…and this is a 
Uh-oh — I can think of a few people who will argue with this
Category: Feminism • Religion
Posted on: January 5, 2008 10:12 AM, by PZ Myers
Although this article does make a very good case that you can't be a feminist and religious at the same time. Even the most peaceful religions, like Jainism and Buddhism, treat women as inferiors.
The article doesn't mention any female-centered religions, though, like Wicca…I suppose you could be a Wiccan feminist, but you're still stuck trying to believe in crazy stuff.
Comments
The thing about Wicca is that, in its most common form, there's a lot of mythos around masculine/feminine energy or Qualities or whateversuch woo. I maintain that genuine feminism must include criticism (or at least analysis of) of societal gender constructs, and many of the Wiccans I know have internalized those quasi-alchemical gender stereotypes pretty thoroughly. YMMV.
Posted by: Degen | January 5, 2008 10:25 AM
The religious attitudes against women simply reflect the facts of life in the past, where women were tied up with child rearing, while men mostly were hunting, trading, manufacturing, & farming, & getting concerned over the paternity of their wife's children, because they didn't want to be cuckolded.
We now live in a very different society, so these ancient religious codes for living (for men) need to be abandoned, because they're now offensive to any sane, thinking person.
Posted by: Richard Harris | January 5, 2008 10:38 AM
I've royally pissed off some feminists by telling them that being religious is basically incompatible with feminism. These are people who will piss and moan for hours over a stupid billboard but don't seem to notice the misogyny that's institutionalized in the religion they choose to practice. I'd like to consider myself a feminist, but that kind of shit destroys their credibility.
Posted by: jeffk | January 5, 2008 10:44 AM
#2-
But they can't abandon them. Religious texts are "The Word". I find it revolting when the religious cherry-pick from their holy text and claim that only parts of it are meant to be taken seriously. It's all or none, IMO.
Posted by: Kcanadensis | January 5, 2008 10:46 AM
These beliefs about women (I think) are derived from the "Great Mother" theology of the Neolithic period. Women then were the birth givers, the mothers of all life because the role of men was unknown. We have plenty of worship figurines from the period, showing gravid female statues. It was only after men learned that they participated in conception that they wrested power from the women. These laws and beliefs are holdovers from those days, meant to prevent women from returning to ascendency.
On another note, there is a TV show called "How to look good naked." The host, openly gay comedian Carson Kressley, takes "curvy" women through a self exploration of their bodies. It's amazing how they're all emotional when confronted with their own beauty. It's all part of the common thinking that women should be ashamed of their bodies. It's a kind of coming out ceremony for women of all sizes.
SG
Posted by: Science Goddess | January 5, 2008 10:47 AM
Gotta love ignorant people writing about things that they don't know about but hate.
I've known plenty of feminist Christians, including ministers, some of whom were lesbians.
But, then again, this crowd is nearly as fond of quoting the Bible to say what "Christians absolutely must believe" as are fundamental Biblical literalists.
Ignorance on all sides.
Posted by: Rob Knop | January 5, 2008 10:50 AM
The article's mention of Buddhism with Christianity and Islam seems unfair to me. Buddhism has usually been a "religion" (no god in it, in most traditions) that eschews mucking about in politics, so the warring sides in a civil conflict may be Buddhists, but it's not Buddhism fueling the hatred.
There is nothing in most ancient Buddhist writings that declare women to have any particular place in a hierarchy at all; it's the various Buddhist traditions that have interpreted those things, generally in response to local custom. And to my mind, even modern Buddhist groups have done a very poor job of catching up in their treatment of women. Nuns still have almost no status at all in most Buddhist countries, for example. It's in the West that women have become priests and teachers in Buddhist groups. In the ancient sutras, women became enlightened too, right along with men, so it's depressing sometimes to see how badly women are treated in that religion nowadays.
Posted by: Tim | January 5, 2008 10:52 AM
Our old priest (when I was younger) said that he was tired of complaints that the Chorch was anti-woman. "Nothing could be further from the truth! We venerate Mary and elevated her to Heaven as an example of the perfect woman, high above men!
Because she gave birth as a virgin. Because she herself was immaculately conceived. No stain of sex passed through That Girl's vagina prior to the Lord's Birth.
What a message to the women of the parish. "If you must submit, close your eyes and think of Mary."
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | January 5, 2008 10:54 AM
If you assume that "a religion equals an idea developed by a village chief (male) to maintain and consolidate power" then it all makes sense.
Keeps people in their place. Makes them unquestioning of certain rules. Promotes growth of the desired population growth (regardless of other ones). The role of women is then obvious...
Posted by: Common Sense | January 5, 2008 10:57 AM
Ignorance on all sides.
Of what? I'm aware that there are people who declare themselves to be Christian feminists. That doesn't make it not ridiculous.
Even as an atheist, I can understand the need to interpret the Bible if a person - for reasons I've never understood - feels the need to take it as a foundation. There are odd little bits and pieces in it that are fairly easy to omit. But misogyny in the Bible is a goddamned major theme. You can't ignore it. It's so deep and inherit. So if you're a "Christian" who takes that much liberty with the thing, then you should probably just admit you're not much of a Christian, because you think for yourself. And if you're a feminist who buys into a book with subjugation of women as a highlight, you're not much of a feminist.
I take the Sam Harris position on this: even moderate Christians are hurting the cause for rationality, and rationality is the feminists' best friend.
Posted by: jeffk | January 5, 2008 11:05 AM
I can agree with the specific details about specific religions making some pretty glaring inconsistencies with standard feminist thought, but I still think it's kind of arrogant to claim religious thought and feminism are incompatible.
That seems to much like telling people that we know more than them what they believe, and I know from experience that I can't stand it when people tell me what I believe as an athiest. I also know too many people who describe themselves as christian yet reject so many of the standard tenents of the faith (like the sin of homosexuality or female inferiority) that I can't believe they actually consider themselves one.
Pointing out those glaring inconsistencies in thought... fine. We definately need to do that. But equating all feminist religious belief as being fundamentally against their feminist ideals smacks of arrogance. Who knows what they actually believe. I have a feeling that most feminists are pretty aware of how misogynistic most religion is.
Posted by: Robert | January 5, 2008 11:07 AM
Science Goddess: "the "Great Mother" theology of the Neolithic period.... We have plenty of worship figurines from the period, showing gravid female statues."
Natalie Angier
New York Times
September 17, 2000
Goddess Theory. A survey of the matriarchal myth and its origins.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/09/17/reviews/000917.17angiert.html
"By all accounts from archaeology and anthropology, the possibility that there has ever been a true matriarchy, a society in which women effectively ruled, is about as likely as the chance that an obese fellow in red pajamas can deliver presents to some two billion children in the course of one night. Yet despite considerable evidence that contradicts the story of a prelapsarian gynecocracy, and a glaring lack of evidence to support it, many people, according to Cynthia Eller, continue to subscribe to it. As Eller lays out in the fascinating if often depressing ''Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory,'' a sizable corps of feminists is convinced that male dominance is a relatively recent phenomenon and that before patriarchy grasped the globe in its bloody talons, women were respected members of their tribes, equal if not above men in status and influence, revered for their capacity to give birth and nourish the young and for their innate connectedness -- to one another, to the earth, to the men they suffered with fond affection. ...
As the matriarchalists see it, the lost paradise of female power was a paradise because women are so wonderful. ... Eller quotes Jane Alpert's delineation of the qualities that inhere by nature to those who give birth, including ''empathy, intuitiveness, adaptability, awareness of growth as a process rather than goal-ended; inventiveness, protective feelings toward others and a capacity to respond emotionally as well as rationally.'' Reading such paeans to female ''niceness'' makes one reach for Joyce Carol Oates and her brilliant snarl, ''How can I live my life without committing an act with a giant scissors?''"
Posted by: Colugo | January 5, 2008 11:09 AM
Robert, I don't know what someone believes unless they tell me, but if they're a "Christian", then I know more or less what they're supposed to believe. See, there's a book that lays it out... If "most feminists are pretty aware of how misogynistic most religion is", then they should freaking get rid of it.
Posted by: jeffk | January 5, 2008 11:11 AM
Rob Knop (#6):
Bully for them!
Is that what we do? My impression has generally been that the goal of the Bible-thumping atheist is almost, but not quite, exactly the opposite. Instead of dictating what Christians "must believe", we observe that nowadays, you can call yourself a Christian when the only parts of the Bible you consider "inspired" are a few verses in John and the book of Ecclesiastes.
Quoting Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion, p. 249):
Or Hector Avalos (The End of Biblical Studies, p. 20):
Posted by: Blake Stacey | January 5, 2008 11:16 AM
It is easy to tie all the negative to religion, but the average atheist family is equally unequal as religious families. Along that vein, the percentage atheists among scientists is shockingly high, but does that lead to a more balanced gender division among them. Not really.
Posted by: Kim | January 5, 2008 11:18 AM
but the average atheist family is equally unequal as religious families
This is not my anecdotal experience. Also, it doesn't make any sense. Atheists tend to be, statistically speaking, more liberal and more educated. Which would make them "more equal", not less.
Posted by: jeffk | January 5, 2008 11:24 AM
the percentage atheists among scientists is shockingly high, but does that lead to a more balanced gender division among them. Not really.
That makes no sense whatsoever. It would make sense IF there were as many women who have graduated from college with science degrees as there are men, and the "old boys club" wasn't letting those women become scientists. But that's not the case. There haven't been as many women getting science degrees in the first place. That's not the fault of scientists--for the reasoning behind that I think we have to look at the society females have grown up in, which encourages little girls to become wives and mothers, interested more in make-up and how to do their hair than in studying the sciences.
Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe I've just missed the fact that little girls have been encouraged in the sciences all these years, and 50% of the college graduates in the sciences really are women, and they keep trying to be scientists but the male scientists just won't let them/sarcasm.
Posted by: abeja | January 5, 2008 11:29 AM
Via Language Log, of all places, I found an article called "Feminism's Fatal Flaw" at vertical thought ("vertical" being one of Huckabee's odder buzzwords, being contrasted with the "horizontal logic of the freethinker"). I would have liked to dissect it, but I was starting to throw up in my mouth, so I'll have to leave that job to somebody else while I go scrub my browser cache and watch a math video to restore my brain.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | January 5, 2008 11:46 AM
Link to Language Log on "vertical" thought.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | January 5, 2008 11:48 AM
Cotton Mather, (1663-1728) the famous Puritan leader:
"I was once emptying the Cistern of Nature, and making Water at the Wall. At the same time, there came a Dog, who did so too, before me. Thought I: 'What mean and vile things are the Children of Men, in this mortal state! How much do our natural necessities abase us and place us in some regard, on the level with the very Dogs!"
Major religions consider humankind to be dualistic but quotes like the one above point out the fact that we humans are little different from animals. How much more the female of our species. There are the bodily functions of menstruation and giving birth, with all the fluids involved, but also the powerlessness of men to resist the appeal of and the desire for a women. This all argues against the spiritual nature of man. There is a reminder of our beastly nature and that is woman.
The way that religion chose to deal with this dichotomy is to denigrate woman, projection if you will. That way we don't have to think of our mortality. If we accept women as equals then we have to accept our mortality and our animal nature as well. Not a good reminder if you are a dualist who believes we are essentially spiritual.
Similarly, Pinker's writing on profanity has much to say that is pertinent to this point. However, Richard Beck goes further by saying:
"Specifically, as I've written about before, psychologists have amassed evidence that the body is a mortality reminder. That is, the body, with its waste, smells, ooziness, and vulnerability, makes our animalness salient. We find this degrading and fearful. Man wants to be an angel. Profanity cuts through those illusions. This is the source of the offense.
To profane something is to strip off the spiritual overlay, to make something sacred base and common. Profanity desacralizes human beings. For example, to call a woman a f****** b**** is to take someone made in the Imago Dei, to be encountered as a mysterium tremendum, and reduce her to a barnyard animal in heat. This is the offense of profanity, its desacralizing maneuver."
I think that anything that reminds us of our mortality is denegrated by religion including, as we all know, evolution.
Posted by: Rick T. | January 5, 2008 11:54 AM
off topic, but girls (boys too) can be interested in makeup AND science. And it's important that what has been is not always right.
Posted by: Vera | January 5, 2008 11:59 AM
I slogan springs to mind ...
"A feminist needs religion like a fish needs a fish hook".
Posted by: kev_s | January 5, 2008 12:03 PM
Well, not so much "not let them" as often unconsciously fail to promote them beyond the college graduate level. There is research showing that it's often harder for a woman to get a grant than for an equally capable man. Luckily there are no sacred texts of science that stand in the way of fixing this.
Posted by: windy | January 5, 2008 12:04 PM
Where's Emma Goldman when you need her?
Posted by: danley | January 5, 2008 12:16 PM
I'm a feminist and an atheist, and as far as my personal beliefs go I am convinced that all religions I know of (including Wicca) are props for the patriarchy. Unfortunately, the article linked to is badly written, scantily researched, and obnoxious in tone.
As is jeffk, in no. 3:
"These are people who will piss and moan for hours over a stupid billboard but don't seem to notice the misogyny that's institutionalized in the religion they choose to practice. I'd like to consider myself a feminist, but that kind of shit destroys their credibility."
Thanks for lumping all we feminists into one big trough of "pissers and moaners", jeffk. Maybe the feminists you're speaking to aren't really that interested in taking your point about religion because they're fed up with being told how to do things by a man - one who even presumes that it is his place to tell women how they should do feminism.
There are interesting points to be made about the inherently patriarchal nature of religion, but this article seems to me to make very few of them. Instead, it falls back on speculation: "we know little of Amna, Mohammad's mother, let alone his actual birth, but we can assume the good prophet didn't sully himself in vaginal juices. Like the rest of the prophets, Mohammad probably materialized from the heavens." No he didn't, as the author would know if she did any research at all. She might at least have taken the trouble to get Mohammad's mother's name right: it's Amina.
Can she really think of so few solid feminist anti-religious arguments that she actually has to make one up? There's no shortage of proper, serious material.
Posted by: Catherine Martell | January 5, 2008 12:21 PM
Well, not so much "not let them" as often unconsciously fail to promote them beyond the college graduate level.
Someone near and dear to me was treated like shit - that is to say, hit on - by male faculty while she was in grad school.
When she refused their advances, she was subsequently ignored and treated like shit. She excelled at her studies but became discouraged by the treatment she received and did not go on to become a doctor.
Great world we live in.
Posted by: CalGeorge | January 5, 2008 12:25 PM
Christian feminist? What a joke.
The whole idea of women fighting to become priests/ministers has been and always will be ludicrous. It's akin to blacks fighting for their right to be slaves.
Of course there are women who call themselves christian feminists just as I can call myself Marie, Queen of Romania. Doesn't make it so.
Posted by: CanadaGoose | January 5, 2008 12:26 PM
Thank you Colugo, #12.
Richard Harris, #2. Quote: "The religious attitudes against women simply reflect the facts of life in the past, where women were tied up with child rearing, while men mostly were hunting, trading, manufacturing, & farming, & getting concerned over the paternity of their wife's children, because they didn't want to be cuckolded."
Women have never been solely tied up with child rearing. Except for women attached to wealthy men, women have always been labourers responsible for a huge amount of the world's agricultural tasks, and were put into the factories and mines as soon as such places were available. Even in the recent past in North America, women on farms, for example, could typically spend only the barely necessary amount of time on nursing and child care, which was normally done by any elderly women in the households or older children.
...and Science Goddess, #5. Quote: "We have plenty of worship figurines from the period, showing gravid female statues."
I wish I could find it, but British Archaeology magazine a few years ago published an interesting alternative interpretation of all those little pregnant 'goddesses'. Some of these figures are notable for having rope-like decorations, some have remarkable hairstyles and decorative skirts, some are very plain. At least one interpreter thinks some of them may have represented, like coins or tokens, captive or slave women, or simply any woman, who could be traded for goods. And another interpretation suggested they were no more than a form of reminder for a male traveller, of the women at home - like a wallet photo of the wife, or a pornographic image.
I believe it is a failing of older archaeological speculation to place a religious value on every mysterious artifact.
Posted by: Bee | January 5, 2008 12:32 PM
off topic, but girls (boys too) can be interested in makeup AND science.
No doubt. Perhaps, though, not at the same time...
Posted by: RamblinDude | January 5, 2008 12:38 PM
Science Goddess: "the 'Great Mother' theology of the Neolithic period.... We have plenty of worship figurines from the period, showing gravid female statues."
The images I've seen of these "worship" figurines, shows faceless, and often extremity-less, spawn carriers with exaggerated sexual features. Not much different from some of today's porn. Neolithic man said, "Wow, she's got great child-bearing hips! I must empregnate (oops, I mean WORSHIP) her!" Maybe not, but there's the same amount of evidence for my take as there is for the "powerful and worshipped Neolithic women" hypothesis.
Other than these stone male-fantasy-object figurines, there is exactly NO evidence of any Neolithic "Great Mother" theology.
I thank Allison Kilkenny for her article. It states exactly why I have been an anti-theist for the past 23 years.
Posted by: RebekahD | January 5, 2008 12:42 PM
Maybe the feminists you're speaking to aren't really that interested in taking your point about religion because they're fed up with being told how to do things by a man - one who even presumes that it is his place to tell women how they should do feminism.
Is feminism only for women? You could easily reframe any analysis of anything into "hey, how is it YOUR PLACE to tell me what to do?" and "who are you to generalize"? These rhetorical tactics are completely generic and boring and are a distraction from my point. It's not my place to tell anyone what to do but it certainly is my place to offer opinions about a topic that I'm interested in. And my generalization was not about "all feminists" - and I didn't imply that it was - but came from specific experiences that I have had in conversations, both online and in person, with a great number of feminists about religion. I stand by my critique, regardless of my sex.
Posted by: jeffk | January 5, 2008 12:43 PM
"Death by schnoo schnoo!" (Amazon women in Futurama.)
Posted by: Christianjb | January 5, 2008 12:54 PM
Bee @ # 28, I didn't say that women were solely tied up with child rearing to the exclusion of all else. However, in medieval England, it was the men who did the shopping, which in those days required haggling over the price. The point that I was making was simply that there was a de facto division of labour, but I don't suppose that it was absolute.
Posted by: Richard Harris | January 5, 2008 1:01 PM
Windy, your point is well taken. My point wasn't to deny that there is sexism among male scientists, or to imply that women who are interested in/encouraged in the sciences have an easy time of it. My point (poorly stated, I suppose) was that in order for the numbers of scientists to be balanced at 50% male/50% female, that the first thing that needs to be accomplished is for the number of males and females interested in science/enrolling in science courses/getting science degrees needs to be balanced. So, I was speaking more about the formative years in a female's life.
Admittedly, though, even if the majority of science grads were women, we could very well see the numbers of male/female scientists still unbalanced, with a higher proportion of men. But, you are right--at least there are no sacred texts standing in the way of fixing the problem.
Posted by: abeja | January 5, 2008 1:03 PM
Roman Catholic Pat Buchanan:
Rail as they will against 'discrimination,' women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism...The momma bird builds the nest. So it was, so it ever shall be. Ronald Reagan is not responsible for this; God is.
--------Washington Times, Nov. 18, 1983.
Does not the Roman Catholic church wield immense power by its stand against birth control and abortion and skillfully lobby against legislative change? IMO, one cannot be a Catholic and a feminist.
But, then again, many women do not want to be feminists.
"...the synagogin', the tabernaclin', the psalmin', that goes on in this hoose, that's enough to break the spirits o' ony young creature."
------------ Susan Edmonstone Ferrier (1782-1854), Scottish novelist
Posted by: marcia | January 5, 2008 1:14 PM
jeffk, #31:
By your own say-so, jeffk, it isn't for you. If you're not on the bus, not only do you not get to do the back-seat driving; you also don't get to piss and moan about the style of the driver's hat.
If you wanted to "be a feminist" you'd be a feminist because of your own convictions. It's not as if we all have to wear the same damned pink T-shirt and the color just doesn't look good on you, poor guy.
We don't need you, hon. We're all pedaling madly and the bus is lurching merrily on and we're having parties and swapping places and passing that nice bottle of homebrew around and we don't miss anyone who Doesn't Get It. Your "critique" isn't new, nor is your approach. You're just another guy who's walked in to tell us we aren't doing it right, while not doing it himself at all. Don't expect a welcome and a swig, much less a cookie.
As to the purported main point of the post: The evident fact that any religion or philosophy has aged into a way to diss women just demonstrates that the patriarchy is basal to religion and, so far, philosophy. I Blame the Patriarchy.
Posted by: Ron Sullivan | January 5, 2008 1:18 PM
No, no arguing. :-) Wholeheartedly sustained instead, Allison Kilkenny's essay, without the slightest reservations. Feminism was one of the roads I traveled from Agnostic City to Atheistville.
^_^J.
Posted by: gyokusai | January 5, 2008 1:18 PM
Apparently Jeffk is an authority of feminism and allowed to criticize the feminism of others, but others aren't allowed to criticize his feminism. I think Catherine hit the nail on the head.
I'll also say that a person's religion is what people make of it, not what a book or anyone else says it is. I've never met a christian or member of any other faith that actually completely followed their holy book or dogma.
Posted by: D | January 5, 2008 1:28 PM
Apparently Jeffk is an authority of feminism and allowed to criticize the feminism of others, but others aren't allowed to criticize his feminism.
So far, the only criticism my feminism has gotten is being told I wasn't "needed" because I'm male. I'm happy to have my feminism criticized, but it simply hasn't happened yet.
Posted by: jeffk | January 5, 2008 1:33 PM
"I'll also say that a person's religion is what people make of it, not what a book or anyone else says it is. I've never met a christian or member of any other faith that actually completely followed their holy book or dogma."
Thats pretty much what I was trying to say, only you said it better. I absolutely agree the Bible is misogynistic, but that doesn't mean that every feminist who self identifies as a chrisian is a hypocrite.
Posted by: Robert | January 5, 2008 1:37 PM
I've never met a christian or member of any other faith that actually completely followed their holy book or dogma
I haven't either. But I've met a lot that claim to.
Posted by: MAJeff | January 5, 2008 1:38 PM
... with one exception my first reading failed to register: the "Mohammad's mother" bit seems somewhat far-fetched and rather gratuitous, me thinks.
^_^J.
Posted by: gyokusai | January 5, 2008 1:38 PM
I'm happy to have my feminism criticized, but it simply hasn't happened yet.
Um, you aren't a feminist, you already said so. Remember?
"I'd like to consider myself a feminist, but that kind of shit destroys their credibility."
So you have no feminism to be criticized.
Posted by: coathangrrr | January 5, 2008 1:41 PM
Of course feminists can be religious. Anyone can be religious: Social workers can be religious, serial killers can be religious, politicians can be religious, genocidal dictators can be religious, philanthropists can be religious, scientists can be religious, rapists can religious, anyone. Name a "type" of person, and that type of person can be religious. Being religious precludes nothing, because religion doesn't correlate to anything.
Religion doesn't correlate to anything.
Religion doesn't make you a better person, religion doesn't make you a worse person. I know people who are perfectly kind and decent and wonderful, despite identifying with religious teachings that are immoral and depraved. All Christians are True Christians, all Muslims are True Muslims, all Buddhists are True Buddhists, because religion is a cypher. Religion has subjective meaning to the individual religious person, religion has social and historical significance because it has been used to justify acts both noble and degraded, but by itself religion means nothing. It doesn't correlate to anything, and religiosity as a premise has zero predictive power.
Posted by: HP | January 5, 2008 1:50 PM
Name a "type" of person, and that type of person can be religious.
A dead person ;)
Posted by: coathangrrr | January 5, 2008 1:55 PM
"I'd like to consider myself a feminist, but that kind of shit destroys their credibility."
I think you're reading too much into this, as there's a little hyperbole there, but I will clarify.
I DO consider myself a feminist, but WHEN feminists mix priorities and waste a lot of energy on things that, while may very well be misogynistic pale in comparison to the grand tower of sexism that is religion, the credibility of feminists becomes damaged.
Posted by: jeffk | January 5, 2008 1:57 PM
Funny how religious people are just as guilty of picking and choosing their morality as we atheists are. I just like to think we atheist have a more sturdy structure for our morals.
Posted by: Janine | January 5, 2008 2:06 PM
Yep.
1. The worst offenders are the Death cultists. They have reduced the 10 commandments to 8, having thrown out the ones about lying and murdering. Some are down to 7, having thrown out the one about not coveting thy neighbors ass.
2. The Catholic church is second. If anyone actually paid much attention to all the rules and regulations, they would have 15 kids and no sanity left. Instead, the birth rate among US Catholics (the largest sect at 21% of the population) is almost identical to the national average. Catholics are very good at smiling and nodding and doing whatever they think is best for themselves. I don't know what the priests do but if they tried to enforce the rules and tossed everyone in violation, my guess, somewhere between 1/2 and 90% of the membership would be gone.
Anyone who seriously tried to follow all the Xian rules and regulations in the USA would spend the rest of their life in jail. It is illegal to own slaves, stone disobedient children, have multiple wives, or burn witches and heretics at the stake. At least until the fundies gain complete control.
Posted by: raven | January 5, 2008 2:06 PM
I DO consider myself a feminist, but WHEN feminists mix priorities and waste a lot of energy on things that, while may very well be misogynistic pale in comparison to the grand tower of sexism that is religion, the credibility of feminists becomes damaged.
That's assuming that, to use your previous example, billboards of half naked women with impossible body types don't do more damage to girls and women than religion does. Sure, Christianity is sexist, I would say inherently so, but that inherent sexism is not nearly as in your face as is the idea that a woman must look a certain way in most places.
I live in the San Francisco area and I certainly don't see religion here are nearly as much of an impediment to women than I see poor body image. In fact, I know women who have died and nearly died because of their poor body image, and yet I know not a single person who has died or nearly died from their religion.
Posted by: coathangrrr | January 5, 2008 2:15 PM
Thank you for actually considering what I was saying rather than telling me to run along because I'm male.
Poor body image is certainly an issue, and damage done by religion is always so hard to assess. In the simplest terms, I see this: objectifying media - which is arguably though I don't always think sexist - is soundly rejected by feminists, and understandably so. Blatantly sexist religion, on the other hand, is not rejected.
Further, religion injects the specter of irrationality. When you allow that to come into play, now you're giving up your greatest weapon, because both sides can just squabble over what a non-existent entity thought about women, and even worse, the only piece of "evidence" is on the side of the fundie jackasses.
I think you can educate people to the extent where objectifying images don't hurt them much. The nature of media is fairly easy to understand. But how do you root out the sexism that comes from peoples' religious views? Much more difficult, I think. Our entire societal structure is largely based on our Judeo-Christian history, and that's what needs to be fixed. Women had it a fair amount rougher 100 years ago when there was more religion and no half-naked billboard models.
Posted by: jeffk | January 5, 2008 2:36 PM
Tim, #7:
Unless it's Buddhist violence against Hindus, Muslims or Christians. It might not be Buddhist scripture fueling the violence, but Buddhist self-identity is definitely involved.
But this is true of damn near all the major world religions. Christianity, Islam and Buddhism all had noteworthy female missionaries, scholars, leaders, theologians, and even clergy in the early days of their respective faiths. Even Judaism had female judges co-governing the Hebrew people post-Exodus according to scripture.
Once these faiths became "the establishment", however, they settled into predictable patriarchal patterns, largely based on existing cultural mores.
Because despite how most Westerners view Buddhism, in the East it's as corrupt and debased as Christianity here. Read up on the sohei of feudal Japan for an example of the Buddhist equivalent of the Knights Templar. We rail against the abuse of children by Catholic priests: among the monks of Tibet, pedophilia was practically institutionalized. You can find these sentiments in Asian literature and film.
My favourite example is the final scene of Akira Kurosawa's film masterpiece, Rashomon. A merchant, a Buddhist monk and a poor woodcutter have spent the evening listening to a sordid tale of human deception, treachery and selfishness, when they hear a baby cry. In the corner of the temple where they've taken shelter, someone has abandoned a child.
The merchant's first instinct is to steal the cloth the child is wrapped up in, despite the woodcutter protesting it's all the infant has. The Buddhist monk can only moan at how the world is an evil place. It's the poor woodcutter who decides to take the child home, despite already having six children of his own.
Sorry for the rambling, I just get irritated when I hear the implication that Buddhism isn't as bad as other world religions. That only seems to be the case because in the West we only see normative Buddhism, the New-Agey peace-loving Richard Gere version. Not its actual practice in cultures where it's a centuries-old institution.
Posted by: False Prophet | January 5, 2008 2:37 PM
nobody who has died from their religion? Jim Jones? The UFO cult? Jehovah's Witnesses? lots of people die from their religion.
Posted by: iRobot | January 5, 2008 2:44 PM
objectifying media - which is arguably though I don't always think sexist - is soundly rejected by feminists, and understandably so. Blatantly sexist religion, on the other hand, is not rejected.
But religion is not all blatantly sexist. I think that advertising has far more of a hold on the contemporary mind, depending on where you are, than religion and as such is often far more damaging. Because of this I would see someone who, say, goes to seminary, such as my partner does, as not necessarily believing in a bad thing or doing a bad thing, whereas someone who uses resources they control to put up billboards with scantily clad, impossibly thin women on them is doing something that contributes to harming women.
Posted by: coathangrrr | January 5, 2008 2:50 PM
nobody who has died from their religion? Jim Jones? The UFO cult? Jehovah's Witnesses? lots of people die from their religion.
I was obviously talking about religion within a specific context. Go reread the post again.
Posted by: coathangrrr | January 5, 2008 2:57 PM
But this is true of damn near all the major world religions. Christianity, Islam and Buddhism all had noteworthy female missionaries, scholars, leaders, theologians, and even clergy in the early days of their respective faiths. Even Judaism had female judges co-governing the Hebrew people post-Exodus according to scripture.
Unlike the other religions mentioned, Buddhism doesn't say explicitly in its sacred texts that women are worth less than men and should be treated differently, that I am aware of.
But yes, realistically speaking, Buddhism is used as a tool of oppression of women just as other religions are.
Posted by: coathangrrr | January 5, 2008 3:01 PM
Why do so many freethinkers have such a blind spot around Buddhism? Who do you think orchestrated and perpetrated The Rape of Nanking? Who operated unit 731? Shinto may have been the state religion of Imperial Japan, but the men who actually perpetrated Japanese war crimes were overwhelmingly and unapologetically Buddhist.
As I said upthread, religion correlates to nothing, and has no predictive power. There's nothing preventing someone from being both fully Buddhist and fully despicable.
The kind of meditative practice and nonviolent philosophy we associate with Buddhism in the West is hardly typical of how Buddhism is practiced in historically Buddhist countries. If you consider that a religion is what a religion does, then Buddhism is primarily about ancestor worship, divination, ritual, and superstition.
If every Christian were Martin Luther King or Hildegard of Bingen, Christianity might seem like a pretty good deal. But they're not. Likewise, most Buddhists aren't Daisetz Suzuki or the Dalai Lama.
Posted by: HP | January 5, 2008 3:03 PM
As I said upthread, religion correlates to nothing, and has no predictive power. There's nothing preventing someone from being both fully Buddhist and fully despicable.
Yes, the point is that a lot of the really horrible things that are enshrined in the holy documents of other religious documents are not there in Buddhism. This obviously doesn't make Buddhists any more moral than other religions, it just means that the scriptures are closer to what we would call moral.
Posted by: coathangrrr | January 5, 2008 3:07 PM
Of course you can. People aren't logical or consistent. Look at Ken Miller - religious and a 'Darwinist.'
Posted by: Moses | January 5, 2008 3:10 PM
Put on proof.
Posted by: Moses | January 5, 2008 3:16 PM
So, I think we can conclusively prove, given the weight and preponderance of archeological evidence, that Jenny McArthy is a goddess.
Posted by: inkadu | January 5, 2008 3:21 PM
How about "fuck off asshole." Seriously, feminism isn't by women for women, dickhead.
Anyone who has daughters and wants them to have a equal chance, and are not second-class citizens by virtue of their gender, is expressing some of the fundamental core beliefs of feminism. Another is "you're not defined by a man" and you can say "no" and expect it to be respected.
Another is "stab AND twist..." But without the context you might not get that...
But, once again, fuck off. I don't need a douche-bag to tell me I'm not good enough to enjoy her club because of my gender.
Posted by: Moses | January 5, 2008 3:26 PM
Seriously, feminism isn't by women for women, dickhead.
So now women don't get to be feminists? That's great. You are so progressive.
I don't need a douche-bag to tell me I'm not good enough to enjoy her club because of my gender.
So, saying that a man shouldn't tell another woman how to do her feminism is telling you that you aren't good enough to be in "her club." I don't see how that follows.
You guys need to be a little less defensive when women criticize you.
Posted by: coathangrrr | January 5, 2008 3:36 PM
Seems like coathangrrr is from the juvenile, "girls rule" or feminism, and Moses is from the "chicks are as equal as everyone else," school. Delightful.
Posted by: inkadu | January 5, 2008 3:52 PM
HP is right about Buddhism as it has historically been conceived and practiced outside of the contemporary West. Also, see Buddhist Thai selling their daughters into prostitution, brothels serving monks, Japan's Aum Shinrikyo, Tibetan warlords, Bhutanese slaveholders etc.
In addition, Blavatsky's garbled Buddhism in the form of Theosophy influenced malign ideologies like Steiner and volkish-Aryan cultism.
Posted by: Colugo | January 5, 2008 3:53 PM
*"girls rule" school of feminism....
Posted by: inkadu | January 5, 2008 3:55 PM
Also, wouldn't it be more accurate to say, "you can be a feminist and a christian without having a lot of arguments with feminists and christians, each of which would win against you in a fair debate."
It's difficult. A lot of people call themselves Christians, but really do have very little idea of scripture. I've had the experience of educating a weekly-church going friends on the finer points of biblical teaching.
Also, religion does determine a lot of things. Maybe not globally, but at least in American culture, weekly church goers are more likely to vote Republican, be pro-life, and, for all I know, to have teen-pregancies. To say that religion does not have predictive power is demonstrably wrong.
Posted by: inkadu | January 5, 2008 4:03 PM
Seems like coathangrrr is from the juvenile, "girls rule" or feminism
Yes, saying that men shouldn't define what feminism is and criticizing them when they try to tell a woman what is and is not feminist can obviously be described as "juvenile." Because I am clearly the one who started swearing because someone had the audacity to say that maybe some guy shouldn't be telling his female friends what is worse for them, religion or billboards that reinforce negative body image. I am also clearly juvenile for using such erudite terms as '"girls rules' school of feminism" to describe other peoples views.
Posted by: coathangrrr | January 5, 2008 4:07 PM
This may not be what you mean. You may mean that nobody should criticize anybody's feminism at all. But that's the basest form of relativism, and so we assume that you're at least rational enough to know that criticism *is* a good thing that should be allowed.
So: who can (constructively, we'll say) criticize feminism? Do the genders of the participants matter at all? If so, why? If not, what's wrong with jeffk's criticism?
Posted by: Xanthir, FCD | January 5, 2008 4:40 PM
Religion is an exercise in contradiction anyway, specially if you're trying to be 'progressive' and reconciling the more barbaric aspects of it to the modern world. Feminism is just one more thing on the list of things you have to work around/with.
Posted by: NN | January 5, 2008 4:53 PM
Science Goddess said:
"It was only after men learned that they participated in conception that they wrested power from the women."
How many weeks do you figure that took?
Remember, paleolithic people lived with nature in the sense that their survival depended on understanding what goes on. Children in some present-day "primitive" cultures build blinds in trees and observe animals to lean about them. The observation that other animals mate seasonally, and also reproduce seasonally, should really have told them something, don't you think?
Just because they made stone tools and made huts with mastodon ribs doesn't mean they were idiots. I wouldn't want to get into a conflict with them in their own environment.
Posted by: BaldApe | January 5, 2008 4:59 PM
If not, what's wrong with jeffk's criticism?
Several things, actually:
1) He's playing a form of concern troll in which he acts to create a monolith that is "feminists." C'mon, feminists are doing all sorts of shit, including challenging religious belief itself as well as attempting to change religious institutions from within. (What's his name at the NYTimes is great at this sort of thing, as is Anne Applebaum....it's the "why aren't feminist doing what I think they should, well except those feminists over there who I'm excluding from the definition of feminist so I can maintain this illusion" tactic)
2) In making the universalizing claim against which he's setting himself up (might we call it a "strawfeminist") he takes what is often a strategic difference (which issue should we address?) and says that anyone who chooses to tackle other forms of misogyny than he thinks they should all feminists "look ridiculous."
3) Gender does matter. It's one thing to analyze a situation and another to live it. I'm never going to have the experience of menstruation or childbirth (and you have no idea how happy that makes me). However, as a gay man, I really do get the issue of the relationship between body image and being the subject of the "patriarchal gaze." (I don't go to a gym, so I barely exist.) To be told which issues to focus on by someone who doesn't live your life can be really annoying.
Posted by: MAJeff | January 5, 2008 5:05 PM
Sorry about the double post, but to the the people ganging up on JeffK about his remark - would you have said the same thing if the username had been female or if a woman had said what he did. I don't think his remark was an attempt to tell anyone what to do. I think what he was trying to say (and correct me if I'm wrong here jeff) was basically that, when a person supports or endorses a particular identity, particularly when non-supporters assume it to be homogeneous, one idiot in the fold makes the whole lot look bad and makes everyone else's position seem less defensible. That does not mean that everyone else must instantly give up their position on the subject or that the individual isn't entitled to say and do as they like, but it's just irritating.
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