Debating religious beliefs is a lost cause. People believe what they believe. Period. Not only that, they affix so much of their identity to their religion of choice that to debate or question any part of it feels to them like you’re questioning their validity as a person.
So, I realize I’m venturing into dangerous waters here, talking about sexism in religion, but I think the discussion is one we need to have.
What We’ve Been Taught
So much of what we’ve been taught our entire religious lives has come from such a sexist, misogynistic, male-centered place and perspective that we often fail to see how those views impact our positions on education, relationships, sports, parenting, politics and more.
As a Christian minister, I can only speak to this issue from a Christian perspective. That’s not to say sexism doesn’t exist in other faith systems. I would dare say, that anywhere you find men who have held an upper hand in society, whatever religion is at play there will reflect a male-dominant perspective.
My students are always amazed or taken aback when I point out that the Book of Genesis contains two creation stories: the second (Genesis 2:8-24), where God creates all things, then creates “man” and “woman” afterward.
In the first creation story (Genesis 1:1-28), God makes male and female simultaneously. But that version gets far less play in most churches because it doesn’t underscore the male-dominated narrative that men were created to be the leaders and the head, and women the helpmates.
I won’t jump into the centuries-old misread of “helpmate.” The legendary Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright does a far better job than I ever could in pointing out how that scripture was never intended to give women second-class status in relationships or in society.
But neither does the first creation story; the one that opens up the Bible. After God creates the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, and then creates “man,” scripture says God then takes a rib from Adam to create woman. Another rabbit hole I’ll let you travel down yourself is about the name “Adam,” which literally translates to mean “humankind.”
Ribs
Anyway, the word used in Genesis that Bible translators have presented to us as “rib,” (tsela) actually is translated to mean something else everywhere else that it’s found in the Bible. Everywhere else in scripture “Tslea” or “sela” is translated to mean “side” or “half,” as in “equal.”
However, we’ve built entire generations and societies upon the belief that women are supposed to be submissive followers of men based on the way these scriptures have been preached to us for eons. What I find interesting is that in Blackworld, many of us claim to believe this view, while seeing and experiencing in real-time and with our own eyes women running everything – the church, the family, the household – all while preaching or “believing” something else.
Where am I going with all this? Again, I’m not here to debate your spiritual positions or question your faith. That’s a waste of time. But I felt it important to at least bring up this topic in the wake of seeing social media posts from a brother or two saying they’ll never vote for Kamala Harris for president because women aren’t supposed to lead.
Women-Bashing
Various posts from a brother or two have said “we” are being “disobedient to God,” “living in sin” and “mentally ill” for working to elect Harris rather than Trump. And these posts all tied their reasoning and logic back to various scriptures that focus on the “disobedience’ of women (and the “disobedience” of men for allowing their women to lead). They all trace the thesis of their argument back to their position that it was “Eve” (woman) whose “disobedience” messed everything up for humanity.
Geez. With all this women-bashing and anti-women rhetoric you’d think God was a MAGA Republican who believes men know better than women what’s best for women’s bodies and health concerns.
And that’s really my point. We’ve let a solidly male-chauvinist read of religion impact our political choices to the point where some of us are justifying not voting for the sister (Kamala Harris) and instead voting for the person who has disrespected Black people, women, Latinos, immigrants of all colors except white, the differently abled, U.S. veterans, the Constitution, the rule of law, and God.
If the God you serve wants you supporting the person who treats everyone but himself in an ungodly fashion, nothing I say is going to make a bit of difference to you. But if you believe God, whether you call God Jehovah, Allah, Shango, Oludomare, etc., created all humanity equal; and if you recognize that there’s no human life on this planet without “the woman;” and if you want a world where your mothers, sisters, daughters, aunties, have all the rights and opportunities and protections and supports afforded any other human; then politically, you just might want to think about which candidates (up and down the ballot) have the best interests of all God’s children atop their agenda… and which ones don’t.
