“Complementarianism is the belief that men and women are ‘equal’ in value to God but have different God-given roles that complement each other,” April Ajoy, author of “Star-Spangled Jesus: Leaving Christian Nationalism and Finding a True Faith,” told HuffPost.

“It enforces stereotypical, traditional gender roles and focuses on women’s submission to male authority both at home and in the church,” Ajoy continued. “Complementarianism holds that only men can lead in the church and that husbands have complete authority over their wives. Wives are taught that God commands their complete submission and obedience to their husbands in everything.”

This belief that men and women have clear separate roles in marriage and society is quite widespread across fundamentalist Christian communities and evangelicalism.

Cait West, author of “Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away From Christian Patriarchy,” grew up inside complementarianism and described it plainly.

“It is just another name for patriarchy, and some believers hold to it more strictly than others,” she said. “Men are supposed to be strong leaders, the heads of their households, and women are supposed to submit to their husbands in all things. The idea is that men and women who follow this “godly” plan complement each other as they serve God.”

Ajoy gave the example of Ephesians 5:22-24: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

“Most evangelicals who use this passage to keep women submissive to men conveniently ignore the verse right before it that says, ‘Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ,’” Ajoy noted.