Are religions unfair to women?

Religions are human constructs so they reflect the prevailing culture, which has historically been male-dominated in the majority of cultures.

High-five to Anne Marie Waters. A powerful article.

Excellent article. It's what I've always said - I don't have a problem with people believing what they like. It's religion I have a problem with. Too controlling as this was the reason why they were created in the first place - to control the populus.

Great article! My pet hate is the way justifications for oppressing, abusing and terrorising women are intellectualised, as though to convince us that, if we only understood culture, religion, the status quo, we would accept the need for this treatment. Anne Marie Waters cuts through that crap!

She is barking! Historical precedent suggests that the dominant group(s) in any society, culture, class will exploit and suppress people outside that group. We had thousands of years of chattel slavery all over the world until in the 18th century a body of Christians mainly in this country and the US spoke out against it and successfully campaigned to bring it to an end. It still exists almost everywhere. Bad things have been done in the name of religion(s). The same bad things, and worse, have been done for other reasons or no reason other than that power corrupts. The most dangerous and violent regimes in our lifetimes have described themselves as atheistic or 'secular'. You don't have to believe to be moral but it doesn't follow that you have to be 'secular' to be good!

I accept that you don't agree with her, Lilygran, but she is definitely not barking.

Sorry, but I can't think of any other description for such a bizarre view of the world.

It's not bizarre at all. Power corrupts says it all. Religion is about power.

"Secularism does not control belief; it keeps religious oppressors away from power and, most importantly, keeps women safe and free from these oppressors."

And other oppressors don't exist?

Of course there is evil outside religions. But religion taken to extreme adds to it.

No. Oppressive religion is one form of oppression. It doesn't 'add to' other forms of oppression. It is easy to identify 'religion' without further definition as the cause of all the ills in the world. It gives you a target to have a go at and makes it unnecessary to have to analyse or even think about the cloudier aspects of life. Man (and woman) cannot face too much reality.

But what the essay says is true, regardless of whether there is evil outside of religion. The article isn't saying all aspects of religion are evil. It is describing evil things that religion endorses. This essay is addressing the unfair and unjust in religion and the excuses that are made for it.

It is a good target precisely because it is true. Why shouldn't people who care about justice attack injustice wherever they see it? We don't have to attack all of it all at the same time. We can focus on "good targets" wherever they are. This happens to be one of the best in the sense of most obvious and easy not to miss!

The essay is a bull's eye – which expression, just for your information, is not used in target archery.

Bulls something!

So, lily, which bit of this quote from the article is bullshit and which bit is true?
"If we look at the real world, there are thousands of women – millions of women, all around the world who, as a result of religion, are being denied the right to vote, being denied the right to drive, being denied the right to leave the house and get the job that they want. Young girls are having their clitorises removed, unsafely, in unsanitary conditions. Women being killed, women having their lives ruined, and we're sat here bickering about what verses mean. Just look at the real world – religion is incredibly damaging to women".

You don't have to answer. It's obvious what the answer is. All of it is true. And all of it is done in the name of religion.

""If we look at the real world, there are thousands of women – millions of women, all around the world who, as a result of religion, are being denied the right to vote, being denied the right to drive, being denied the right to leave the house and get the job that they want. Young girls are having their clitorises removed, unsafely, in unsanitary conditions. Women being killed, women having their lives ruined, and we're sat here bickering about what verses mean. Just look at the real world – religion is incredibly damaging to women".

Yep! I totally agree with all of that. Glad my religion is Christian.

I would argue that none of these oppressions can justifiably be blamed on religion. Many of them cross cultural and faith boundaries; in other words, men (people) use religion as a means of justifying the unjustifiable. Just as they use the divine right of kings, or the authority of the Party or the respect due to the elders or the demands of the Five Year Plan. If you are against female genital mutilation for example, campaign against that. Don't erect a straw man to attack. It will divert attention from the real evil and is not, in any case, true.

I agree that people, particularly men, use religion to justify the oppression of women. But why? As I see it, the men made the religion, the men made the rules of the religion (I'm not talking about spirituality here), and men apply those religious rules to justify men's oppression of women. If anyone has erected a straw man, it's the same kind of people as the ones who felt the need to justify injustice in the first place, and they called that injustice and all its unjust rules religion.

Human injustice is perpetrated against other humans by humans in the name of religion. Religion is a human invention. Where's the straw man?

Actually, I don't think I really understand the term straw man. I really mean that, and I think using that term is just a distraction technique.

There's no point in campaigning against say female genital mutilation if the religious leader says it's ok and should be done. It will only stop and cease to be 'normal' if said leader says it's wrong.

It stopped here 300 or so years ago when secular power became stronger than religious power.

I do not think it is a matter of blaming religions - as I said, they simply reflect the prevailing cultures, which are usually male-dominated. They just provide a channel for endorsing those oppressions and a divine justification.

The existence of oppression within religions is indisputable, as it is outside of religion too. Neither justifies nor excuses the existence of the other.

It must be painful for those with genuine religious convictions of a non-oppressive nature to have to acknowledge how religion has been used for negative aims.

However, religions cannot totally cop out of responsibility, however attractive that idea might be. Many of the written doctrines of the main religions are frighteningly cruel. Look at the old testament. It is not enough to say that attitudes to this have moved on - if that is the case, then stop reading this stuff out in church every week. Many of the teachings in the old testament have formed the basis of religious oppression.

What happens now is that religious philosophers and intellectuals tie themselves in knots to say that these archaic attitudes have been superceded and we now take a more rationalist and liberal view of them - but we cannot escape the damage that they have done over generations. It really is not good enough just to label other religions as primitive, or older attitudes to western religion thus - the inherent danger in religions has to be acknowledged.

This does not mean that their positive aspects should be ignored either.

The role of religions in the oppression of women is not disputable - it is a fact.

They never used to snip clits off 300 years ago in this country! I'm sure we would have heard about it.