Does God hate women?

Does God hate women? This is a question that never occurred to me until I began to study religion. What I found seemed shocking. In every major faith women are or have been treated as second-class citizens.

 That may not be God’s doing, of course. It might be purely a reflection of how some male-dominated religious hierarchies carry out the seeming commands of God.

 But what gives anyone the right to decree that women cannot be priests (as in the Catholic Church) or not be allowed to drive (as in the stricter interpretations of Islam).  Is it God’s will that Muslim women in certain theocracies have few rights?

 Recently Jimmy Carter spoke on the subject at a religious conference. “The discrimination against women on a global basis,” he said,” is very often attributable to the declaration by religious leaders in Christianity, Islam and other religions, that women are inferior in the eyes of God.”

This may not seem an earth-shaking comment but it was courageous of Carter to speak out against this practice, particularly since he came from a Baptist tradition where women were not even allowed to be ministers.  He is also, in this statement, calling on those of faith to question his God’s attitude toward one half of the earth’s population.

 There are exceptions, of course. No woman is venerated more than Mary. There are Old Testament figures  -- Ruth, Ester – who stand as paragons to be emulated, as well as the Prophet’s wife, Fatima.

When I was growing up, it was never questioned that God was a man and that fathers held ultimate authority in the household. But in my case, the interesting thing was that I felt the power my mother had was greater than my father’s, as impressive and invincible as he seemed. My mother was an Army wife, moving from post to post every year-and-a-half, taking care of the home while my father was off at war, much of the time.

As much as my father’s love gave me confidence, it was my mother who told me I could do anything I wanted to do, be anything I wanted to be. It was her unconditional love that gave me confidence in myself.

 I ended up at Smith College for women. There, for four years, all the smartest people I knew were women. The teachers, many of them women, were brilliant, the head of the student body was a woman, all of the summa cum laudes and Phi Beta Kappas were women.  (I’m sorry to say I was not among them). Again, it never occurred to me that women were in any way inferior.

  So you can imagine how stunned I was when I entered the real world and found that while my male friends who had just graduated from Yale and Harvard and Princeton were getting fabulous well paid jobs, my women friends from Smith and Wellesley and Radcliffe were being hired as secretaries and go-fers

  Of course, I never attributed this attitude toward women to religion. But why, I asked myself, if women were so smart and capable and in so many cases, smarter and more capable than men, were they being discriminated against? It made absolutely zero sense to me. Of course there were women trailblazers-- the first woman this, the first woman that. And yet, women who were too capable or powerful were often labeled lesbians by their male counterparts.  Or ridiculed, or condescended to. I remember once, when I was covering a party in Washington, and Gloria Steinem (another Smithie, as was Betty Friedan) was approached by Congressman Brownie Reid. “I think it’s so great for you girls to have something to do before you get married,” said Reid to the astonished feminist leader.   

 Then I began to learn about religion. It wasn’t just the Catholic Church not allowing women to be priests. It wasn’t just about Muslim women in some countries being forced to cover their bodies, or faces or heads. It was far more prevalent than that. It was a history of Hindu women committing sutee (where the wife throws herself on the husband’s funeral pyre) or being burned to death by their families for greater dowries. It was Buddhist nuns being treated badly by monks. It was Protestant women not being allowed to hold high positions in the church and , in the case of Katharine Jefferts Shori, the presiding Bishop of the Episcopal church, being shunned by some theologians. It was Billy Graham’s daughter Anne Graham Lotz, who was demeaned by a of group male congregants who stood up and turned their backs on her when she began to speak in church. It was orthodox Jewish women not being allowed to be part of a minion (a group of 10 men who can pray together) or having to sit apart from the men in the synagogue or having to get a “get” from their husbands in order to get a divorce.

 Long before Jesus’s time, Eve was the temptress, Adam the unwilling dupe. Mary had to be a virgin. Joseph did not.  Even the Apostle Paul, who had women work with him, was overruled by the church leaders less than 20 years after his death.  

  So, again, what are we to make of this? A feminist would argue that it is clear that the most developed countries are those with the most educated and liberated women. The poorest and most underdeveloped are those with the least educated, least liberated women. Are those women held back because of  religious beliefs? The case could be made.

With thousands of years of discrimination behind us and so much still existing, and with 95 percent of the world’s population adhering to some faith or other, how could those beliefs not be held accountable. And for those who believe in an all loving God, a God who loves men and women equally, how could one not ask the question: Why would He (She?) allow this to exist unless he hated women?

Carter was right to bring up this subject. It should be roundly debated in all religious communities around the world.

    Thank God for Jimmy Carter. He takes on the tough ones.   

Sally Quinn  | Apr 26, 2011 11:06 AM