Attention All Women: Religion Threatens Feminism

Dear Women of the World,

Let me start by saying, I love you but God doesn’t. Hey, stay with me here. I’m on your side, and hopefully I can make my point in a manner that will engage the sisterhood to rise up and defeat the evil, misogynistic celestial dictator that resides in the sky.  I have said in interviews, and in my book that the key to monotheism’s inevitable downfall is its rejection by women.

Throughout ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’, there are numerous examples that unequivocally demonstrate the God of the Bible to be an unabashed woman-hater. In his eyes, women are second-class citizens, on par with a man’s ox. Further insulting, is that he barely makes an effort to conceal not only his contempt for the fairer sex, but his vulgar distaste.  

The Bible literally reads as a DIY handbook for misogyny.  To only scratch the surface we can point to passages in Exodus where God is hunky-dory on permitting the sale of your daughter into sexual slavery. Whatever you’ve got to do to bring in the bucks, right? God tells Moses that if a man rapes a woman, his victim must marry him. And that a man may have multiple wives but should he discover that one of his wives, you, were deflowered before your husband got to you first, he must drag you by the hair to your father’s house and stone you to death on his doorstep.

Then there’s the whole disgust of a woman’s vagina. This is where God and I take an even greater divergent path. I am quite fond of the vagina. But God is terrified of it. Leviticus tells us that a woman is unclean during her menstruation period. In fact, God says that she is so dirty during this time that her husband may not even share the same piece of furniture as his menstruating wife. Further, should she give birth to a boy she is unclean for seven days. However, if it’s a bouncing baby girl she is considered dirty for thirty-three days. As you can see, it’s somewhat problematic trying to establish an egalitarian society when you use the Bible as your shining light.

My fear is this: women take for granted that the narrowing of the gender equality gap will continue on its upward trajectory, due to the success of feminism in the past 50 years. During this time, feminist activists have successfully campaigned for women’s legal rights (voting rights, rights of contract, property rights); for women’s right to bodily autonomy, for abortion rights, and for reproductive rights; for workplace rights, including maternity leave and equal pay; against misogyny; and against other forms of gender-specific discrimination against women.

What could possibly spin the continual progression of women’s rights off its orb? One word answer is all that is necessary: Religion. How so, you ask? Well, a major catastrophe would certainly be the catalyst. On a probability scale of catastrophic causes, an act of terrorism rates extremely high. What’s this got to do with religion and the winding back of women’s rights?

It is no secret that societies turn to religion when placed under great stress, particularly external threats. We saw this first hand in the weeks and months after September 11, 2001. The church pews filled with long time absent parishioners. Evangelical churches saw their membership numbers soar. The years 2002-2008 were good times to be making a buck off the back of Jesus. Moreover, the Christian right became the most influential voting bloc in the United States. Not only did this group return Bush a second term, his evangelical agenda vetoed stem cell research, and stacked the Supreme Court in the social conservatives favor.

Now, while the events of 9/11 were unimaginably tragic, on a scale of potential attacks it rates quite low. Trained intelligence and homeland security experts run terrorism hypotheticals on a daily basis, thus I will dispense with too much of the doomsday forecasting. However, we only need a rudimentary understanding of what the effects a ‘dirty bomb’ would do the psyche of a nation. If the deaths of 3,500 Americans saw a whiplash to the religious right, imagine what the murder of 1 million people do? I believe I heard at least one person shout, “Roe v Wade”?

A return to Christian social values ultimately means a return to a patriarchal civilization, as is the case with all orthodox monotheistic societies. The greater number of men that open their Bibles or Korans on a daily basis the more they are reminded of what God’s purpose for women is. And nowhere in the Bible does God endorse a woman to be the CEO of a company, the leader of a nation, much less the head of her household or the mistress of her own destiny. And we are not only talking Old Testament barbarism here, for the sexually dysfunctional Saint Paul wrote that it is “disgusting for a woman to speak in church”, and that no woman can hold a position of authority. Moreover, how many women did Jesus have in his inner circle? Hmm, 12 men plus zero women.

Effectively, we see that feminism and religion are incompatible bedfellows. For feminism to count it must function outside of the religious assumption that women are inferior to men. With this in mind, Christian women who consider themselves feminists do so under the following self-delusion: I want to be considered equal always, except when it comes to my religion that mandates I am inferior, and I accept that.

Ultimately, feminists are faced with one of two choices, as put forth by one religious commentator, Alison Killkenny:

“Either you are a feminist and you reject religion, or you are a worshiper and you reject the concept that the genders are equal.”

Regards

CJ Werleman

Author of ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’ (Making Sense of the Bible)

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