Created to be Masculine and Feminine?: Complementarianism & the American Public

I have been studying the history of complementarianism for over a decade now. While my research focuses on the origin of the movement, I have been noticing an uptick in the prevalence of its teachings in recent years. When WIT was contacted by Brooklyn Walker and Paul A. Djupe about collaborating on a post about their research on the prevalence of complementarian teachings in the USA I was very interested, and I hope WIT’s readers will be too. The post that follows presents their findings, with historical and theological background provided by me.

In 1992, Christianity Today selected Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (RBMW) as its Book of the Year. RBMW lays out the case for complementarianism, a Christian belief system that argues that God created men and women with distinct and complementary natures and roles. In some ways, it was an odd choice. RBMW is a collection of essays from theologians and biblical scholars, and their expositions of Greek terms and detailed outlines are not easy reading for a lay audience. 

RBMW, produced by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW, established in 1987) and published by Crossway, was by no means the first book on gender roles to circulate in the evangelical reading public. Instead it was an academic addition to a conversation that had been ongoing amongst evangelical leaders for a couple of decades. Presentations of “biblical womanhood” started popping up in lay-friendly, popular-level theology books in the mid-1970s. Elisabeth Elliot’s Let Me Be a Woman from 1976 is one example. Over the 1980s, ‘90s, and early 2000s, books presenting complementarian ideas on gender became an increasingly large proportion of evangelical publishers’ offerings. Books about gender roles were initially directed towards women, but starting in the 1980s titles on biblical manhood started to appear on evangelical publisher’s catalogue lists. Titles like Point Man, Wild at Heart, Captivating, and Helper by Design sold well and informed conversations in churches, bible studies, and small groups.      

The initial focus on proper femininity and women’s roles reflects the earliest anxieties of complementarian authors, who articulated their vision of womanhood as a reactionary response to the second wave feminist movement in society at large. To these evangelical observers, feminism saw men and women as interchangeable, degraded motherhood, and encouraged women to be selfish and arrogant. All of these features, in their view, made feminism a threat to a stable society and incompatible with Christian teachings. 

Certain biblical texts, such as Genesis 2 & 3, Proverbs 31, and Ephesians 5, play an important role in complementarian discussions of gender and gender roles. In addition to these biblical texts, God’s sovereignty is an important theological concept for complementarian reasoning. Complementarian theology understands sexed bodies as evidence of God’s divine will and perfect plan for humanity. Since God made different, complementary male and female bodies, it follows (for complementariansthem) that these bodies would have different, complementary roles to play in God’s design for the world.  

These ideas develop throughout complementarian literature to assume that personalities, skills, tendencies, and responsibilities are all divided along a rigid gender binary. Men are presented as rational, practical, initiative-taking, vision-casting leaders. Women, in complementary contrast, are emotional, sentimental, responsive, detail-oriented followers.  Adhering to the complementary gender paradigm is held up as a way to help marriages flourish, to have children grow up healthily, for families to avoid the pitfalls of worldly materialism, and for Christians to signal their commitment to a biblical way of life. 

 Complementarians advocate for the restriction of ordination to men, wifely submission to husbands, and women’s prioritization of  prioritizing domestic work over a career. Complementarians generally understand themselves as proponents of gender roles that are less chauvinistic than in earlier times, less hardnosed than the more fundamentalist “biblical patriarchy,” but more true to the bible than feminist perspectives.

While there have been quite a few academic studies that have discussed the concept of complementarianism, there are none (to our knowledge) that have explored how widespread it is in the population or its population-level effects. As quantitative social scientists (Brooklyn and Paul), we wanted to take a shot. 

How can we measure complementarianism?

Our measure of complementarianism was inspired by the Danvers Statement, a central and concise articulation of the complementarian beliefs defended in RBMW. The table below presents claims from the Danvers Statement coupled with the corresponding survey item. 

We presented these statements to over 3,200 respondents in September/October 2025 in a survey funded by a Shand Grant from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. The respondents were drawn from across the United States, as we used weights to make our sample representative of the US population. Respondents were asked to indicate their agreement with each complementarian statement on a 5-point scale (Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Agree, Strongly Agree). 

Our statistical tools give us confidence that respondents’ answers to these six questions are consistent and indicate that these six statements are tapping into a coherent complementarian worldview.

Do Americans embrace complementarianism? 

In short, yes. The figure below shows how people responded to each of our complementarian items. At least 39% of Americans agreed with each statement, and some statements elicit agreement from a clear majority of respondents. 

We added together respondents’ responses to the six statements and rescaled it, giving each respondent a complementarianism score that varies between 0 and 1. A score closer to 1 means that a respondent more strongly agreed with the complementarianism statements, a score of .5 shows neutrality, and a score of 0 shows strong disagreement. The mean score for men is 0.593 and for women is 0.568, which indicates that the general public leans towards agreement with complementarianism. Complementarianism is not an extreme ideology, at least in terms of public support. 

Which Americans Embrace Complementarianism?

Evangelical religious elites initially articulated complementarianism as a structured worldview, but the seeds of complementarianism were (and remain) more widespread. Black Protestants, Evangelicals, and nondenominational Christians have some of the highest levels of support for complementarianism, with men in those groups expressing stronger support than women. All Christian traditions are neutral or agree with the tenets of complementarianism. Jews and non-religious Americans tend to be opposed to complementarianism. Our major takeaway – complementarian beliefs can be found across Christian religious traditions. 

We also asked our respondents about their beliefs about the Bible. Respondents who said that they believed that “The Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word” were classified as biblical literalists. Among people who reject biblical literalism, men are around the neutral point (neither agreeing nor disagreeing with complementarianism), but women are skeptical of complementarian claims. Biblical literalists, though, are strongly supportive of complementarian ideas, men slightly more so than women. 

Next we turn to the demographic factors of age and race, again comparing men and women. Despite the popular narrative that younger people are more willing to challenge stereotypes, complementarianism finds strong support among young Americans. In fact, young women’s complementarianism support is often stronger than older men’s. Young men have especially high rates of complementarianism support, which tracks with the rise of the social media manosphere and young men’s presence there. 

Finally, for this initial look we can examine the distribution of complementarianism by racial group. Each racial group leans towards support of complementarianism. Complementarianism is most concentrated among Black respondents, then Hispanic. Support by gender varies by racial group. White and Hispanic men are stronger complementarians than White and Hispanic women (respectively), while Black women are stronger complementarians than Black men. Ultimately, we don’t find evidence that complementarianism is uniquely concentrated in any one racial group. 

Complementarianism: The Success of Trickle Down Theology?

Complementarianism may have been formalized as a Christian belief system by theologians and pastors, but it hasn’t stayed in the evangelical Christian ivory tower. Our data shows that these beliefs are widespread in American society. Not only do majorities of Christian religious traditions ascribe to complementarian beliefs, but so do majorities of each major racial group in the United States. Perhaps most noteworthy is that complementarian support is highest among young Americans. And while we do observe some gender gaps, those gaps do not appear to be dramatic – i.e., we don’t see men strongly supporting complementarianism while women strongly oppose it. 

Our main takeaway: complementarianism exists in the minds of Americans, especially Christians. Our next task is to determine whether and how it matters for how Americans think about their society, country, and world. 

Brooklyn Walker is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Her research focuses on the role of religious worldviews and identities on political attitudes. Learn more about her work on Twitter, Bluesky, or at her website.

Paul A. Djupe directs the Data for Political Research program at Denison University, is an affiliated scholar with PRRI, the book series editor of Religious Engagement in Democratic Politics (Temple), and co-creator of religioninpublic.blog. Further information about his work can be found at his website and on Bluesky.