Why Not Women In Religion?

Pulse

oi-Priya Devi

By Priya Devi

Thursday, June 10, 2010, 17:48

“Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths, creating an environment in which violations against women are justified," former American President Jimmy Carter said in the Parliament of the World"s Religions in Australia. “The belief that women are inferior human beings in the eyes of God," Mr. Carter continued, “gives excuses to the brutal husband who beats his wife, the soldier who rapes a woman, the employer who has a lower pay scale for women employees, or parents who decide to abort a female embryo."

The New Testament quotes St. Paul (I Timothy 2) as saying that women “must be silent." Deuteronomy declares that if a woman does not bleed on her wedding night, “the men of her town shall stone her to death." An Orthodox Jewish prayer thanks God, “who hast not made me a woman." The Koran stipulates that a woman shall inherit less than a man, and that a woman"s testimony counts for half a man"s. Jainism also prevents the rise of women through the religious hierarchy.

Why though? What is it that keeps women from ascending the religious ladder? Where women have made a name in almost every professional field there is, they remain sorely under represented in the higher echelons of religious service. In the given circumstances – with abuse within the Church coming to the limelight, women being oppressed in the name of religion – one wonders what the situation would be like had male domination not been the norm in religious affairs.

No religion has ever mandated that a woman should be burnt to death on the demise of her husband, that a girl going to school should have acid thrown in her face, that a woman refusing to satiate the sexual desires of her husband should be starved till she complies. Yet, each and every one of these acts has been justified based on a skewed understanding of religion. And what"s more, those being blatantly discriminated against have no voice in the interpretation of their religion!

For many, religion (and not law) defines society. In that context, imagine the effect that a religious push for equality, the rights of widows, the stoppage of female infanticide or against any recognized immoral act would have. Instead, we have conservative religious forces passing fatwas against Muslim women modeling and stating that Sharia law considers it 'haram" to accept a woman"s earnings, blaming revealing clothes of women for earthquakes and calamities…

While much of the bias against women has been based on religion, one cannot deny the contribution of certain religious institutions in the upliftment of the very same gender. Unfortunately, in the face of the current level of discrimination, it"s too little, too late…
When survival was the only word in the human lexicon, men and women had equal status. As we became increasingly “civilized", society grew patriarchal.

From blaming women for the “original sin", organised religion has found myriad ways to subjugate and control women in the name of God. It has been succinctly stated, “A little more matriarchy is what the world needs, and I know it. Period. Paragraph."

I cannot help but agree.