Sexism And The Bible--fork

[Evangetholic]

Hasan says:

 

"At least he didn't say women should find salvation by staying home and having kids.  He's still less sexist than the Bible."

 

I'm the he. You are wrong in your belief that the Bible is sexist. The Bible elevates motherhood for women, but it also elevates fatherhood for men. It elevates marriage. The breeding and begetting of a priestly nation for the sake of God's good name.

 

If we as Christians have sometimes failed see women as much more than near occasions of sin and as outlets that men can use to licitly exercise their sexual desires than this is our failing. Not the failing of the Holy Bible.

 

Some sections of the Bible that seem sexist to modern eyes are either plainly directed at specific situations "let your women be silent in church" is one of these. Others such as St Peter's "weaker vessel" line teach an eternal truth in words that probably wouldn't be chosen in the twenty-first century.

 

The Bible isn't sexist it just recognizes that boys and girls are not, and I have this on good authority after careful research of anatomy, the same thing, but even with that "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:8

 

[mortify]

It's probably sexist to say men have more testosterone than women

[4588686]

Some sections of the Bible that seem sexist to modern eyes are either plainly directed at specific situations "let your women be silent in church" is one of these. Others such as St Peter's "weaker vessel" line teach an eternal truth in words that probably wouldn't be chosen in the twenty-first century.

 

 

What is what?  What is the non-sexist eternal truth that is being taught in un politically correct language?  What eternal truth is St. Paul teaching here:

 

¹¹ A woman^[a] should learn in quietness and full submission. ¹² I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;^[b] she must be quiet. ¹³ For Adam was formed first, then Eve.¹⁴ And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. ¹⁵ But women^[c] will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

 

 

 

That doesn't strike me as very esoteric.  It's pretty straightforward.  And the subservient role that women were overwhelmingly confined to for most of Christian history attests to this.  

[Nihil Obstat]

It's probably sexist to say men have more testosterone than women

Men have more testosterone than women.

[r2Dtoo]

Men have more testosterone than women.

So explain FP then, huh?

[the171]

It's probably sexist to say men have more testosterone than women

That isn't sexist, but you definitely are, you troll.

[Nihil Obstat]

So explain FP then, huh?

FP's female equivalent would be an archetypical example of feminine grace and mannerism. :|

[Evangetholic]

Stop picking on FP. He reminds me of myself and is un enfant terrible in the very best sense.

 

Hasan. I have a Master's Medieval History (very useful I teach online classes for peanuts, literal peanuts). I disagree with your characterization of the History of the Christian wordl. But I'm exhausted of debate. Give me some time to think. I'd actually offer Christian history as a refutation of the reading you are giving to the verse you've offered and various others like it.

[mortify]

That isn't sexist, but you definitely are, you troll.

 

:pinch:

 

I love you too

[Evangetholic]

What's going on between the two of you? She called you a penis earlier (less offensive than the word actually chosen).

[mortify]

What's going on between the two of you? She called you a penis earlier (less offensive than the word actually chosen).

 

She's got a crush on me is all, it's cool though, I'm used to it

[4588686]

Stop picking on FP. He reminds me of myself and is un enfant terrible in the very best sense.

 

Hasan. I have a Master's Medieval History (very useful I teach online classes for peanuts, literal peanuts). I disagree with your characterization of the History of the Christian wordl. But I'm exhausted of debate. Give me some time to think. I'd actually offer Christian history as a refutation of the reading you are giving to the verse you've offered and various others like it.

 

 

So women were equal to men in the Church?  How many female Pope's have there been?  Bishops?  Cardinals?  

[Evangetholic]

How many men have given birth to children? Been someone's wife? Been a nun? An abbess?

 

Women and men do not need to experience sameness for their to be equality. Feminism (and I know some women here identify with this word) tries to make things smaller and more sterile than they are. Woman from the beginning, with exceptions of course, has been open, she's been receptive. She's soft where a man is hard. She goes in where he goes out. She moves slowly and gracefully where he's apt to lumber, run, fall, etc. She's ferocious and aggressive in places where man will be apt compromise.  She's willing to yield where man will be aggressive and violent. Men can nurture and in fact must nurture, but women are (or at least seem to me) by the design of their very bodies made to take small, weak things in and make them safe and comfortable.

 

This sounds hollow even to me, but everything about women seems donative to me. It seems like "lay down your life and die." The spaces that women have moved in, the one's that they've historically dominated seem to me to be the normal field for heroism. laying down the life in childbearing. Being the first safe place for children who are born into a world that is dangerous and frightening. Men do not tend to behave, honestly, in ways that are donative--ways that demonstrate dying to self and laying down one's life in sacrifice. Men's donative experiences are primarily in married sexuality, fatherhood, or in the priesthood--but apart from these expressions lived rightly male behaviors seem dangerous, coarse, destructive, and largely aimless (but then again they aren't aimless they are even in their disorderedness seeking after the self-giving experiences that seem so fundamental to the way that women, particularly holy women live even in small and mundane things). There's something very creepy (for lack of a better word) in my opinion about a culture that's traveling towards the consensus that there are no fundamental (and by that I mean God-given and good) differences between men and women.

 

Women themselves seem to me to be shown in lived experience, the Bible, Tradition, history, etc. to be more interesting, more mysterious, more caring, more spiritual than men are generally. I think part of the reason that Jesus came as a baby was to show how sanctified and utterly sacred motherhood and domesticity are; but I think part of the reason He came as a male and limited the priesthood to males was to provide men with an example of how to be self giving and how to renounce ourselves and our desires in some of the ways that women, even women who aren't godly do naturally. I think it takes the supernatural to give men the qualities many women seem to possess almost effortlessly. 

 

In the daily life of the humans being a Pope or an ordained priest seems to me to be a generally less important and influential position than being a mother (this isn't intended to limit women exclusively to motherhood). 

 

None of this is quite intended to be misandrist (manliness and testosterone have certain redeeming traits--I just can't think of one at the moment :p ) or to elevate woman to some impossibly perfect position she can never actually live up to so please no one read it like that. It's also not intended to limit woman too motherhood. I just think that motherhood is a very powerful metaphor for everything about every woman I've known.

[Evangetholic]

Pope Pius XI said this in Casti Connubii:

 

“False liberty and unnatural equality [in authority] with the husband
is to the detriment of the woman herself, for if the woman descends
from her truly regal throne to which she has been raised within the
walls of the home by means of the gospel, she will soon be reduced to
the old state of slavery (if not in appearance, certainly in reality)
and become as among the pagans the mere instrument of man.”

 

I think this last part, the part I've put in "bold" describes the current situation of women in secular culture. Men and women scream and real for things that to me only serve the interests of coddled, oversexed young males. Woman is free from all of that oppressive, Victorian, submissiveness to husband and she's left with what exactly? The right to be used by coarse men, the right to be grabbed, cat-called, elbowed out of the way, pressured into killing her own child, looked at, spoken to with the same roughness men have always spoken to one another with, forced to stand while men sit, etc. etc. so on and so forth.

[4588686]

How many men have given birth to children? Been someone's wife? Been a nun? An abbess?

Being somebody's wife isn't a power relation like being a Bishop in relation to a layperson or Priest within his jurisdiction.

None of this is quite intended to be misandrist (manliness and testosterone have certain redeeming traits--I just can't think of one at the moment :p ) or to elevate woman to some impossibly perfect position she can never actually live up to so please no one read it like that. It's also not intended to limit woman too motherhood. I just think that motherhood is a very powerful metaphor for everything about every woman I've known.

That's exactly what you are doing. It's the same poo that I hear all the time from fundamentalists, have read in the Taliban's constitution, and read in anti-suffragist tracts. Women are special and fluffy and therefore the need to be kept firmly in a position of subordination errrr excuse me, it's not subordination it's just a 'different' position that happens to always lead to women being in a position of inferior power next to men. Funny how that works.

Also, FYI, if something isn't the same than it is by definition not equal. That's what equal means. Edited March 4, 2013 by Hasan