There’s a moment in every woman’s life—sometimes in childhood, sometimes later—when she realizes the world has already decided who she’s supposed to be. She’s expected to be soft but strong, ambitious but not too much, independent yet always available, modest but attractive. And somewhere between all those contradictions, she’s left wondering who she really is.
Lisa Bevere has spent decades calling out the lies that keep women from fully stepping into their God-given identity. In her latest book Fight for Female: Reclaiming Your God-Given Identity, she argues that women have unknowingly befriended an enemy—a culture that defines them by impossible expectations rather than divine purpose.
“When I wrote Lioness Arising, I had a dream about a lioness,” Bevere tells RELEVANT. “This time I had a dream about a dragon—rainbow-colored, dressed in children’s clothing. It was 2016, way before any of this was happening. And when I started to see what was unfolding—that women were actually protecting this lie—I was like, what in the world?”
She’s talking about the battle for identity—one she believes is far more spiritual than political. And she’s not mincing words.
The Fight for Identity Isn’t Just Cultural—It’s Spiritual
Bevere doesn’t downplay the very real societal forces shaping modern womanhood. She acknowledges the pressures—everything from the “trad wife” movement romanticizing domestic submission to corporate feminism’s message that true success means freezing your eggs and climbing the corporate ladder.
But her concern runs deeper.
“We’ve made it about politics, gender issues and race, and we’ve forgotten that there is an enemy who is so strategic,” she says. “He constantly says, ‘You’ve got to choose.’ But Jesus never chose sides. Even in the battle of Jericho, when Joshua asks, ‘Whose side are you on?’ the angel says, ‘I’m not on either side. Take off your shoes.’”
It’s an uncomfortable perspective in a world obsessed with taking sides. But Bevere argues that when women are too busy fighting each other, they’re missing the real fight.
“Increasingly I hear women say, ‘I feel like I don’t fit anywhere,’” she says. “And I tell them, ‘That’s because you were never meant to fit. You were meant to stand apart.’”
Womanhood Is Not a Costume
Bevere is particularly passionate about the way modern culture is distorting the meaning of femininity.
“There’s a battle over women’s divine imagery right now. We’ve reduced womanhood to a costume—something that can be put on or taken off, something that is sexualized and commodified,” she says. “And we need to be upset about that, but not upset at the people trying to find wholeness in brokenness.”
Instead, she urges women to reclaim what it truly means to be female—not as a stereotype but as a divine calling.
“A biblical woman is not some docile, silent, submissive thing sitting in the corner,” she says. “She buys a field. She opens her mouth with wisdom. She invests. She has voice and agency.”
But she also warns against a different kind of trap: the belief that femininity must be erased in order to be powerful.
“For decades women have been told that if they want to be strong, they need to act like men,” she says. “And that’s a lie. When we grasp at the image of male instead of living in the fullness of female, we lose something sacred.”
Your Season Determines Your Calling
Bevere knows firsthand how complicated it can be to navigate modern expectations of womanhood. She’s lived through multiple seasons—staying home with her children, traveling and speaking, balancing ministry with motherhood. And through it all, she’s learned one thing: there’s no single template for biblical womanhood.
“We try to make it too narrow,” she says. “The Proverbs 31 woman—we sometimes want to slap her because she’s doing everything. But she actually gives us permission to do more rather than less.”
She warns against the pressure to conform to any one version of womanhood.
“People try to force the right thing in the wrong season, and they don’t realize that the right thing in the wrong season is the wrong thing,” she says.
For the single woman navigating career and calling, for the mother balancing ambition with family, for the woman questioning where she fits—Bevere’s message is clear: your value is not determined by your relationship status, your career or society’s shifting expectations.
“Everything in your life should be according to who God is asking you to be in this season,” she says.
How to Reclaim Your Identity
Recognizing the battle for identity is only the first step. The real question is: what do we do about it?
For Bevere, the answer starts with humility.
“The first step in any spiritual warfare is dropping the stones,” she says. “Where have I partnered with lies? Where have I entertained untruths?”
From there, she encourages women to take tangible steps toward reclaiming their identity:
- Recognize the real enemy. “You’re not wrestling with people,” she says. “You’re wrestling with principalities, powers and cosmic forces that are exalting themselves against knowing God.”
- Stop playing by the world’s rules. “Women have relational equity,” she says. “Instead of just criticizing what’s wrong, let’s build something right.”
- Step into your calling. “What’s one thing you can do in your school, your community, your church? Instead of sitting back, get into the battle.”
Bevere points to the women in Exodus as a model: the midwives who defied Pharaoh’s orders, Moses’ mother who hid him away, Miriam who watched over him and Pharaoh’s daughter who took him in.
“All of the heroes in that part of Exodus are women,” she says. “We need women like that today—women who will take us on an exodus from the way things are to the way they should be.”
A Call to Stand Apart
At the heart of Bevere’s message is an urgent challenge: stop looking to the world for permission to be who God already says you are.
“If a generation can be convinced that their formation was a mistake, they’re going to have a hard time trusting God with their transformation,” she says.
And that’s the real battle.
For Bevere, reclaiming identity isn’t just about self-empowerment—it’s about stepping into the role God designed for women in a world that desperately needs them.
“We are the guardians of hearts, communities and families. And we need to stop being afraid to take up space,” she says. “God is shaking everything that can be shaken so that what cannot be shaken will remain. And He needs us in this moment.”
Because if there’s one thing Bevere makes clear, it’s this: the fight for female isn’t about reclaiming power. It’s about reclaiming purpose.
And it’s time to step into it.
