimmage.

To some, the claims above will prove enraging. To the rest of us, though, the research provided only reaffirms what we already know. Our grandparents certainly didn’t need to read a bunch of studies to understand that men and women are different. Yet in today’s world, where a wealth of scientific literature on sexual differences exists, the subject is more contentious.

With that said, acknowledging sexual differences does not mean that one sex is of greater moral worth than the other. As Genesis 1:27 makes clear, God created man—meaning mankind or humans (male and female)—in his own image:

“So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.”

The differences between men and women are thus divinely ordained; to deny them is to deny God’s order.

Not only should these differences be accepted, they should be embraced. After all, society depends on it! The traditional family, with a female homemaker and a male breadwinner, has been a staple of American life for good reason. Tragically, such an arrangement is harder to establish these days, largely for economic reasons. But that doesn’t mean we should shy away from holding it up as the ideal.

Discussing the nature of men and women is further complicated by the rise of gender ideology, which teaches that sex and gender are different things. In other words, your biology has nothing to do with whether or not you are a man or a woman—or so they would have us believe. How can we have an honest discussion about the sexes when we cannot even agree on what they are?

What’s worse, according to some physicians who buy into gender ideology, there are more than 72 genders! With this ungodly propaganda promulgated in schools and the media, it’s no wonder that 57 percent of Generation Z feels comfortable referring to others by gender-neutral pronouns.

Those who believe that men and women have no innate differences—or that these human categories have no basis in biology—are confused. Most have been led astray. We should not hate them, of course, but should instead aspire to engage with them in good faith. But we cannot indulge their delusions.

After all, a world in which men and women are the same would be painfully dreary. Fortunately, that is not our world, and we shouldn’t feel compelled to pretend that it is.

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Image credit: RaxPixel, CC0

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