10 Biblical Reasons for Women to Avoid Christianity Like the Plague

Al Stefanelli has a longer post on this topic, but I think these verses (direct from the Bible!) that he quotes stand on their own and make the point as well as anything else we can add to them:

1. “No wickedness comes anywhere near the wickedness of a woman…..Sin began with a woman and thanks to her we all must die” (Ecclesiasticus 25:19,24).
2. “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I don’t permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner” (I Timothy 2:11-14).
3. “The birth of a daughter is a loss” (Ecclesiasticus 22:3).
4. “Keep a headstrong daughter under firm control, or she will abuse any indulgence she receives. Keep a strict watch on her shameless eye, do not be surprised if she disgraces you” (Ecclesiasticus 26:10-11).
5. “As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.” (I Corinthians 14:34-35)
6. “When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening. Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean. Whoever touches her bed must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. Whoever touches anything she sits on must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. Whether it is the bed or anything she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, he will be unclean till evening” (Lev. 15:19-23).
7. “If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her saying, ‘I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,’ …and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of the town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.” (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)
8. “A bad wife brings humiliation, downcast looks, and a wounded heart. Slack of hand and weak of knee is the man whose wife fails to make him happy. Woman is the origin of sin, and it is through her that we all die. Do not leave a leaky cistern to drip or allow a bad wife to say what she likes. If she does not accept your control, divorce her and send her away” (Ecclesiasticus 25:25).
9. “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God…A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head” (I Corinthians 11:3-10).
10. “They called out to Lot and said, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Send them out to us so we can have sex with them! Lot went out to them at the entrance and shut the door behind him. He said, “Don’t do this evil, my brothers. Look, I’ve got two daughters who haven’t had sexual relations with a man. I’ll bring them out to you, and you can do whatever you want to them. However, don’t do anything to these men, because they have come under the protection of my roof.” (Genesis 19:5-8)

Things I’ve Read: The Mists of Avalon

I don’t read as much Arthurian legend as I used to, but my love for that mythology is one that I don’t think will ever truly die. A few years ago, I went through a rather long phase where I read nearly every King Arthur story I could get my hands on. I read T.H. White’s The Once and Future King. I read J. Robert King’s Mad Merlin and Lancelot Du Lethe (but not his Le Morte D’Avalon, yet). A.A. Attanasio’s The Dragon and the Unicorn (and its sequels) were challenging but rewarding. I can’t even recall all the less notable and more poorly written books I read, honestly. Regardless, I somehow managed to make it through all of this phase without reading Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon.

The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

A few weeks ago, I was browsing through Amazon, growing my Wishlist to an even more preposterous size than it already was, when Mists popped up as a recommendation. I was familiar with the title, having worked in a bookstore for a couple of years and being a prolific reader, but I didn’t really know what the book was about other than that it was a retelling of the King Arthur story that was centered on the women characters of the legend. Thinking to myself that it had been a while since I’d read a good King Arthur story, I clicked through and started reading through some of the Amazon reviews.

Watched: The Help (2011)

The Help (2011)

As soon as I saw the first trailer for The Help, I knew it was going to be another white savior movie. At the same time, I was a tiny bit excited at the appearance of another woman-centered movie on the horizon, and I hoped that it would belie my rather low expectations. There are so few movies about women’s lives and stories, and even fewer that manage to be made and distributed nationally. Fewer still are movies about women that aren’t centered on our supposedly eternal and imperative search for a man to put babies in our bellies. So. You know. I was excited, though pessimistically so, when I saw the early previews of this film.

There are few times when I hate to be right, but I definitely was about this movie, and I definitely hated to be. The Help isn’t just a white savior movie—there’s also an insidious thread of misogyny throughout it. It’s not surprising. I expected it, mostly, but it never ceases to be disappointing.

Watched: Bridesmaids (2011)

Bridesmaids (2011)

I completely loved this movie.

It was incredibly refreshing to see a woman-centered story and even better to see some of the funniest women in the acting business get to be funny together with relatively little interference from men. It’s a little sad, I think, that this is such a novelty. It’s as if we get so used to seeing movies with little or no female presence that it’s incredibly striking to see a movie about women in which men are really only on the periphery of the storyline–in Bridesmaids, the men are the bit players in the fascinating lives of the women at the center of the action.

Kristen Wiig is absolutely perfect as Annie, a directionless 30-something struggling with feelings of inadequacy, frustration, and resentment as her best friend, Lillian (Maya Rudolph), tries to plan her wedding, the process of which provides a brilliant backdrop for the film’s clever commentary on friendship, relationships, and the entire wedding-industrial complex and its effects on women. Rose Byrne is Helen, who intimidates Annie with her beauty and wealth, but who is just as dissatisfied as Annie is with the way her own life is turning out.

The competition between Annie and Helen is at the center of the story, but the rest of the cast is populated by ladies who are just awesome. Everyone gets great lines, and none of them were abused in the script, possibly because this movie that is about women is also by women–Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo co-wrote.

Women Deserve Better

“Women deserve better than abortion.”

I’ve been seeing this statement a lot lately, and I increasingly have a problem with it.

First, it implies that women who have abortions are victimized by “the abortion industry”–another phrase that make me more than a little angry (as if clinics are performing assembly-line style abortions for huge profits, which is demonstrably untrue).

Women have abortions for many reasons, and there are cases where parents, boyfriends, or husbands coerce women into terminated their pregnancies. Those women and girls who are coerced can be said to be victimized, but they are victims of the abusive assholes who are supposed to care for them—not of the clinic where their procedure is performed or the doctor who provides the service for them. Those women and girls do indeed deserve better.

Most women who choose to terminate a pregnancy have made a thoughtful and considered choice to do so. They face guilt, stigma, and villainization at the hands of a society that fails to respect their choice or even, often, to see them as human beings that are more than incubators for fetuses. They face being called whores and murderers. They face bearing all the blame for the situation that led them to choose abortion, as if women get pregnant in a vacuum with no one else around. Women do deserve better than that.

There are women whose partners sabotage their birth control, causing them to become pregnant against their will. Those women deserve better.

There are women who become pregnant because they have been raped. They deserve better.

There are victims of abuse, molestation, and incest who become pregnant. Those girls and women deserve better.

There are women who are deprived of complete and factual education about their bodies and their sexuality, becoming pregnant because they lack the tools and information to prevent it. They deserve better than that.

There are women without the financial, social, or familial support that might make it possible for them to keep a child. There are women for whom carrying to term an unplanned pregnancy can mean giving up their hopes, dreams, goals, and aspirations, making it nearly impossible for them or their children to have the health, happiness, and security they need to thrive. Those women deserve better.

Unplanned or unnwanted pregnancies happen because no matter how much control women have over their reproductive lives, we will almost certainly never have 100% control through contraception alone. Our “choice” then, according to strict anti-choicers, is to reject and stifle our sexuality by abstaining completely unless we are willing to be mothers, effectively giving up a large facet of the human experience simply because our biology burdens us with consequences that men never have to face.

Some things in life have nothing to do with what we “deserve.” In a perfect world, no woman would ever become pregnant unless she wanted to. No woman would ever have a child that she isn’t mentally, emotionally, financially, and physically able to love and care for.

We don’t live in that world, and until we do, women deserve access to reproductive healthcare. We deserve sexual education that enables us to make informed decisions about our health. We deserve support and understanding for whatever choices we do make. We deserve to be treated as human beings with feelings, emotions, and goals that involve more than just popping out babies.