2 weeks Ago By Pravina-rudra
This week, I have seen dozens of tributes to Pope Francis and how he advanced the cause of women. This is quite something.Look, the man seems like he was a nice guy and all – but he compared abortion to hiring a hitman and reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s ban on women becoming priests.
But no, they say, he allowed women to become lectors (who can read out loud at Mass) and acolytes (priest assistants who can, for instance, clean the altar). Yassss queen.It’s sort of astonishing how much we lower the bar when it comes to religion.
In other facets of modern life, we get up in arms about anything less than total equality. But with religion, we resort to mental acrobatics.if(window.
adverts) { window.adverts.addToArray({"pos": "inread-hb-ros-inews"}); }Take, for example, the vicar who was featured in the Telegraph last week for saying that Jesus was, in fact, a feminist.
And maybe compared to the rest of Nazareth circa 30AD, he was. But sorry, remind me who his 12 disciples were again?I say this, having been brought up mainly in Hinduism. I see the appeal and community of religion, but the concept itself didn’t feel logical to me.
I’m well aware not all religions or denominations are the same in their treatment of women, as the aforementioned female Church of England vicar shows.In core religious texts, women’s subordination to men is repeated to the point of tedium. To cite just a few, 1 Timothy 2:12 says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man”.
In the Hindu Manusmitri: “In childhood, a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her lord is dead to her sons”. And the daily Jewish prayer: “Blessed are you, Lord, our God, ruler of the universe who has not created me a woman”.I’ve heard the point that scriptures just reflect the prejudices of the men who wrote them more than God himself.
You can reinvent religion like the feminist Jesus vicar trying to appeal to Gen Z via TikTok or Reform Judaism with its female rabbis. Women have fought for a stronger standing in their religions for decades, with some success.if(window.
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adverts) { window.adverts.addToArray({"pos": "mpu_tablet_l1"}); }But that we have to take existing religion and unpick or subvert it speaks to a desire to hold onto something known rather than to start anew.
Women are always fighting for the private members’ club to allow them in rather than asking if they’re better off without it.What is most striking to me is how religions, which founded continents and millennia apart, land on such similar ways to undermine women. This struck me first when I saw the ritual cleansing the heroine underwent on the hit Netflix show Unorthodox and googled it.
I read how the Jewish mikveh is used in Orthodox communities after menstruation and was reminded of how growing up as a Hindu, I would be thrilled when I got my period. It meant a day off prayers – more if I didn’t wash my hair when I showered.It’s the oldest trick in the book, using a woman’s menstrual cycle to suggest she’s too hormonal to stand equal to men.
In the privacy of our bathrooms, in the most insidious and demeaning ways, religion reminds us we are impure, that we are the source of Original Sin. It wasn’t Adam who first bit into the apple.Oddly, white people on the left are often the first to defend these feminist interpretations of religion – so terrified of provoking sensitivity that they end up betraying the women they’re trying to protect.
The fashionable phrasing around the hijab is that it constitutes a feminist choice. But you only need to look at how the wearing of the hijab is policed in Afghanistan since the return of the Taliban to see that that’s not the case everywhere.I once kept up this pretence.
I told myself Hinduism was different because it handily encompassed female gurus and gods, like Lakshmi and Saraswati. Female deities are venerated and idealised as mother figures. Though never given proper agency and mind, women were protected by men.
And so I understand this desperation to believe one’s religion can be feminist. Letting go of religion, the comforter I was swaddled in since birth, and the lens through which I’d always viewed the world imbued me with guilt. If you’re anxious – as I am – you might think life will turn out terribly for you if you let go.
#color-context-related-article-3645101 {--inews-color-primary: #3759B7;--inews-color-secondary: #EFF2FA;--inews-color-tertiary: #3759B7;} Read Next square PRAVINA RUDRA Don't be surprised that the rich are kinder than the poorRead MoreTo reconcile the progressive beliefs I now have with believing in Hinduism would be like navigating a laser maze of contradictions – which I notice others do. In the short term, it’s easier to empower yourself through feminist retellings of your religion than to commence a break-up with a belief system, which is often how whole families relate to one another and endure the ensuing heartache. But, in my experience, it’s far more liberating and joyful to do without religion.
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addToArray({"pos": "mpu_tablet_l2"}); }You could wait many, many lifetimes for them to decide a woman can be the next Pope when she can’t be a cardinal, bishop, priest or even a lowly deacon. Or you could step this way. The water might seem cold at first, but it’s far clearer.
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