I’ve read many articles, books (DaVinci Code, I know, I’m sorry), that have touched on the subject of a Church conspiracy to demonize woman. Some stuff seems pretty ‘blah’, a woman ate the Fruit of Knowledge and a woman cut Solomon’s hair. While other stuff could be coinsidental, Venus = Lucifer. Did the Church have a real agenda? Or is it hogwash?
The problem being, of course, that those two stories (and any others in the Old Testament) predate the Catholic Church by anywhere from a hundred to a thousand years. And even most of the New Testament was formed before the Church was The Church.
Alright, but what about Constantine and his turning everything pagan, which many of the beliefs focusing around woman, into evil?
( I got that from Dan Brown, so please forgive me for sounding overly ignorant.)
Had nothing to do with women, just had to do with Christians not liking pagans because they didn’t believe in the Christian religion.
Let me put this question to you: if the Church is so anti-women, why do they encourage the adoration of the Mary (Jesus’ Mom)? Walk into any Catholic Church and you’ll see a large statue of Mary with lots of lit candles in front of it and old people kneeling in deference.
Doesn’t sound very anti-feminine to me.
Ah, yes. The ideal woman. Born without sin, never had sex, and she was the Mother of God. A rather unrealistic standard to hold up to women in general, IMHO.
Sure, but is that any worse than the leading male figure in the Church? Also born without sin, never had sex, and was the Son of God? 
Well, there is that habit among some flavours of Christian church of not allowing female clergy. Looks just a bit biased to me.
Do you have a citration for Constantine “turning everything pagan. . .evil”? Constantine made Christianity the official religion, but he hardly suppressed pagan beliefs.
As to the actual question of the OP, using the word conspiracy makes far too much of what happened. Judaism and its Christian heresy were certainly oriented toward a “male” deity. There were also a number of Christian writers, such as Augustine of Hippo, whose views could be most charitably described as sexist–blaming Eve for the fall of Adam, for example, (and, in the case of Augustine, attempting to associate the Fall with sexuality). However, the idea of a number of pagan religions establishing some sort of “equality” of the sexes is mostly wishful thinking by some 20th century writers. Among a few of the religions that honored fertility goddesses, the place of women was to act as temple prostitutes. Among other religions, I know of none that were supplanted by Christianity in which women played an equal role with men. The Roman Vestal Virgins were emancipated from their fathers’ rule, but were required to remain virgins for the entire 30 years of their service (subject to being buried alive if they failed) and they had no serious political power in Rome. Reading the Celtic legends, we encounter a number of emancipated women, but we do not find any who manifested their emancipation in religious contexts. I do not recall ever reading of a Greek or Roman woman who exercised formal power–particularly one connected to religious activities.
I suspect that what actually happened in Christianity was that the Christians followed the Jewish model of excluding women from liturgy and that, over time, different religious writers, through ignorance or personal belief built up a tradition in which women (aside from Mary) were assigned ever decreasing roles in the church. It was not so much a conspiracy as a set of accumulated traditions.
It is interesting to note, however, that widespread full particiption in government was accorded to women first in those lands dominated by Christianity rather than in places where a goddess was accorded the same honor as the local god.
This is not to minimize the rather nasty burdens placed on women, but the issue is more complex than is sometimes presented.
St. Paul did not look favorably on women having leadership positions in the church. That certainly contributed to the problem.
Now much depends on what branch or denomination of Christianity is being considered. There are no Roman Catholic female priests, but there are women who are Episcopal priests. Churches that are theologically liberal most often have women in positions of leadership, but there are fundamental churches that also encourage full participation by women.
I’ve never thought of it as a conspiracy. I have assumed that it grew out of attitudes about women’s roles in general. Some of these viewpoints are so ingrained that they are often not even examined for prejudice. It is not just the men who have held these viewpoints either.
I grew up as a member of a small Presbyterian denomination that had no women deacons, elders or ministers. It was rare that a woman was even called upon to lead a prayer in a service when men were present. Approximately twenty years ago, the Moderator of the General Assembly (the highest position of leadership in the church) was held by a woman. They participate on all levels now. All of that change took place over about a thirty year period, I think.
BTW, it was Samson that got that haircut.
Also, I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that Roman Catholics consider the church founded at the time of Jesus – or at least at his death. St. Peter was considered the first priest of the church.
First pope–the rest of the apostles would be viewed (from the RCC perspective) as priests, as well.
I presume you are responding to the statement
While it is true that it is the position of the RCC that Jesus founded the Church with Peter as its first temporal leader, that is not a position that is readily accepted by Orthodox, Protestant, or other non-Catholic Christians. Even Catholic scholars will note that there was a certain evolution in the formation of the organization of the Church and I see no reason for a Catholic to take umbrage at Neurotik’s phrasing.