Opinionated

My opinions on the role of religion on women’s suffrage. It all starts with  a man, a woman, and an apple*.

If you are not familar with the story of Adam and Eve, the basic premise is this:

[God] created the world from nothing over six days. On the sixth, he made man(Adam) and rested on the seventh. After a while [God] created woman(Eve) from one of Adam’s ribs so Adam could have a mate and a helper. The story goes that these two had free reign over the Garden of Eden except for one tree, the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.” Eating the fruit of the Tree would cause the one who ate it to be able to tell the difference between Good and Evil, and therefore know Sin.

So [God] allowed for the Tree, the temptation, to be prominant in the Garden. Of course, as all these stories goes, an Evil One, tempts, tricks, and conives Eve into eating the fruit from the Tree. She shares the fruit with Adam. When Adam eats the fruit, he introduces Sin into the human races and ultimatly is forced out of the Garden with his wife to live many years in hardship and woe. That basically sets up the last six millinia of Judaism.

The catch in this story, to me at least, is that Sin did not enter humans until Adam ate the fruit. This shows two prevailing “wisdoms” of humanity:

1. Man is easily tempted by Woman
2. Woman is not to be trusted

So what is the reasons for this? Well, it could be that the second “wisdom” is true, but I seriously doubt it. Women have shown time and again to be more level headed and to actually think their actions through. I would say it has a lot to do with the fact that only they can give birth and, for the good of the species, her actions must be thought out completely. Men on the other hand see the survival of the Tribe as all important, to hell with the domestic stuff.

Why have a myth that Woman is weak and must have Man there to guide her? That has a lot to do with the way religions work.

Religions, generally, are governments; just look at the modern day Catholic Church for evidence of this. Religions have one very import role: Keep the Religion going. Religion has to keep followers following, and, more to the point, alive. Many “sins” against [God] in many religions, especially ones created in harsh conditions (deserts, tundra), are actually sins against the tribe. Religions don’t want men to covet their neighbor’s wife because that will cause strife and possible bloodshed. Religions need all the able bodied men possible to survive. Religions want children to obey their parents, because then they will obey [God]. Sins are laws at the most base level.

What does this have to do with the myth of Adam and Eve? Babies. Children are worth more than gold to a civilization that has a high death rate. The problem you can have is that, because Women are people too, to keep them under control. You control the Women, you control the children. Men liked having control. They liked knowing they ruled with an iron first. It was for the Woman’s own good, of course. She is too weak to stand up to temptation.

Not all cultures have this mythos. Many Roman/Greek cults were centered around women. But even there, women had very few roles outside the home and outside a bed. The barbarians of the north and west Europe of the same time period treated woman as little more than pretty cattle. They were good for nothing except cooking and breeding. The use of religion to control women might have been the best thing that ever happened to women as a whole since it brought barbarians out of their mud huts and into a reasonable attitude toward women(There are some theologians and historians who think that woman were the reason for Christianity taking over Europe).

It is all a little crazy. I don’t know why anyone would care this much about controlling everybody, but I guess you can’t predict the actions of cowards. To me a civilization would have the most chance of survival if everyone has a say in the course they are going to take. Maybe another person may see a problem with your plan. Of couse that may also be why women have been put down over the years. Men aren’t known to listen very well(see: Tree of Good and Evil). And we generally get grouchy when issues with our craftily(see: haphazardly) laid plans are brought up.

I personally am very gender agnostic, I couldn’t care less. Personally the whole male vs female argument is retarded. We are all humans. How about we started acting like it?

*It wasn’t an apple. We just really like apples. It wasn’t really until the Renaissance that we started to associated apples with it.

**Replace [God/Him/He] with your deity and sex of choice.