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Goodbye Jesus

Bigotry against women in Fundamentalism


BeccasStillSeeking

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Women in biblical times were basically property. Men had absolute power over them. A husband got to treat his wife like a slave; he could beat her, rape her, throw her out into the street, even kill her under certain circumstances. Even the well-treated were essentially unpaid labor, who were also expected to pop out kids (sons, preferably) until they literally couldn't anymore. The Bible, of course, reflects this left and right--it's the most misogynist piece of influential writing in the world.

 

And yet, according to Fundamentalist Christians, the primitive culture reflected in the Bible exemplifies "God's perfect morals". Basically, God's a woman-hater, so woman-hating is not only OK, but sanctioned. Women are SUPPOSED to become silent-in-church, skirt-wearing, long-haired, submissive little wifies who let men do their thinking for them, live to please their masters-cum-husbands, and are generally...slaves. And this, according to them, is GOOD. Sexism is in fact RIGHT and MORAL and WHAT GOD WANTS.

 

*pauses to choke back bile at the entire concept*

 

Of course, the whole idea is ridiculous. How can any woman be expected to live happily as a second-class citizen, whose traditional role in the family is largely that of unpaid servant and baby machine? (I understand that in the 1950s, the usual answer was "lots of Valium"). How can anybody actually pretend it's OK to treat half the population like less than real people because they don't have a few inches of meat hanging between their legs? Even less hardline Christians have finally started to see just how wrong and silly this is.

 

But don't tell the Fundies that. Especially the male ones.

 

I guess I don't understand how any woman can be a hardcore conservative Christian unless she's either very stupid, very brainwashed, has no self-respect, or all three. How could anyone actually buy that the whole "obey men without question" thing came from God, and not men trying to "justify" their position by giving it a fictitious divine sanction? The idea of a non-sexual, unmarried and unique god having reproductive organs is ridiculous enough; expecting women to buy the "God is man so man is God to you" line wholesale on top of it is just too much. The sexism alone would have driven me away from Christianity eventually.

 

Honestly, though...I just don't get it. How can any woman cleave to Fundamentalist Christianity when it treats her like dirt and expects her to like it? I get why male Fundies adore the "cocks rule" ideology so much (*grumblesnarl*). But what about the women? Are they too desperate to please God to see the double standard they're being subjected to? Don't they find it suspicious that a "perfect, loving" god wouldn't at least give all his children a level playing field?

 

What makes a woman become or stay a Fundie, aside from fear, ignorance and social pressure? Is there any actual positive reason? Because from here, it looks like sheer masochism.

:Doh:

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I don't see anything wrong with a woman who wishes to be a housewife like you described there....it's the women who don't want to be like that who you should be worried about.

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I don't see anything wrong with a woman who wishes to be a housewife like you described there....it's the women who don't want to be like that who you should be worried about.

 

Er...you see nothing wrong with women who want to be "unpaid servant and baby machine"? 'Cause I do.

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I tried to be a good christian wife and mother for a very long time. Sometimes the whole submission thing did bring me some happiness.

 

This is how.

 

My Father was a hardline right wing evangelical christian who believed that women should stay in the home waiting on thier families and 'not worrying their pretty little heads about a thing'.

 

I loved my Father. I desperately wanted to please him. When I voiced similar opinions to his, when I kept house, when I served up splendid food, when I spent time looking after younger children - my Father's pleasure and appreciation and approval knew no bounds - and that made me happy.

 

And those things still make me happy - I guess they would have made me happy whether or not he approved of them because I like doing the homemaker thing but they became even better than they would have been for me because of the way this was viewed.

 

Independence was frowned upon and seen as unladylike.

 

My father's views were refelcted in the churches I attended and the social groups I was part of. It wasn't necessarily an unpleaseant social pressure - the warmth of approval can feel very positive (the unpleasant pressure was reserved for not conforming to these expectations)

 

Of course - every now and then I was overcome by feelings of rebellion and rage.

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2,000 years ago, there was no choice. Today, there is. Problem is, many people still think themselves into prisons and don't even try to look for the key.

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Yep, it's crap, all right. No women ever participated in the writing of the bible, that's for sure. As long as I live, I'll never understand why half the species were considered 'inferior' to the other half. I mean, I do understand it - men made the rules, so they got to run everything while women were generally relegated to the position of serf.

 

Of course, to be fair, it wasn't just the ancient Jews who came up with patriarchy - just about every society, tribe, people tended to try and diminish women whenever they could. There were some exceptions, but mostly it's been a male world.

 

Kinda makes me ashamed to be male.

 

Of course, that in the 21st century in America these kinds of primitive attitudes continue is pretty much the work of the church and that good ole-time religion. :crucified:

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Here is a little blurb on rape from "Biblical Nonsense" by Dr. Jason Long:

 

Rape, the paramount fear of many women, rears its ugly head in the Bible as well. Fortunately, God ensures that the authors list it as a crime under a few circumstances. Unfortunately, God permits the sexual violation of women on more than one occasion. More unfortunately, the fine for committing one of the most heinous acts known to man without God's permission is only a pound of silver to her father and a forced marriage to the victim if she's not already engaged or married (Deuteronomy 22: 28-29). Yes, God's idea of justice for the female victim is to be horrendously punished again by forcing her to marry the man who savagely attacked her. This disgusting rule is nowhere near what most people would consider an ethical resolution, and it's certainly not a decsion rendered by any court I'd like to be facing.

If a man rapes an engaged virgin who doesn't cry loud enough to draw attention, the community should consider the attack consensual if it took place within the city. Thus, the whore must be stoned to death per God's instructions. It obviously doesn't matter if the woman is too scared to scream because the law makes no such exception. The man will be stoned to death as well, not because he committed a brutal atrocity against the woman, but only because he "violated another man's wife" (Deuteronomy 22:24). Note the shamefully sharp contrast in disciplinary action between raping a woman with a husband and raping a woman without a husband: death versus a pound of silver. Since it's all the same to the woman, it now becomes clear that God feels the husband is the one who is the victim of the attack.

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I am really taken aback here by your statement Cerise.  I choose to stay home, though not a "baby machine", nor do I consider myself a servant.  Being home with my children is a joy and a priviledge and harder than any job that I've ever done in my life.  My husband is wonderful and if I wanted to work, he wouldn't have a problem with me doing so. 

 

How can you see wrong with this?

 

Exactly....I suggest someone watch the Family Guy episode on Feminism. It's hilarious and it has some interesting things to say.

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I am really taken aback here by your statement Cerise.  I choose to stay home, though not a "baby machine", nor do I consider myself a servant.  Being home with my children is a joy and a priviledge and harder than any job that I've ever done in my life.  My husband is wonderful and if I wanted to work, he wouldn't have a problem with me doing so. 

 

Do you see wrong with women who choose to stay home, because they want to?  Because it is what both parents have decided that they feel is best for their family?

 

I wasn't talking about women who stay home. I was talking about women who wish to be "unpaids servants" and "baby-machines". Did I stutter?

 

It's you and Asimov who are making the connection between what Becca described and ordinary, well-adjusted and happy housewives. Not me.

 

Don't shove words into our mouths that aren't there, if you please.

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I wasn't talking about women who stay home.  I was talking about women who wish to be "unpaids servants" and "baby-machines".  Did I stutter?

 

It's you and Asimov who are making the connection between what Becca described and ordinary, well-adjusted and happy housewives.  Not me.

 

Don't shove words into our mouths that aren't there, if you please.

 

 

Yeah, I agree, there is a big difference between a woman who stays at home to raise her children because she loves them, and a woman who is treated as 2nd class person by her husband, and wouldn't be allow to have a job if she wanted one.

 

Its not about the woman working or not working, its about respect and the ability of the husband to see his wife as an individual that has thoughts of her own, apart from him.

 

I think that most of the christian women who consider themselves hardcore fundies conveniently ignore the negativity towards women in the bible. My mom considers her self a fundamentalist, but she is an optometrist and her and my dad run a optometry office. She also doesn't tend to be quite in church when she sees something thats wrong. Of couse that could by why my parents have been run off from 4 churches in the last 7 or 8 years.

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Exactly....I suggest someone watch the Family Guy episode on Feminism.  It's hilarious and it has some interesting things to say.

 

which one is that? i don't recall any on feminism.

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If some happily married woman or independent and stable woman wants to have a gaggle of brats, have at it. If they think they're happy being a housewife, fine. I wouldn't do it, nor do I think anyone would be happy pushing a soccer ball out from between their legs that'll give them as much trouble as joy in eighteen years, but it's my choice to be an athiest devil worshipper who hates kids, not anyone else's.

 

But the bigotry is very odd. From what I've been told, WELS Lutherans pretty much disallow the women in the congregation from making decisions in the church; only the men can do that. And to think that my boss, who is a pushy, decisive, bitchy woman would let a bunch of men make decisions for her in her spiritual life is something akin to completely fucking insane. She owns majority in the business, she practically controls their home life, but in church, her pushover husband has sole say? WTF? :twitch:

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Back to the topic...

Honestly, though...I just don't get it. How can any woman cleave to Fundamentalist Christianity when it treats her like dirt and expects her to like it?

Other than a bunch of psychology I could toss out here, I have no idea.

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I wasn't talking about women who stay home.  I was talking about women who wish to be "unpaids servants" and "baby-machines".  Did I stutter?

 

It's you and Asimov who are making the connection between what Becca described and ordinary, well-adjusted and happy housewives.  Not me.

 

Don't shove words into our mouths that aren't there, if you please.

 

If a woman is happy in her situation (regardless of the context), why not? Are you going to liberate her from her ignorance of being something she wants to be? Force her to accept your views and you're no better than the men in biblical times who forced their women to be a certain way.

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which one is that?  i don't recall any on feminism.

 

Peter tells a dirty joke in front of a female coworker and he gets in trouble for it, so he's forced to go to "sensitivity school" to learn how to be a woman....that's the gist of the story.

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:eek:

 

HELLLLLOOOOOOOOO!

 

This thread was about the virtual enslavement of women in Fundamentalist Christianity. It's about the fact that women are EXPECTED to become the classic 1950s Valium Wives and Baby Producers, and are TOLD THAT ANY OTHER WAY OF LIVING IS DEFYING GOD AND THUS SINFUL.

 

It is NOT a diatribe against stay-at-home moms. Being thus is their CHOICE. But if most Fundies had their way, all women would be FORCED to act like this. Thus TAKING AWAY THE CHOICE to live our lives ANY way we see fit. THAT--institutionalized sexism in Christianity--is the goddamned topic. OK?!??!??

 

And by the way--this is also not an invitation to mock Feminists, assume we're all ballcutting crazies with a deep hatred of stay-at-home moms, or any of the rest of that sort of reactionary shit!

 

Fuck! What is wrong with people?

 

Now can we stay on topic, please?

 

Disgusted,

Becca

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I tried to be a good christian wife and mother for a very long time. Sometimes the whole submission thing did bring me some happiness.

 

This is how.

 

My Father was a hardline right wing evangelical christian who believed that women should stay in the home waiting on thier families and 'not worrying their pretty little heads about a thing'.

 

I loved my Father. I desperately wanted to please him. When I voiced similar opinions to his, when I kept house, when I served up splendid food, when I spent time looking after younger children - my Father's pleasure and appreciation and approval knew no bounds - and that made me happy.

 

And those things still make me happy - I guess they would have made me happy whether or not he approved of them because I like doing the homemaker thing but they became even better than they would have been for me because of the way this was viewed.

 

Independence was frowned upon and seen as unladylike.

 

My father's views were refelcted in the churches I attended and the social groups I was part of. It wasn't necessarily an unpleaseant social pressure - the warmth of approval can feel very positive (the unpleasant pressure was reserved for not conforming to these expectations)

 

Of course - every now and then I was overcome by feelings of rebellion and rage.

 

 

I was subjected to some pretty heavy "headship" propaganda during my college years. Needless to say, the Jehovah's Witnesses are OBSESSED with that crap.

 

It was never comfortable. I was not raised in a harcore Christian household; my parents were typical ex-hippies and had already shed their Christian brainwashing around the "headship principle". So basically, I had to go against what I knew to be true "because God wanted it".

 

*eyetwitch* *shakes head* Man, self-delusion is poisonous stuff.

 

Anyway, I could stomach the skirt thing, wore my hair long and never used cosmetics anyway, but the idea of spending my life being extremely servile to a husband was too much. Frankly, even at my most obsessed I still planned to live my life as a spinster rather than go through that. Other women in the JWs who can't stomach the "headship principal" have done this, and, well, it was the only rational answer to irrational rules that I saw. (The truly rational one was, of course, saying "fuck this" and leaving).

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Yep, it's crap, all right. No women ever participated in the writing of the bible, that's for sure. As long as I live, I'll never understand why half the species were considered 'inferior' to the other half. I mean, I do understand it - men made the rules, so they got to run everything while women were generally relegated to the position of serf.

 

Of course, to be fair, it wasn't just the ancient Jews who came up with patriarchy - just about every society, tribe, people tended to try and diminish women whenever they could. There were some exceptions, but mostly it's been a male world.

 

Kinda makes me ashamed to be male.

 

Of course, that in the 21st century in America these kinds of primitive attitudes continue is pretty much the work of the church and that good ole-time religion. :crucified:

 

There are societies that have never grown out of institutionalized sexual discrimination. Many of them are either fanatically religious or fanatically traditional about their culture.

 

The thing that gets me about America right now is that we made a lot of advances toward equality...and now...the fucking Fundies are desperately trying to take those hard-won rights away. America, bastion of "freedom"--increasingly isn't. The attack on birth control's only part of it. When I say I worry about the Republic of Gilead becoming a relative reality in this country, I mean it. And it's all in the name of Jesus.

 

But I still can't get why so many of the crazed opponents of women's rights are, themselves, women. I know religious delusion can make one accept some really crazy things, but this?

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:eek:

 

HELLLLLOOOOOOOOO!

 

This thread was about the virtual enslavement of women in Fundamentalist Christianity. It's about the fact that women are EXPECTED to become the classic 1950s Valium Wives and Baby Producers, and are TOLD THAT ANY OTHER WAY OF LIVING IS DEFYING GOD AND THUS SINFUL.

 

HELLLLLOOOOOOO!

 

I know what you are saying!! What is wrong with that if the woman wants to do that??? If the woman doesn't then there is something wrong!! Hellooooooooo!!!!

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HELLLLLOOOOOOO!

 

I know what you are saying!!  What is wrong with that if the woman wants to do that???  If the woman doesn't then there is something wrong!!  Hellooooooooo!!!!

 

OK. I am going to try this one more time, and then assume that for some reason you're just Not Getting It. Possibly deliberately.

 

The question is not why someone would choose to be a housewife/SAHM or whatever. That's a different conversation. Most SAHMs stay home for the sake of their kids, not their husbands' will, anyway.

 

The question is why women would choose to adhere to a religion wherein they are discriminated against and basically forced to accept the "authority" of men in all aspects of their lives, especially marriage. It is not about housewives--it's about the Headship Principle!

 

Even more irritated (happy now?)

Becca

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I apologized for my misunderstanding on Cerise's post and also had put the following right afterwards, which was on topic...

 

Gotcha. At this point I'm mostly just irritated with Asimov, who seems to be playing a game of "bait-the-Feminist" for no fucking reason.

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The thing that gets me about America right now is that we made a lot of advances toward equality...and now...the fucking Fundies are desperately trying to take those hard-won rights away. America, bastion of "freedom"--increasingly isn't. The attack on birth control's only part of it. When I say I worry about the Republic of Gilead becoming a relative reality in this country, I mean it. And it's all in the name of Jesus.

 

The fundies try to present a lot of 'voluntary' submissive women who 'choose' to be employees of the much more important male, who is 2nd in rank right after Jesus.

 

However, there's not a lot of choice if your alternative is damnation for rebellion. What else are 'godly' women going to do?

 

(Xtians, please note - I'm not talking about most of you, who are at least moral enough to realize that this just isn't right. I'm talking mainly about extremists and their hardcore fundamentalism.)

 

But I still can't get why so many of the crazed opponents of women's rights are, themselves, women. I know religious delusion can make one accept some really crazy things, but this?

 

It's hard to understand - it's like if black people started defending slavery because the bible condones it. Belief warps reason. Again, if ruining your life guarantees eternal salvation, what choice do you have? :shrug:

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The fundies try to present a lot of 'voluntary' submissive women who 'choose' to be employees of the much more important male, who is 2nd in rank right after Jesus.

 

However, there's not a lot of choice if your alternative is damnation for rebellion. What else are 'godly' women going to do?

 

(Xtians, please note - I'm not talking about most of you, who are at least moral enough to realize that this just isn't right. I'm talking mainly about extremists and their hardcore fundamentalism.)

It's hard to understand - it's like if black people started defending slavery because the bible condones it. Belief warps reason. Again, if ruining your life guarantees eternal salvation, what choice do you have? :shrug:

 

Oh yeah--I specifically pointed out in the intro post that I was speaking of extremist Christians, and that a lot of less hardline folks don't have the headship issue mucking things up anymore.

 

I get so baffled sometimes by human behavior. My boss has advised me more than once, when the sheer idiocy of County bureaucracy gets to me, to not try and ascribe logic to the behavior of bureaucrats. The same principle likely applies here...still. I guess their propaganda (and rationalizations) must be spectacular if there's not a mass exodus of women from Fundamentalism going on....

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The question is why women would choose to adhere to a religion wherein they are discriminated against and basically forced to accept the "authority" of men in all aspects of their lives, especially marriage. It is not about housewives--it's about the Headship Principle!

 

And the answer is......because they want to!

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I find it a wee bit amusing that a woman deciding to stay home and be a mom is veiwed as 'disturbing' while a woman that wants to work as a prostitute is 'enlightened'.

 

We do have a sex worker that checks in here and she is praised for being 'free' and 'open' and 'liberated' -- yet a mother of 4 checks in and talks about being a good stay at home mom and she is undoubtedly viewed as 'oppressed'.

 

If getting cash to have a long line of filthy men *hump* you is an 'enlightened and liberated career choice' then we are further apart on the basics of life than I'm capable of imagining.

 

Either freedom and respect goes both ways in this brave new freethinking, or it doesn't fly at all. Which is it?

 

:woohoo:

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