From the beginning of time men have tried to dominate women. Man has used a variety of techniques to accomplish this task including physical power, withholding education, politics, sex, and even religion. The article for today, Male-Chauvinist Religion, is an insightful look at inequality and how religion is used as tool of oppression throughout the world. Deborah Mathieu shows how three major religions illustrate in the texts and the teachings that women are the inferior gender.
To support her claims in this article that god is chauvinist, the author had to look no further than the texts themselves. The religions she refers to, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, all have passages that speak of the woman serving the man in some way. They also all refer to their god as "father" and of course the default pronoun is male. These religions base their beliefs that the male is superior to the female on passages that state man was created in god's image. Taken literally this alone is justification for male dominance. Christianity goes as far to say that the woman corrupting the man was the reason mankind was cast out of paradise. .
In addition to the texts being misogynistic, there has been a long tradition of men being the teaching authorities in these religions. The fact that men were responsible for interpreting and teaching these texts could be a reason for a gender bias message. It would have been hard for a woman to challenge a religious authority on the content of the message without the ability to read. .
The author makes some valid points about religion as a tool of oppression, but in defense of god and religion there are many factors that contribute to inequalities and oppression. First, when she refers to the texts being misogynistic, I think it is important to note that the texts were written by men, not a supernatural being. Second, the idea of equality is a fairly new concept.
