This deep disdain for women shows up in the pillars of all denominations of Christian theology: we go from Protestant reformer Martin Luther (“Girls begin to talk and stand of their feet sooner than boys because weeds always grow up faster than good crops”)
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to Catholic Saint Thomas Aquinas (“A woman is inferior in her essential biological and psychological nature. She is weaker physically, lacking in moral self-control and inferior in reasoning power”)
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to
one of the early Church Fathers, Saint Jerome, (“Woman is the gate of the devil, the path of wickedness, the sting of the serpent, in a word a perilous object”)
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to his saintly colleague Augustine (“What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman”).
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Misogyny drips from the pages of more Christian texts than I have room to name here.
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In the eyes of most Christian theology, a refusal of patriarchy was an insult to God's plan for humanity. It was the first woman's stupidity, after all, that had opened the door to the Devil. Feminine nature was seen as childlike, immature, weak, less able to reason, and more susceptible to sin, so it was necessary for women to be under male authority in order to prevent evil from spreading. Good women were those who readily submitted to their fathers and husbands. And what about the ones who didn't? Well, it may be time to go look for our whips. . . . Those who insisted on asserting their independence were guilty of sinning against God and nature.
Faithfully following in the footsteps of its elder siblings, Islam, the youngest child in the family of Western religions, adopted a similar stance on gender roles. Even in the present day, chilling stories about the status of women regularly emerge out of the Muslim world: from the countless women every year who have their throat cut by family members during “honor” killings to the courts of Saudi Arabia that, out of deep concern for Islamic morality, sentence a rape victim to six months in jail and 200 lashes because, when she was attacked, she was in a car with a non-relative male. (This is a heinous crime under the Saudi version of sharia law.
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)
Apologists for Islam tell us that these are aberrations, and Muhammad single-handedly improved the status of women in Arabic
society. In part, this may be true. Muhammad outlawed female infanticide and gave women the rights to inheritance and divorce, the ability to independently own property, write a will, and several other freedoms women would not be able to enjoy until centuries later in parts of Christian Europe. In light of these reforms, apologists insist that the true message of Islam was positive for women but was later distorted by people wanting to reverse many of these gains.
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While it is true that the Koran doesn't advocate practices such as veiling and female circumcision, it would take a black belt in self-delusion to believe that it champions the rights of women. Isn't the Koran the same book that gives males twice the inheritance of females,
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argues that men are superior to women,
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suggests that two female witnesses are equal to one male witness,
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compares women to “weak men” and “children,”
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prescribes house arrest until death for “lewd women,”
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and suggests that the wives of sinful husbands should go to hell with them regardless of their own personal conduct?
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Oh, and I almost forgot the best part. Isn't the Koran also the book that offers precious advice regarding when it's appropriate for a good husband to beat his wife, if she dares rebel against his authority?
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I rest my case.
It would be nice to believe that virulent misogyny is a disease confined to Western faiths. It would be nice to believe that religions born in other parts of the world are unaffected by this plague. But it's simply not true. Being born female in a country where Confucianism runs rampant, for example, would hardly be an improvement. Confucius, in fact, places the relationship between husband and wife on the same plane as the one that exists between ruler and subject. Followers of Confucianism built a social order where female submission to fathers, husbands, and adult sons is the norm, it is
considered a waste to educate little girls since their only functions are to make babies and clean the house, and divorce or even the right to remarry for widows are simply not options.
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Confucius' fans, sadly, are not the only gender fascists in Asia. The fact that many goddesses are worshipped as part of the Hindu pantheon, for example, has not prevented several forms of traditional Hinduism from arguing that women are unable to achieve enlightenment. The best they can hope for is to accumulate good karma and be reborn as men. Heretical schools of Tantrism have offered Indian women asylum from a patriarchal social order, but these are but an oasis in the desert of Hindu history.
Buddhism offers a more promising start. Buddha went against the conventional wisdom of his times by arguing that women could become enlightened, but the familiar specter of misogyny soon reared its ugly head and made its presence known throughout much of Buddhist literature.
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Nuns ended up being subordinates of monks. Celibate monks, in particular, would often blame women for their own inability to come to terms with their sexual feelings. And so many Buddhists began repeating the old refrain that being born female was the result of poor karma.
Other Buddhists countered this view by arguing that insight and compassion can be developed by men and women alike, and that both genders are equally capable of embodying the essence of Buddhism.
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The answer to which side is truly faithful to Buddha's message is the same thunderous “who knows?” we have already heard in regards to Jesus' thoughts on gender. The evidence is so ambiguous that one can make them say whatever they want.
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What can't be doubted, however, is that historically speaking Buddhism has been at minimum guilty of tacit complicity with patriarchy.
In theory, Taoism has all the cards to be the shining exception in this story. After all, it is the one religion that emphasizes the importance of subtle, feminine Yin energies over the obvious, masculine Yang. Its philosophy is built around female images and metaphors. Its mythology is populated by rain goddesses who frolic amidst clouds and mountain peaks. And yet, the Chinese version of patriarchy managed to partially derail Taoism to the point that Taoist sects range from the very women-friendly to the “if-there-were-a-goldmedal-in-chauvinism-we-would-give-Confucianism-a-run-for-itsmoney” type.
Anyone who was at least semi-conscious over the last few pages should have gotten by now that limiting women's choices is a very popular sport among the world's religions. But let's add some spice to our story. A particularly bizarre element in this equation is the extremely high number of women who have enthusiastically embraced even the most patriarchal religions. What are we to make of people volunteering to become accomplices in their own oppression? Are we witnessing a mass case of Stockholm syndrome?
The answers to this complex situation are many. But in my mind, one is racing ahead of the others. The vast majority of human beings don't like to question what they are taught. It takes too much work, too much courage, too much self-esteem to reject what is accepted by all around you. Equal parts of fear and laziness usually convince most of humanity to just play by the rules handed to them. So what's a poor little girl to do if, from the second she is born, she is told she is weak, vulnerable, and in need of male authority? No, actually, it's not even that easy—what if she is told from the second she is born
that
God
, in His divine wisdom, has ordered her to follow male authority? Day after day, year after year, she is told that disobeying her father, husband, and (male) religious leaders is an affront to God. How likely is she then to challenge not only the rules of society, but God's will itself? The world is not exactly full of people with enough toughness and willpower to take on both men and gods. The results, then, are quite predictable.
The classic carrot and the stick approach used to train donkeys is at work here. If a woman learns to accept the role given to her by a patriarchal society, and reinforced by a patriarchal religion, she will receive the carrot of an identity as a respected mother and housewife, with all the protection, economic support, and divine approval that goes with it. She will be able to find a more or less comfortable niche for herself
despite
her being a woman. But if she doesn't accept this house-slave mentality, and decides to speak out against patriarchy, the stick is ready to put her back in her place.
So, it's hardly surprising that many women may have complained about the most flagrant abuses of patriarchy without ever questioning its foundation. What's surprising, instead, is the number of women who have decided to fight tooth and nail despite the very high price to pay for this choice.
After holding the title of undefeated heavyweight champion in gender ideology for a few millennia, patriarchy, finally, seems to be with its back on the ropes. Despite taking a long time dying, the once all-powerful patriarchy is now hobbling along—still alive and dangerous, but wounded and weakened. Over the last 300 years or so, ideas that were always loved by a minority of people have become
mainstream: equal rights for all human beings, democracy, the sanctity of individual freedoms . . . wild notions that for so long were but dreams you could only whisper about in secret have now broken out of jail and found a home in the hearts and minds of millions of men and women. With inexorable determination, they have hunted down tyranny, authoritarian ideologies, and all those forces limiting human freedom. Patriarchy's cousins, classism and racism, have had to mount a steady retreat. They can certainly still bite, but they no longer thrive the way they used to in a world that's becoming allergic to flagrant injustices.
Much like its philosophical friends, patriarchy has seen its kingdom collapse. For all of its faults, modernity has brought to vast numbers of women greater economic opportunities allowing them to break the chain of dependency on men. It has brought them the technology to choose whether to get pregnant or not. And it has brought them the freedom to reject patriarchy.
Discussing how and why this change took place would take us on a wild ride along the Mother of All Tangents. For the sake of staying on course, we will not go there. But we should at least mention that religions have certainly not spearheaded this change. Rather, most religious authorities joined patriarchy on the barricades trying to keep the barbarians out and, like all true opportunists, only switched sides when they realized that the alliance with patriarchy was a lost cause.
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Wherever religion and politics were driven apart, individual rights flourished. And still today, individual freedoms are at their weakest wherever religion and politics go hand in hand.
As women have gained more freedoms, however, an increasing number of religious figures have decided to adjust their theology to a more balanced view of gender.
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And most religions include branches that are very vocal about women-friendly interpretations
of their own traditions. Oddly enough, this sometimes includes even women who are ultraconservative in every other way but make an exception for this one issue.
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But not everyone is ready to abandon the sinking ship. Patriarchy is still going unapologetically strong within much of the Muslim world and also finds a safe haven among many denominations of most other religions.
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Try, for example, evangelical leader Pat Robertson, who still today writes that feminists encourage women “to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.”
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And not to be outdone, the equally balanced and sober Jerry Falwell accused feminists of angering God, and thereby helping to bring about the 9/11 attacks.
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Without patriarchy to lean on, many men feel lost in a modern world made of more fluid gender roles and complex identities. Finding their macho role as providers and undisputed leaders of the family being taken away from them, they push back against this wave of change in the only way they know how: by longing for a return to the past, with patriarchy and its fixed gender roles still in place.
If feeling deprived of their very identity as men were not bad enough, add to their troubles the emasculating characteristics that always lurked in the background of their religions of choice. The male followers of quite a few religious traditions had to struggle with a theology that required them to pray on their knees, confess their weaknesses, surrender control, ask for help, and encouraged them to adopt “womanly” values such as forgiveness, mercy, tenderness, and a love relationship with a male deity. These issues were always a bit disturbing, but since women's rights have been gaining ground, and many males can no longer console themselves with the pacifier of a powerful macho identity, this uneasy sense of insecurity has become unbearable. Mad about being perceived as wimps, many men have
been trying extra hard to inject virility in their theology by pushing their women back in the kitchen, cracking down on homosexuality, and threatening bloody violence against the unbelievers.
If nothing else, this desperate attempt to keep patriarchy alive has sometimes gained in complexity and subtlety. Now that in much of the world it is no longer cool to openly advocate female inferiority, it has become fashionable in some religious circles to argue that women and men have separate areas of influence. This is the same old men-as-leaders, women-as-housewives model, but it is presented in a more acceptable light by removing the obvious hierarchy that used to go with it. Rather than speaking of male superiority over women, the new line is to emphasize both male and female contributions as equally valuable. What remains, however, is the idea that gender roles are biologically (and divinely) determined, and neither society nor individual inclinations should alter them.
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Regardless of individual temper, talent, or character, all women are supposed to be emotional, sensitive, and nurturing, with an innate predisposition to taking on a full-time job as mothers; meanwhile all men are supposed to be strong, rational, assertive, and made to command. Individuality plays next to no role in God's master plan for each gender.