‘From woman is the beginning of sin and because of her all must die†(Ecclesiasticus 25:24 Apocrypha). This is one example of about 200 biblical verses that belittle and demean women.
Throughout Abrahamic doctrine women are treated as weak, inferior, dependent and unclean. Take the story of Lot, for instance. What kind of father would offer his virgin daughters to a group of marauding men — ‘to treat as it pleases you†— simply to protect a couple of male angels he was hosting?
In Proverbs men are explicitly instructed: ‘Spend not all your energy on women, nor your loins on these destroyers of kings†(31:3). The Old Testament is littered with warnings against keeping the company of all manner of females ranging from virgins and whores to singing girls. By omission, this leaves only feminists and lesbians as safe-bet companions for devout men to consort with.
One wonders why the omniscient biblical God created women knowing that he would find them ‘more bitter than deathâ€. He is purported to have said: ‘She is a snare, her heart a net, her arms are chains. He who is pleasing to God eludes her, but the sinner is her captive†(Ecclesiastes 7:26).
Religious followers would argue that biblical quotes cannot be understood out of context, but the point is that it is the context itself that consistently debases the female gender. As is commonly known females, starting with the mythical Eve, are considered the source of all evil.
It has been said that God created spirituality but man created religion, and it is only over the past 6 000 years that the Creator acquired a dangly bit. The prior 200 000 years show the deity as female.
About 150 years ago, a pioneer of the suffragette movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, challenged the idea that utterances of men like Abraham and Moses were divinely inspired. She said: ‘It was a very cunning way for the patriarchs to enforce their own authority, to do whatever they desired and to say the Lord commanded them to do and say thus and so.â€
Cady Stanton held the view that the political and social degradation of females was a directly attributable consequence of the depiction of women in the Bible and predicted that little would change unless the holy books dictating female roles were altered.
While the idea of amending the Bible is a big no-no for religious followers, the history of Christianity is dotted with reshuffles determining its inclusions and exclusions; the most notable being the original construction of today’s Bible at the Council of Nicaea (325CE). Apparently, only men’s hands are sacred enough to be driven by God’s utterances. Or is it, in fact, simpler than this? Do the holy men manipulate and control females by presenting the oppression of women as if it were required by a commandment from God?
Nothing has done more harm to women than the patriarchal religious belief that men own women. Rape, battery, wife murder, sexual abuse, misogyny, violence and porn-ography are some of the brutal consequences of men staking their claim. By so doing, the opportunity for developing a strong, independent, authentic female identity has been undermined, and the enduring false subservience of women causes an unnatural arrogance in men.
I always find it surprising that so often it is women who support the institutions principally responsible for the degradation of their gender, even to the extent of helping financially to prop up failing churches. How many of our foremothers ran cake sales to fill church coffers? How many were tin-shakers for the tombola or knitted, crocheted and sewed to produce low-cost, high-effort toy clowns, ragdolls and ovenmitts to flog at the church fair?
Do these religious rescuers really believe that pious women are guaranteed a place in heaven? As no one knows, it is equally possible that on reaching the Pearly Gates we will be confronted by an all-powerful creatress who will be laughing at the surprised look on our faces when we realise just how stitched-up we’ve been.
Stephanie Vermeulen is author of Stitched-up: Who Fashions Women’s Lives? and EQ: Emotional Intelligence for Everyone’From woman is the beginning of sin and because of her all must die†(Ecclesiasticus 25:24 Apocrypha). This is one example of about 200 biblical verses that belittle and demean women.
Throughout Abrahamic doctrine women are treated as weak, inferior, dependent and unclean. Take the story of Lot, for instance. What kind of father would offer his virgin daughters to a group of marauding men — ‘to treat as it pleases you†— simply to protect a couple of male angels he was hosting?
In Proverbs men are explicitly instructed: ‘Spend not all your energy on women, nor your loins on these destroyers of kings†(31:3). The Old Testament is littered with warnings against keeping the company of all manner of females ranging from virgins and whores to singing girls. By omission, this leaves only feminists and lesbians as safe-bet companions for devout men to consort with.
One wonders why the omniscient biblical God created women knowing that he would find them ‘more bitter than deathâ€. He is purported to have said: ‘She is a snare, her heart a net, her arms are chains. He who is pleasing to God eludes her, but the sinner is her captive†(Ecclesiastes 7:26).
Religious followers would argue that biblical quotes cannot be understood out of context, but the point is that it is the context itself that consistently debases the female gender. As is commonly known females, starting with the mythical Eve, are considered the source of all evil.
It has been said that God created spirituality but man created religion, and it is only over the past 6 000 years that the Creator acquired a dangly bit. The prior 200 000 years show the deity as female.
About 150 years ago, a pioneer of the suffragette movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, challenged the idea that utterances of men like Abraham and Moses were divinely inspired. She said: ‘It was a very cunning way for the patriarchs to enforce their own authority, to do whatever they desired and to say the Lord commanded them to do and say thus and so.â€
Cady Stanton held the view that the political and social degradation of females was a directly attributable consequence of the depiction of women in the Bible and predicted that little would change unless the holy books dictating female roles were altered.
While the idea of amending the Bible is a big no-no for religious followers, the history of Christianity is dotted with reshuffles determining its inclusions and exclusions; the most notable being the original construction of today’s Bible at the Council of Nicaea (325CE). Apparently, only men’s hands are sacred enough to be driven by God’s utterances. Or is it, in fact, simpler than this? Do the holy men manipulate and control females by presenting the oppression of women as if it were required by a commandment from God?
Nothing has done more harm to women than the patriarchal religious belief that men own women. Rape, battery, wife murder, sexual abuse, misogyny, violence and porn-ography are some of the brutal consequences of men staking their claim. By so doing, the opportunity for developing a strong, independent, authentic female identity has been undermined, and the enduring false subservience of women causes an unnatural arrogance in men.
I always find it surprising that so often it is women who support the institutions principally responsible for the degradation of their gender, even to the extent of helping financially to prop up failing churches. How many of our foremothers ran cake sales to fill church coffers? How many were tin-shakers for the tombola or knitted, crocheted and sewed to produce low-cost, high-effort toy clowns, ragdolls and ovenmitts to flog at the church fair?
Do these religious rescuers really believe that pious women are guaranteed a place in heaven? As no one knows, it is equally possible that on reaching the Pearly Gates we will be confronted by an all-powerful creatress who will be laughing at the surprised look on our faces when we realise just how stitched-up we’ve been.
Stephanie Vermeulen is author of Stitched-up: Who Fashions Women’s Lives? and EQ: Emotional Intelligence for Everyone