I am not a member of any religion. I claim no affiliation.
But growing up and living in a mostly Christian country in nominally Christian
family, mainly my rejection of religion is a rejection of Christianity. I don’t
have any problems with Jesus. I’ve read the stuff he supposedly did and said
and he seems like an okay dude. I don’t for a minute believe that he’s the one
son of God or the only path to grace or any of that stuff. But that’s not the
reason I reject the church.
This is the deal. The church is an organization that
reinforces the social norms that support authority. It is an arm of the patriarchy
that has murdered and marginalized women, gays, and anyone else deemed
superfluous or dangerous to prevailing power structures.
Sure, we can all read our history and agree that the
crusades were misguided and murderous, that burning witches at the stake was
horrific, that Pope Pius enabling the Holocaust wasn’t exactly a bright spot in
Christian history. But, modern Christians would argue, that was in the past,
that wasn’t me, I’m a good person and I try to follow the teachings of Christ.
But I look at the church that you are a part of, and I don’t see that much has
changed.
On a daily basis I see the church actively involved in
efforts to eliminate my rights to my own body and healthcare choices. I see the
church involved in preventing my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters from
enjoying the equal rights promised them by our constitution. I see churches
promoting child abuse by encouraging parents to hit their children. I see
ministers and priests involved in the sexual abuse of children. I see churches
promoting sexual shame and dysfunction by teaching that the body is evil. I see
ministers making a fortune off of their congregations. I even see some churches still working
against racial equality and integration.
Any ONE of these things is enough to make me see red. Add
them all together, and I really have to wonder how any decent human being would
align themselves to these organizations. But my biggest issue with church is
its attitude towards me as a woman. According to the teachings of the church, I
am the source of sin, I am created of man and for him, I am to live for man and
be ruled by him. And none of these things are actually true. It doesn’t matter
whether anyone wants them to be true; they just aren’t. These teachings attempt
to deny my power, my intelligence, my agency, my biology, even my humanity.
The society that embraces this dogma is a society that rears
men who think of women as lesser beings, as property. Rapists and abusers
believe this. But so do nice men who don’t think of themselves as being
misogynists. It’s very difficult to truly escape this paradigm.
My husband would describe himself as non-sexist, a real
supporter of women’s rights. He thinks the anti-abortion crowd are a bunch of
wingnuts. But, true story, a few years ago we were having a disagreement. Our
daughter, who was then a second grader, was very unhappy and bored in our awful rural
Oklahoma school and asked to homeschool. This was something that she had been
considering since kindergarten, but for one reason or another she decided to
keep sticking it out. My husband wasn’t happy about the homeschooling idea, but
after some discussion and thought, given that our community didn’t really offer
any alternatives to public school and at the time I was unemployed, I decided to attempt it. Some months later
we had a fight about it, and he said something that I’ll never forget. He told
me that by ignoring his wishes I had ‘emasculated’ him. There are lots of other
ways he could have expressed his disagreement, but that’s the word he used. So,
when a man and a woman disagree, if the woman defies the man’s wishes and makes
her own choice, he is emasculated? If the only choices are 1) agree with him
and do what he wants or 2) disagree with him and do what you want, then any
time you take choice 2, following your own instincts and doing what you believe
to be right, you are taking something away from him.
This is what systemic misogyny has given us – men who
believe that when women exercise their agency, they are taking something away
from men. And, so help us, we have women who believe that when women exercise
their agency, they are losing something of value. The pressure to submit is
there, every day, in our school yards and our media and our churches and our
offices and even in our homes. Every woman alive has at some point just shut up
or given up or compromised for the sake of keeping the peace. Misogyny doesn’t
only reduce our paychecks or pressure us to go on a diet, it actually corrupts
our personal relationships, the most intimate and personal parts of our lives.
For some this erupts in violence or can even result in death, but even the most
fortunate of us have found ourselves, at some point, staring at our partner in
disbelief and absolute frustration, realizing that we’re not just arguing with
our lovers, we’re arguing with thousands of years of a tradition that
disrespects and dehumanizes us.
Once people worshiped the goddess and the god, the lady and
the lord, the earth and the sun. The toxic triad of monotheism, Judaism,
Islam, and Christianity, have robbed us of half of who we are. I am told by
friends that I must respect their religion even if I don’t agree with them. This
is rather like telling a black man that even if he disagrees with the Ku Klux
Klan, he has to respect their philosophy as valid. Your church has been at war with women for
over 2000 years. My sisters are dying in this war. I’m not playing nice. I’m
fighting back.
