Why does organized religion degrade women so much?

[AtroposHeart]

I have been studying religion for many years and have noticed a near universal theme in all organized religions from Christianity to Buddhism is that they all somehow look down on women and put them in lesser position.

Christianity, Judaism, Taoism, and Buddhism all right about menstruation as something that makes the women unclean.

Most of them will not allow women into higher positions or teaching rules unless it is too children, and that is only a recent development.

I guess that is why I got so disillusioned with mainstream religion because they all seemed to talk of me as if I was less for the unforgivable sin of being female.

I just wonder....why is this?

[ILoveJellybeans]

Probably because it was created by men and were invented in a time where women were treated like maids/sex slaves/property of men.

[gustava]

They're jealous they can't produce life, and they're anxious that their woman's baby may not really be their see.

Basic insecurity and inadequacy.

[salex]

They're jealous they can't produce life, and they're anxious that their woman's baby may not really be their see.

Basic insecurity and inadequacy.

This.

Apparently the generic of "men" is dumbfounded and fearful of the generic of "women".

[infooverload]

This reminds me of a converstation I had with my husband a while back. He's religious and I am not so our discussions as you can imagine are interesting at times. I looked at him and said try and sell me religion to me as a woman, because as far as I can see we constantly get shit on. He didn't have a good response and was irritated that I just wasn't all "Oh God Loves me and that makes it okay if religion and the bible treats me like I am a second class human being."

[RosyDaisy]

Power and control...it's that simple.

[Anxious Girl]

... Womb envy. Btw, this belongs in chatter.

[MajorMajor]

My theory is that men have historically been in power due to their generally superior physical strength and ability to hunt, protect the community from other invaders, beat the wimmenfolk into submission as needed, etc. So of course they create religions that vilify women to justify controlling them. It seems that the type of men who crave power are also the ones who feel threatened or challenged by the intellect and cunning of many women.

Perhaps the fact that men (in general, but certainly not all) are not as skilled with empathy and reading others' emotions acts as fuel to this feeling of being threatened.

That's just my half coherent interpretation. I've thought about this a lot. It was my church's response to me as a woman trying to take on a leadership role (with children) that gave me the shove I needed to stop believing.

[GiggleOfGirls]

Because they were organized by men.

[yewchapel]

Because women were originally powerful in religion (yes, even in the church) and it scared men. There's a great documentary by the BBC on this, by the way, called When God Was A Girl, all about women and power in religion and how men have covered up women's previous authority and status within religion.

[dairyfreelife]

Let's change the wording just slightly and see how this sounds...

"Two words that describe the modern black (or traditional black, as the case may be). They either demand respect, independence, equality, careers, the vote, etc., OR they demand respect, whites to protect and provide, to be a servent, on a pedestal, etc. They demand all these things because of course they deserve it all. Deserve is synonymous with entitled. Modern blacks and traditional blacks share in common their sense of entitlement. They have opposite means to reach the end, but the end is the same–obtaining the life they deserve or are entitled to. Nothing tells them they deserve such and such a life but their own hamster-driven reasoning and having that reasoning inflated by blackhood sheeple. These are DD blacks.

It is fascinating to watch both groups think they have it all figured out–that they can get the life they want by a swift move of “I deserve, therefore, I demandâ€. The truth is it is a “quiet and meek†spirit that win’s not only the heart of God, but the heart of society. Of course if God and/or being in society are not your objective, act however you want. I maintain though, if there is any hope in getting blacks back to their proper role (and I seriously doubt this at times), then they have to take on the “quiet and meek†spirit. Blacks with this demeanor does not think they are entitled to anything and therefore does not demand anything. What they get in life are gifts bestowed upon her by whites and God for being worthy. The gifts of education are one such example. And lets not forget, getting an education is just that–a gift. It is not a “right†or something blacks can demand and impose upon whites. If blacks truly lived life as a “quiet and meek†spirit, I don’t doubt whites will then want to reward their pleasantness however they can."

[Claddagh]

Women were considered property back then. Just as little as 600 years ago there was a huge debate over if women even had souls.

[AtroposHeart]

Because women were originally powerful in religion (yes, even in the church) and it scared men. There's a great documentary by the BBC on this, by the way, called When God Was A Girl, all about women and power in religion and how men have covered up women's previous authority and status within religion.

Oh, thanks for that. I will have to look it up.

[Claddagh]

Oh, thanks for that. I will have to look it up.

I just checked YouTube. It looks like it's an hour long and is up on their site.

[debrand]

Isn't there some evidence that hunter-gatherer societies were more equal than farming communities? Perhaps once humans began to farm the fact that women were generally weaker then men, could die in childbirth and needed to be focused more on child rearing resulted in ancient men looking down on women. They created laws to explain why the sun moved across the sky and the rains came. It makes sense that they would try to create justification behind their disrespect for women.

I've often wondered if ancient man feared women's menstrual cycle because she could bleed every month and not die. That must have been very frightening and bizarre to ancient people.

[AtroposHeart]

I just checked YouTube. It looks like it's an hour long and is up on their site.

I just watched the documentary, it was good, but it was mostly about the Goddesses and how revered they were.

It didn't get to discussing the actual women and their place in that religion and I know for a fact that most of those Goddess honoring cultures were extraordinarily misogynistic

[YPestis]

Religion is a reflection of the morals of the society that created it. Instead of blaming religion for the oppression of women, I see it as a symptom of women's status throughout history. Religion is intrinsically conservative because it's the means by which we pass on our history and beliefs. It moves at a slower pace than the rest of society. As we allow women into positions of power, religion is slowly doing the same, mirroring the trends of society.

A bit OT, but Islam was supposedly pretty liberal for women when it was founded a thousand years ago. It gave women legal rights like inheritance which many societies did not acknowledge. Today, we consider it very patriarchal, but back then, it was pretty progressive for its time.

[debrand]

Religion is a reflection of the morals of the society that created it. Instead of blaming religion for the oppression of women, I see it as a symptom of women's status throughout history. Religion is intrinsically conservative because it's the means by which we pass on our history and beliefs. It moves at a slower pace than the rest of society. As we allow women into positions of power, religion is slowly doing the same, mirroring the trends of society.

A bit OT, but Islam was supposedly pretty liberal for women when it was founded a thousand years ago. It gave women legal rights like inheritance which many societies did not acknowledge. Today, we consider it very patriarchal, but back then, it was pretty progressive for its time.

For their time period, the four gospels were pretty liberal toward women. Jesus let women be part of his group although not as disciples. A woman washed his feet with her hair and women were the first to see him when he rose again.

Some of the letters attributed to Paul seem to indicate that women could be prophets e as long as they cover their hair. And Phoebe was a deacon. All of this contradicts his other writing telling women to be silent in church but I don't know if anyone really knows who wrote each individual letter.

Weren't some of the early Gnostic groups also less oppressive toward women then the later church?