Why Do Religions Treat Women So Shabbily?

Great Debates
41

I’m a bit skeptical, how do we know this? I understand that acheologist have found several small carvings of women with exaggerated features such as bellies and breasts, but I’m not sure how much we can extrapolate from such images.

What’s to stop pre-argrarian societies from being patriarchal? Most theories I’ve heard say that once we started growing crops our population grew larger and therefore birthing was seen as less important for survival. However what happens if populations started to rise before we switched to agriculture and domesticated animals as our primary source of food?

Marc

42

Sorry I don’t have much time for an in-depth reply. Will try to get back for a better one tomorrow. Hunter-gatherers actually have to work less for subsistence than any other; between 20-30 hours a week even in marginal areas. They almost never starve and often eat better than the poor in industrial societies, including those with welfare. They’re sometimes called the “original affluent society.” The difference seems to lie in the differential between the top and the bottom of society as well as the fact that women play a significant role in obtaining food in those “primitive” societies. I think specialization, which you brought up, does have a bit to do with it, but it’s probably not a cause, but rather a symptom of a stratified society.

43

I don’t think I buy that. The scriptures were written in a particular context and that’s why they are what they are. People would interpret them differently in different societies, but I don’t think their take on women is neutral. It’s not just the people reading the words that are the issue, it’s also the words themselves.

Even before that book, I think you could’ve found a lot of people who believed that religions had an essential goodness and purity at the core that was being hidden by backward, repressive church institutions. I see it as an effort to bring the ‘good parts’ of religion (love everybody-type stuff) into line with more modern values- gender equality, tolerance, that kind of thing. I think it’s a little dishonest to blame those problems on the messengers without looking at the details of the message, but people believe what they want to.

44

That doesn’t mean that women were treated well. IIRC, in Rome the matriarch ruled the kitchen and that was about it. Additionally, skepticism about the universal worship of goddesses and egalitarian society is well-founded. Goddess Unmasked is a book that you may enjoy as well.

45

Yeah, because we’re all lust ridden temptresses.

Actually, in the Koran, men and women are seen as equals. They have different responsibilities placed upon them, such as a man is charged to take care of his wife and family, but a woman is accorded many rights as well, as regards inheritance and divorce. However, the saying ‘I divorce you’ three times to effect divorce is a misinterpretation. Its supposed to be something along the lines of you must have three trial separations before a divorce is final. There are also provisions for alimony set out in the Koran.

Again, what you’re seeing in Islam is a result of cultural imprints rather than religion degrading women per say. In the Ismaili branch of Islam, men and women are absolutely equal, women can be ‘clergy’ within the community, and men and women pray side by side (on seperate sides of the room, but in the same room, and no screen or anything to seperate them).

46

They didn’t spend that much time “simply subsisting” though. We work a whole lot harder than they do/did for our inequalities.

47

The wicked, wicked board just ate my nice post. This is a less brilliant version.

I don’t know a heck of a lot about Shinto, but I don’t believe the religion has much to say relating to gender roles except that it’s good for people to marry and have children. The Shinto priesthood is not celibate, and the role of priest at a particular shrine is usually passed from father to son. I do not believe that a woman can hold this position, but there are Shinto shrine maidens and women and men both perform as dancers and musicians at religious ceremonies and festivals.

There’s a popular kind of Shinto festival that involves taking portable shrines around the town in a big procession. Shrine-bearers are usually male, but I have seen women involved and even some all-female teams.

As already mentioned, Shinto has many goddesses as well as many gods, and the sun deity is depicted as being female. The Seven Lucky Gods of Japan (which seem to be more a Buddhist thing, but there’s not a hard dividing line in Japanese religious practice) include one goddess, Benzaiten or Benten, goddess of music. One of my Japanese friends says she doesn’t think it’s fair that of these seven major gods there’s only one woman, but at least there is one.

48

However, it was people who wrote and compiled the Scriptures. The scribes of a small pastoral/agrarian multitribal kingdom, travelling preachers running around 1st=century Greek cities and Roman colonies, scholars in minority- community enclaves in Hellenic- and Roman-age Alexandria and Babylon, camel brokers in 7th-century Mecca, etc. (and that’s just for the West). By the time the Scripture comes about, those people already had their idea of the ideal role of women. Later people just kinda missed that and presumed that these were God’s Own lecture notes…

49

To be honest I can’t tell if we’re agreeing or not. What the words were originally I don’t know. What they became (or what we’re familiar with) isn’t gender-neutral, that’s what I’m trying to say. It’s definitely people who are responsible, but it’s not just the people reading and interpreting them today.

50

This claim that Paul was misogynistic and is responsible for the misogyny of some contemporary Christian traditions has come up several times in this thread. It is simply untrue.

The Pauline Epistle texts as we have them are something of a mixed bag WRT women, true. But the really “bad” parts tend to have interesting textual histories. Take “…women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate…” (1 Cor 14:34). The passage this comes from appears in ancient texts sometimes in one place, sometimes in another. It doesn’t seem to fit in either. Most scholars think it must have been added by someone else. The same is true of “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent” (1 Tim 2:12). In this case, the entire letter is disputed: most scholars think it was not written by Paul, and it clearly disagrees with much authentic Pauline teaching (not just about women).

Compare this with what we know Paul wrote: “…there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Col 3:11). We also know that he explicitly acknowledged women as leaders, deacons, an even apostles in the early church.

Finally there is that most infamous text: “Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church…” (Eph 5:22-23). Read the context. This is part of a long passage that begins (5:21) “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Paul then goes through a list of the basic Greco-Roman heirarchical family relationships and reinterprets them in light of this command. In each case, he starts with the traditionally subservient person, to show that he isn’t abolishing these relationships, but reinterpreting them. It’s the old, “Yes, but…”: Yes, women are to be subject to their husbands, but “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” (Women are to imitate not the self-sacrifice of Christ, but the role of the Church, which is hardly one of meek subservience, but of boldness before the world.) Yes, children are to obey their parents, but parents should not “provoke their children to anger.” (Don’t do anything to make your kids angry? Even Dr. Spock never went that far!) Yes, slaves are to “obey [their] earthly masters with fear and trembling,” but masters are to “do the same to them.” (!!!)

Modern society has in some ways gone even further by actually abolishing these relationships in the forms they existed in in that society. This was clearly not Paul’s goal or his agenda, but I don’t think you can read this in light of his time (and even today, in some ways) and not see it as radical and progressive. (The word “head” in 5:23 is still problematic, but I have read that it has slightly different connotations in Greek than we give it: the “head” of a military unit, e.g., was not necessarily the commander, but the point man. I do not know how accurate this is.)

Paul actually has a much better record on women than Jesus did. The Gospels (which were probably influenced by Paul) treat women rather well, but we really don’t know much about how Jesus treated them (though there are certainly positive hints). He never seems to have made an anambiguous pronouncement of their equality with men, unlike Paul.

51

Dang, we’ve gotten this far in a discussion on women’s status and no one has mentioned birth control yet? When there is no birth control, there are no women, only women-and-children. Taboo and control of the sexuality of women was the only birth control available to communities. Forget the distraction of the sex itself, think about all those babies.

52

[erislover**,

I will have to be convinced that primitive societies are really so affluent. If you measure affluence as relative, maybe. But that seems to simply imply that you lower your standards to some primitive level and call it good enough. The number of hours worked, for those who survived, simply does not address the questions of how many people can live on an acre of land, how many births result in fully functional adults, as well as issues involving complex societal interactions which can lead to output greater than the sum of the parts.

I’ll admit ignorance about this theory. But it seems that more than a casual mention may be requried to disuade me of the idea that life 10,000 years ago was more short, brutish, and hard than life today.

In the interests of quelling my ignorance I did find this article on the subject. You can tell me if it is not what you were talking about.

I should say, finally, that I do not intend to hijack this thread. We can agree to disagree as to the ease of life 10,000 years ago. If I restate my question. Rather than state it from a perspective of judgement on neolithic lifestyles, perhaps it could be stated more simply from the point of view of lowered expectations. That is, if hunter gatherers are not “subsisting”, but doing fine by expecting less material goods, then my question about everyone doing similar things may still be answerable. That is, when the number of possible activities and goals is sufficiently limited (from the article “[…]even as possession of the necessary tools is general and knowledge of the required skills common”) everyone can be a participant in most, if not all, of those activities and goals. Is it still not possible that agrarian and to a greater extent industrial life lead to greater and greater specialization of most activities in life? That this could be one reason that more “primitive” (though we’ll agree not necessarily more deprived) cultures are more egalitarian?

53

One theory mentioned in both Cartoon History of the Universe and Cartoon Guide to Genetics is that female misogyny arised as men began domesticating animals and started realizing where babies came from. Men, being territorial and quite posessive, decided to start locking up their women so they would be sure that the kids were theirs.

I don’t quite buy this theory, but it sort of makes sense. (Although I am kind of annoyed at the wholel anti-agrarian stance of some modern writers. Yes, ancient civilization had its faults, but if it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be here.)

54

Um… of course? I figured this is one of those “obvious” things. Value of goods: relative. Wealth: relative. “Calling it good enough”: a simple necessity for every human being on the planet once we’ve accepted the dual notion of “infinite wants and needs” and “scarcity of resources”.

It was a question of addressing the “simply subsiting” characterization. Their energy output is not directed towards subsisting in their society as much as ours is directed towards subsisting in ours.

Of course, the more you are willing to accept the merit of your own society, the more other societies will not be as good. That should go without saying. I’m not trying to convince you that hunter-gatherers had it made, only that “simply subsisting” is not an accurate characterization of those peoples.

I’ll have to read through it some more, but it does so far seem to be a pretty good outline. I’m no expert myself, of course, I’ve just seen some shows that do their best to ditch ethnocentricity and study the history of HG societies as well as some that still remain. Read a few articles here, a book chapter or two there, etc.

But this is also a universal point of view. We, today, cannot all own business, can’t all be rich, can’t all buy whatever we want, can’t all work at jobs we love, etc. We must compromise at almost every level of decision making. The abundance of options is chimerical for a great many people because they have no way of manifesting those choices, if not because of opportunity costs then because of factual impossibility. A shortish life of some hard work and lots of leisure time could be an attractive daydream for those of us who feel burdened by material goods but compelled to work with them in order to subsist today and feel good about how we are managing to get along.

So long as the limiting mechanism is impossibility, sure. As it stands, the society we both live in comes with the “possibility” of all activities and goals. Every time we get into a discussions about market behavior and ideology, someone presents the notion of just how free I am, just how many opportunities I have, and so on. But these opportunities are not a buffet. There are very real limits in place whose origin may be intrinsic to me, may be structural, may be cultural, etc.

I think specialization is exactly the reason. The loss of relative equality of {opportunity, power, wealth, etc.} is the cost we pay for the wide array of benefits specialization brings with it. I don’t know why it is hard to imagine that people exist that might think it is not a cost worth paying, or why we should not be able to plainly admit that such primitive societies have benefits themselves, such as more leisure time and equality. It is not a judgment on them, or on ourselves.

55

Most cultures have had knowledge of abortificents. Some had herbal preparations used in the vagina to attempt to block the entrance of semen and/or act spermicidally. Condoms have been known and used for millenia; I believe the ancient Egyptians had them.

The Greeks and a number of other cultures practiced child exposure, in which an infant who was not yet considered a family member (generally through a naming ceremony or acceptance by the head of family) could be abandoned. (Some of those children were adopted and raised by other families; others simply died.) This was effectively a form of extremely late term abortion.

What the modern era has is reliable birth control; herbal spermicides and abortion-inducers are not as reliable as modern spermicides, hormonal birth control, and surgical abortions, and intestine is probably not the best material for condoms given modern alternatives and squicks. Moderns also tend to consider exposure a taboo, but that doesn’t stop it from happening – hence the programs urging people to at least abandon their babies at hospitals or police stations with promises that no names or questions will be asked.

56

You make a good argument to support your claim. As I see it, misogyny is just one more tool for the powermongering politicians who have infested religion. Misogyny is a great tool for them because it summarily disempowers half the population with one fell swoop. Racism is another, targetting substantial numbers. By the time these High Holy Mullahs are finished, they have only a handful of insiders whose backs they must stab to reach the top.

57

Hunter-gathering, even in the last tiny not-greatly-fertile areas where it is the dominant pattern (e.g., Kalahari Desert), tends to work like this:

• There’s enough to go around and, as mentioned above, it can be acquired and prepared, and other necessary social chores performed with considerably less than 40 hours per week effort.

• It is communitarian; there isn’t much of a corollary to the economic competition that characterized the market economy, and the responsibility for making sure children get fed and materially cared for is not exclusively the mother’s, nor the biological parent couple’s, but the community’s.

Put together, that means that, for any given female of any fertile age, there are no overriding economic repercussions to becoming pregnant. There are no concerns along the lines of “Oh god it would suck to get pregnant in the absense of a successful man with many acres of corn and flocks of sheep to take care of me”. There is also therefore no pressure on attracted/interested males along the lines of “If you’d like the pretty girls to consider you, you need to be a good provider, boy, so how about you get out here in the fields and expend some energy, 'cuz girls can’t afford to get pregnant with your lazy ass seed with you not able to take care of them”.

What changed with agriculture is:

• It’s damned hard work. Doing the agrarian economy can mean pre-dawn to post-dusk 7 days per week back-breaking labor.

•There is a prospect of failure in a new and different sense. When hunter-gatherers ran out of food in Valley A they went elsewhere, following the migratory herds or just setting out exploring until they found more available eats. You’re wondering what the hell they do when they just plain old can’t find any, aren’t you? Well, population pressures plus having a fertile area surrounded by inhospitable areas with no food apparently caused that to happen in a few places, and what they did was…start farming. (You didn’t think these leisurely h-g tribes just one day said “Aha, let’s become sodbusting farmers, why don’t we?”, now did you?). But when the FARM/SETTLED AREA fails to be able to support its people, you get starving people, famine, death. Or you can try to take away the food of the farming culture in the next valley over (= war, = more flavors of death and other bad things happening).

•With such high stakes coupled with the relative unpleasantness of the work itself, there’s a cultural niche, a sociological function if you will, for doing a bit of manipulation. If hierarchy makes it possible for more overall work to be performed even if the hierarchy-leaders don’t pull much corn, hierarchy is likely to appear. A simple and unvarnished form of hierarchy is the enslavement of the young folks from the neighboring farm-valley culture, kill the ones big enough and old enough to fight back and make the young teenagers work their butts off in the field at threat of death and at payment of enough food to stay alive on.

• Another simple and niche-worthy hierarchical structure is a basic Gerontocracy: the young must bust their butts in the field and a good portion of what they plant and harvest is eaten by their parents and grandparents, with the promise being that they will rise in the hierarchy as they age. In a gerontocracy of this sort, the family with lots of young kids is going to be doing well. I don’t have to hit you over the head with a baby-cradle for you to see how this affects what women are asked/expected to be doing, right? Do not forget also that this is hard physical back-breaking work. Women’s lesser body strength may not intrinsically lead to women being valued less but in agrarian society it may make the male laborer more highly valued as a laborer, and the male warrior more so as a warrior.

• So now let’s toss in yet another one of those clever niche-worthy hierarchical elements: let us say to the young men (the ones busting their butts in the fields and not getting to reap all that they sow, the ones being bossed over by the older folks): “We know you are strong and could turn on us and try to have a revolution and take control of the food you raise, but we also know you lust for the daughters. These perpetually-pregnant gals on the other hand are less effective at raising food and between them and their kidlings they consume what they do raise, leaving less for us to skim off. How about this: you cooperate with us and we’ll let you keep more food than you need for yourself alone, but we’re also going to tell the daughters not to have babies except with guys who will take care of them and the babies; you don’t cooperate with us, you’ll be giving up girls for the duration of your revolution-planning. And of course when you get older it’ll be your turn to skim from the younger stronger folks.” And then let us go the young women (the ones having all the babies and attracting all the guys) and say: “It is a BAD THING to have a baby without a Father, he must come before us and claim you and promise to take care of you and any kids you two have. You do it that way, everyone will acknowledge that it is your birthright as a girl to be taken care of, and we will revere your role as mothers. But if you have babies to boys who have not come before us to ask for you, or you have babies not knowing who the father is, we take you out into the cornfield and tie you to sticks and burn you as a sacrifice to the Harvest God. Any questions?”

It’s a silly and unhelpful oversimplification to conceptualize patriarchy as “the boys conquer the girls” or “the boys dreamed this stuff up in the boys’ bathroom 10,000 years ago and foisted it off on the girls” or in any other way to formulate it as a conspiracy. I think it would not have happened, nor would it have persisted for ten millennia, if it didn’t serve the niche needs I described, and if it didn’t have appeal to both sexes while also manipulating and controlling both sexes*.

What’s changed SINCE agrarian civ is that we are no longer at risk of starving and we don’t have to work as hard just to survive. And over time we are seeing hierarchy flatten (with expectations of that exceeding practice, of course, in order to precede practice); we have had, with varying degrees of success and some seesawing trajectory, a sexual revolution (with the technology exceeding the change in attitude, again probably preceding continued change along those lines). It [is* a different economy and a different social reality, and although our social world is still well-stuffed with the bones and the shambling old leftovers of patriarchy and patriarchal attitudes and assumptions, many are the things that have seemingly been with us or characteristic of us forever but which will not be of or with us much longer.

Women’s liberation, while not something 100% accomplished, is pretty evidently one of those changes, and therefore I deem the new still-becoming world “postpatriarchal”.

  • (On the other hand, don’t get me wrong: patriarchy sucks and I’m really really glad things are changing)
58

That snippet seems oxymoronic to me. After all, the only way we have access to study pre-agrarian societies today is where they exist.

Where they exist is where the land is so fertile that the people have the option to not convert to agrarianism.

In pre-agrarian times, there were people all over: most probably worked from dusk till dawn hunting and gathering (and mending and cooking and making weapons and scouting and…) Probably only a handful were lucky enough to be in an elysian field of berries and nuts and friendly bunnies.

Once the idea of agrarianism spread, the almost starving folks who were exposed to it said “not knowing whether i’m gonna have enough to eat this year? screw that noise!” (and it worked, at least till the population increased to accomodate the land…)

The non starving folks said “cut down all this jungle, then burn it, then dig holes and put seeds into them, then cut down all the weeds, then dig em up again? That’s like work, man :)”

59

I’m not sure I understand the oxymoron. Can you be more specific?

The question I am addressing is whether these people could be characterized as “simply subsisting”. So far as I know, there is simply not a lot of evidence that shows this is an accurate characterization of that particular lifestyle. Insofar as it applies to HGs, it has been watered down enough to apply it to modern day existence, too, because the standards are rather relative to the society or culture.

As to what causes were orchestral in social changes such as farming, well, people write books about that, and they’re good reads, but I’m not going to get into a debate about it.

60

Cite? My understanding has always been that most of the currently surviving hunter-gatherer cultures have been driven into increasingly marginal land by more technologically advanced cultures (so that those technologically advanced cultures could farm).