Why_Men,_Not_Religion,_Reduced_Women_to_Second-Class_Citizens.

Misogyny, the hatred of women, is as old as society. It is found in the first story of mankind, that of Adam and Eve in which Eve sinned by eating of the forbidden fruit, and then persuaded Adam to do the same. As a punishment God expelled them from the Garden of Eden and condemned Adam to work hard for the rest of his life, and for Eve and all women after to suffer great pain in child birth. It is because of this story that religious men have justified their own misogyny. They either point to the fact that Adam was created first and must therefore be superior to Eve, or to Eve’s weak character that made her give in to temptation. However, as I will show, misogyny is not based on religion but men used religion to justify their misogyny and their persecution of women. The story of Adam and Eve is part of the Torah, the Bible and the Koran, and is therefore regarded as part of these religions. Some writers, such as Celia Kitzinger, see it as a myth created by the founding fathers of the great religions in order to take away power from women. Before Judaism, says Kitzinger, women were seen as goddesses who had the miraculous power to reproduce, a process often symbolized by a serpent who had the ability to shed their skin, or be “reborn.” The church fathers, alarmed by women’s sexuality, turned this goddess of fertility into “a shameful sinner” (Kitzinger1) who caused all women after her to suffer in childbirth. Therefore, according to Kitzinger, the church fathers were not interpreting the Holy Books correctly but “expressing their disgust at women’s bodies” (Kitzinger2), at the same time taking women’s power away so they would be able to control them more effectively. Karen Armstrong agrees with Kitzinger, stating that when the “axial faiths” took over and also the great religions established, women lost their status and prestige in the community (Amstrong1). Armstrong does not believe that the great religions originally discriminated against women but that the men who built on the foundations laid by the prophets “hijacked” the religions for their own political purposes (Amstrong2). Actually, men need women in terms of variable reasons. For example, to have sex with their wives or to expect care from their mothers certainly, although as St. Augustine warned, no matter whether a woman was a wife or even a mother, “It is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in every woman” (Kitzinger5). However, men have always wanted to abuse the myth of Adam and Eve. Since, they would like to maintain their patriarchy. Consequently, women were sacrificed in order for men’s political purposes to achieve their goals. Both Kitzinger and Armstrong suggest that men seized power from women for many reasons but none of them were religious in nature. Kitzinger, for example, looks at the problem men have of establishing “gender identity” (Kitzinger4). Psychoanalysts suggest that men’s gender identity is very fragile because, within typical child-rearing practices, girls can identify with their primary care-taker while boys have to separate themselves from their mother in order to achieve and assert their masculinity.(Kitzinger5). Men don’t want to give any advantage to women. They want to be always superior one so they want to make women inferior one. To put in another way, the roots of hatred came from men’s own ‘sensitive’ identities by instinct and unbearably. After the great religions were well established, men treated women as second class citizen in the society as if it was according to the religious sources; however, this interpretation of the Adam and Eve myth contradicts the way in which the prophets Mohammed and Jesus regarded women. There are times when men and women should be separated in religious practices. However, that would be a practical decision, not a religious one, and there is no similar reason for not permitting women to become imams. Armstrong says that in the ancient world, women “were regarded as worthy representatives of the divine” (Amstrong1), but that within a few centuries of the religions’ formation, they had been pushed out of the Church and all religious houses are now “all-male clubs that rigorously exclude women” (Armstrong 2). Religion has always been controlled by men so they passed on the information whatever they want. Essentially, all the clues demonstrate that by passing time oppression of women wasn’t prevented because of the big fake which is named as ‘misogyny’ by men. Although women are not guilty, they have been deprived of religion which is their essential right. So, it can facilitate only male’s reaching their purposes, not thinking about women. As I have shown, patriarchy had many reasons for wanting to take power away from women in the early days of the axial faiths. Men wanted to derive benefit from women by using religious sources with inaccurate information. Also both Kitzinger and Armstrong suggest that men seized power from women for political issues. When the actual teachings of the prophets are considered, however, the church fathers are expressing not religious beliefs but their own misogyny. Their attitude is absolutely wrong but they are doing such expressions in order to lessen the dangerous effects of their fear of women because women have very powerful trump which is called ‘sex power’. In briefly, it is a shame that even in our times such beliefs are common, therefore, people should wake-up this harmful dream immediately and then they should see the truths. Works Cited Armstrong, Karen. “The Eve of Destruction”(The Guardian). Thursday January 15, 2004 Kitzinger, Celia. “The Genesis of Misogyny”( The New Internationalist) issue 212 - October 1990 http://www.newint.org/issue212/hate.htm