Male Privilege and Religion

Recently I was reading an article about Penn State and its fraternity's proliferation of revenge porn.  The article focuses on the fraternities.  It states that male privilege and organizations that promote male privilege lead to this devaluation of females.

"Intimate-partner violence is a display of power — moderated by individual character and characteristics, sure, but also incubated by cultures that privilege men."

“Male-only organizations like fraternities reinforce the idea that women are objects designed for male consumption,” said Mary Anne Franks, the legislative director at the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. “Cases like this one make this painfully obvious.”

When I read things like this, what's not being said is screaming in the back of my head.  It's something that I've witnessed in my own family, from childhood throughout my entire life.  There's one community that has always been a source of the male privilege mentality, and that's religion.

Abrahamic based religions all stem from a similar root that from the beginning of time blames women and privileges men.  Not all are extreme enough to make a woman subhuman, but one only has to read the scripture to see a monetary value placed on women in the Old Testament that is less than a man.  God, himself is considered male and above all else, and an immature male mind takes that kind of information to put himself above all else as well.

All my life I've witnessed the "golden boy" scenario, where the first born male has special privileges not afforded to females of the same genetic makeup with the same or better capability.  But they are not treated the same.  My brother would lord it over me that he was the man of the house when my father was gone, and to him that meant he could boss me around and abuse me however he wished.  In fact it made him think he was above my mother as well, when it was just her and us kids. 

Many devout believers, even women, cling to that perception as right and holy, but I'm here to challenge it with the scripture itself and other information that I've read. 

I suppose that it is only right and proper to start at the very beginning.  Ever notice how when Eve eats the fruit that nothing happens?  That's because the covenant was not between Eve and God, but Adam and God.  That's why everything fell apart when Adam took a bite. Only THEN were both their eyes opened.  Sure Eve may have tempted Adam, but ultimately it was Adam who made the decision to break with God.  How familiar does that sound, to blame the woman for a man's lack of self control?  

Even if you still hold to the mindset that Eve is the source of all evil (even the word evil seems to have her name in it) she and Adam were equally guilty in the exact same way, being that they were both misguided by another and made a bad decision.  So why then, does Eve get all the blame? If you read it, Adam even tries to shift the blame to God by saying "the woman that YOU gave me."  It's easy for us to not stick the blame to God for that one, but as God curses Eve to desire her husband and him to rule over her, somehow people have it set that this is the way of things and how it should be. WRONG! This is what happens when things are wrong and evil reigns. It was never God's intention for that to be the ways of things.  If you follow the command to love, throughout the rest of the book, that is not the case. In fact when Jesus (not Paul selectively quoting Jesus) lays out the responsibilities for men and women, you'll find that he commands the men to do even harder things than women to submit. Not only that, but there's a lot of responsibility laid on the man. He has twice as many commands plus one over that of the women, but those get lost and swept aside, because they aren't as useful in power plays for control as telling your wife to submit. They just ignore that part about giving themselves up for her, sacrificing their ego and pride. 

The Old Testament itself, interestingly omits Asherah, the wife of God, who was apparently written out, when Israel was captured by Babylon and the Hebrew text was written down by a conquered people for the first time.  Did women once again take the blame?  History shows that many religions favored female deities during times of peace and commerce, but when war ruled the day, they turned to male deities for strength and vigor to conquer their neighbors. Constantine, who was one of the more influential people on Christianity after Jesus' time, claimed to have seen a symbol of the cross in the sky, "he saw with his own eyes in the heavens a trophy of the cross arising from the light of the sun, carrying the message, In Hoc Signo Vinces or "with this sign, you will conquer". Constantine did not become a Christian to love his neighbor like himself.  He became a Christian because he wanted to conquer his neighbor. But even with this adoption of a stronger "war deity", he took it to heart in some ways, toward women.  At the time of Constantine, Christianity was surprisingly freeing for women, when it came about.  The Romans were hideous to their wives. If a wife displeased her Roman husband she could be sold to a brothel. Violent sex crimes were treated more like damaging someone's (the husband's) property.  It was Constantine who made Christianity not only legal but the Roman religion and really improved things for women. The difference was, that this was not seen as male privilege so much as male responsibility. 

I believe that is where our male centric organizations are falling short. It's not that they deserve special treatment and women are merely objects for consumption. That's entitlement, which leads to narcissism, and narcissism leads to destructive and abusive behaviors.  It should be more like Boy Scouts, which teach stewardship, self discipline, accountability, and responsibility.  Once, men were taught to respect women, and somehow that fell by the wayside and has given way to gang misogyny with males thinking they are still "good guys" though they do atrocious things to women.  Where's the apple now for them to see the difference between good and evil?

Men and women may not be equal, as in not being the "same", but both have equal value.  Each is a piece of a bigger picture of humanity.  Our world would not function if we were all artists or all engineers, and it certainly wouldn't function with all men or all women.  Both are important. We all have our parts to play, and none of those parts is to be the victim of another. 

'Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.' - 

Albert Einstein