Are Judaism and Christianity just as sexist as Islam?

Answer 1

Answer 1

I would have to say no. Not being a Jew I cannot entirely answer for them but from a biblical point of view, Christ is the one who raised women up. He says there is neither Jew nor Greek male nor female ... in other words we are equal, none is better than the other. However the teaching, which many do not like or misunderstand, is that while men and women are equal they have different roles to play. As God the Father is the head of Christ, and Christ is the head of the husband so the husband is the head of the wife. As Christ is not less valuable or less intelligent than God the Father neither are we to assume that the wife has less value than the husband. In fact the Bible says that the husband is to LOVE his wife AS Christ loved the church and gave His life for it. That would mean that a husband is to see his wife as just as important , precious and valuable to him as all of the believers are to Christ. That does not seem sexist to me.

Answer 2

There are several problems with this question as it focuses on generalizations. Islam is one of the most diverse religions in the world. Some Muslims support radical feminism such as Irshad Manji and others support a universally repressive Caliphate such as Anjam Choudry. The first issue, therefore is the "sexistness of Islam", i.e. how sexist is it. Christianity is also a diverse religion. There are relatively few commonalities between Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Protestantism, Mormonism, and the Eastern Churches and each of them have divergent opinions about the nature of women and their rights and privileges. Judaism also has numerous divergent perspectives that range from Reconstructionism to Hasidism and assert few of the same beliefs, especially as regards women.

If we assume for a moment that the religious diversity issue did not exist (which it does), what actually IS considered sexist varies from person to person and culture to culture. Most religions operating in the United States endorse women having the right to work and to make their own money (including the more conservative branches of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). However, both Hinduism and Islam in rural India have major issues with women working irrespective of religion. As concerns individual preferences, many women in France wear the niqab and see it as a traditional link to their home and a sign of reverence for God above. Most Frenchmen see it as repressive face-covering from a backwards Arab culture. The former would consider the niqab focusing and critical while the latter would see it as sexist.

Western culture tends to consider anything short of women having a historically male role to be sexist. The more conservative branches of Judaism and Christianity believe that men and women are different and equal, not the same and equal. This causes many Westerners to envision segregation. However, women have rights that men do not have and vice versa. It is a balancing, not an overpowering or unifying functions. The more liberal branches of each tend to afford the same rights as understood in a Western context.

A female Orthodox Jewish friend of mine once quipped, "I am not depressed, repressed, or oppressed, but incensed that everybody thinks I am because I wear a wig."