In religion, women are second-class.

[Dancing David]

My wife Bonnie and I were talking about religion in general, and she brought up the point that it isn't only in the Abrahamic religions that put women in second place. The same is true for Hinduism, Confucianism, probably Taoism and posibly Buddhism. Does anyone have any ideas on this?

Might i suggest the disorganised religion Wicca?

 

[Darat]

Might i suggest the disorganised religion Wicca?

That also seems to support my speculations - wicca is a new religion and what do we find? It treats women as equals (at least) just like the culture it has arisen in.

 

[Beerina]

The burqas supports what I was saying, the burqas although adopted by some strands if Islam is really a cultural phenomenon that has been adopted by the religious and their religion.

That in some places it's illegal to go without also puts the lie to the real nature of it.

 

[Hallo Alfie]

I heard about a woman that went and saw her spiritual guide (I will leave the specific religion out of the story, lest I harm the innocent). Let's call her Judy.
Anyway Judy's husband (we will call him Punch) was apparently abusive, had anger management problems and was a suspected alcoholic.

Judy complained to her guide that she was getting beaten black and blue regularly by Punch, and showed the evidence to support it.

Her advisor thought about this for a while and recommended camomile tea. Not for him, but for her.
"Before anything else: take it every time he comes home, as soon as he wakes etc, and gargle it. Gargle and gargle and gargle, when you are done gargling, gargle some more".

After two weeks Judy returned to her guide filled with joy and gratitude and said:

"It works!
I don't know how or why, but it works!
He hasn't so much as laid a glove in me in a fortnight - in fact he has stopped drinking, hasn't yelled the whole fortnight, he is home a lot more, he smiles and we made love the other night that had more passion that we have shared in years.

Tell me, what is the secret, I don't understand how?"

The guide responded,
"It's amazing to see what can happen when a woman stops talking".

 

[Fiona]

A while ago we had an exchange about this type of humour: I raised it as an example of the kind of thing we had to put up with in the 1950's. Is Melbourne in a time warp, or what?

 

[commandlinegamer]

A while ago we had an exchange about this type of humour: I raised it as an example of the kind of thing we had to put up with in the 1950's. Is Melbourne in a time warp, or what?

Radio 4's comedy half-hour at 6.30 had a similar joke tonight. Sexism is alive and well in the UK also.

 

[Fiona]

Oh I know, Commandlinegamer: it is alive and well everywhere. But this thread is about sexism specifically in relation to religion: I thought the specific instance ironic in that context

 

[Hallo Alfie]

Hence the joke.

Seems the irony is lost on some.

No offence intended Fiona, but humour does not discriminate against any topic; all are fair game.

 

[Fiona]

Casual insult does not discriminate either. I usually tell the difference because one is funny and one is not. I need to revise my criteria, clearly

 

[Hallo Alfie]

Ah well.
I apologised and do so again - no insult intended - and certainly not personally.
As opposed to your first personal crack re the 1950s and Melbourne huh? - which btw I thought was pretty funny.

A joke is a joke, and depending on the topic, some like them and some don't. It usually/often depends on ones sensitivities. It might also depend on how seriously one likes to take a particular subject.

I have had debates about jokes with Jews about Hitler and the holocaust.
With AGW adherents on jokes about climate change.
With the alocoholics about their alcoholism.
With women about sexism.
With blondes about blond jokes
With men about men jokes
With gays and gay jokes
And with anyone about Alfie jokes (i.e. my foibles)
And the list goes on and on.

Oddly enough, it is often not the 'targets' of the jokes that are most offended it is the self appointed intelligentsia that are - I suspect they are too serious for their own good.

Most people accept them for what they are - see themselves or others in them and laugh (or not) and move on.
Like I say, it depends on ones sensitivities.

And again, I mean no personal offence, nor to women in general.

btw, I reckon some will have found it funny. Each to their own.

 

[Tricky]

That also seems to support my speculations - wicca is a new religion and what do we find? It treats women as equals (at least) just like the culture it has arisen in.

The Hades it does. It treats women as vast superiors. Some of them refer to men as "sperm donors".

 

[arthwollipot]

That also seems to support my speculations - wicca is a new religion and what do we find? It treats women as equals (at least) just like the culture it has arisen in.

Oh, but Wicca is the oldest religion. It predates all of the Abrahamic ones. Or so I'm told.

The Hades it does. It treats women as vast superiors. Some of them refer to men as "sperm donors".

Not true. Some radical, frothing-at-the-mouth feminists do happen to be Wicca, but that's like saying that Fred Phelps is representative of Christianity.

Wicca recognises and requires both God and Goddess. Wiccan philosophy holds both the masculine and the feminine as equal partners in the universe. A Wiccan priest and priestess are required to undergo the Great Rite at the same time... for reasons that should be, um, obvious.

 

[KingMerv00]

My wife Bonnie and I were talking about religion in general, and she brought up the point that it isn't only in the Abrahamic religions that put women in second place. The same is true for Hinduism, Confucianism, probably Taoism and posibly Buddhism. Does anyone have any ideas on this?

Testosterone.

 

[TimCallahan]

Oh, but Wicca is the oldest religion. It predates all of the Abrahamic ones. Or so I'm told. . . .

Well, yes and no. Much of neo-Paganism has had to be invented (or possibly reinvented) because so much ws lost through not having been written down by the practitioners and by having been actively suppressed by later organized rleigion. Thus, much of modern Wicca is going to bear the imprint of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Still, old religions can often survive sub rosa within the structure of the new dominant rleigion. Bedouin women, officially Muslim, still pray to tree goddesses for fertility.

 

[arthwollipot]

Well, yes and no. Much of neo-Paganism has had to be invented (or possibly reinvented) because so much ws lost through not having been written down by the practitioners and by having been actively suppressed by later organized rleigion. Thus, much of modern Wicca is going to bear the imprint of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Still, old religions can often survive sub rosa within the structure of the new dominant rleigion. Bedouin women, officially Muslim, still pray to tree goddesses for fertility.

Yeah. Perhaps I should have used a smiley. The claim I've heard from Wiccans is that their tradition is directly descended from the ancient pre-Abrahamic religions, a claim which is clearly bunk. Modern Wicca was almost entirely made up in the 1950s.

 

[Ethnikos]

I go along with the right brain/left brain theory, that says it was the evolution of religion to a book form that changed women's status, where they were dominant while it was still basically an oral tradition.
Women had a much more important role in the actual historical religion, more than are spoken of in the written form of that same history that we have had passed down to us today, meaning we are living a fraud by thinking only what is written is true.

 

[Darat]

Oh, but Wicca is the oldest religion. It predates all of the Abrahamic ones. Or so I'm told.

...snip...

The believers claim historical antecedents for it however that does not mean it isn't a new religion.

ETA: Duh - sorry blame it on posting after only the first cup of The TEA.

 

[Wolfman]

I'd generally agree with Darat in regards to culture shaping the religion. Things like wearing burquas, or female genital mutilation...these are things done in the name of religion, but that were actually introduced as a result of cultural beliefs (and then religion was used to justify/enforce them). Same way that when our culture believed slavery to be good, Christians used the Bible to justify it; and when our culture believed slavery to be bad, Christians used the Bible to condemn it.

Now, to the OP -- many of you are familiar with my work with the Mosuo, a matriarchal minority group in China. In the Mosuo culture, the women really are the leaders...they lead the house, own the property, make the decisions, etc. (As one Mosuo man said to me, "Men have the muscles...men's work is work that takes muscles. Women have the brains...women's work is work that takes brains")

And their religion reflects this. It is a polytheist religion, but the predominant god is a female entity; and much of the religious teachings focus on the 'sanctity' of womanhood (needless to say, they are becoming something of a 'holy grail' for feminist groups).

Ironically, despite all of this, only men can be 'priests' of this religion...and it is passed from father to son. The reason for this is rather interesting. The Mosuo were not always a purely matriarchal culture -- they had an upper and lower class, on a feudal system, where a rich minority owned all the land, and the peasant majority were their labor. Within that system, the upper class had a patriarchal system, while the lower class had a matriarchal system.

When the Communists took over in China, they destroyed all feudal practices...so the Mosuo "upper class' essentially disappeared overnight. Thus, today, the Mosuo are almost entirely matriarchal.

But the Mosuo priests -- called "Daba" -- were originally a part of the upper class, and although the rest of the patriarchal aspect of the culture disappeared, they retained a patriarchal system for passing on their knowledge.

It creates a rather unique situation. The Mosuo are, so far as I'm aware, the only culture in the world where a matriarchal system has essentially prevailed over a patriarchal one; and certainly, there's a great deal of respect for women, and a fairly high level of equality (in fact, children under 14 are largely raised with little gender differentiation, dressing the same and having the same responsibilities).

Yet their religion, which focuses on femininity and female goddesses, is led exclusively by men.

One of the many reasons the Mosuo continue to fascinate me

 

[KingMerv00]

I go along with the right brain/left brain theory, that says it was the evolution of religion to a book form that changed women's status, where they were dominant while it was still basically an oral tradition.
Women had a much more important role in the actual historical religion, more than are spoken of in the written form of that same history that we have had passed down to us today, meaning we are living a fraud by thinking only what is written is true.

I think the whole "left brain/right brain" thing is a myth.

 

[Ethnikos]

I think the whole "left brain/right brain" thing is a myth.

Or maybe like the Taliban murdering girls on their way to school.