I wonder if God knows why I'm a feminist. I wonder if he understands, or just thinks it's some new-fangled thing all the kids are talking about it.
I mean, he's God, of course he understands. And my take on feminism is it's all about loving others- that's what God wants Christians to do anyway! The idea that God supports me in this- maybe it doesn't FEEL true, but that's what I said faith was. Surely God is all for it.
But then...
Exodus 22:16-17 "If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins."
Exodus 23:17 "Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord."
So the first verse there- that's terrible. A women should marry her rapist. That's terrible. The second example is also sexist but way more subtle- the men have to come "appear before the Sovereign Lord", but the women don't, because, who cares about them.
The answer I've heard for why God wanted a woman to marry her rapist goes like this: Well, if she wasn't a virgin, no other man would want her, and she wouldn't be able to get married, so she'd be really poor. That's how the culture worked back then, and God set up this policy so at least there would be someone to take care of her.
God, don't you realize this is terrible? Do you really think women are less important than men?
And here's my attempt at an answer.
Let's look at the injustice that exists in American culture. Black people are less likely than white people to graduate high school or college. Women get paid less than men. (I'm making some big generalizations here, but you know what I'm talking about.) So, what do we do?
Okay. Well, we could ignore the problem. Don't do anything to address the difference. Awesome, then it just perpetuates itself. That doesn't help anything.
Well, we could put some affirmative-action programs in place, to help minorities get into college. But if their high school education wasn't that good, they're going to be totally screwed in college. Also, what if white people just assume the minorities are totally not qualified, just getting into college because we need to be "diverse" or "politically correct"? Then that just reinforces the existing racism. It pits one group against another.
My point is that as a society we need to do something to address this injustice, but every possible solution is going to have problems. In every case, there will be something that someone can complain about. There's no perfect solution. You can't just "fix" racism.
Similarly, back when God gave Moses the law, the culture God was working with was INCREDIBLY SEXIST. There really was no good solution for what to do for a woman who got raped. This was the best policy God could come up with, without some kind of creepy mind-control to magically make everyone stop being sexist.
Yeah. Hopefully, God didn't actually think this was a GOOD idea. Hopefully, he knows the whole thing was terrible, and he is working to somehow bring justice for the women oppressed by the stupid sexist societies that have existed throughout history.
That's all I got. What do you think?
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For more posts about the book of Exodus, click here.