It is virtually impossible to have a debate about feminism without some aspect of emotional argument. As a woman, I cannot have an argument about complementarianism and its relation to abusive relationships and oppression without connecting to it emotionally because it directly impacts my life. For a man involved in such a discussion (and I am speaking generally here), intellectual separation is much more possible because, regardless of the outcome of the argument, they remain in the position of power.

It does not matter, on a visceral, every-day life level, whether or not leaders in the church advise abused women to stay in an abusive relationships because they will never have to worry about marrying a man who shares that view, they will never have to worry about discovering that the one they love believes they have a God-given right to be the “leader” in the relationship. It simply, on a very basic level, does not impact men the same way it does women, and so, for many women, it is a completely ridiculous request that we “not get emotional.” Instead, it reads as simply another attempt to put us in our place in the world of male-dominated debate and rhetoric.