E-297C
Final Paper
Shannon Broderick
June 2, 2005
THE HISTORICAL AND MODERN-DAY ROLE OF WOMEN IN RELIGION
The three major world religions of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism each worship a supreme, all-knowing and all-seeing deity as the preeminent power in the universe. God and Allah are each credited with having created the universe and the forms that populate it, and most significantly with the creation of mankind. Created to guide their believers in the appropriate ways to live their lives and interact with each other and the world around them, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam construct their religious credos around the concept of a single figure creating and ruling the heavens and the earth. While the Jewish deity does not possess a specific gender, the Christian and Islamic gods are perceived as male personas. Thus the most basic element of these two religions, the main god credited with the creation of the entire world, religion, and human race, excludes to a large extent the feminine influence. Aside from the construction of the nature of God and Allah, these religions construct gender identities and boundaries for men and women that limit the capacity of both, and especially of women. Although women often played an influential role in the early years of these religions, their influence is either ignored, or valued solely for its knowledge of matters of the house and family, thus beginning a cycle of undervaluing the full potential of women and disempowering them within the religious hierarchy that only in recent years have efforts by modern women in religion begun to break.
Islam, Christianity and Judaism each share many fundamental tenets in their religious theology, including the nature of God, the guidelines for exemplary and sinful behavior of constituents, the structure of the afterlife, and the nature of life on earth. Although the details of each creation myth differ marginally, the basic concept consistently describes an omnipotent being who creates, out of night and nothingness, light and matter. Genesis, of the Torah and the Bible, states that “In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was without form and empty, with darkness on the face of the depths, but God's spirit moved on the water's surface. God said, 'There shall be light,' and light came into existence. God saw that the light was good, and God divided between the light and the darkness.” The creation of the earth and it’s plant and animal inhabitants occurs over a period of six days, and on the seventh “God said, 'Let us make man with our image and likeness. Let him dominate the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock animals, and all the earth - and every land animal that walks the earth.' God [thus] created man with His image. In the image of God, He created him, male and female He created them.” The creation story of the Qur’an occurs in a similar fashion, over six days. It begins with Allah ordaining the creation of the earth and heavens from nothing, as stated in Chapter 36, Ya-Seen, “A token unto them is the dead earth. We revive it, and we bring forth from it grain so that they eat thereof,” and then in Chapter 41, Fussilat, it describes how “Then turned He to the heaven when it was smoke, and said unto it and unto the earth: Come both of you, willingly or loth. They said: We come, obedient.” God and Allah thus create the earth out of a lack of matter, and create the humans to populate it out of the same lack of being. Thus at the most basic level men and women arise out of the same substance. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism each claim, at a fundamental level of religious theology, that all human beings appear as equal before God/Allah. The basic religious theology of each religion consists in the concept of a supreme god figure, that created the earth and mankind to serve him. Human beings are expected to follow the religious rules and guidelines laid down by this god and by his prophets on earth, and only by following these teachings may they hope to join the god in heaven after their death. Although people may expect to be punished for sinning, and they may elicit the displeasure of God and Allah by committing sinful behavior, if they remain holy and pure in their hearts and repent for their sins they will be forgiven by the all merciful and all forgiving God and Allah.
The religious texts of Judaism describe women and women’s roles as different but equal from men and men’s roles. The Torah views women as beings constructed or built, rather than formed as were men, and assigns corresponding disparities to the subsequent natures of men and women. “According to traditional Judaism, women are endowed with a greater degree of "binah" (intuition, understanding, intelligence) than men,” and thus historical female Jewish religious figures such as Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah “were superior to the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) in prophesy.” Women are also believed to posses a high degree of tznius, or modesty, and bina yeseira, described by simpletoremember.com as “greater intuition facilitates a deeper understanding of and therefore connection with others.” The same website extends this construction of women to explain why it is generally discouraged for women to become religious scholars, saying, “A woman learning Gemora, for example, would be training herself to deal with problems in a linear rather than holistic fashion: this would reduce her insight into her children and other people, undermine her intuitive grasp of many situations and compromise her effectiveness to respond to the drama of day to day living both by anticipating events and by spontaneously adapting to new realities without compromising deeper principles.” Some traditional sources have implied that women, by their very nature, exist as more similar to God’s nature than men. Yet although this construction of women’s roles is revered and seen as godly, it still constricts possible forms of expression for women. Each human being is unique, and these generalizations about the insightful and nurturing nature of women restrict many possibilities for women to express themselves and construct their own, independent identity.
The Islamic religion views women in a manner similar in many ways to that of Judaism; women are seen as being fundamentally different from men, and thus hold different religious roles which nevertheless, if fulfilled faithfully, bring them the same heavenly rewards and punishments as those accorded to men. Men and women in general must adhere to the religious guidelines laid out before them by Allah as best they may, and try to keep themselves pure and holy before God. The Qur’an lays out sinful and holy behavior, admonishing both men and women equally to follow these religious rules. Thus Chapter 107 of the Qur’an, Al-Maun, gives a description of “him who belieth religion,” saying “That is he who repelleth the orphan, and urgeth not the feeding of the needy. Ah, woe unto worshippers who are heedless of their prayer, who would be seen at worship yet refuse small kindnesses!” Any person, man or woman, who behaves thus would be seen as denying their religious duties and as behaving sinfully. Alternately, the Qur’an promises the same religious rewards to the truly faithful, regardless of gender. Chapter 33, Al-Ahzab, asserts that,
“Lo! men who surrender unto Allah, and women who surrender, and men who believe and women who believe, and men who obey and women who obey, and men who speak the truth and women who speak the truth, and men who persevere (in righteousness) and women who persevere, and men who are humble and women who are humble, and men who give alms and women who give alms, and men who fast and women who fast, and men who guard their modesty and women who guard (their modesty), and men who remember Allah much and women who remember - Allah hath prepared for them forgiveness and a vast reward.”
The deliberate gender ambiguity of this passage—the careful delineation of men and women for every virtue—underscores the fundamental equality of men and women to prove themselves in the religious arena. If they each follow the customs and roles prescribed to them to the best of their capabilities, they may each expect to gain the pleasure of Allah and access to the afterlife. Chapter 16, An-Nahl, of the Qur’an asserts that “Whosoever doeth right, whether male or female, and is a believer, him verily we shall quicken with good life, and we shall pay them a recompense in proportion to the best of what they used to do.” No punishment exists based on gender; it is not harder or easier for women to attain the divine or to please Allah.
Outside of the gender equality of sinning and holy behavior, however, the Qur’an and the Islamic faith delineate specific roles for men and women, and outline the explicit natures of each. These roles range from their worship practices and prayers to the type of clothes appropriate to wear. Men are expected to worship at services in a mosque, and although women are not expressly forbidden from praying in a mosque, the Prophet Muhammad is quoted as saying that "The best mosques for women are the inner parts of their houses." Thus through customs of prayer women are again relegated to the home and excluded from the male dominated world of religious authority and interpretation. In terms of dress, Muslim men must cover their body from their belly button to their knee, while Muslim women are expect to cover every part of her body except for her face and hands. The Prophet Muhammad explicitly outlined this style of dress, saying, “It is not lawful for any woman who believes in Allah and the Last Day that she should uncover her hand more than this and then he placed his hand on his wrist joint." When a woman reaches puberty no part of her body should remain uncovered except her face and the hand up to the wrist joint." The extreme differences in these rules of dress point to the extreme modesty expected of women, whose position as essentially the possession of the men in their lives necessitates that they cover themselves from the violating gaze of other men. By assigning such differing roles to men and women, women are kept under the shadow of men and in the home under the name of fulfilling their religious duties.
Christianity, Judaism, and Islam each delegate women in a large degree to the role of the nurturer, the calming influence whose main purpose on earth is to procreate, raise her children, and serve her husband. A woman is valued for her potential as a wife and mother, and her ability to care for and raise the men around her. The qualities then, which such a role would necessitate are the qualities extolled in women in the religious texts of the Islam, Christianity and Judaism. They call for women to be docile, submissive, gentle, nurturing, wise, and patient. The letters of Peter in the Bible describe at one point the appropriate demeanor for wives, saying, “wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without talk by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self; the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women, of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master...” (I Peter 3:1) Although this passage does not place this gender role as less worthy to the male gender role, by nature such a submissive character would have unequal dealings with a more powerful nature. The image of the weaker sex continues in Peter’s letters; later, he admonishes husbands to “in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life…” (I Peter 3:7) This image of men as more powerful and stronger than women leads to a view of women as dependent on men and incapable of fulfilling their religious roles without the aid of men. The narrow constructs of women’s role also limits the free expression of many women, who did not or did not want to solely marry and bear children, but sought other professions and purposes in life.
Historical analysis of the times in which these texts were written and in which these three religions came into being must be made to understand the status of women in society. Women were awarded a status greatly inferior to that of men and often held a position in society barely above that of slaves. They did not have access to education, and it would have been highly inappropriate for women to hold positions of authority in the church. Women were not allowed to study the Torah or hold positions of religious power, such as rabbis. When Christianity began to grow, although Jesus’ practices were allegedly much more egalitarian as regarding women, in order to placate critics of the emerging religion much care was taken for the policies of the religion regarding women not to seem too heretical. Kaari Ward, in his book Jesus and His Times asserts that “the apostle Paul and other church leaders were very concerned about avoiding any appearance of scandal that would make a bad impression on the people they wanted to convert to Christianity, or worse, that could be used to justify persecution of Christians.” Thus the influence of women was much downplayed to lessen the potential outcry from critics. Karen King asserts that “every variety of ancient Christianity that advocated the legitimacy of women's leadership was eventually declared heretical, and evidence of women's early leadership roles was erased or suppressed.” For example, “in Romans 16:7, the apostle Paul sends greetings to a woman named Junia. He says of her and her male partner Andronicus that they are "my kin and my fellow prisoners, prominent among the apostles and they were in Christ before me." Concluding that women could not be apostles, textual editors and translators transformed Junia into Junias, a man.” Both to combat labels of heresy and to reflect the male-oriented attitude of the times, women’s early influence and impact of Christianity was greatly watered down and lessened by male religious figures.
In the early years of Christianity a much stronger female religious presence existed than is acknowledged today. Bible scholar Karen King, in her essay “Women in Ancient Christianity: the New Discoveries,” cites several female influences and important female religious figures in the ministry of Christ: “From the beginning, Jewish women disciples, including Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna, had accompanied Jesus during his ministry and supported him out of their private means.” The apostle Paul’s letters also cite many Jewish and Gentile women who were instrumental in the spread of early Christiantiy. “He greets Prisca, Junia, Julia, and Nereus' sister, who worked and traveled as missionaries in pairs with their husbands or brothers (Romans 16:3, 7, 15). He tells us that Prisca and her husband risked their lives to save his. He praises Junia as a prominent apostle, who had been imprisoned for her labor. Mary and Persis are commended for their hard work (Romans 16:6, 12). Euodia and Syntyche are called his fellow-workers in the gospel (Philippians 4:2-3).” Furthermore, the lack of churches in which to hold religious services led to most services being held in private homes, where women possessed much influence. In these home services, women often led prayer and acted as religious leaders and prophets. Women, both single and in conjunction with the work of their husbands, worked towards the spread and growth of the Christian faith.
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, discovered in 1896, provided important evidence regarding the role of women in early Christianity. In this text, Mary Magdalene appears as an important apostle close to Jesus, rather than as a repentant whore such as she was portrayed by Christians for a very long time.