Reinventing Feminism through Faith | Jennifer Strickland

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Jennifer Strickland: Identity is not based on feelings at all. Like I would look in the mirror when I was anorexic, for example, and I would still feel that I was not good enough. Those were my feelings, but they weren’t true. What your grandmother taught you, right? What my mother and my mother in law have taught me is passed on to my daughter.

Women have to train the girls to understand that the home is their post to guard. I started reading the Bible for the first time and I discovered that I was so much more than what we see in the mirror, that I didn’t have to live for the opinions of man.

Rebecca Weber: Hello everyone, I’m Rebecca Weber, you’re watching Better For America. Now today I am absolutely honored to have a truly inspiring guest. Her name is Jennifer Strickland. Jennifer is the founder of You Are More, and this is a ministry dedicated to really helping individuals uncover their true worth and their identity in Christ.

Jennifer has authored several impactful books, including I am a woman, and she has touched countless lives through her speaking engagements and ministry work. Jennifer, welcome to the show. I’m so happy to have you here with me.

Jennifer Strickland: Thank you so much for having me on the show, Rebecca.

Rebecca Weber: You know, Jennifer, when I began to learn more about you, I was really inspired by your work.

personal story and your personal journey. Now you’ve spoken about how your career in modeling led you to a crisis of identity. Can you explain, or really describe the moment when you realized that change was needed and, and how that experience, your personal experience has helped shape the you are more ministry.

Jennifer Strickland: Absolutely. You know, I got into modeling when I was only eight years old, a little glamor school in our town and I wasn’t very athletic. And so I, the modeling school became a place where I could shine. And I started winning like Miss photogenic and so forth. And at 17 years old, I moved to Hollywood and signed with what is now Ford models, Los Angeles.

And they sent me off to Europe at 17. And I was in Vogue and Cosmo and did oil of LA commercials and Eddie Bauer and Jordache and all the, all the brand names, uh, in the early nineties. And I finally. Reached a crisis of identity when I was doing the runway, I was living in Milan at about 22, 23 years old, uh, starving myself, dealing with anorexia, working for Giorgio Armani.

Um, so I reached sort of this level in that business. And then I discovered that it was just superficial and flesh obsessed and it was completely focused on the outside. And I think that my identity. being based on, you know, what my body looks like, you know, my outward appearance was really damaging actually for my self esteem as well as the self esteem of the girls around me.

And I knew that I had gifts and talents and abilities, but I didn’t have a relationship with God and I didn’t really know how to get off that road of modeling. And I had a series of strangers actually meet, reach out to me on the streets in Italy and in Germany and invited me to church and shared Christ with me.

And I started reading the Bible for the first time and I discovered that I was so. So much more than what we see in the mirror that I didn’t have to live for the opinions of man and, and I knew that the images that we see in the media were a lie because I lived with girls with all these awful eating disorders and self image problems.

And so I left the business and, uh, upon accepting Christ. And went back to school, got my master’s degree in writing and literature and decided to write a book to help girls, uh, understand the lies that the media feeds them about their identity and value.

Rebecca Weber: This is just terrific what you’re, what you’ve done.

I think it’s, it’s so, it’s had such an impact on women and girls. I do want to talk a little bit about those lies that you’re referring to. What are some of the most common misconceptions, I think, that today’s society is really Imposing on young children and young girls and young women. Uh, how, how do you think that, um, you know, young people are say impacted?

And I know that you, you talk about doing your work in the nineties and feeling that way. Has it gotten worse?

Jennifer Strickland: Well, uh, the lies are really the same, uh, but they’re sort of on steroids when it comes to them being funneled into girls minds, when it comes to social media. So, uh, the lie that you have to please the mirror to find joy in your life or your body is, is your value or your sexuality is your identity.

All of the, or, or your affirmation comes from what people think about you and what people say about you, uh, that you have to, if you change your body, you’re in control of your life. I mean, those are all lies that I believed when I was in the modeling industry, and I write about those in my books. Girl perfect and beautiful lies and more beautiful than you know, for teenage girls.

Also pretty from the inside out a book I wrote for tween girls to help them understand, you know, you are more than what you see in the mirror. You are more than what man thinks about you. You do not have to be controlled by the media, but you can use the media to shine a light. Uh, so all of these things are, are still prevalent.

The main one that has become. Super in our faces right now is this idea that that identity is based on sexuality, sexual, the concept of sexual and gender identity. If you just take the concept of sexual identity, you know, after 20 years of working with girls that have dealt with, you know, abortion, sexual abuse, you know, you just don’t teach a girl that her sexual urges are her identity.

If you, if you taught a girl that had been sexually abused or exposed to pornography at a really young age, that her sexual feelings translate to her identity, well, that’s tied to her pain and her shame and her trauma. And so we, we don’t do that. Healthy identity is not based upon sexual feelings.

Actually, identity is not based on feelings at all.

Jennifer Strickland: I would look in the mirror when I was anorexic, for example, and I would still feel that I was not good enough. Those were my feelings, but they weren’t true.

I believed that I still needed to run and go in the steam rooms and take fat burners and lose weight, but they weren’t true.

The difference today is that therapists and counselors and teachers and the government. Specifically is affirming lies that these girls believe about themselves and boys believe about themselves by telling them that their feelings when they look in the mirror are reality are true. And so we do not affirm lies that children believe about themselves.

And we certainly never teach a child that sexual feelings translate to identity.

Rebecca Weber: Yeah. This is

Jennifer Strickland: what people are going to say about us at our funeral. That’s right. I’m a wife. Right. Right. Like you. What do you want people to say? Right. I’m a wife. I’m a mother. I’m an influencer. I’m a light to this world. I was kind.

I was gentle. I was a speaker. I was a writer. I was an athlete. Those are the types of words that form a healthy identity.

Rebecca Weber: Yes, very well said. And so important that we recognize that what’s happening today and social media is not helping this at all, is that more and more young children. And I say, you know, even toddlers, they’re starting at very young children, uh, ages explaining that you can be who you want to be.

If you don’t like who you are, you feel that you’re in the wrong body. Then you are in the wrong body. And that is a lie. God does not make mistakes. Uh, he made us exactly how we are, and we need to rally around those young people with love and understanding and listening. I can remember, Jennifer, when I was 11, 12 years old, I hated to be in my own body.

I was confused. You know, uh, anybody who goes through puberty knows that that is probably one of the most confusing times of our lives. And to take our most innocent and most vulnerable. And then to, to affirm that, yeah, if you, if you don’t like who you are, then change who you are, is so dangerous. And I do, I do hope and pray that more and more parents are waking up.

We’ve got to do something about the, the school system, because we know that the Department of Education is behind all of this. Uh, that’s got to be completely revamped in my view and parents need to have, uh, decision making over their children. We can’t have a government come in and step in and act like they know more about our children than we do.

So, there are so many issues I think that are just colliding right now in society and a lot of them, people are going to vote at the ballot box, uh, and, and they’re going to look at how people are running on this issue. How are we protecting our children? Should boys be playing in women’s sports? And my gosh, how dangerous it is that men would be entering women’s locker rooms and we think that that’s okay.

There’s something wrong in my view about anybody who thinks that that’s okay. What are your thoughts on the Title IX changes? Because those are Those it’s preposterous to me that we have a, you know, an administration that’s insisting that we change the definition of sex altogether.

Jennifer Strickland: Absolutely. Well, Merriam Webster dictionary and Cambridge dictionary during COVID changed the meaning of male and female and man and woman.

And we know we had a Supreme court justice who refused to answer the question, what is a woman? Which is what led me to write my book, because I, I believe that we all need to have a ready answer. For that question. And it’s beyond chromosomes. It’s beyond the ability to give birth. To be a woman is to be a life giving agent in the world.

Women’s voices are very, very. Powerful. You see that in the feminist movement, the power of women’s voices to shape a nation. And the reason why the feminists are not standing up for women’s protections is because they never, they never intended to protect the human family. They never protected the dignity of men when it came to the life of their own descendants.

They never protected the dignity of the unborn child. And so they’re not going to protect our dignity now. We have to stand as a united force, male and female. See, men by the feminist movement taught men to sit down and shut up when it comes to the rights of women. We actually need men to do the opposite.

We need them to stand up. Stand up and, and guard our protections because male and female unity is how we rule. It’s how we, this comes from the book of Genesis, how we subdue these spirits, these gender bending spirits that have entered our nation. And the way that we will take dominion over them is through the fear of God and male and female unity.

And we also need to. Absolutely. Educate women. Look, the average man can kill the average woman with his bare hands. Okay. 95 percent of women have weaker hands than 90 percent of males. Okay. Men can punch two and a half times harder than women. Okay. Right there. That is a no go. I don’t care about your testosterone level.

I don’t care about your chromosome. If you are a male, you have like, I think that it’s 165 percent times stronger in the upper body.

Rebecca Weber: That’s right. And we can’t deny this. And you know, Jennifer, another thing that we’re seeing today too, is this, um, disregard for women who want to stay home and raise their families and, and raise their children.

I think that there is no way job that is more important than raising your children. And if you decide, if you’re able, in today’s society and with inflation the way it is, my gosh, I know it’s very hard for young families. We need, you know, two income homes are the norm these days. But if you can afford to be with your children, that is such an admirable, wonderful thing that you’re doing.

And there is an attack on women generally who are made to feel that they are inferior if they don’t have, you know, a career outside of the home. And I think that we need to get back to securing our families, backing our families. You know, the family is the incubator of freedom. Uh, families, children need both mother and father.

And we see that statistically. Children with a mother and a father do better. Uh, but you’re right, the radical feminists have actually hurt women and have set us back in time. And it’s about time that we’re speaking about it. And I’m so proud of the work you’re doing. I want to learn more about You Are More.

That’s letter U, letter R, M O R E dot org. What a tremendous organization that you’ve created. It really focuses heavily. On helping women and girls find their identity in Christ. Tell us a little bit about this organization and what you’re doing.

Jennifer Strickland: Well, you know, there’s a saying that says that religion tells you what to do, but God tells you who you are.

And when you know who you are, you know what to do. And so my passion after I left the modeling industry was, you know, unveiling the lives that the media did. Feeds women and girls about their worth, their value, their identity and purpose, and then teaching them the truth of their identity in God’s eyes.

So that’s all I do. I create books, Bible studies, video resources, and we have an entire. Team behind us, which makes all of this possible. We have the, I Am a Woman podcast, which I, I, I launched when the word woman was uh, uh, you know, attacked and under battle. And my latest book, I Am a Woman also, we’re doing book clubs and bible studies in women’s homes.

You know, the, a lot of people dunno that feminist movement began with women gathering in homes. And so we have an opportunity right now to gather women and girls together. That’s another one of our passions at You Are More is that Titus 2 mandate that the older women teach the younger. We have to teach them their identity.

They’re not what man thinks of them. They are a daughter of God every day. They’re not what they see in the mirror. They are a creation of God every day. Every day, whether their appearance changes as it will or not, their bodies are holy. We teach holy sexual identity and sexual integrity as well as body image, self image.

We minister to girls with eating disorders. We provide resources for women in prisons and girls and recovery centers. So we, we actually really need more people to partner, uh, with our ministry to tell you the truth, to help make it possible for us to continue to go into the prisons and the public schools, private schools, recovery centers, to teach women and girls how to heal.

Their value, identity, and purpose in Christ. Once they know that, which is what I call their VIP status in God’s eyes, once they know who they are, they know what to do. That’s why when this whole gender dysphoria thing hit our nation, I knew what to do. Because I know who I am.

Jennifer Strickland: I know that I’m called to speak the truth to a lost and hurting generation.

So there’s, there’s no contention. There’s no fear in speaking the truth in love about male and female unity and the beauty of gender as created, uh, in the image of God

Rebecca Weber: created in the image of God. And it is binary male or female. Uh, the Bible tells us that we are wonderfully made, that we are. The Lord God knits us together in our mother’s womb.

He knows every hair on, on our head. And that is a truth. That is a biblical truth. And that is a truth that transcends all time. And God is the same God today as he was a thousand years ago. So I just pray that our great listeners will understand that there’s so much hope that you can share with your loved one, with your grandchild, with your daughter.

Uh, you can share the, these resources that Jennifer is making available. Check out her website. You are woman.org. Uh, I’m sorry, you are more.org and this great book. I wanna turn to the book a little bit. I am a woman. Jennifer, tell us a little bit more about the book. What can people expect to, um, get out of that?

Jennifer Strickland: I’m so glad you asked. This has just been. Such a labor of love. I spent over two years studying the word woman, uh, male, female, man, women, father, mother, sister, brother, and son, and daughter, all of the family relationships in the ancient biblical Hebrew and God’s language is the language of transcendence.

So what you will find is that womanhood is an action. You know, in God’s language, God’s a verb. Man is a verb. Woman is a verb. That means there’s action associated with our gender. And the action of womanhood I discovered is that she is a life giver. She’s the life giver of the human family, body, soul, and spirit, which means, you know, some people try to say, well, if you can’t have babies, no, no, no, women.

Are life givers, period. We set the tone in the environment. We, um, make a house, a home. We are the guardians of the home. That is, that is biblical through and through that women guard the spiritual atmosphere. Of the home, which is why when the feminist movement drove so many women out of the home that became catastrophic, they’ll discover that the word mother in, in God’s language actually means glue.

She is the glue of the human family that women’s voices were created to bring revelation. And announcement and insight and perception, uh, you’ll find that women are, and all of this comes from the word woman and the word female, because when you dig inside of a Hebrew word, like female, for example, um, the female is, um, in the shape of their body, right?

She’s a circle. Like, she’s one that’s been punctured through, which is the meaning of the word female, nekevah in Hebrew. But it also means one who’s a boundary keeper. She holds the boundaries. The family, she holds and encircles the man and the family with her prayers, with her love, and with her life giving spirit.

Rebecca Weber: Well, you’re describing and so you, you, when you say all of these things you’re describing really my grandmother who was all of that. What a lovely woman who walked every day of her life with Christ and was such an incredible. Inspiration to me and my brothers and sisters and all of her grandchildren and great grandchildren.

I tell you, Jennifer, for all of the grandmothers listening out there, don’t underestimate, you know, the impact that you can have in your family’s life, as my grandmother did, and never underestimate that. Even in today’s crazy society, we feel that there’s so much noise out there, it’s hard to get through.

But all of these things that you’re saying, They’re so impactful. And I interrupted you. I’m sorry about that, but it just, you know, I had a sense of my grandmother being here with us as you’re just affirming that, yes, this is exactly our role as women. And it’s a powerful role.

Jennifer Strickland: It is. And it’s lived.

Rebecca Weber: Yes.

Jennifer Strickland: Womanhood is lived. It is an action and womanhood is learned through legacy. What your grandmother taught you. Right. What my mother and my mother in law have taught me is passed on to my daughter, whether it’s teaching them how to make my favorite spaghetti or great grandma’s chocolate pie, women have to train the girls to understand that the home is their post to guard, that their voices are meant to bring life in the home.

That woman has the power. To tear down the home and to tear down her husband with her voice, or she has the power to build it up. And, you know, same goes, what we do in the home is also for the nation. And you see that in the word woman, in, in God’s language, that she’s a stabilizer to mankind, not created from a single rib.

That’s a myth and a lie. That she’s created from the whole side. Of Adam as a stabilizer. And just as Adam is called to keep the garden woman is called to keep mankind. Those same words are used in her role in her relationship to mankind that she’s to oppose him. Uh, when he is going the wrong way, you know, the translation of the Ezer Canegdo, which is often translated women is helper suitable.

That that is a wrong and evil translation of the word women. I am, I am out to change it. It came in in the King James version. The word suitable is not even in our name. The Ezer Canegdo is actually a strong helper opposite.

Rebecca Weber: There you go.

Jennifer Strickland: She is a strong help and a rescuer, which is at the root of her name, but she’s also an opposing force to mankind’s energies when they’re headed in the wrong direction.

She opposed the sin. And I bet your grandmother did that.

Rebecca Weber: I bet she

Jennifer Strickland: opposed what was evil and what was wrong. And so the, the, the interesting thing is the longer I studied. The meaning of the word women in scripture, the more I knew that we are actually the answer to humanity’s cry for help right now.

Rebecca Weber: Just beautiful. Jennifer Strickland, this is so great that you’re sharing this and inspiring young girls and women, uh, really across the country to understand their self worth and that it’s not rooted in the things that we see on the outside, the exterior, the material world, but rather spiritually and that we are loved each and every one of us by a wonderful God.

So I thank you so much for joining with me. I encourage everyone to check out this book. What an inspiration. I am a woman. Pick up that book right away and be sure to go to youaremore. org. This ministry offers so many incredible resources. Uh, you’ve got books, you’ve got Bible studies, teaching videos, live events.

Uh, we want more and more people to get involved and uh, Learn how to get involved. Is there a way that people Jennifer could can Participate more so in the ministry and can they do that by visiting your website?

Jennifer Strickland: Absolutely. Thank you so much for asking. So if they go to it’s the letter you the letter are Moree org you are more work.

You’ll find ways that you can support our ministry To help us to provide, uh, free books and Bible studies for women and girls in crisis. You can also join our, I am a Woman online book clubs, which I’m doing this fall. I want every woman and girl in this nation to know how to answer the what is a woman question and to go out and live it.