Complementarians frequently claim that egalitarians are the theological descendants of radical feminists, such as Betty Friedan. This is inaccurate. Egalitarians in fact see mentors in people like Catherine Booth, who was from the first wave of feminists. This article explores years of Christian teaching that reflected a patriarchal cultural evaluation of women as inferior, subordinate, more prone to sin, and less rational than men, and outlines how change first took place in the 1800s, rather than with the radical feminists of the second half of the 1900s. The article also examines the contributions of the first wave of feminists whose commitment to biblical authority, evangelism, and social justice came to characterize evangelicals as a whole.

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