I recently posted this article on facebook, but the link is broken today so I am re-posting this new one. And I decided I have a lot more to say about it.
To sum up the story: Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, ousted women from their teaching positions at the seminary and then started a new program for women only. In line with his outspoken beliefs in traditional biblical roles for men and women, the new "degree" is in HOMEMAKING. For WOMEN ONLY. How this relates to theological study or is legally possible I HAVE NO IDEA.
Christianity is overwhelming proof of the prevalence of sexism in a America AND the most powerful force perpetuating it. Churches are still denying jobs to people based on their sex! How is this acceptable in a country where that is illegal for every other type of organization?? Patterson is obviously a nutjob, but please consider that ALL Christians (75% of Americans) look to the Bible for guidance. The Bible that says:
1. God is a male
2. Man came first and Woman was created from a derivative of man
3. Woman brought sin into the world
4. Men did everything that was ever significant short of the "virgin" birth (I am sure if men could give birth they would have been credited for this accomplishment too).
A LOT of old writings are sexist but still valued for their scientific, literary, or otherwise academic value. You could make that same argument for the bible - that we can look past the sexism and extract the value. But the difference between the bible and those books is that 75% of Americans don't look to those books for moral guidance. They don't use those books to back alogical political decisions. They don't claim those books are written by God, or that they are instruction manuals for how to live our lives. They don't read those books to their kids at bedtime.
An anecdote:
A few weeks ago a nine-year-old told me that he should be first in line because Adam came before Eve. He also had the supporting argument that God is a boy. This isn't a kid whose parents are religious fantatics, and I seriously doubt he was repeating something he heard elsewhere. That is just the kind of thing a nine-your-old will come up with when tauhgt bible stories as fact.
Is it not obvious that biblical stories are ingraining sexism into young people right from the start?
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But if your choices for raising your children are between (A) letting them become sexist and (B) letting them burn in an eternal fire, sadly the choice has to be (A).
So, as usual, I think the root cause of the problem is the religion's belief and punishment structure itself.
Though I suppose there is an option that is short of raising them atheist (something that I suppose is too much to ask), while addressing the sexism problem: liberal Christianity.
alright, you know my politics, but i think your post is drawing some inferences that is just a tad unfair.
75% of americans consulting the bible for guidance? i call shinanigans on that.
what you're really describing is one of the more common mistakes with statistics, the difference between correlation and causality, there's a high correlation, but doesn't mean there's causality. if there's causality, the causality must be manifested in other ways as well.
there's no doubt that most americans are christian, predominantly protestant, but looking to the bible for guidance? why not? jesus did talk about some great things like helping the poor and turning the other cheek and do-unto-others and whatnot. Why not take guidance like that from the bible?
It's not like 75% of americans refer to the bible to justify their sexism, just like they don't let it dictate their lives. 75% of americans my be christian but how how many go to church? how many are practicing? how many are devout and fundamentalist? not many. they're in the fringes. if 75% of america was fundamentalist christian, there would be no debate about evolution, no science, no nothing. The fact that we still have a secular society proves that (perhaps inspite of religion's influence), people still think clearly. nobody's pushing an agenda of repealing women's sufferage yet.
honestly, i just think it's an unfair generalization to talk to an entire society's perceptions by assuming that one fringe group is representative of some massive conspiracy to repress a group that consists of 50% of society. yes they're nuttier than a snicker's bar, but they're a private organization, they can do what they want, because they're not a government agency. it'll be different if they were taking federal money.
it's foolhardy to simply indict society at large for some perceived inequities by tying things that don't really have much to do with each other. People living by christian principles isn't a bad thing, these people just happen to choose bad principles, it's not an indication of america as a whole. if all americans lived like this, or at least 75% like you're implying, then there wouldn't be the half of the country that's pro-choice. people CHOOSE to be pro-choice in spite of their religious beliefs, just like they can CHOOSE to ignore the sexism in the book (by the way, if you wanted to highlight that, forget the god is a man thing, go with the whole a woman cut samson's hair taking away his power, a woman asked for the head of john the baptist, the list goes on)
i'm not saying sexism doesn't exist, but to break the barrier, you focus on the acts of becoming the first female firefighter, astronaut, etc. arguing about the fundamental tenets of the society doesn't change things going forward. getting rid of christianity is no more plausible than asking the sun to go around the moon. true change comes in the form of say, a black woman sitting in the front of a bus. that's how you break barriers.
Kyle,
I agree that the consequences for not indoctrinating your children are much too dire if you are a believer. That's part of why Christianity is so pervasive. But those choices ((A) letting them become sexist and (B) letting them burn in an eternal fire) aren't really fair IMO, because no one thinks reading that Bible is going to turn their kid sexist (more on this in a bit).
Hailin, I agree with you, but your reaction is exactly the one I feared because it is a reaction to a point that I am not making. That's my fault because I wasn't clear enough. I addressed your point of view when I posed the question "Can't we look past the sexism and extract the value?".
The answer is yes. We can. We do. I never said that the Bible had no valuable teachings. Of course it does. But it is still incredibly sexist and it is a shame that a lot of those valuable stories and lessons are written in ways that are demeaning to women, whether that was the point of them or not.
When I said that 75% of Americans were Christian, I didn't mean that 75% of Americans were overtly sexist. That would be a statistics error. I meant that 75% of them are familiar with Bible stories. Whether or not they are practicing now, they know those stories! They likely grew up with those stories, and teach their kids those stories. The problem isn't that the Bible teaches people to be sexist. It is that it subtly (or not so subtly IMO) puts women in a lesser role. This same argument is made about our history books. Until recently, women were left completely out of them. No one thought history books were teaching people to be sexist. 99% of people never even noticed. But what was the impact? How many female students had a hard time seeing themselves in a scientific or political role when all of their role models were male? What's the impact of attending a church knowing you could never lead it? What's the impact of following a revered book where women are so under-valued?
The news article is an example of biblical sexism taken to an extreme. By posting it I did not mean to imply that all Christians were sexist. I just meant to use that to highlight the issue, because almost everyone (I hope) will agree that THAT example is a problem. To understand my point that the Bible itself is a problem, they will have to do some critical thinking about a text that they hold dear, which is asking a lot, but that's all I'm asking.
To understand my point at all, you have to accept that sexism is still pervasive in our society. Christian churches are a big example because most of them are still denying jobs based on sex. Other examples are more subtle, and very difficult to measure. If you read any feminist literature you will see what I am talking about. It's the impact of being second in society for hundreds (and thousands) of years, and how those affects linger on the subconscious of men and women. Contrary to your point, one CAN'T CHOOSE to ignore the subconscious impact of following the Bible. Moreover, one CAN'T CHOOSE to ignore the sexist implications of bible stories when they are being indoctrinated at age 5.
A breakthrough like electing a woman president would be a step toward equality, but it wouldn't prevent the bible from ingraining sexism at an early age. My solution is to re-write the Bible. It's been done thousands of times. In fact, some people have already written a unisex Bible. But how long will it take before that is widely adopted? How long before we ditch the garbage and keep the good stuff in the Bible?
let me open by saying that i don't actually hold the bible dear, i'm not christian, to me it's a more influential version of war and peace.
what i have problems with is the arguement that because everyone reads it, it causes people to be sexist overtly or subconsciously. i don't buy most of psychiatry and all the "subconscious" thing, wherep eople pretend to have insight into other people's thoughts.
what i'm basically saying is that if the bible was as much influencce in society as you claim, we'd see other examples. Yet throughout history, when the christians sacked jerusalem they put all the people there to the sword. they wouldn't have if they lived by christian values. if they lived by christian values there would be no slavery. there are all these overt things that people have a much better understanding of, and contemporary appreciation of, that could have been outright averted if the christian influence is so strong as you say. if it can't even change our minds on the overt messages of peace and helping the poor, how do you attribute the oppression of women to it?
on the subject of the christian churches. they are private institutions, we can't and ought not legislate that as a society. we can't dictate beliefs. you have to change those organizations from within.
bottom line is that surely sexism exists in the world today. women are oppressed, but that's because PEOPLE are oppressed. you're just paying the price of being people. there's social inequities (like the fact that there's no chinese partners at the firm, never was) that we must correct by breaking the barriers, which is far more effective a means of change than some grandios notion of tearing down the institution and rewriting its fundamentals. how would you go about rewriting the bible? getting the church to do it? legislating it? those are your two methods, neither one sounds particularly appatizing.
i think the main point that i have a problem with is precisely what you've said, that people can't choose. people obviously have a choice and have chosen to ignore the more pronounced messages in the christianity. people can choose, we're all blessed with free will. your'e ascribing some wonderful powers to indoctrination and propaganda, but trust me, free will is more powerful.
Stalinist russia and eastern europe, maoist china, there was indoctrination and propaganda to the levels in which you wouldn't believe. I've lived in the eastern bloc, i know what i was taught when i was a kid, and what my parents never told me wasn't true. But despite that indoctrination, i knew growing up that most of that stuff is bullshit, even though they stitched together (as was intended) into a seamless world-view. there was very little contradiction that couldn't be explained. But we knew the difference. we knew the bullshit from the truth.
i think it's presumptuous to say that people can't tell the difference, that they can't choose their beliefs. people are constantly challenging their conditions and the status quo. i think it's wrong to paint society with such a broad stroke and ascribe oppression to underlying currents that you presume to be in people's heads whether they like it or not. we're all oppressed. if you want to challenge the oppression you can't start with the thought that people cannot choose or change without some farcical exogenous act like rewriting the bible. your assumption should actually be that people CAN choose. if they can't, why are we even talking about this? shouldn't you back in the kitchen cooking?
I'm talking about subconscious effects. You claim they don't exist. That is where we differ in opinion.
Try taking the Implicit Association Test (http://implicit.harvard.org). The test gauges implicit biases on a lot of subjects (including females and careers, white v. black, Americaness of asians v. europeans, etc). I don't consider myself a sexist, but I just bombed that test - my brain more easily associates males with career and females with family.
I also recommend Blink by Malcom Gladwell (he talks about the Implicit Association Test and many other fascinating subjects).
No one tells their kid to be racist or sexist or homophobic. Those are all bad things in our society. But people turn out that way without ever consciously deciding to. The kind of damage I'm talking about isn't the kind that you make a decision about one day. It's all of those girls growing up and doubting themselves. People don't decide to doubt. And maybe the Bible is only a very small part of this problem, but it's one that's been bothering me lately.
Churches are still denying jobs to people based on their sex! How is this acceptable in a country where that is illegal for every other type of organization??
Not only that, but we (you and I and everybody else) pay lots of money for them to be exempt from taxes. So, as a society, we're allowing churches to discriminate in hiring and giving them tax breaks for it! Only in America.
Oh, and on the choice between A and B, it's a no-brainer. B.
Ben,
Yeah sometimes I try to avoid thinking about it because I find it depressing. But then other times I can do nothing but smirk because we are not the only ones who have figured this out... look at scientology. Is that not a sarcastic joke or what!? L. Ron himself made the point that religions are an easy way to get rich. :)
Michelle
How do we decide what to keep and what to throw away? If we ourselves can decide what is good and bad about the bible, then why should we need a bible at all?
Secondly, the bible explicitly says, "male and female he created them". The problem isn't an appropriate understanding of the bible, but the misconceptions of those who would be better served actually reading the thing.
Christianity affirms two things, first that men and women are equal in value, and secondly that they are different from one another. It doesn't say that two things must be qualitatively equal in order to be quantitatively equal. It would be like saying that a litre of water is more when it's in a glass instead of a plastic cup. Men and women are different, but those differences do not lead to one being superieor to the others.
Yes, Christianity is radical because it challenges our modern notions, but there has never been an age where Christianity has not been provocative.
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