Is sexism against the teachings of the bible?

Answer 1

One View

No, quite the contrary. The Bible, both new and old Testaments, is rife with sexism and blatant misogyny. However, this topic is so broad and covers so many church fathers and time periods that it can only be addressed briefly.

According to the old and new Testaments a woman is inferior to a man. The bible tradition commences with woman being created from man as his helper. That was considered her main role in life along with producing children. Right at the gate she was condemned for all eternity under the thin guise of the story of Adam and Eve in which Eve is the cause of the fall of mankind for disobeying God, and being a bad influence on her submissive mate, by seeking of the tree of knowledge. Of course, modern thinkers do not see the sin in seeking knowledge. She is rather applauded for being the one.

Women were told to submit to their husbands since they were considered physically, socially, intellectually and morally inferior to men. The men in the Old Testament seemed especially contemptuous of women and considered them to be unclean for many long periods of time during their childbearing years and insisted on ritual baths before marriage. Men were allowed to have multiple wives and a brother could take his brother's wife if he died while married. Orthodox men would not even associate with women who were not their wives. Women were kept separate and in the background in the synagogues.

Jesus was different and he angered his apostles and other male followers by welcoming women into his sphere and apparently trying to reform the old, harsh treatment of women by the Jews. He welcomed women as followers and used their homes as meeting places in which to teach. However, that acceptance was short lived, the leading men of the New Testament did all in their power to suppress women, even when they had been welcomed by Jesus. By the second and third centuries CE early church fathers had ruled that women should keep silent and go home and pray, banishing them from active engagement with the early church and from any sort of teaching.

The teachings and theological writings of Paul, Tertullian, Jerome, Augustine, Acquinas- all contain contradictions regarding women, revealing their own ambivalence and inability to come to terms with the other half of the human race. However, all taught the inferiority of women and their influence still informs many religious denominations and the world at large today, affecting the lives of women everywhere.