A Woman’s Place
Is not defined by your beliefs
Women. Girls. The fairer sex.
Women bring life into this world, yet throughout the world in far too many civilizations, women are treated as second-class citizens. They are not treated on-par or on equal footing with men.
Including in the United States, a nation founded on the principal of equality.
But the United States has never fully supported equality for women. For the first 130 years of this nation, American women could not vote. It wasn’t until the 1970s that American women could have their own bank account — without a man. Or be able to secure their own mortgage.
Men have dominated women in this country. Men have treated women undeservedly as property, as less than. Men, following the patriarchy laid out in holy books, including the Bible, have refused to share America fully with women.
You’ve heard about Noah, right?
You know the story of Noah and his boat? And all those animals, and the Flood?
And you’ve no doubt heard the story of Noah’s three sons. Ham, Shem, and Japheth, and how they helped Noah build the Ark. Ham, having seen his father Noah naked, lost the blessing of his father, and in fact was cursed, a curse than many imply is the foundation of permitting one race to rule over another. The foundation of racism is founded in this Bible story.
So there’s Noah, and his three sons, and the boat, and the Flood, and the animals: you’ve heard it all.
What you have not heard, however, are the names of Noah’s wife. The names of the wives of Ham, and Shem, and Japheth.
And why not?
Why are the names of these women — the Motherhood of Humanity — not known to us? Why aren’t their names found in the Bible?
Why are the names of these mothers of man not important to God?
The Bible is the foundation of many core beliefs that live deep in the minds of American men and women. From the first book of the Bible, Genesis, women are put in a position that is below that of men.
First, women are declared ‘married’ in Genesis without as much as a proposal, a ring, or a wedding ceremony.
The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Genesis 2:23–25
Look at the verses: ‘the woman’ is ripped from Adam’s ribs, and suddenly “they become one flesh.” Who is Adam united to?
His wife.
How did that happen?
Here once again, the woman has no name — yet. But she is already having her life decided for her by someone else. Somehow, ‘the woman’ was married to Adam before she spoke a single word.
Quiet, women: you’re not permitted to speak, at least not in church, according to Paul.
Back in Genesis, ‘the woman’ is next found eating fruit from a forbidden tree. If you read Chapter Two — before ‘the woman’ is even busted out of the ribcage — you’ll find that Adam was told not to eat from the tree: ‘the woman’ was never told by God to not eat from the tree.
By Chapter Three, the serpent is in the Garden, ‘the woman’ is eating, and when God returns — from only God knows where — it is ‘the woman’ who is punished the most severely.
In verse 3:16, the writer of the Bible wrote the singular verse that established patriarchy, the verse that has been planted in the minds of American men as a core value concerning their relationships with women:
To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
Genesis 3:16
God made man; God gave man a wife; God told the man not to eat; the woman ate; the woman became subservient to her husband forever.
All of this before ‘the woman’ had a name.
To read more about the Garden of Eden fiasco — as it came to be known — you can check out my post here:
Throughout the first books of the Bible, we read dozens of stories of men: God’s men. Adam, Noah, Abraham, David. Many of these men have serious issues: some of them are purely adulterous murderers.
God calls them heroes: David, the murderer I just referred to, was called “a man after God’s own heart.” Men in the Bible murder, rape, lie, cheat, steal — hell, you’d think it was the Republican National Convention!
But these are God’s men. And God orders men to do heinous things, and they do what he tells them.
Here’s what the men of the Bible do in God’s name:
This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ ”
1 Samuel 15: 2,3
Killing babies?
Does anyone think for even a second that a woman would ever carry out this insane order?
Men in the Bible are monsters, mentally ill, or worse. Even Abraham listened to voices he believed was the voice of God telling him to kill his own son Isaac.
How have we not seen that this book, and the stories it puts out about how to be a godly man, is absurdly sick? How have we not tossed this trash into the fire?
Oh, right — because men.
Men use the Bible to control and subdue women — because God said so.
There are women in the Bible, but you’ll hardly ever hear anyone talk about them, other than Mary. It’s almost as if the authors of the Bible didn’t want followers talking about women.
Granted, many of the stories of women in the Bible are stories of those women connected to the men of the Bible. When you hear about Sarah, it is because she was the wife of Abraham. When you read about Miriam, it is because she is Moses’ sister. Very few of the stories are about women working for God.
Why?
Does this god not value the contribution of women in his kingdom? Does he not notice that every one of those men he’s so fond of were borne of a woman?
There are numerous heroic women in the Bible that have their very own story, but the Bible — if you haven’t figured it out yet — wasn’t written to be about women serving God, or even women at all for that matter.
Debra, Esther, and Ruth — perhaps the best story of a woman living in a man’s world — all are great stories. These are powerful stories that actually teach very normal lessons we can all glean something from, but there’s no murder, so they’re probably not God-approved.
The Bible glorifies violence, revenge, and killing one’s enemies: these are not normally qualities women embrace. And I wonder: would men embrace them as much if they didn’t read this garbage and follow it like some kind of training manual?
The Bible tells far too many stories about men doing all kinds of evil. It is very weak on solid stories about women, and it’s even shorter on valuing women.
Why, then haven’t women in this country declared this Bible worse than pornography, banning it from every home?
Why are women not lifted up by this god, but instead almost hidden, being controlled, unnamed, and their stories untold?
No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house.
Mt. 5:15
Why does God and his Bible work so hard to hide away man’s greatest treasure — women?
For me, the answer is clear: God does not value the lives of women.
As a former Christian — someone who no longer finds any reason to believe these stories — I find it particularly troubling that this Bible is the foundation of so much of the troubled thinking of Americans.
Racism, patriarchy and misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia — these are the deep-seated evils that lurk in the minds of too many American men. Learned from childhood, reinforced every week in some church, all of these unhealthy core values do not produce the “love” this god is supposed to be about.
Love doesn’t come from God: it comes from women. Women are the ones who nurse children, care for their partners, comfort friends, and build communities.
Women are the ones that should be running our homes, our schools, and our churches. Women should be running our communities and our nation.
Women work so much better together than men (MTG is certainly an exception). They have an innate ability to compromise that men struggle to do — maybe it’s a pride thing. And women aren’t afraid to be vulnerable, to open up to each other, and to share.
And that sounds a lot like “love your neighbor” to me.
Maybe we need to rethink women in this society. Maybe we need to look at how women are the givers of life, and how they should be treated not only equally, but with reverence. And maybe we should let them decide about their own lives and their own bodies. Certainly, men have no clue.
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