In religion, women are second-class.

[Hux]

Was it not the case that up until a few years ago, women had to veil themselves or wear a hat upon entering a church because they were considered a wee bit unworthy?

I know a woman who hels women in fundamentalist families. She says women are not treated with any kind of equality in that kind of community.

 

[Hallo Alfie]

Was it not the case that up until a few years ago, women had to veil themselves or wear a hat upon entering a church because they were considered a wee bit unworthy?

Frankly, I don't think it had anything to do with worthiness - more to do with putting on their Sunday best. Men needed to remove their hats when entering a room (or church), so if anything the men were the ones falling a bit short in the worthiness stakes.

I know a woman who hels women in fundamentalist families. She says women are not treated with any kind of equality in that kind of community.

I have a friend whose second cousins Aunty reckons that fundy families dogs get fed better than the women that feed them. They must all be so oppressed - we really should do something.

 

[CriticalSock]

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

The Taliban go to school? As a group? With Osama bin Laden leading them down the road in a crocodile, clutching their little Taliban lunchboxes (containing two sandwiches, an apple and a small bar of C4 explosive)??

 

[Darat]

Was it not the case that up until a few years ago, women had to veil themselves or wear a hat upon entering a church because they were considered a wee bit unworthy?

...snip...

I know that was true for RC and High Anglican churches where I was brought up - the women would make sure their heads were covered, even if only with a head-scarf. The men didn't have to.

 

[CriticalSock]

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".

Alfie, I agree that any group or part of society is fair game for a joke. The problem is, the key element of the joke above is "Women talk too much." with a subtext of "it's ok to beat up a woman who talks too much."

That's just not funny.

An 80-year-old man went to his doctor for his quarterly check-up.

The doctor asked him how he was feeling and the 80-year-old said "Things are great and
I've never felt better. I now have a 20 year-old bride who is pregnant with my child. So what do you think
about that?"

The doctor considered his question for a minute and then began:

"I have an older friend, much like you, who is an avid hunter and never misses a season. One day when he was
setting off hunting, he was in a bit of a hurry and accidentally picked up his walking cane instead of his gun.
As he neared a lake he came across a very large male beaver sitting at the waters edge. He realised he'd left his gun at home and so couldn't shoot the magnificent creature but out of habit he raised his cane, aimed it at the animal as if it were his favourite hunting rifle and went 'bang, bang'.

Miraculously, two shots rang out and the beaver fell over dead.

"Now, what do you think of that?" asked the doctor.

The 80-year-old said, "If you ask me, I'd say somebody else pumped a couple of rounds into that beaver."

The doctor replied, "My point exactly."

That's funny.

 

[Hallo Alfie]

Alfie, I agree that any group or part of society is fair game for a joke. The problem is, the key element of the joke above is "Women talk too much." with a subtext of "it's ok to beat up a woman who talks too much."

That's just not funny.

That's funny.

I agree - funny.

But it has a subtext that older men are incapable of sex and suffer from delusions of potency. Not to mention the fact that it supports (in general terms) the hunting and killing of cute woodland animals.
That part isn't funny.

 

[CriticalSock]

I agree - funny.

But it has a subtext that older men are incapable of sex and suffer from delusions of potency. Not to mention the fact that it supports (in general terms) the hunting and killing of cute woodland animals.
That part isn't funny.

Yeah, that's true. But I'll be an old impotent guy myself one day and cute woodland animals, by their very nature... are fair game!

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I think an important difference is that andropause is a scientifically proven fact. And although it's a much more gradual thing than menopause, 80 years old is so far off the end of the curve as to make it a certainty.

By contrast, the idea that women get beaten up only for talking too much... well, not only is it false on the general case, but it would have to start with a reasonably objective assessment of exactly how much talk _is_ the cutoff point to "too much talk", and why does it warrant a beating in any modern moral system. (Hey, maybe it turns out that I'm reasonably within my rights to beat up a co-worked who hasn't shut his mouth for two hours straight in a team meeting)

And, while still not warranting a beating, I'd like to see the same standards applied to both: if we were to agree that he's within his rights to punch her in the eye for talking 15 minutes about what she sees as problems, then it would only be fair if she too is allowed to give him a concussion by the time he ranted for two hours about his problems. (Trust me, some guys really do rant that much.) Not that I actually advocate such allowing violence, but lopsided standards just add more injustice to it.

The whole "ha ha, silly woman didn't realize she was beaten up only for talking too much" aspect is basically only comparable to the old guy joke if you subscribe to that kind of bigotry in the first place.

But again, on the more general case it's false anyway.

E.g., there are thousands of women beaten up, raped or even murdered for starting a divorce, for example, and many of those weren't even living together with the guy any more. It's hard to blame that on talking too much, when, really, she wasn't talking to him at all.

E.g., historically a major reason for beating up a wife has been to "correct" or "educate" her. In some places it was even allowed in the law. IIRC Italy had that law well into the second half of the 20'th century. But basically that says it all. She didn't cook the dinner you would have liked? Give her a beating to teach her. Ironed the wrong shirt for your big meeting with the boss? Beat her. She gets ideas like that you should help with the house chores? Time for some education again. Blaming that violence on just "women talk too much" is silly.

 

[Hux]

Frankly, I don't think it had anything to do with worthiness - more to do with putting on their Sunday best. Men needed to remove their hats when entering a room (or church), so if anything the men were the ones falling a bit short in the worthiness stakes.




I have a friend whose second cousins Aunty reckons that fundy families dogs get fed better than the women that feed them. They must all be so oppressed - we really should do something.

Never the less, my friend is real, Lives in canada and spends all her time, as an ex fundie, helping women in Fundie families who are considered nothing more than baby incubators and worthy of abuse. Thanks for your input.

 

[Hallo Alfie]

Never the less, my friend is real, Lives in canada and spends all her time, as an ex fundie, helping women in Fundie families who are considered nothing more than baby incubators and worthy of abuse. Thanks for your input.

Don't get me wrong - if your friend is right, then that is deplorable.

But my point is that what you put up is mere anecdotal hearsay, and from someone with an axe to grind to boot.
Moreover your comments were less than pointless, unless of course you simply wanted to vent some hatred or support (poorly) some personal opinion.

 

[jiggeryqua]

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?

'Probably' Taoism? Can you put a figure on that probability, given that Taoism says very little really, but within the slim text that it is founded on you will find repeated exhortations to 'honour the feminine'. The 'yin', as in that cute yin/yang black and white tadpoles thing the cool kids appropriated. You'll have seen that about, perhaps? It expresses the awareness that the world is not neatly divided on a binary basis as so many western-trained thinkers believe. The masculine contains the feminine, the feminine contains the masculine and both are necessary. Different, but equal.

Being of 'another' class needn't indicate 'second' class. In the UK, where the class system remains entrenched, there are women in the upper class, who are 'above' women in the middle class, who themselves look down on women of the working class - and all despise women of the 'underclass' (though I'll bet considerably less women than men find themselves consigned to the underclass). When upper class men stand as a lady (I use the word deliberately) enters the room, is that a behaviour that relegates the woman to a 'second' class? When middle class men removed their hats in the presence of women (and their bosses), was that insulting behaviour? When working class men took their pay packets home unopened and handed them over to their wives, were they handing control of the household accounts (including any 'pocket money' they might get) to a lesser creature?

When the Suffragettes gained the vote for some women, were the men and women who still didn't get the vote (and for whom the vote was not being demanded) 'third class'? The UK did used to have first, second and third class train carriages - none of them were segregated by sex.

Most religions do recognise that there is a reasonably obvious distinction between the two sexes (although many ancient cultures show evidence of recognising three 'genders', usually men, women and men-who-work-with-the-women, in some form). Where distinctions are recognised, they are generally reflected in law and custom. But different needn't be 'unequal'. I don't doubt that there are misogynists who will use their holy texts to justify their behaviour (likewise, racists, homophobes and so on). Unsurprisingly, I have also encountered misandrists using their recently 'revived' (ie, recently made up) religion of goddess worship to justify treating men as second-class citizens - and it wasn't the 'let me help you with that, allow me to open the door for you, after you, I'll stay on board while you get a lifeboat, who said that to you I'll punch him' kind of 'second class citizenship' - it was disenfranchisement from the consensus politics of the community and eviction and homelessness for some. Including the Taoist...

 

[Fiona]

Being of 'another' class needn't indicate 'second' class. In the UK, where the class system remains entrenched, there are women in the upper class, who are 'above' women in the middle class, who themselves look down on women of the working class - and all despise women of the 'underclass' (though I'll bet considerably less women than men find themselves consigned to the underclass). When upper class men stand as a lady (I use the word deliberately) enters the room, is that a behaviour that relegates the woman to a 'second' class? When middle class men removed their hats in the presence of women (and their bosses), was that insulting behaviour? When working class men took their pay packets home unopened and handed them over to their wives, were they handing control of the household accounts (including any 'pocket money' they might get) to a lesser creature?

Class is complicated and it is relevant IMO. Let me throw some more generalisation and speculation into the mix.

You are correct to say that higher class women are "above" lower class women in some dimensions. That says nothing at all about how they stand in relation to men of the same class, however. And that is not a simple matter. Upper and middle class women ( in the traditional situation; we are in the middle of a transition so it is harder to see what is happening now) were certainly inferior to men. They were chattels. They had no right to own property; no right to employment once married; rape within marriage was not recognised etc; and although you say that more men then women were consigned to the "underclass" I do not think you are correct. Women took their class (and their nationality and their name) from their husbands. If they were not married they took it from their fathers and/or other male relatives. An upper or middle class woman was "above" a working class woman in her own mind and in the mind of the broader society: but this was at a peculiar cost of dependence and subservience to her "owner"

Working class culture was quite different. Women in that class did work, and although they were subject to the same laws the absence of capital made a significant difference. The man's right was less real than theoretical. Working class women worked outside the home and therefore had income. Some areas depended on certain kinds of manufacturing which had relatively well paid jobs for skilled female workers. That financial opportunity tended to equalise their positions compared to that of higher class women and you can still see the legacy of that in places like Manchester and Hawick.

Of course the values of the wider society ( as defined by the upper classes) meant that generally speaking women's wage were lower. Thus the working class situation was a shadow of the higher class position but it had a little less substance. Although women had to take time out from work because they had children, the experience of having an income and of having skills which could command an income had its effect. But that is not all. The social structure of working class life was profoundly different. In these times of class confusion people often say the boundaries are blurred and so they are. But one definition of "working class" was quite interesting to me: it was said that the working class are "those who live near the wife's mother and are happy with that". It is glib but it does point to a real difference. In the middle and upper classes the woman joined the man's family: in working class areas the man more often joined the woman's. This was for very practical reasons and it is subtley recognised in all those jokes about mothers in law (almost exclusively from working class comedians from victorian music hall on; because they don't make sense in the context of higher classes though women's experience with their mothers in law were presumably at least as problematic if we are to judge from the indian experience).

The same thing is seen in your own example: there was an expectation that a man would support his family and that he would do so fairly. Thus " I woudn't like to go home to her with a broken pay" is another of those jokes which reflect that expectation (and at the same time bows in the direction of reality).

All of this seems to me to show that the working class woman was in many ways of higher status than her higher class counterparts. And all of this is to do with economics and not to do with gender differences per se. It really depends on what you consider important in thinking about these things: different focus produces different conclusions. Our traditional understanding is very largely informed by those who write the history and they are almost always from the middle and upper classes

I have really only touched on post industrial UK, but the picture is different again before that. In a feudal society most of the working class, men and women, are chattels and so the gender is less important in these terms. Similarly with slaves. But once again that is not true in the ruling class where the preservation and transfer of property is central.

I am necessarily using a broad brush because this topic is far too big, but what I am trying to say is that the interaction between class and gender is not monolithic even within one society at one time. Religion reflects the society it operates in: like the narrative of a whole society its main story is informed by the class structure; but also like that wider society, it has sub-texts.

"Separate but equal" does not have great track record, for very obvious reasons. I am surprised if you are using that as a justification for anything really, but if you wish to do that I think you will have to make a case which shows how and why that model produces equitable results. It is in fact my aspiration in a certain sense: but I cannot see a case in history where it has been any more than a fig leaf for oppression. I think that is not necessarily the outcome but for me avoiding that requires that the concept is not applied to an outgroup, but to all of us. Talking in terms of "an obvious difference" bodes ill for that reason

 

[jiggeryqua]

"Separate but equal" does not have great track record, for very obvious reasons. I am surprised if you are using that as a justification for anything really, but if you wish to do that I think you will have to make a case which shows how and why that model produces equitable results. It is in fact my aspiration in a certain sense: but I cannot see a case in history where it has been any more than a fig leaf for oppression. I think that is not necessarily the outcome but for me avoiding that requires that the concept is not applied to an outgroup, but to all of us. Talking in terms of "an obvious difference" bodes ill for that reason

Thank you for a most informative post. I appreciate that the reality of human existence is considerably more complicated than was presented in my post - which is in its turn considerably more complicated than the view of gender relations which is used by some women to justify a feud-like approach to contemporary gender relations. Another simple-minded thought of mine is that if men had so much power, why didn't we just tell women to like it or lump it? That's what power does - whoever holds it. It was how Mrs Thatcher dealt with the unions.

'Separate but equal' is an aspiration. I raised it in this context, as should have been clear, in response to an unsubtantiated 'probability' that Taoism treats women as 'second class' - my understanding of the Tao Te Ching is that it quite clearly, and repeatedly, states the equal value of men and women, and that at no point does it confer greater value to men.

ETA: I actually said 'Different but equal'. I have no interest in separatism (though the only case I've seen recently involved a forum with a women's section, in which men were barred from posting...apparantly because women are so weak-minded that the presence of a male's written words could be enough to bully them? I don't know what the justification was, I was banned without explanation for not being aware of where I was posting and then (provocatively) refusing to move to the back of the forum. Curiously, although some of the women posting there said I could stay, and none said they wanted me removed, a male moderator 'sorted me out' for them...and coincidentally the topic on that occasion was also 'women as second class citizens'. Separate changing rooms, separate toilets, these make some sense - as did gentlemen's clubs and working men's clubs...and the WI.

The 'obvious difference' between men and women is, well, obvious - even before a child can speak, or recognise faces, let alone make career or family choices, everyone will want to know whether it's a boy or a girl. 'Seed or seed bed', if you like (you may not like, nor am I particularly enamoured of it as an expression, but it is an essential difference, even though some men and women will be born with, or later lack, some of the signifying characteristics of their sex - for that matter, intersex babies are not particularly rare).

I know how ominous an essentialist view of gender can be - as I said, I used to live and work on a concensus community that is now 'Womens Country' (you may know the fantasy novel which was their bible, 'The Gate To Women's Country' by Sherri S. Tepper). Where men and women had equal power of veto, the women recognised that they also had the social power sufficient to seize all power. A couple in their 60s who had decided which tree to be buried under were evicted and made homeless. The Spanish anarchist gardener who doubled the ouput of our acre of organic veg was evicted - he called them 'fascists', and I don't think they use that term in Spain the way a British teenager might. The gentle Buddhist, recently returned from an extended trip to Nepal, was evicted because he was considered 'dangerous' - he didn't understand it, I didn't understand it, but he was a man, so the lie was easy to sell. I was 'dangerous' too, apparantly - although the children of the community quite often approached me for quasi-parental care while the new queen of our once equitable society neglected her son, who was visibly and verbally starving for her attention.

I was evicted - well, I guess I could have stayed...either by accepting that the biological accident of my birth made me a true second-class citizen, or by hardening myself to escalating verbal and social abuse. Believe me, if a group of women don't want you to be somewhere, you may as well leave. I ended up in a hostel for single homeless people - where there were 38 beds for males and 8 for females...which is why I'm willing to bet that women are consigned to the underclass considerably less often than men.

Something else the Tao says...'What you want to bring down must first be raised up'. If one wants to attack a group of people, one must first convince 'ones own' people with a simplistic view of the historic interplay between the two groups, preferably one which makes sure your people know without a doubt whose side they should be on, which leaves nobody a place between 'us' and 'them' to distance themselves from the fight and affords an apparant justification for the attack.

 

[CriticalSock]

I am necessarily using a broad brush because this topic is far too big, but what I am trying to say is that the interaction between class and gender is not monolithic even within one society at one time. Religion reflects the society it operates in: like the narrative of a whole society its main story is informed by the class structure; but also like that wider society, it has sub-texts.

I agree that it's not monolithic, in fact it had a thorough shaking up during World War 2 with middle and upper class women replacing men in the factories and on the farms (our current queen was a Land Girl!).

 

[Toke]

I Nial's saga (from Iceland) there is a divorce initiated by the woman and clear mentioning of women inheriting and owing land. It is not quite equality but I suspect that women's status went downhill with the appearance of christianity.

 

[AvalonXQ]

In my church, only men can hold positions of authority. On the other hand, only married men can hold positions of authority. In practice, the leaders' wives, who are "of one flesh" with their husbands, both lead and represent the women in a very real way. Most folks I've talked to in the church believe that this is deliberate and as God intended.
In our religion, men are the heads of each household. Having said that, I don't think I've ever seen a partnership as genuinely equal as my parents, who talk through everything and come to a genuine agreement (which doesn't mean either party gives in; it means they keep reasoning and acquiring and exchanging information until one party actually genuinely changes his or her mind). Of course, my parents are both unusually intelligent and open-minded people and each has remarkable respect for the other person's intelligence and judgment such that they REALLY LISTEN when the other one talks.
I was raised that, for a Christian, a position of authority was primarily a responsibility and NEVER an opportunity to "lord over" anyone else.

I think the problem is less with the existence of gender roles, and more with how those roles are abused.

 

[Fiona]

I Nial's saga (from Iceland) there is a divorce initiated by the woman and clear mentioning of women inheriting and owing land. It is not quite equality but I suspect that women's status went downhill with the appearance of christianity.

I tend to agree, and you can see a similar thing in celtic mythology (with the caveat that much is now mixed with christian re-writing so the original narrative is not so clear). Once again it seems to me that the physical conditions influence the economic arrangements and that, in turn, influences the gender relations. I am very open to correction on this because the history of the norse sagas and the time frames are unknown to me. But it is my impression that the lifestyle was similar to that in Scotland and Ireland. What I mean by that is that populations were not dense and the income was primarliy from crofting: a dependence on mixed farming and fishing ( and raiding when they could). Such a terrain tends to produce that kind of production and it has the side effect of removing men from the community for fairly extended periods (for fishing). So the continuity rests on the women who are less likely to travel because of pregnancy and children etc. This means that they are running the day to day affairs at least some of the tme so it is a little more difficult to portray them as incompetent.

In both Ireland and Scotland male leadership was still the norm, but that leadership was primarily military. One interesting feature is the lack of heredity in that role. One effect was to prevent the concentration of capital, and indeed it is clear from many of the stories that generosity was a prime requirement. Since transfer of power was not through birth there was no necessity to make chattels of women and paternity was not such an issue (it was important for personal reasons but the celtic world view does not have the same attitude to bastards as we see in more settled feudal states and reflected in the christian mythos).

You are probably correct that christianity had an effect in reducing the status of women: but I am not currently convinced that it was christianity per se: this is difficult to determine because the time line is long and variable in different parts of the UK: and presumably even more so in the scandinavian and icelandic regions. What is true is that christianity in the celtic lands was quite different for a long time because it adapted to the culture of the indigenous peoples. I have the impression that those differences persisted in terms of day to day practice, even after the standardisation agreed at the synod of whitby etc. One reason for that is that the church took over administrative arrangements from rome (as empire rather than church) and these were readily accepted in those places where there had been significant roman rule. That was not true of the celtic lands and I think not of iceland and scandinavia. So to attribute the difference to christianity may be partially true; but again I think it goes back to the mindset of the roman empire and it did not really make progress in those places where there was a different traditon until the economic situation altered with introduction of more familiar feudal arrangements and the concentration of land ownership and settled trade.

 

[Hokulele]

'Probably' Taoism? Can you put a figure on that probability, given that Taoism says very little really, but within the slim text that it is founded on you will find repeated exhortations to 'honour the feminine'. The 'yin', as in that cute yin/yang black and white tadpoles thing the cool kids appropriated. You'll have seen that about, perhaps? It expresses the awareness that the world is not neatly divided on a binary basis as so many western-trained thinkers believe. The masculine contains the feminine, the feminine contains the masculine and both are necessary. Different, but equal.

Which slim volume? There are other Taoist texts besides the Tao te Ching. And the yin/yang isn't quite so cute when you realize that all the "negative" forces are equated with the feminine (dark, low, cold) and all the "positive" forces are equated with the masculine (bright, high, warm). The point of Taoism is that there is good and bad, and the best path to follow is to balance them equally rather than being entirely yin or yang. So in a sense they are not equal in a value sense, but that they can balance each other out (and should) for best living.


ETA: I should point out that "good" and "bad" aren't moral valuations. Yin and yang aren't evil vs. good.

 

[Toke]

That kind of cultural analysis is not really my field, so I will continue the disjointed observations.
I have notice that the split between protestant and catholic fit the extend of the Roman empire. So there is something cultural that have clung for centuries.
800-1000AD you could raise an army by "draft" of free men with their own weapons. 500 years later mercenaries were necessary as the peasants were unarmed and suppressed to the point where they were dangerous to arm.

I am not so sure whether religion shape or is shaped by the conditions of the society, it tends to be reactionary but I don't see it holding out against reality forever.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Actually, I'd disagree about the era, for the scope of the Roman Empire or later HRE. (In some tribal areas, obviously the old model persisted much later.)

800AD-1000AD is the end half of the Early Middle Ages, a.k.a., the Dark Ages. (I mean the whole Early Middle Ages, not just those 2 centuries.)

I don't think you'd find many citizen-soldiers outside the new thane/knight class in this period, and not among the peasants. The thanes/knights I suppose could be described as drafted free men, but really were the lowest rung of aristocracy and professional soldiers in their own right. They got to manage 5 (or so) families of peasants and tax them, in return for providing their own weapons, armour and (in most places) a horse, and supplying a number of days per year as soldiers for their liege lord.

Since you do the comparison with 500 years later the peasants being unarmed and suppressed, I kind of get the idea that you think that wasn't the case in 800-1000 AD. And that's actually mostly false. The peasants in the Early Middle Ages were just as unarmed, and people even took the division in the 3 estates a lot more seriously. The 3 being: those who work (peasnts, burghers, etc), those who fight (the nobility and knights) and those who pray for them (the church.) The armies of the early middle ages were just as much composed of a mix of professional soldiers (those thanes/knights) and mercenaries as those of the Late Middle Ages.

Basically we're talking about the heyday of feudalism, not about ancient republican Rome.

The cutoff between ad-hoc drafted citizen soldiers and professional armies is for Rome the Marian Reforms, and for other places it came later, but it was still basically all done by 800 AD in Europe.