The Bible Hurts Women

The mistreatment of women has been a plague to this world since the beginning of society. Only in the last century, or more significantly in the last half century, has it begun to show signs of positive progression towards gender equality. There are many factors that seem to hold back the progression, but none seem more powerful than The Holy Bible itself. The Bible is the single most influential book in the history of civilization. Genesis is probably the most read part of this sort of how-to book of life because it explains the creation of the world and of human kind. This part of the book has been somewhat reduced in power because of scientific discovery. However, the underlying messages may live on forever. The Bible, and most significantly Genesis, has many underlying messages that suggest the inferiority of women. First of all, in the second account of the creation, The Bible explains the creation of the woman. "So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man (Genesis 2: 21, 22).

At first glance, this seems to be a clever explanation for why the man's rib structure is shaped differently than the woman. In fact, this could have been the purpose of this section. However, whatever its intentions were, are almost shadowed by the particular way it seems to display the woman as dependent on man. It may not come out and say plainly that woman is inferior to, or dependent on man, but when read, it could certainly provide some sort of justification for a man to treat a woman less than a fellow man. The fact that woman was created from man, suggests that woman was an afterthought and would not exist if it were not for the sacrifice of the man's rib. Also, the woman is brought to the man, as it almost seems like a gift. Therefore, a man who reads The Bible could be no more than two pages into it and could immediately develop a feeling of superiority over women.

After that, another indication of the woman's inferiority comes out when the man himself states, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called woman, for out of Man this one was taken" (Genesis 2: 23). This line suggests that man is possessive of the woman because she is created from the flesh and bones of the man. By naming her and saying that she was taken out of man it indicates that the man recognizes that he is in some form superior to the woman. The relationship seems similar to that of a parent and a newborn child in the way that he names her and recognizes that she is a part of him. Immediately following this statement, a very interesting line is stated. "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2: 24, 25). There is some indication that this could be displaying something similar to the ritual of marriage because of the idea that the man leaves his parents and clings to his wife.

However as mentioned before, no matter what the intention, this section could be interpreted in a way that shows that the woman has very little choice. It never says that the woman clings to his husband, or that the woman leaves her parents. Granted at this point it is not clear that the woman has parents to separate from. However if that is brought up, it creates even more inferiority because it shows once again that the woman was created as an afterthought. If this statement is in fact a display of the marriage ritual, it shows no indication of choice on the part of the woman. This seems to relate directly to how the marriage ritual was performed in history and in many cases still today in some societies.

It has been mentioned so far that The Bible suggests that women are inferior because of their creation, but it has shown no examples of how a woman acts more inferior so far. In the story of The First Sin and Its Punishment, the woman is finally displayed acting on her own. However, her action consists of eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge. "So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate (Genesis 3: 6). Since this is the first action we see her take, it provides us with an ill first impression of the woman. An example would be if you were to let your dog outside without a leash for the first time and it ran away and caused chaos in the neighbor's yard. So for years you forbid your dog to go outside without a leash. In this case, maybe thousands of years. The woman's first action was one that caused us to believe she was irresponsible, therefore it can be interpreted as a justification to not let the woman "out of the house".

Following the action by the woman comes the telling of god that the woman picked the forbidden fruit. He states, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate" (Genesis 3: 12). Then god proceeds in telling the woman her punishment which consists of stating very clearly that the man will rule over the woman. "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you" (Genesis 3:16). He emphasizes this more by punishing the man for listening to his wife. So now we see the reason why the woman is inferior and we have seen god clearly state that the woman is inferior to man.

In defense of The Bible, it is hard to compare morals of today to the morals of people thousands of years ago. There were many things that people just did not know in those days that are considered essential to living today. Just as science and technology advance, so do a society's morals. However, The Bible is not like any other out-dated book because there are truly several parts of the book that can be useful in today's society still such as the teachings of the "golden rule" and the motivating psalms. The problem with this is that because there are still relevant parts to the book, millions of people still read and live by the entire book. Therefore, since so many of the words can be useful in life, so many people consider the entire book as a handbook for how they are to live their life. This is why the previously mentioned indications of The Bible's display of the inferiority of women are seen as such large set backs to the advancement of gender equality.

Genesis consists of stories that blatantly teach that women are to be inferior to men. Today we recognize that this is wrong yet it is still being taught along with the rest of the teachings of The Bible that are truly relevant. Therefore, students of The Bible consider it all to be relevant because the book is still so powerful in many sections. It is hard not see the relationship between the decline of religion and the progression of society in terms of equality among people. In the past century, religion has declined in many ways and it seems to correlate with the advancement of women. It would be ridiculous to say that all The Bible's teachings should be reconsidered, or banned, but since we recognize now that equality is right and we want our society to advance, we must advance our methods of teaching The Bible.