Denise Ayer
Before you turn the page, stay with me—I promise this isn’t just about Barbie dolls.
If you’re anything like me, you probably had zero desire to watch the Barbie movie. I didn’t grow up playing with them, and once I became a girl mom, I gladly passed the baton to my husband. Don’t worry—we bought him a Ken doll so he could hold his own during their Barbie play sessions.
One day, my husband (yes, you read that right) challenged me to watch it. Not being one to back down from a challenge, I gave in. What I found wasn’t just plastic and pink. It was a cultural mirror and a theological provocation. The film unfolds into two dramatically different worlds: the pink, perfect, matriarchal “Barbie Land” and the chaotic, patriarchal “Real World.”
In Barbie Land, every woman is named Barbie. There’s President Barbie, Lawyer Barbie, Physicist Barbie—you get the idea. These Barbies run the world, and they do so in high heels with perfect hair. The Kens? They’re mostly accessories, vying for Barbie’s attention and are perpetually being sidelined as the Barbies pursue their dreams.
At first, the portrayal of Ken rubbed me the wrong way. The film painted him as clueless and inconsequential—a man whose identity existed only in relation to a woman. I almost turned it off, but I stayed with it. That discomfort? It ended up being the very doorway into a much bigger truth.
A Tale of Two Kingdoms
As the movie progresses, Barbie realizes something is not right in her plastic utopia. Strange thoughts plague her. Her perfect routine is unraveling. Seeking answers, she is told to go to the Real World—and what she finds there flips everything upside down. There, Barbie enters a world where patriarchy dominates. She is objectified, disrespected, and stripped of the honor she held in Barbie Land. Barbie’s very existence is questioned.
Here’s what struck me: neither world—Barbie Land nor the Real World—reflects the heart of God. One world belittled men; the other degraded women. What Barbie unintentionally laid bare is the brokenness that results when we elevate one gender over another. Whether matriarchy or patriarchy, either extreme distorts God’s original design.
So where do we find God’s original intention?
In the Beginning…
To find God’s design, we have to go back to the Garden. Genesis 1:26–27 tells us that God created humanity in His own image, making both male and female to reflect His likeness. Not only were both male and female created in the image of God, but they were also both given the command to rule. Dominion wasn’t assigned to one gender. It was a shared mandate. A chapter later, in Genesis 2:18, God declares, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
Too often, we reduce the word helper to something like an assistant—a sidekick on standby. But the Hebrew word here, ‘ēzer, tells a different story. In fact, the majority of times this word appears in the Old Testament, it refers to God, Himself, as our helper (Psalm 121, Deuteronomy 33, etc.).
This is not a term of inferiority. It’s a word of strength and divine support.
We see the battle of the sexes only begins after Satan enters the scene. This was not just to fracture a marriage, but to fracture the unity between the image-bearers of God. The enemy knows this: men and women together, walking in unity, are a force that reflects the full image of God—and that’s a threat to the kingdom of darkness.
In Genesis 1, when God saw all of creation, He called it “good.” But after creating male and female? “God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). I believe the “very” isn’t just about the sum total of the six days of creation. The adverb “very” is there to describe the high degree of good that resulted, because both man and woman, together, revealed the fullness of God’s image in the earth—the Imago Dei. One without the other is incomplete.
This truth doesn’t just apply to marriage. It applies to Kingdom work. When men and women partner together for the sake of the Gospel, we reflect the heart of our Creator more fully than we ever could alone. It is no wonder that the enemy’s strategy throughout history has been to pit us against one another.
Jesus and Women: A Radically Restored Vision
Fast forward to the Gospels. Jesus enters a world shaped by patriarchy and cultural hierarchy—but He refuses to abide by either. Jesus didn’t just include women. He elevated them.
He spoke to the woman at the well (John 4), ignoring social and religious barriers. He heals a woman crippled for 18 years and calls her “daughter of Abraham” (Luke 13:12–16)—a title never used elsewhere in Scripture.
He lets a sinful woman anoint Him in the home of a Pharisee (Luke 7). Jesus defends a woman caught in adultery (John 8). He even entrusts the first resurrection announcement—the greatest news ever told—to women (John 20:17). This wasn’t rebellion. This was restoration. Jesus wasn’t reacting to culture. He was returning us to Eden—to the original design of equal honor and shared purpose.
For the Women Reading This…
Maybe you’ve spent your life being both mother and father to your children. Maybe you’ve carried the invisible load of leadership and felt dismissed or unqualified. Hear me clearly: Jesus determines your worth. You were handcrafted by the Creator. You were made in His image.
Men, If You Are Reading This…
Brothers, we need you. We need your strength, your voice, your courage, and your calling. We need you to stand shoulder to shoulder with us as your sisters in Christ.
You were never meant to carry the burden alone, just as women were never meant to be sidelined. When you honor the image of God in your sisters that surround you—whether in the home, in ministry, or in leadership—you participate in restoring what was broken in Eden.
The Hebrew word for “rib” in Genesis also describes both the side of a temple and the sides of the Ark of the Covenant—structures designed to mirror God’s glory. Both sides equal in strength, both necessary for stability. If one side is weakened, the structure collapses. There is a battle for life or death, and we cannot afford to weaken each other. We were made to build together.
There is an old song we used to sing, “You’re my brother, you’re my sister…there’s no foe that can defeat us when we’re walking side by side…”
Let’s get back to Eden-like living, and together, let us take on the Kingdom of darkness.
Denise Ayer and her husband serve as pastors of New Life Church in Canton, Pennsylvania. A lifelong servant in ministry, Denise has spent the past decade in full-time pastoral leadership and is ordained through Destiny Leaders. Her heart for global missions has taken her around the world—she has served as a short-term missionary in El Salvador and participated in or led teams to Uganda, Nicaragua, Brazil, the Philippines, and Honduras.
