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Essay on Gender and Society
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Critically Assess the view that Christianity is not favourable to womenOver hundreds of years Women have fought for the right to be treated equally to
men, and after years of rejection we are finally seeing improvement in culture
and society. If religion is a part of culture then shouldn’t it be changing with the
times as well? In this essay I will explore how women became to be seen as
inequal to men in Christianity and why that is only a reflection of previous
patriarchal times and not the faith itself. The strongest line of argument is that
Christianity can be favourable to women if viewed with a positive mindset and
interpreted in the way that all humans are equal as we were all made “imago
dei”.
One support of my argument is that Liberal Protestant Christians fully support a
favourable view of women. Liberals interpret the bible as inspired by God rather
than a direct revelation, therefore teachings in the bible are able to adapt to
modern times. They argue that gender is not something directly attached to sex
and take the almost secular view that Women are not inferior to men and do not
have set roles that they have to fufill such as Childbirth. To strengthen their
argument they use St Pauls teaching ‘there is neither jew, not Greek, man nor
woman, slave nor free… for we are all one in Jesus Christ”.
A potential challenge to my argument is that other dominions of Christianity
such as the ‘Right’ and Roman Catholics are not particularly favourable to
women. The Right view the bible as an absolute revelation, meaning that
teachings about men and women cannot be interpreted or change, and therefore
teachings about the roles of men and women are unable to change. The Right
argue that feminism has confused gender roles and set up unrealistic
expectations for women and feminism has increased divorce rate, homosexuality
and sexual immorality. Similarly Roman Catholics do not accept that Women
should take over male roles, such as being priests. Although they accept
feminism can be positive for women who are abused and marginalized they still
believe that some forms of feminism can undermine womens role as mothers.
However I find this argument unconvincing as I believe these dominions are an
example of trying to hold on to the patriarchy today, they blatantly ignore the
original intentions of the bible and use historically patriarchal quotes and
passages to shun women into submission today.
Another support of my argument is that Jesus treated women with respect
despite patriarchal circumstances, therefore it can be seen as the will of God to
treat both genders with equality. Theologians such as Ruether demonstrate that
Jesus’ treatment of women and his challenge to the social structures of his times
illustrates his desire to overcome sexist attitudes in the treatment of women.
A potential flaw to my argument is that Biblical passages in the bible can be seen
as inherently patriarchal and misogynistic, even from the point of view of Secular
feminists. One reason for this is that the God-human relationship creates a
master-slave morality, which in turn justifies a male-female patriarchal
hierarchy that diminishes the value of women by making women subservient to
men. Furthurmore if the bible is viewed as an absolute revelation, it teaches that
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