- The Dominance of Men in Traditional Religions
- Modern Hope: Secular Society and New Religions
- Conclusions
1. The Dominance of Men in Traditional Religions
Most religious traditions have subjugated womankind. They have been barred from any leadership, prevented from religious learning or even secular education, and forbidden to hold power, or sometimes even to speak. As we will see, even central Buddhism has had difficulties with accepting any equality of womankind. The scholar of comparative religion, Moojan Momen, summarizes the situation in an uncharacteristically critical manner:
“Religion has been an important source of laws and administrative structures that kept women in an inferior position in society. In Hindu law, Rabbinic law, Christian canon law and the Islamic Shari'a, the testimony of a woman is either worthless or given less weight that that of a man. Indeed, in many societies, women have been relegated to a position of virtual slavery. They have no rights or freedoms by custom or in law. Throughout their lives they are completely dependent on males. A quotation from the Hindu book, the Laws of Manu, sums up the reality of the situation for most women in almost every society: 'In childhood, a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her lord is dead, to her sons; a woman must never be independent.'
While of course, religion is not the sole factor responsible for the suppression of women, it is nevertheless true that this social subjugation is underpinned by the authority of religion. Since religion is the source for the values and morality of a traditional society, religion's doctrinal and moral attitude to women fashions the social milieu that justifies their subjugation. In addition, whether we consider suttee in India, clitoridectomy in Muslim North Africa or the witch-hunts of Europe and North America, it has been religious traditions that have sanctioned and given moral authority to violence towards women. [...]
Women have been excluded from religious learning. Women are forbidden to read and study the Vedas in classical Hinduism and the Talmud in Orthodox Judaism. In the United States, women were excluded from Christian theological faculties and seminaries until the middle of the nineteenth century. The religious hierarchy in most religions is male-dominated. Whether Hindu Brahmin priests, Buddhist monks, Zoroastrian mobeds, Jewish rabbis, Christian priests or Muslim ulema are considered, all are exclusively or predominantly male preserves. Even in Buddhism, where Buddha himself gave permission for the setting up of an order of nuns, the Buddhist scriptures represent him as having been very reluctant to do so [...three times] saying, 'If women go forth under the rule of the Dharma, this Dharma will not be long-enduring.' He said that it would be like a blight descending upon a field of sugar cane. Eventually he relented, however, and allowed an order of nuns. However, the nuns were to remain subordinate to the monks in all ways.”
"The Phenomenon Of Religion: A Thematic Approach" by Moojan Momen (1999)1
In general, the traditional patriarchal religions are more misogynistic and although in developed countries these religions have somewhat weakened, this isn't just a historical battle. Sexism and women's rights are regularly reported on by secular human rights bodies such as Amnesty International, which finds itself criticizing religious institutions. Amnesty International's 2009 compendium of horrors, "The State of the World's Human Rights", devotes some space to women's rights, including tales of torture and oppression, and compared (as always) the statistics to previous years. "In Iran and many other countries, Amnesty detected a retreat in women's rights, often in the name of religion. [... But] it is not just Muslim theocracies that Amnesty blame for maltreating women" as their stance on equality and women's rights has also brought them into conflict with the Roman Catholic church2.
Pagan and Earth-centered religions not only to treat women equally, but sometimes are dominated by women. When Christianity was still mostly the same as paganism, it treated women equally. Brutal Pauline Tertullian Christianity eradicated this tolerance5 and also gave us modern Christianity. Partially as a backlash against immorality and oppression, Protestantism was a partial return to the more liberal, pagan, ways of Christianity's past. The feminist movement was "pathetically weak" even as late as the First World War, and it only flourished in Protestant environments3.
Robert Spencer hardly needs to write that in all Muslim countries, women have severely restricted rights and are deeply subjugated to man4. Such states of affair are brought about by the superstitions found in world religions regarding men and women. The Abrahamic religions (Christianity and Islam in particular) share inherited doctrines found in the Hebrew Scriptures that are highly negative of women.
“Many Muslims, for instance, are convinced that God takes an active interest in women's clothing. While it may seem harmless enough, the amount of suffering that this incredible idea has caused is astonishing. The rioting in Nigeria over 2002 Miss World Pageant claimed over two hundred lives; innocent men and women were butchered with machetes or burned alive simply to keep that troubled place free of women in bikinis. Earlier in the year, the religious police in Mecca prevented paramedics and firefighters from rescuing scores of teenage girls trapped in a burning building. Why? Because the girls were not wearing the traditional head covering that Koranic law requires. Fourteen girls died in the fire; fifty were injured. Should Muslims really be free to believe that the Creator of the universe is concerned about hemlines?”
"The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason" by Sam Harris (2006)6
Although there has been much progress in the elimination of gender bias Bryan Wilson comments that Christian churches have remained behind secular society7, which has thankfully now come to accept the equality of women both formally and on the ground. Victor Stenger writes in "God, the Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist" that monotheism's attitude towards women is an indicator that believing in God does not increase one's morality8.
2. Modern Hope: Secular Society and New Religions
Secular society has made massive progress and in most developed countries, there are few areas where women are routinely discriminated against. There are next to no formal anti-women measures required as part of secular employment law. Where it exists, discrimination in workplaces is largely indirect and accidental.
Modern Pagan and Wiccan religions are actively pro-women9. They were founded (in the twentieth century) on a conscious policy of inclusion and fairness9. Likewise the same century saw the rise of Satanism; and although in the 1960s Anton LaVey, its founder, sounded misogynistic in his more personal writings, The Satanic Witch (1970) was still a highly progressive and liberal volume for its time. Since then, the Church of Satan has thoroughly shed any gender bias, and a female high priestess followed on from LaVey.
3. Conclusions
It seems that there is little that can be done to remove matriphobic commentary from the texts of the traditional world religions; societies must come to either ignore the texts (as most Christians do) or abandon religion (as many Westerners have done). New religions have tended to practice and enshrine gender equality, such as Paganism, Satanism and Wicca. Feminist groups have frequently been anti-religion, simply because it is religion that has presented itself as one of the biggest oppressors of womankind. The most readily accepted cure for both intolerance, religion and superstition is widely shown to be education.
