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QuestionIs there any website that compiles instances of religion being misogynistic?
Posted November 27, 2024 by Reliquia in WomensLiberation

Not necessarily a website, just some sort of place to find examples quickly. Obviously there are plenty in Islam and Christianity, but even some Buddhist teachings show misogyny, and I'd like to learn more about this in different religions.

Thanks in advance ☺️

12 comments

WatcherattheGatesNovember 27, 2024

I've got some favorites from the classic Serinity Young book:

Serinity Young (ed.), An Anthology of Sacred Texts by and about Women,” New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1995.

Serinity Young (ix-x): “It still stuns the mind to find little or nothing on women in major books on individual religions or in comparative studies of religion. A cursory survey of the indices of books purporting to be significant and meaningful studies of religion reveals that the interests and concerns of such books are limited to the male half of the human population. We are all the poorer for this. Even worse, when these texts are used to educate, they miseducate. No religion can be understood in its full complexity when scholars exclude women. It is just wrong-headed.”

From The Legends of the Jews, compiled in 1909 by Louis Ginzburg (6)

“Woman covers her hair in token of Eve’s having brought sin in to the world; she tries to hide her shame; and women precede men in a funeral cortege because it was woman who brought death into the world. And the religious commands addressed to women alone are connected with the history of Eve. Adam was the heave offering of the world, and Eve defiled it. As expiation, all women are commanded to separate a heave offering from the dough. And because woman extinguished the light of man’s soul, she is bidden to kindle the Sabbath light.”

From the Pseudepigrapha, “The Book of Adam and Eve,” (7)

[After the Fall,] Eve said to Adam: “Live thou, my Lord, to thee life is granted, since thou hast committed neither the first nor the second error. But I have erred and been led astray for I have not kept the commandment of God; and now banish me from the light of thy life, and I will go to the sunsetting, and there will I be, until I die.” And she began to walk towards the western parts and to mourn and to weep bitterly and groan aloud. And she made there a booth, while she had in her womb offspring of three months old. And when the time of her bearing approached, she began to be distressed with pains, and she cried aloud to the Lord and said, “Pity me, O Lord, assist me.” And she was not heard and the mercy of God did not encircle her.”

Tertullian around 200 AD (Christian theologian), (46)

[A woman should] go about in humble garb, and rather to affect meanness of appearance, walking about as Eve mourning and repentant, in order that by every garb of penitence she might more fully expiate that which she derives from Eve—the ignominy, I mean, of the first sin, and the odium (attaching to her as the cause) of human perdition. “In pains and in anxieties does thou bear (children), woman; and toward thine husband (is) thy inclination, and he lords it over thee.” And do you not know that ye are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live, too. You are the devil’s gateway; you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree; you are the first deserter of the divine law; you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert—that is, death—even the Son of God had to die.

Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, abt. 150 AD (63)

And thus, as the human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin [Eve], so is it rescued by a virgin [Mary]; virginal disobedience having been balanced in the opposite scale by virginal obedience.

Thomas Aquinas, abt. 1250 (69)

[W]oman is naturally subject to man, because in man the discretion of reason predominates.

The Malleus Maleficarum, 1486, Henrich Kramer and James Sprenger, Dominican inquisitors (79)

All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman . . . since they are feebler both in mind and body, it is not surprising that they should come more under the spell of witchcraft. . . . [S]he is more carnal than a man, as is clear by her many carnal abominations. And it should be noted that there was a defect in the formation of the first woman, since she was formed from a bent rib, that is, a rib of the breast, which is bent as it were in a contrary direction to a man. And since through this defect she is an imperfect animal, she always deceives . . . To conclude: All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable.

Koran (~632 AD) (98)

Men are the managers of the affairs of women, for that God hath preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God’s guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious, admonish: banish them to their couches, and beat them.

Nizam al-Mulk (~1092 AD) (100)

The king’s underlings must not be allowed to assume power. This particularly applies to women, for they are wearers of the veil and have not complete intelligence. Their purpose is the continuation of the lineage, and the more chaste (and veiled) their bearing, the more admirable they are.

Hadith, of al-Bukhari (~850 AD) (105-6)

The women asked, “O Allah’s Apostle! What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?” He said, “Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?” They replied in the affirmative. He said, “This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Isn’t it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?” The women replied in the affirmative. He said, “This is the deficiency in her religion.”

Aeschylus, The Eumenides (~500 BC) (146)

She who is called the child’s mother is not its begetter, but the nurse of the newly sown conception. The begetter is the male, and she as a stranger for a stranger, preserves the offspring, if no god blights its birth.

Aristotle, The Generation of Animals (~360 BC) (158)

For the female is, as it were, a mutilated male, and the menstrual fluids are semen, only not pure; for there is only one thing they have not in them, the principle of soul. . . . While the body [of the offspring] is from the female, it is the soul that is from the man.

Marcus Portius Cato, observed by Livy, (~40 BC) (167)

[The women of Rome petitioned in public for a repeal of a law saying, among other things, they could not wear a multi-colored garment or ride in a carriage. The men debated whether to listen to the women.] Cato: Our ancestors permitted no woman to conduct even personal business without a guardian to intervene in her behalf; they wished them to be under the control of fathers, brothers, husbands: We (Heaven help us!) allow them now even to interfere in public affairs, yes, and to visit the Forum and our informal and formal sessions. . . Give loose rein to their uncontrollable nature and to this untamed creature and expect that they will themselves set bounds to their license; unless you act, this is the least of the things enjoined upon women by custom or law and to which they submit with a feeling of injustice. It is complete liberty, or rather, if we wish to speak the truth, complete licence that they desire. If they win in this, what will they not attempt? Review all the laws with which your forefathers restrained their licence and made them subject to their husbands; even with all these bonds you can scarcely control them. What of this? If you suffer them to seize these bonds one by one and wrench themselves free and finally to be placed on a parity with their husbands, do you think that you will be able to endure them? The moment they begin to be your equals, they will be your superiors.”

The Laws of Manu, (277-9)

By a girl, by a young woman, or even by an aged one, nothing must be done independently, even in her own house. In childhood, a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her lord is dead to her sons: a woman must never be independent. . . Him to whom her father may give her, or her brother with the father’s permission, she shall obey as long as he lives . . . (a) husband must be constantly worshipped as a god by a faithful wife.

[If a widow remarries], a wife is disgraced in this world, [after death] she enters the womb of a jackal, and is tormented by diseases of sin.

Through their passion for men, through their mutable temper, through their natural heartlessness, [women] become disloyal towards their husbands, however carefully they may be guarded in this [world]. . . [When creating them] Manu allotted to women a love of their bed, of their seat, and of ornament, impure desires, wrath, dishonesty, malice, and bad conduct.

By sacred tradition, the woman is declared to be the soil, the man is declared to be the seed; the production of all corporeal beings [takes place] through the union of the soil with the seed . . . On comparing the seed and the receptacle of the seed, the seed is declared to be the more important; for the offspring of all created beings is marked by the characteristics of the seed.

Confucius, The Book of Songs (~1500 BC) (349)

So [the lord of the house] bears a son, and puts him to sleep upon a bed, clothes him in robes, gives him a jade scepter to play with. The child’s howling very lusty; in red greaves shall he flare, be lord and king of house and home.

Then he bears a daughter, and puts her upon the ground, clothes her in swaddling-clothes, gives her a loom-whorl to play with. For her no decorations, no emblems; her only care, the wine and food, and how to give no trouble to father and mother.

Pan Chao (female Confucian scholar, ~80 AD) (357-359)

On the third day after the birth of a girl the ancients observed three customs: (first), to place the baby below the bed, (second), to give her a potshard with which to play, and (third), to announce her birth to her ancestors by an offering. Now to lay the baby below the bed plainly indicated that she is lowly and weak and should regard it as her primary duty to humble herself before others. To give her potshards with which to play indubitably signified that she should practice labor and consider it her primary duty to be industrious. To announce her birth before her ancestors clearly meant that she ought to esteem as her primary duty the continuation of the observance of worship in the home.

These three ancient customs epitomize a woman’s ordinary way of life and the teachings of the traditional ceremonial rites and regulations. Let a woman modestly yield to others; let her respect others; let her put others first, herself last. Should she do something good, let her not mention it; should she do something bad, let her not deny it. Let her bear disgrace; let her even endure when others speak or do evil to her. Always let her seem to tremble and to fear.

Lotus Sutra, (~300 AD) (321)

[With reference to whether women can reach Enlightenment in Mahayana Buddhism]

[B]efore the sight of the whole world and of the senior priest Sariputra, the female sex of the daughter of Sagara the Naga-king, disappeared; the male sex appeared and she [now he] manifested herself as a Boddhisattva, who immediately went to the South to sit down at the foot of a tree made of seven precious substances . . . he showed himself enlightened and preaching the law, while filling all directions of space with the radiance of the 32 characteristic signs and all secondary marks.

SisterCellophaneNovember 28, 2024(Edited November 28, 2024)

These are just incredibly sick, why do they hate us so much? I mean there's some fairly palpable womb envy in some of those, and some narcissism, but fucking hell what could trigger the volume of this? Just because they're stronger and they can, is that really the true face of man? Also the strength of arguments is abysmal, it's ridiculous that these were respected thinkers really. That hadith is outright circular.

CompassionateGoddessNovember 29, 2024(Edited November 29, 2024)

I think it is projection. They know they are all of the things they say we are. Men hate themselves so much, and they terrorize us for it. As a collective group, they are broken on the inside. Men’s misogyny is the root of all evil and human suffering.

VirginiaWolfberryNovember 27, 2024

Amazing, thank you

IworshipKalikadeviNovember 29, 2024

I've thought of making a post when I reread the vedas with all the misogyny in them. It's a massive undertaking though and I'm very busy but ty OP for the encouragement. Suffice to say, women in Hinduism have it rough too.

Unicornkindrad.orgNovember 27, 2024(Edited November 27, 2024)

Dang, I had written about misogyny in Buddhism (due to the concept of reincarnation) in a discord server at some point, but they regularly delete chat history so it's gone and I didn't have it saved.

It was more of a "shower thought" but basically I said something like Buddhism is misogynistic because 1. I recall something about how women are a lesser being to reincarnate to, so like reincarnating into a man means you're "advancing" through reincarnation? (That's even if we're at the point of the religion where they eventually agreed that women are "human enough" to experience reincarnation to begin with. [Disclaimer: I'm typing all this up from memory of what I looked up like a year+ ago so idk if I'm wrong I haven't bothered looking up anything that I'm writing this time.]) But 2. Here's the bigger part: by the basis of their religion being one that requires women to consistently birth "reincarnated" men, their religion is misogynistic by virtue. They do not view women as whole human beings, they view women as essentially reincarnation portals for real important beings who are capable of achieving nirvana — men.

Also while trying to search for my Buddhism shower thought draft, I found a note on my phone where I was trying to analyze the misogyny of the world's top religions. If you want I can share that, but I didn't get very far and mostly just researched their stances on abortion, which I consider the greatest indicator on if a culture is misogynistic at its core or not: whether or not they acknowledge women have full right to bodily autonomy. Unsurprisingly, since most organized religions were created to establish order to ever-expanding human populations outside of "tribe sizes," and industrialization needs more workers to "keep up", most organized religions damn abortion, as it would cause women to realize they don't need to be baby (read: worker) making machines for their society.

starlight_chaserNovember 27, 2024(Edited November 27, 2024)

Truly that would be a monumental undertaking, because wherever men gather, there will be misogyny :). There's a LOT to compile. It's such a disgusting degradation and mockery that in systems like religion and philosophy where they talk about grand things like "being more than your body, being a soul, submitting to a higher power, being one with the world, finding common views with their fellow man" they still twist their words to make sure women know their place is below them. Even with all the grand, divine, metaphysical concepts, their points of view are limited by their pettiness and misogyny.

Even in fringe religions. Wicca. Various occult traditions. Men are given benefit of the doubt that they were created to lead (and women as support, incubators, aesthetics), and men are often are assigned the ability to express both male and female characteristics in one body because they're so special, while people also bend over backwards to explain why women leading, or being too proactive or picky, or aware and questioning, or self-focused, is them stepping out of their natural feminine.

CompassionateGoddessNovember 29, 2024

This is why I like Dianic Witchcraft. There are no men or male deities in that religion.

StrawberryCoughNovember 27, 2024

omg, are there enough bytes of data in the universe?

CriticalMassNovember 27, 2024(Edited November 27, 2024)

Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Women

Skeptic's Annotated Quran: Women

Skeptic's Annotated Book of Mormon: Women

Skeptic's Annotated Bhagavad Gita: Women

(EDIT: The links seem weirdly structured so that it doesn't always link to the right religious book, but you can select that in the top right.)

NovemberinthechairNovember 28, 2024

Atheist men are pretty sexist.

CompassionateGoddessNovember 29, 2024

Yep. Men are sexist no matter what group or groups they belong to.