Apparently last week I compared our happy, friendly, Judeo-Christian view on women to that of our theological cousins in Islam. I guess I said both their modesty mores are arcane traditions woven into the fabric of societies based on oppressive, misogynistic religions. Well, it’s a week later, I’ve gotten some complaints, and’ve had time to think. So now I’m hear to say, No. Yup, that still sounds about right to me. The holy books of all three faiths have such a powerful, all-encompassing, lust for sexism that I can’t even hold one without wanting to take a women over my knee and spank her with it…
Anyway… The similarities between these seemingly very different belief systems make a whole lot more sense once you find out just how related they all are. So here, In a nut’s-hell, is my oversimplification of it. Don’t worry, I’ll try to make it quick.
In the beginning, the Lord God made man, and man was bored, and lonely. To fix this God made all the animals and brought them to Adam, but none quite sated his need for companionship, if ya know what I mean. Eventually though God got the right idea and created Eve to be his little ‘helper.’ (Genesis 2:18-22) Blah, blah, blah, thanks to that no-good bitch we lost favor with the God Of Abraham and were exiled from the Garden, and immortality. And as extra punishment for the ladies he made birthing babies torturous, and gave their husbands rule over them. (Genesis 3:16)
Like most pissed parents, Yahweh eventually calmed down and figured out that maybe us silly monkeys needed something more than just verbal instruction. So down Mount Sinai trots Moses with two handfuls of Commandments. Feeling pretty satisfied that that should do it, The Good Lord took a good long vacation. Eventually though, he peeked in on us, his favorite little experiment, and couldn’t help but notice that we were still fucking-up. Apparently Ten rules just weren’t enough – so out slides Jesus with enough teaching to add whole new chapters to the old book. Now surely, with all that extra guidance we’d have to be as right as rain, right?
Well, apparently his pet projects must’ve been denser than he’d been willing to admit. I mean after all, they’d been made in his own image! But still, the next time we caught our omnipotent creator’s eye, shit was still all kinds of fucked. So finally he sends the Prophet Muhammad down to our little ant-farm with a-whole-nother book to clarify every previous misunderstanding, and spell things out even more. We obviously needed as little left up to interpretation as possible.
Each new creed edited and expanded on the framework of the last. Islam to Christianity, Christianity to Judaism, Judaism to the sundry religions it hung-out with during its various diasporas. (But that’s a topic for another week.)
Perhaps because it’s the newest, and that’s just the way of things, of the big three, the Quran might have the most humane attitude towards women. Believe it or not. It forbid infanticide of little girls and allowed women the right to divorce. It even said they could own property, inherit things, (though only half as much as their brothers), and make their own wills. It might not sound like much today, but they were rights that Christian women in Europe wouldn’t have for centuries. And no, the Quran doesn’t espouse the burqa, niqab, hajab, or even the burqini. Nor does it preach everyone’s favorite topic, female circumcision. Naturally though, it does say men are superior, that even good wives should follow sinful spouses to Hell-fire, and gives tips on when a husband is supposed to knock the little woman around a bit. (But hay, Deuteronomy 25:11-12 tells when a man should happily cut his wife’s hand off. So… progress?) The reason these Suras sound barbaric to us today, over on this side of the world, isn’t because we’re a Judeo-Christian society, but because we’re not one.
According to Ecclesiasticus 25:24, because of that stupid bitch Eve we’re all sentenced to death. And maybe it’s because of her that women are born with a special extra-layer of original sin. Leviticus 12:1-5 tells us that if a mother gives birth to a girl, she’s ‘unclean’ and needs twice as much purification than she would’ve, had she given a boy. Girls are just twice as dirty I guess. I know my favorites always are.
When one rereads the Old Testament one gets the sense that Yahweh is forever brokering and renegotiating land deals. The first few books of the bible seem very preoccupied with all sorts of property; real-estate, precious minerals, livestock… women. The Ten Commandments say you shouldn’t covet your neighbor’s house, wife, slaves, ox, donkey, or anything else that belongs to them. Is it just me or does the God Of Abraham seem to think women are just property? (Not that I want to know this God’s thoughts.) He certainly seems to when He punishes King David by breaking his favorite toys. That is, He makes David’s (blameless) concubines be publicly raped. And what did good and wise old King David do about this? He punished the women of course. (2 Samuel, 12:11-12, 16:21, 20:3)
But that’s the old stuff, Christians might say. It was all broken anyway, that’s why we needed a new book. Surely with the amount of women Jesus hung-out with the New (and improved) Testament’s gotta be more gyno-friendly, right?
Well, if you ignore 1 Corinthians that might help, a little. Because Chapter 11, verse 3 says that things are supposed to be arranged; God The Father on top, then all males, and finally, at the bottom, women. And then in 14:34-5 it decrees that women should keep their mouths shut, and only learn from their husbands, at home. 1 Timothy 2:11-15 doubles-down on this sentiment and says women should be silent and subjugated, never question the authority of men, and only kept around for child-bearing, because, after all… that bitch Eve again. And then it’s blah, blah, blah, all over again in Ephesians 5:22-25. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m thinking about renewing my church membership.
I would be remiss however, if I didn’t mention one particular passage in the New Testament, It’s one I think every Christian should get tattooed on them, if Leviticus 19:28 didn’t forbid tattoos of course.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ ~ Galatians 3:28
For some reason though, Church leaders down through the ages haven’t felt that unique and lovely little passage heavy enough to outweigh all the others. Saint Thomas Aquinas believed, “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.” And really, who could argue with that? Certainly not Saint Augustine who, not to be outdone, said, “What is the difference whether it is a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman.”
But of course those were just Catholics, and in spite of the new pope we all know that the Catholic Church is fucked-up. What of the good hard-working Protestants, you ask? Well, according to the Great Reformer Martin Luther, “Girls begin to talk and stand of their feet sooner than boys because weeds always grow up faster than good crops.” You know, I can regurgitate these venomous quotes all day, and night, ad infinitum, but it’s already starting to get boring, for both of us I’m sure. Not to mention I’ve got a strict word limit, and I’m almost there. So moving on.
Now, I don’t want you going away thinking I’m trying to dump the entirety of the blame for the ubiquitous misogynistic patriarchy on the old desert religions. I’m sure it’s far older then that, and I’m also sure I can figure out who to blame. Women themselves, of course. It’s them and their God-damned nipples!
Since forever women’ve had to have our little-ones suction-cupped to their tit-rivets – and thanks to that baby-bar it’s always been the men who’ve had to go out on the long, dangerous hunts, while women got to stay home and do the gathering. And before we domesticated milking-animals nursing a child might’ve been a 4 or 5 year long project. And because men were adapt with hunting weapons they were also the ones sent off when tribes warred. As men became stronger and more proficient in fighting, the balance of power became more lopsided. So really, I guess it is for the best that that you hide those things in shame.
