Create Your Own Religion (22 page)

A very unpleasant visitor showed up to play with us tonight. With its usual arrogant, bossy manners, it demanded a starring role in this chapter, and threatened not to leave my book alone until it got its share of the spotlight. Our most annoying guest is not the type we can convince that it's time to go home by yawning and claiming we have to wake up early tomorrow. And certainly, we will not be able to gently but firmly usher it to the door, either. Quite a number of people have already been trying to do that for a few millennia without any luck. And so here we are, tackling one of the forces that has done the most to squash dreams, deny what should be basic, inalienable rights, and enslave the bodies and souls of half of the human population.

The name of the beast is patriarchy—a dark, ever-present demon whose shadow never left the stage of history. Male domination and female submission are the ideological cornerstones on which it
built its home in the consciousness of millions of people throughout the world. In modern times, most religions pretend to be barely acquainted with it. Gone are the days when they could openly support it without repercussions. Now, their former ally has turned into a public relations nightmare—better deny any familiarity with it, or what will the neighbors think? Patriarchy has turned into the embarrassing uncle in the house of theology, the proverbial skeleton in the closet of faith. But no matter how loudly they deny knowing it, the fact remains that patriarchy has been aided and abetted in its criminal activities by nearly all world religions.

To be perfectly honest, we should introduce a disclaimer: none of the modern world religions is responsible for creating patriarchy. Adam and Eve or Pandora's box are the mythological great-grandkids of patriarchy—certainly not its creators. Patriarchy was alive and well long before Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and their colleagues ever showed up on the scene. But most, if not all, ended up giving patriarchy their blessing and support.

Before we turn to the obscene marriage between patriarchy and religion, let's figure out how the beast ever came into being. The first shocking thing about patriarchy is how widespread it is. Put your finger anywhere on the map, and the odds are that you'll see a place where patriarchy has set up shop. Across time and space, anywhere one gender has had preferential access to power, it has always turned out to be men having more power than women. No matter how hard you look, you'd search in vain for a female-dominated society. What you'll find instead are either egalitarian societies where men and women have equal rights, or male-dominated societies where an exceptional woman could attain status and power
despite
her gender. The tales of the Amazons make for a great myth, but they don't find
a home in historical reality. And the same can be said about the utopia of nature-loving, nonviolent, goddess-worshipping societies from a very distant past, when sexism and hierarchy didn't exist. According to this story, these societies lived in peace and love for centuries before being wiped out by hyper-aggressive, nomadic warriors who introduced the exclusive worship of male gods.
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Even though it is true that goddesses played a key role in the religious life of plenty of people around the globe, the existence of powerful goddesses often didn't translate into peaceful or women-friendly societies. Just because a female deity existed didn't mean the people couldn't be chauvinist toward the actual flesh-and-blood women living among them.
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The reason why many badly like to believe otherwise is clear: the ideal of peaceful, women-honoring, goddess-worshipping societies offers a great counter-myth to the oppressing patriarchy peddled by most religions. If it happened in the past, then it could be done again in the future.

Unfortunately, history tells us that it probably didn't happen in the past. But there's no reason we can't take the best aspects of this myth and create something beautiful here and now. In any case, this detour through Amazons and goddesses still has not answered our question: where does patriarchy come from? As much as I resent biological explanations of human behavior, if something shows up all over the world regardless of cultural context, I am afraid biology has something to do with it. Our most distant ancestors were clearly influenced by biology when they decided to divide labor along gender lines assigning men the task to hunt and women to gather. Why? Because women can breastfeed and men can't. It's as simple as that. Babies, therefore, could afford to have their father be gone on long hunting expeditions, since they didn't have to be glued to their nipples night and day, while mothers had to remain in constant
contact with their infants in order to feed them. And this precluded hunting, since a baby could not be safely taken on a long trip to stick a spear through the ribs of a pissed-off mammoth. It made sense, then, for women to focus on a safer, less travel-intensive activity like the gathering of plants, and for men to hunt.

And because men gained great familiarity with weapons through hunting, they would be the best candidates to specialize in fighting against rival tribes. The fact that they naturally had greater muscle mass than women was an added bonus.

Despite all of this, the majority of hunting and gathering societies remained egalitarian: women among them were as respected and powerful as men. But the fact that mastery over weapons and violence had become a male monopoly meant that any time a society moved away from egalitarianism, men would have the upper hand. Patriarchy, in this sense, is the almost inevitable consequence of this. When only one gender possesses the skills and the tools to crack open the heads of anyone they disagree with, you can bet that they are not going to be the ones being disempowered. Violence speaks louder than words. So, it's no surprise that societies around the world are either egalitarian or dominated by men. At the end of the day, men have always had the means to impose their will by force; women have not.

The previous lines may have tricked us into thinking that religions play little or no role in this debate. But just because no specific tradition has laid the egg that spawned patriarchy does not mean that religions don't have plenty to say about the roles of men and women.
And unfortunately, the harsh reality is that patriarchy has been a running thread throughout the history of world religions.

Since we have to start from somewhere, we might as well take on the big boys right away. Let's begin by hunting down patriarchy where it hid within the Judeo-Christian tradition. If it is not overly traditional for you, we'll start at the beginning. And by beginning, I mean it quite literally—as in the creation of humankind according to Judeo-Christian scriptures. With its usual clarity, the Bible gives two different accounts of creation. In Genesis 1:27, God creates the first man and the first woman at the same time. But in Genesis 2:7,
one page later
, the biblical narrative starts over again, telling us that God creates the first man only—Adam. The first woman enters the picture later, once God realizes that poor, lonely Adam needs a “helper,” and that none of “the beasts of the fields and the birds of the air” are qualified for that job. This is no joke. In Genesis 1:27 it seems like women were part of the original divine plan, on equal footing with men. But in this second account of creation (told in Genesis 2:18–23), Eve is an afterthought, fashioned out of Adam's spare rib just to ease his loneliness. Had Adam been into animals, women would not exist.

If this is bad, don't worry. Things in Genesis are only going to get worse for women. Eve has barely been created when she promptly disobeys God's order not to eat a certain forbidden fruit, and manages to convince Adam to go along with her. Our Judeo-Christian God responds by having a fit, yelling: “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
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The very first thing that Eve does brings about the fall of humanity and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

This is Patriarchy 101, right there. Not only are Eve and all women after her sentenced to a painful childbirth, but also men “. . . will rule over you.” In the Judeo-Christian tradition, then, women's subordination to men is not simply a cultural choice or a sociological accident, but a divinely ordained part of God's plan. According to this tale, rejecting patriarchy means preventing God's sentence from being carried out. This is what prompts the author of Ecclesiasticus to add a cherry to the cake of misogyny by writing, “Woman is the origin of sin, and it is through her that we all die.”
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This is also what inspires Martin Luther's conclusion in regards to proper gender roles:

The rule remains with the husband and the wife is compelled to obey it by God's command. He rules the home and the state, wages war, defends his possessions, tills the soil, builds, plants, etc. The woman, on the other hand, is like a nail driven into the wall. She sits at home . . . The wife should stay at home and look after the affairs of the household as one who has been deprived of the ability of administering those affairs which are outside . . . In this way Eve is punished.
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We could go home at this point, and close the book on the Judeo-Christian tradition, because after such an emphatic endorsement of patriarchy in the very first few pages of scriptures, what more evidence do we need? But since I'm in the mood for overkill, bear with me and let's look further.

Throughout the pages of the Old Testament, we run into few women worthy of note, and most of them are mentioned for their evil qualities. In particular, the recurring theme of foreign, polytheistic women leading good, monotheistic Jewish men astray is a
recurring theme that keeps resurfacing in the Hebrew scriptures. Much venom is directed at them, page after page.
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But even Jewish, monotheistic women don't fare much better. In the text of the Ten Commandments, for example, God orders men not to covet their neighbors' homes, wives, slaves, animals “. . . or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.”
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According to the Ten Commandments, then, women are to be considered the property of men much like cattle or real estate—a fact that is also underscored by the charming story of God causing King David's concubines to be raped in public. What was their crime? Absolutely nothing. They are simply pawns used by God to punish David for
his
crimes. Rape, in fact, was not seen as a violation of the woman, but of a man's property. The final, lovely touch to this edifying tale is that David will later punish these women for being raped.
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Besides what we find in the Ten Commandments, several other biblical regulations help clarify what God thinks of women. For example, we read that after giving birth to a boy, a woman is considered “unclean” for seven days and requires going through thirty-three days of purification. But if she gives birth to a girl, she is unclean for fourteen days, and needs to be purified for sixty-six days.
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Apparently, in the eyes of God, girls are twice as dirty and polluting as boys.

Deuteronomy 22 offers us another pearl of chauvinism. Here, God instructs his people on what to do if a newlywed wife is accused by her husband of not being a virgin: she better produce some evidence (e.g., bloody sheets) that she was indeed a virgin, or “. . . she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father's house. You
must purge the evil from among you.”
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Curiously, God does not seem to be equally worried about male virginity, since no equivalent rule exists for men.

OK, so it's safe to say that the Old Testament is not the most female-empowering book ever written. But surely things get better once we move to the New Testament, no? The quick answer is: no. Try this example from 1 Timothy 2:11–15:

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing.

Many, many other passages in the New Testament echo this one,
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but I realize that if I continue at this rate quoting all the hyper-patriarchal passages in Judeo-Christian Scriptures, I will end up causing the end of life on earth for we would have to cut every tree left on the planet to produce enough paper to contain them all. (I admit I may have a mild taste for hyperbole, but you get my point.) So, in an effort to avoid killing you and the rhythm of this chapter under a mountain of quotes, I invite those among you who have a perverse desire to read more of the same to refer to the notes at the end of the chapter. There, I'll serve you a few more plates of New Testament patriarchy. And, truth be told, the quotes above don't tell the whole story. Shortly after Jesus' death, the early Christian community was divided on just about everything. Jesus, in fact, had not spelled out his thoughts on gender roles as well as many other contentious topics, so different factions bickered about what
exactly Jesus would have wanted them to do and believe. Quite a few Christian groups were convinced that Jesus' worldview included the equality of women and men. Women, after all, had stood by his side when all his wimpy male disciples had deserted him. Women had gone to his sepulcher when the men were too busy drowning in fear and desperation. Over and over again, Jesus had reversed traditional expectations regarding social hierarchy, so it wasn't such a stretch to imagine him swimming against the current when it came to gender roles.

But there were just as many Christian groups who still held on to some ultrapatriarchal views. This male-dominated version of Christianity found its paladin in Saint Paul. Influenced by a very misogynist current of Greek philosophy and raised with the usual dose of Jewish patriarchal prejudice, Paul thundered against those factions who allowed women to take positions of leadership. Women equal to men? Women as leaders??? Not on my watch—thought Paul, who campaigned tirelessly against these wild notions. When the dust settled Paul's brand of chauvinist Christianity came out on top and proved more popular. Whether this truly reflected Jesus' vision or it shamelessly hijacked it is anybody's guess, but from then on the mainstream branches of Christianity spent the next couple of millennia walking hand in hand with patriarchy.