Libby Anne’s parents always taught her that women and men are equal…sort of.
My parents taught me that men and women were different and had different roles to play, but that men and women and their roles were also equal and of equal worth. The male role is to provide for his family and protect them, to engage in politics and spiritual warfare, to have a career and make the decisions for his family. The female role is to keep the house and home, raise and teach her children, exercise hospitality and offer service to others, and support her husband. I was taught that these two roles are equally important and that men and women were thus different, but equal.
Except that, as she goes on to say, that’s bullshit. Just read Debbi Pearl, author of (I’m not making this up) Created To Be His Helpmeet and Preparing To Be A Helpmeet. Read her article “Learning To Become A Multi-Colored Girl.”
As Adam was created in God’s image, Eve was created in Adam’s image. God could have shaped two clay figures and breathed life into both, but he chose to take the woman from the man’s own flesh and bone. I have come to see that tiered process as very significant, making it consistent with nature that the woman should be the helper in the chain of command.
Oh it’s significant all right, and it’s very damn convenient. On the other hand, it’s not true. It’s a sentence in an old book. That’s all it is. It’s not even the only account of human origins in Genesis; there are two, which contradict each other. In Genesis 1:27 god creates humans “in his image”; male and female. In 2:22 god makes a woman out of a rib of the already created man. Pearl is treating the second as if it amplified the first instead of contradicting it – all for the sake of declaring her own inferiority, and ours and mine.
Libby Anne quotes more:
God did not create women as he did men, strongly fixed in one type or another. Being created in the image of man, we are more muted and flexible in our types.
More muted? More muted?
That’s a truly extraordinary thing to say – it’s just an outright claim that there is less to us than there is to men. This of course is what a hell of a lot of people assume or pick up from the ether without realizing it; it must be, or the women in movies and tv shows and novels wouldn’t so often be non-entities compared to the men; but it’s an astounding thing to spell out.
Libby Anne goes through the whole thing, to excellent effect.
actually, I’m pretty certain one of the Genesis stories does have man and woman created together, at the same time, from the same stuff. Amazing how she forgets to mention that.
Yup – I mentioned that in the next para. Took the trouble to find the two verses and all! :- )
Gee. Almost as if a bunch of guys got together and said among themselves, “OK. Here’s what we do . . .”
The fact that such obvious collusion has come to be regarded as gospel truth is just one of the things that amaze and stupefy me. I now return to contemplating something else entirely.
that’s what I get for commenting before coffee, I totally missed that. lol
@Crudley Wrott
Actually, that’s not necessarily true.
I think I heard it first from George Carlin: There’s no need for a formal conspiracy when interests converge.
I like the title you chose for this article. It’s very appropriate and makes a point! 🙂
And Chapter 1 makes no mention of how many humans God created.
There could have been dozens ; -)
—apparently you, as admin, can turn this 😉 🙁 off
I bet some people believe that men have one rib less than women. Since Adam “donated” his and all.
docslacker
I met one. He was an engineering student.
Oops – I seem to have forgotten to include the link to Libby Anne’s post.
Infuriating sad comments on Libby Anne’s post, from women who were raised the same way. Especially this one –
This is truly mind-bogglingly absurd and a surreal fantastical reversal of scientific reality, which is that all people begin development essentially female, and all vital information to build any human body is contained in the X chromosome, while males are a variant. I hear geocentrism is also coming back into style with the fundies, they have no reason to believe the earth orbits the sun. This is surely a cry out to be spaced.
What type am I supposed to be? Because I don’t seem to fit traditional masculinity, at least, so far as I can tell.
And if women are supposed to somehow be less than me by virtue of not having balls, why are there so many women who seem to be just as smart as the men I meet? What’s the point of making them that way, if they’re just there for housework, babysitting, and fucking? Seems like a poor system, if you ask me. And obviously you should ask me, since I’m a man, right?
Oh, one more thing: I told my wife that someone named Debbi Pearl says she’s supposed to obey me, period. She stared at me for almost a minute, with a look that said “are you kidding me?” as I tried to explain that she can at least object if I’m abusing our future kids or ask her to watch porn.
Her response: “fuck that noise,” and went back to doing her own thing.
Wow, thanks for this link to Libby’s blog, Ophelia! I’m bookmarking it as soon as I get my own computer back. It looks wonderful.
The Pearls also advocate for beating infants, toddlers and children in general with 1/4 inch plastic plumbing pipe. A foster kid in California was recently beaten to death, her sister also disfigured. Guess what book was found in the Christian foster parents’ home? “To Train Up A Child” by the Pearls. Living human excrement, they are. A testament to actual Dominionism, with a capital “D.”
“My father was always drumming in that girls were made to serve boys and men. ”
His error was in omitting the preparation. I find filleting is often the easiest.
wow… wait… the fact that we are “more muted” doesn’t also mean that, apparently, god is not able to do a perfect copy? 🙂
Sneering at the religious nutcases is fun and easy, but 40 years later, it’s getting a bit boring. And “muted? MUTED?” sounds like it comes out of a 1970s sitcom that just discovered women’s lib. Hey I still enjoy a rerun of All in the Family or MTM, but I don’t argue with Archie anymore.