Discrimination
E. Specific Issues - Sexism
- Introduction
- Have women really be 'oppressed'?
- Role differentiation does not entail negative discrimination?
- Evidence of women's continuing experience of negative discrimination
- The common criticism that religion promotes and reinforces an inferior status for women
- Christian influence and perspective
E5 a) Introduction
The subservient status of women relative to men has only come to be commonly remarked in the course of the last fifty years. Yet it is a world-wide phenomenon, which has predominated across both continents and centuries.
E5 b) Have women really be 'oppressed'?
Claims to the contrary can be made in three different respects
- Throughout the centuries, there are many examples of strong women who have gained positions of individual leadership and regard, commanding and admired by both men and women. However, they have been exceptions to the otherwise proven rule.
- There may have been tribal groups and other social groups, in which the position of women has been superior to that of men. These have been trawled by cultural anthropologists or projected in theoretical constructs of the prehistory of social evolution. But again, they have been exceptional in contrast to the predominant pattern.
- More telling is the observation that women may have actually been more powerful than overt status has indicated. In many instances, they may actually have wielded the greater power within personal and family relationships, even when men have been supposing otherwise. Indeed, rights of inheritance and succession, as also discretion in matters of marriage and divorce, sometimes do show some regard in this direction. Generally , speaking, however, women's power base is less formally demonstrable.
E5 c) Role differentiation does not entail negative discrimination?
A further qualification is often made by drawing a distinction between role difference and actual status. It is claimed that a community may distinguish between certain roles as more appropriate for men than for women, and vice versa. In one setting the women will be the carers and queens of the kitchen, and in another the hunter gatherers. Neither will be superior to the other, just different. Biology and practicality have determined that, more often than not, women are the ones who tend the children and rule the home, while men are the rovers and revenue generators. In terms of ontology, however, that does not entail any lesser status for one role than another.
This is quite a persuasive argument. It may indeed be true that no lesser status is necessarily entailed in all circumstances which involve gender-based role differentiation. However, where the woman or man wishes to change from a preponderant role, but is denied this by convention or other authority, the question arises: is some gender-based self-interest at work here?
E5 d) Evidence of women's continuing experience of negative discrimination
Documentation is extensive both nationally and internationally. It relates to many different spheres, including employment opportunities, pay and promotion prospects; domestic roles and responsibilities; political representation and power; and survival rates amongst baby girls following conception.
National and global evidence on inequalities
Continuing inequalities in UK workplace:
http://www.jobsite.ie/career/advice/women_at_work.html
UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against women + Division for Advancement of Women
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/index.html
UN Gateway on the Advancement and Empowerment of Women, including statistics for individual countries on each continent
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/
E5 e) The common criticism that religion promotes and reinforces an inferior status for women
This is a widely held view, and not only amongst feminists. Nor is it difficult to see why it is so popularly persuasive
- according to best available estimates, 80% of the world's population is associated with one or other of the world's religious world views, and without exception male figures predominate in each
- language used of God and 'the divine' is predominantly, though not exclusively male
- the 'scriptures' have been produced and protected by males
- the past and present leadership in each tradition is predominantly male
- women have often been portrayed as in some sense 'impure' or 'unclean'
No self-conscious plotting or manipulation need necessarily be involved in this position. It can easily be 'taken for granted reality' on the part of both men and women, and somehow 'natural'. Women might be the ones who would be most aware of its disadvantages for them, but to challenge in would be to challenge not only the established power of men, but the religious frame of reference which underwrites the present order.
New Internationist summary of complaint against patriarchal and scapegoating attitudes in religion towards women
http://www.newint.org/issue155/gateway.htm
E5 f) Christian influence and perspective
The criticisms made of religion generally can all be applied to attitudes which can be found in the Christian tradition. In each case, however, it is important to recognise that they overlook more powerful evidence which is expressly affirmative of women.
5f) i. The creation story: just a spare rib?
Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner." So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken." Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed. Genesis 2: 19-25
5f) ii. Jahweh beyond gender, but feminine qualities
5f) iii. Jesus enthusiast for women
5f) iv. Paul on women - mysogenist - but equally obligated wives to husbands and husbands to wives
5f) v. Opposition to female infanticide
5f) vi. Overruling of menstrual taboos, yet 'Churching of women'
A lingering tradition in England: excerpts from Keith Thomas Religion and the Decline of Magic
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/6586/thomas.html
Eastern Orthodoxy: 'Canons of Ritual Uncleanness and Women in the Orthodox Church' by Maria Fotini Polidoulis Kapsalis includes strong evidence of continuing tradition on part of women, but ignorance of parallel checks on male nocturnal emissions; also evidence of a more positive stance in canons from 2nd century.
A more positive rendering: 'The Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth, commonly called The Churching of Women' - historical overview by Natalie Knödel. University of Durham, 1995
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mikef/church.html
5f) vii. Just war protection
5f) viii. Witches
5f) ix. Church leadership Cath Prot Orth
5f) x. Patriarchy and religious language
Egs: Brian Wren Sally McVeigh/TeSelle
Oppression of women by Xian patriarchy
Forward In Faith statement on ordination of women and women bishops
http://www.forwardinfaith.com/about/uk_implications.html
Complaint against Roman Catholic reticence to permit women even to take on the liturgical role of 'washing the feet of the saints'