Do Women Sin Less than Men?
There is a concept that is simultaneously fascinating and horrifying to me that seems to be extremely prevalent in our culture – including in the church. It seems that somehow the sins that men tend to commit – lust, anger, pride, pornography – are generally viewed by men and women alike as more sinful than the sins women tend to commit. And here is where it gets scary in my view. Many women tend not to see certain sins at all.
WHY WOMEN THINK WE DON’T SIN THAT MUCH
We tend to justify and white-wash our sin and have reasons WHY we sin – and then we are able to convince ourselves that what we are doing is not actually sin.
- We have “low self esteem” – instead of labeling ourselves as having pride, envy of other women, idolatry of beauty, idolatry of our husbands, idolatry of being a certain size/weight, idolatry of trying to be in control ourselves and seeing ourselves as sovereign instead of God.
- We focus so much on being “right” that we justify treating our husbands with hatred, contempt, bitterness and disrespect because our husbands “deserve” it in our view.
- We have “hormonal problems” like PMS and menopause – and while this may be true, while these medical issues may have a huge contribution towards our behavior, we are STILL guilty of sin when we react in a rage, yell, scream, cuss, pridefully judge others, hold grudges, refuse to forgive and treat people with hatred and contempt.
- We talk about depression and anxiety, which CAN be medically based – but we ignore that many times our depression and anxiety are direct results of our lack of faith in God, our huge faith in ourselves instead, our disobedience to God’s Word and our lack of being Spirit-filled because we are cherishing sin in our hearts.
- We are “venting” or “sharing” – so we don’t count that as gossip – which is a sin in God’s sight. We HAVE to talk about how wronged we were and what victims we are, we feel it is just a part of being a woman to need to do this.
- We “HAVE” to take over control in our marriages because our husbands “won’t” lead. That is what I thought. I was so wrong! When I stepped back and WAITED patiently, my husband stepped up and became a stronger and stronger man of God and leader. My perception that he couldn’t or wouldn’t lead was wrong. I just didn’t give him a chance.
- We don’t usually struggle with lust (not to the degree men often do) and that allows us to self-righteously look down our noses at our husbands if they do have visual temptations and struggles. We don’t even see our ugly, prideful and self-righteous attitudes. Jesus had stronger words for these sins than almost anything else – that is what He spent so much time confronting the Pharisees about.
- We are easily deceived. So we can be completely blind to almost all of our own sin. I was. And when we think we aren’t REALLY big sinners, we think we don’t “owe” Jesus that much and we think we are in a position to judge, condemn and criticize our husbands spiritually (again – big sin). Because we don’t think we are big-time sinners, we don’t love Jesus like we should. We don’t see how much we truly owe Him. So we don’t have a good grasp on how much grace Jesus offers to us. We often don’t have much grace for ourselves, and we often don’t have much grace for our husbands and others. Because we don’t think we are that sinful, we also really struggle with forgiveness because we feel we are justified not to forgive, since we believe we haven’t sinned much ourselves. We set ourselves above God when we do this, saying we are better than God. Yes, God forgives, but I don’t really have to because I was hurt too much.
I would like to propose that there are ALWAYS reasons for sin. Primarily, we are sinners – that is the basic reason for sin. But I believe that people always have reasons that explain WHY they sin. But having reasons that trigger our sin does not excuse us from our sin or free us from the penalty of sin in the sight of our holy God.
OUR CHILDHOOD
Many of us had parents who didn’t confront our sin and allowed us to go completely unchecked without any rebuke or discipline. So we have often gone for decades with our sinful thoughts and attitudes without anyone saying anything about how ungodly our hearts are.
HUSBANDS’ REACTIONS
Our men tend to think we aren’t as sinful as they are, too, since we don’t usually have the same struggles they do. So they often do not confront us in our disrespect, our pride, our idolatry, our un-forgiveness, our bitterness, our resentment, our judgmental/critical spirits and our self-righteousness. So we continue on completely oblivious to just how wretched, sinful, sick and poverty-stricken we are spiritually.
AT CHURCH
Maybe we aren’t hearing a lot of sermons about the sins that cause us our deepest struggles? I think that may be possible. Could that contribute also to our ability to escape conviction?
IT’S TIME FOR A CHANGE
How I pray that women across Christianity will wake up to our serious and deadly sins. I pray God will convict us. I pray we will see and accept how incredibly sinful we are, and then embrace Jesus’ death and payment for our billions of dollars worth of sin debt we owe Him. Then we will be able to be humble before God and our husbands. Then we will be able to repent of our sins and truly become filled with God’s power to be the godly wives and moms He desires us to be. Then we will see the miracles of God in our families and experience the supernatural peace, joy, love, strength, power and abundant spiritual blessings of God!
The Peaceful Wife 
Very well written.
Both men & women sin the same amount, only there is a different way men & women responds to sin when they realize it. (Romans 3:20-23)
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Really, really good, April. I pray that your words will bring not just conviction, guilt, or bad feelings, but will move wives right through those emotions to reconciliation with God and their husbands, and ultimately to the miracles and spiritual blessings you’ve experienced and described.
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David J, Thanks! That is my exact prayer, too!
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Good thoughts!
Probably difficult for pastors to be fully even-handed since they are men, desiring to treat women with gentleness & all too acquainted with their own sin. We need the ‘older women’ to teach the younger…
I wonder if much/most of US culture’s promiscuity be traced to failure to teach & live 1Corinthians7:1-5?
This can cut both ways of course.
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Witness9,
Great points! Thank you for your insights!!
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Thanks, Heather!
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April, I think this is so, so spot on! I’m going to share this in one of my posts later this week.
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Thanks, Elizabeth! We can’t repent from what we don’t even acknowledge is sin!
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Wow!
Having been brutalized, bitterly disrespected, forsaken for another, falsely accused, and it all justified, by my “Christian” wife, for thought struggles, this article is beautiful
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Doug,
How my heart breaks for your situation and your pain! I am praying for you, my brother!
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Thank you for your blog. I looked for this page because I feel hugely uncomfortable around my girlfriend. Even though I love her and she loves me. I have confessed all my sin and believe that I am forgiven both by God and by my girlfriend, and for her it genuinely does not seem to be an issue. However I just feel so heavy, guilty and wretched around her. I cannot see anything she does wrong and anytime she attempts to confess sin, it always seems vague and has a really ‘godly’ motive! Despite our strong love, I really struggle to be with her, it actually causes me physical stress to the point of not being able to eat. It feels like she is doing me a huge favour by going out with me! An angel with a sinful human! We have only been in a relationship for 3 months (good friends before that for longer) but sometimes I don’t want to sit and talk to her! I do, but it’s not a nice feeling. I’m beginning to run out of things to say. But despite all this I know that I will never love anybody else the way I love her, I love God and she loves God. It has seemed so clear that He brought us together.
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James,
I hope you are able to see that no sin has a godly motive, my dear brother! All sin leads to death. Remember the consequences of Adam and Eve eating a bite of fruit? Would we call that “a big sin” in our culture? And yet, any act of rebellion against God is toxic and destructive and separates us from Him.
But in Christ, He crucifies our old sinful nature with Him on the cross and it is buried! We are no longer slaves to sin! Now we can allow God’s Spirit to be in control and to empower us to walk in righteousness. Not because we have anything good in us, but because of the good that is in Jesus. 🙂
Check out:
My Identity in Christ
What you are describing sounds like worldly sorrow that leads to death, not godly sorrow. Godly sorrow leads us to repentance and then to the joy and peace of fellowship with Christ. We are all in desperate need of Christ! Her sins may be different from yours – but all sin is toxic, and, if left to fester, will continue to progress and open the door to allow the enemy a major foothold in our lives.
Please don’t buy the lie that women are morally superior to men. We have different struggles. But we all need Jesus every moment!
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Thank you. I have gotten some more clarity. I will continue to pray through and think about your post on ‘Identity in Christ’. I think that although I have repented of sins in the past and walk in greater freedom now, I still try and earn acceptance in my own strength. Thinking that if I keep beating myself over the head with daily sins then God will gift me peace! Instead of accepting that God has gifted me peace, I am walking straight past it to salvation by works.
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James,
Oh! This post is a bit girly – but the parable in it may still be helpful about how we can choose to receive all that Jesus has given to us.
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