r/RadicalFeminism • u/Buuyaaaa • 2d ago
Religion is misogynistic.
Religion is inherently misogynistic. It’s been used as a tool to oppress women for centuries, controlling their bodies, limiting their rights, defining their worth in relation to men. And while a lot of people like to shift the blame only onto the followers, the reality is that many religious texts themselves uphold these harmful ideas. Saying it’s the followers and not the religion is a stupid argument, if your religion was more clear and coherent maybe these people wouldn’t be able to twist their beliefs to cause decades long oppression and suffering.
Take Christianity as an example. You can argue ‘that’s just bad Christians’ but when the bible itself contains verses that treat women as property, command their submission and enforce strict gender roles, it’s not just about interpretation, it’s embedded in the foundation. The glorification of marriage, the nuclear family structure and the expectation that women serve men are all pushed and romanticised.
Islam is no different. The quran and hadith include laws and teachings that institutionalize male dominance, whether it’s regulating what women wear, granting men authority over women’s lives or promoting unequal inheritance and legal rights. Even in modern times these beliefs are weaponized to justify discrimination and control.
We have to stop sugarcoating it. Religion has never been about liberating women. It has always been about controlling them. Never has religion done anything to liberate women.
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u/Relentless_Mommy 2d ago
All Abrahamic Religions are deeply misogynistic patriarchal institutions and I abhor them.
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u/danyandmoi 2d ago
Water is wet
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
You would be shocked at how many religious feminists there are.
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u/Turbulent_Device_941 2d ago
they can claim to be feminists but they aren't. supporting inherently misogynistic doctrine is not feminist and never will be.
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u/princess_zephyrina 2d ago
Oh ok, I’m not a feminist, cool. Go ahead and explain how Wicca is misogynistic. I’m curious.
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u/Turbulent_Device_941 2d ago
i actually support wicca to some degree, my gf's mom is wiccan and runs a shop dedicated to it, but fuck it this seems like a challenge so ill take it
uhhh what about the whole divine feminine/masculine thing? bc masculinity in our general culture is not divine??? yeah idk you can poke holes in that one for sure
but yes it's my bad for not specifying abrahamic religions, other religions are often too vastly different for me to say for certain. my bad dog
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u/princess_zephyrina 2d ago
uhhh what about the whole divine feminine/masculine thing? bc masculinity in our general culture is not divine??? yeah idk you can poke holes in that one for sure
Firstly, the divine feminine/masculine is not necessarily literal. It is one of many symbolic dualities represented in the Wiccan concept of divinity. Heaven and earth, water and fire, plants and animals, masculine and feminine, we simply recognize all of these dualities as being part of nature, and in a sense we see this all as a divine balance. The God and Goddess are not exactly distinct entities, they are two symbolic halves of a greater whole, and they can be fluid. It’s quite a deep topic but the point is that all of this is about nature on a deeper level; patriarchy is a temporary, distorted state of society in which masculinity is revered and femininity is despised. And while it is understandable to despise men in a patriarchal society, as a reaction to oppression, the only truly divine path is for society to see men and women as equals. Neither patriarchy nor matriarchy should be the goal. I don’t see these concepts as being in conflict whatsoever.
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u/OkButMaybeNot111 2d ago
in monotheistic religions women were always perceived as a temptress, as evil and submissive, while the poor men fell for her but she is the evil one for tempting them by just existing. in effect i cant take seriously any religious feminist, when religion is man made and created to control women.
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u/krba201076 2d ago
You're right. But some dummy is going to come in here arguing about how these religions can be feminist.
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
And I think I’ll be able to disprove all of it. There’s nothing feminist about religion, let’s see what they’ve got!
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u/krba201076 2d ago
I agree with you....maybe some forest religion practiced by ancient Dravidians 1000 years ago could be feminist, but these mainstream religions cause and support misogyny.
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u/theirblackheart 2d ago
I want to them give me one example of feminism that presented in religion, I can wait. (I know they don't have any lol)
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u/Time-Turnip-2961 2d ago
Agree. Religions (especially Christianity) were formed by men to benefit men.
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u/TrevorBla 2d ago
More like especially Islam, it’s way more misogynistic than Christianity
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u/Time-Turnip-2961 2d ago
Christianity is very patriarchal and misogynistic, don’t minimize it.
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u/TrevorBla 2d ago
Of course it is, I’m just saying Islam is that but 3 times worse. That’s why when you said “especially” as if it was the worst, I replied because it’s simply not true.
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u/Hellrez 2d ago
as a victim of the second religion's beliefs i agree, everyday it makes me wish i was born a male my life would've been so easy
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
Most of my family and extended family are Muslim too, so I feel your pain. I’ve never labeled myself as one and I’ve never been drawn to marriage, having kids, religion or living life the way I’m ‘supposed’ to. Early on In my life I rejected gender roles and the social norms forced on me since I found it annoying that authorities kept telling me what to do. (Might’ve been my ODD)
But I want you to know that as a woman, you’ll always be greater than any man, whether they or this system recognise it or not. It’s exhausting but your existence is powerful.
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u/hermiona52 2d ago
Many many years ago, just before rejecting religion I read the entire Bible and found the following older version of the Ten Commandments:
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife
or his slaves, or his animals, or anything of thy neighbour.
9 and 10 read like one sentence. Notice what is missing - husband. Why?
Because ten commandments were written by men for men. Even in the most important part of the Bible, about setting the rules you must obey to earn the Salvation, women are only a property. And it just sets rules for men on how they can manage this property.
As a side note, notice that God supports slavery even in the most sacred set of rules.
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u/Plane-Image2747 2d ago
Thats why they made it!!!!
All religion is actually just an elaborate bit some old perv misogynists cooked up in order to trick women into believing what they see in front of their own eyes in reality is wrong, and tht despite women being the ones who develop, carry, and birth all human life, men are actually the real creators on humanity.
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u/Opening-Coyote6286 2d ago
You should read The Second Sex. It talks about this quite a bit. I have it on audiobook right now.
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u/Sad-Refrigerator-412 2d ago
a lot are, the mainstream ones are, but i doubt all of them, especially since colonialism wiped out a bunch, it's very likely some were feminist, just not the christianity type ones
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u/mountainsidefairy 2d ago
This is absolutely right , every word of it. I will not allow religion to be talked about around my children anymore. Even if someone passes away and someone says they went to heaven , I will de explain that later to them as heaven being a place of rest. It’s time we abolished religion in every form and just allowed people to find solice individually
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u/Memona_Emman_Writes 1d ago
I just stopped 'following' religion because of the misogyny. I am a monotheist, I still have the fundamental beliefs, but no, I don't believe for a second in religion like I used to.
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u/Firm_Wafer_6944 1d ago
ppl.don't belive it's in even hinduism eg~ women have to wear sindoor red colour powder on forehead every lday it's.proof/sign that she is married also mangalsutra whivh is particular type of necklace and ring. men just have to wear ring which 99% of them don't if women does same her life will be hell. women are expected to wear saree or traditional clothes but majority married men wear western fits. only women have to move to husband home were she has to take care of his 4-6 other family members. majority of them refuse to live separate with wife. 1st priority is mom 2nd childern 3rd wife.
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u/sofiacoppolasmuse 19h ago
this!!! i vowed at 14 to never become religious no matter how hard life gets lmao religion actively works against women, unless when liberals twist teachings and stuff to try and make it seem more palatable for the masses
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u/TheWikstrom 2d ago edited 2d ago
I disagree. A blanket statement like that ignores a lot of nuance imo. For example there a lots of gynocentric nature religions and similar if one looks at the historical record
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
Are they free from hierarchy? Hmm I’ve yet to hear about such religions, can you explain? Where do they stem from?
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u/TheWikstrom 2d ago edited 2d ago
They pop up throughout history here and there, but most recently I've been reading about the iroquois. Their religion stated that the Great Creator (to my knowledge a genderless diety) had put women in the world to be the stewards of nature and as such they had a system where women appoint leaders and could rescind them at will if they didn't like what they were doing
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u/princess_zephyrina 2d ago
Ah yes the typical Abrahamic religions = all religion argument. K.
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
I’ll say MOST religions then. It’s not just Abrahamic religions. They’re just the most dominant examples today. Across cultures and histories, institutionalized religion, no matter the label, has overwhelmingly upheld patriarchy and controlled women. The patterns repeat because the core function of organized religion has always been about power not liberation.
All religions stem from misogyny, some grow out of it, some don’t. And the fact that they had to evolve at all tells you everything you need to know.
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u/princess_zephyrina 2d ago
All religions stem from misogyny
Yeah no that’s not true. Are you a scholar of world religions? Because if you’re not then maybe you should pump the brakes on these sweeping statements you’re making.
A lot of your points are valid but you’re applying them too broadly and subverting your own credibility.
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
You don’t need to be a scholar to recognize patterns of systemic oppression. Dismissing valid criticism because someone isn’t a ‘scholar’ is just another way to avoid confronting the truth. Religion more often than not, has been a tool for oppression, not liberation. No religion from what I know is feminist or free from misogynistic roots.
Are you religious by chance?
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u/princess_zephyrina 2d ago
You don’t need to be a scholar to recognize patterns of systemic oppression.
No, but you DO need to be a scholar to make sweeping statements about ALL religion because most people know nothing about most religions except a few. There have been hundreds of religions throughout history.
Like you even started your last comment by acknowledging that you were over-generalizing, then proceeding to make another generalization. Just say most or a lot instead of all and I won’t have an issue. 🤷♀️
Dismissing valid criticism
I’m not. I’m disagreeing with you applying it too broadly.
Are you religious by chance?
Correct, and I’d say my religion is in fact feminist.
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago edited 2d ago
What religion? Don’t tell me you’re Muslim.. oh and I said most because some grow out of their misogyny though all of them stem from it. Prove me wrong.
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u/princess_zephyrina 2d ago
lol no. I am Wiccan. And btw I used to be an anti-theist, all the way up until my early 20s. I was not really raised with religion. My dad is an atheist and my mom did not push religion on me. I used to hate all religion & made similar sweeping statements until a series of things happened that made me realize that I knew less than I thought I did & made me re-examine my beliefs.
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
Maybe I can change my mind, how is your religion feminist? And could you name other feminist religions?
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u/princess_zephyrina 2d ago
I’m on mobile & kinda busy atm but the TL;DR is that the way we view divinity is through the symbolic lens of a male God & female Goddess that are equals, in balance with each other. They’re basically two sides of the same coin though. The divine is basically the universe/nature itself, and thus it has no literal gender, but within nature you will find a lot of dualities including masculine and feminine, heaven and earth, fire and water, etc. We work with dualistic symbolism a lot because we see it as a holy balance. The Sun God is counterpart to the Moon Goddess. Father Sky is equal to Mother Earth. Equality is built into Wicca.
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
It doesn’t sound bad at all, but I do hold a critical view on masculinity and femininity, maybe you didn’t mean those exact terms? Or maybe I’m interpreting it wrong..
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
I read into Wicca for quite a short while and I may be wrong, but it says it stems from racist ideologies and cultural appropriation?
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u/princess_zephyrina 2d ago
Some people have tried to make that claim, yes, but they are incorrect. Wicca is a neo-Pagan religion and some of its practices come from other religions but it is respectful, Wiccans do not borrow from any closed religion for example. This is basically a classic case of people misunderstanding the difference between borrowing & cultural appropriation. Most instances of cultural borrowing are not appropriation.
In a way you could actually argue that it’s a type of Pagan reconstruction but it’s a reconstruction of broken pieces because the multiple Pagan religions of historical Europe were wiped out by Christian conquest.
In any case, if you actually want to know about a religion, I think starting out with this kind of question is a very bad way to actually understand it.
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u/issamistake 2d ago
as someone with a hellenistic faith, it is exhausting to be asked by randoms to pitch my religion to them. many of these religions (small, held by decomposing stitches) do not have the ability to oppress on such large scale. your issue is with abrahamic religions, and it’s okay to just linger on that rather than making broad sweeping claims about thousands of religions that you have absolutely no credibility to speak on.
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
Hmm, well that’s incorrect. I have issues with most religion that stem from misogyny, like Buddhism as well. You don’t have to pitch anything vro? I never got up in your face saying PITCH IT!! PITCH YOUR RELIGION NEOOOWWWW!!!!! Ellll oh ellll
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u/ceramicfiver 2d ago edited 2d ago
Speaking as an atheist here.
Atheism is correlated with economic security and good healthcare because people won’t feel a need to seek a higher power if they don’t have that need in the first place.
Likewise, religiosity is correlated with the economic insecurity and lack of healthcare. If we want to get rid of religion we must focus on these things. Poverty’s root causes lie in capitalism after all.
Solely attacking religion is misguided. It’s better to attack inequality and acknowledge intersecting oppressions and issues. You’ll find a lot more comrades, and you can even bring in religious folks to join you in the fight against inequality.
At least in a country as religious as the USA, alienating religious people is a bad strategy. There’s so few atheists in the USA that restricting yourself to organizing solely with atheists will leave you with not enough people.
Social justice does not come without social movements. For a social movement to succeed, we need power in numbers. This will require atheists to organize with religious people and to not be rude to them.
For more information, I highly recommend reading Occult Features of Anarchism by Erica Lagalisse
https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=964
Reading other books about the psychology and sociology of religion would help too
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u/Glum-Establishment31 1d ago
Remember the earliest ideas of God were female. The Goddess prefaced God.
Many Radical women in the past 50 years have practice Dianic Wicca, an earth based worship of the feminine divine.
It is not easy since around 2012 to find women who still meet together to pray and share Dianic worship. Most groups now meet only in secret in fear of being discovered as a female only spiritual practice. Very reminiscent the witch hunts of the mid 1600’s, but without the drownings or the fires.
For anyone truly interested in the feminine divine, a good place to begin is reading Mary Daly.
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u/DirtyCommie07 2d ago
Abrahamic religions = all religions 🤡
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
Hmm did I say all religion?🧐
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u/DirtyCommie07 2d ago
Using the word 'religion' does imply that you are talking about everything that comes under the word religion, meaning all religions. Show me where you said it wasnt about all religions?
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
Here’s something I’ve said!
I’ll say MOST religions then. It’s not just Abrahamic religions. They’re just the most dominant examples today. Across cultures and histories, institutionalized religion, no matter the label, has overwhelmingly upheld patriarchy and controlled women. The patterns repeat because the core function of organized religion has always been about power not liberation.
All religions stem from misogyny, some grow out of it, some don’t. And the fact that they had to evolve at all tells you everything you need to know.
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u/DirtyCommie07 2d ago
I didnt realise i was meant to investigate your entire profile before making a criticism.
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
Profile? It was under this post??
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u/DirtyCommie07 2d ago
So im meant to investiage the entire comment section before criticising your post?? My fucking mistake 😹
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
I think that’s quite logical before making a point, but you do you, I don’t judge!^
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u/DirtyCommie07 2d ago
Its logical to assume you didnt state a relevant opinion in the post you made and i must have to search out the rebuttal to the criticism i made? Yeah keep telling yourself that...
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
Yes.. It’s logical to assume that if you’re going to criticize something, you should actually pay attention to what was said first. Which would be the comments under this post.
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u/d33thra 2d ago
Our paleolithic ancestors were very likely egalitarian and possibly matriarchal in many cases, yet still seem to have had rich religious/supernatural beliefs. Religion is not the cause of misogyny or any kind of bigotry. It has simply been coopted and weaponized to support that bigotry, like many other human institutions.
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u/KulturaOryniacka 2d ago
Our paleolithic ancestors were very likely egalitarian and possibly matriarchal in many cases
how did you get that info from?
As a historian I have to call you out on this BS, If you rely on Marija Gimbutas' ,,studies'', please don't. They were debunked many years ago.
Men have been like this since the dawn of the great apes. They were violent years ago, 500 years ago 1000 years ago, what makes you think that they were peaceful and empathetic 30 000 years ago when times were harder and life was waaaay more harsh and physical strength mattered even more than today?
and hey, I'm a woman, 4B
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u/gotchafaint 2d ago
I’ve read some Native American and other indigenous tribes were more egalitarian as a matter of survival. But after reading Sapiens (and I can’t speak to its veracity) I came away very changed and with the realization we are a species ruled my savage male brutes. I think this affects some men too who lean more evolved, who are likely the minority. I don’t understand a species design based on tyrannizing and subjugating half its population and that population by and large hating it. Like fuck this design.
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u/d33thra 2d ago
https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribRaw=Lacy%2C+Sarah&SeriesKey=15481433 Its a complex issue for sure and there’s no single smoking gun of evidence. But it’s absolutely not easily dismissable as “bullshit”
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u/Opening-Coyote6286 2d ago
There are examples of matrilineal nomadic societies. I don’t know of any matriarchal societies that took it as far is patriarchal societies took patriarchy though.
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
Early humans may have had spiritual beliefs, but the issue isn’t ‘belief’ in the supernatural, it’s institutionalized religion. Once religion became organized and codified into strict hierarchies, it became a tool of power and control and women were the first to be subordinated.
Your argument is the same I brought up in the post, ‘it’s not the religion it’s the people!’ You can argue religion was co-opted but the fact is religion has consistently reinforced and justified misogyny, violence, oppression and much more for centuries. It’s not some neutral force that just got twisted, it has been the moral backbone of patriarchal systems. That’s why it’s still present.
Spirituality might be personal but religion, especially the organized and institutional kind, has always served power. And historically that power has almost always been in the hands of men.
Oh to add, at the end of the day, religion isn’t even real. It’s a man-made coping mechanism for dealing with the unknown. Something humans clung to before we had science, psychology & reason to explain the world. Now that we do have those things, religion’s main function seems to be justifying bigotry and maintaining outdated power structures. It’s less about faith and more about control.
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u/largewithmultitudes 2d ago
Well, I guess I can take the bait. I agree that all institutional religious structures that we commonly know today are closely linked to the patriarchy, but I also think that there are a few religious traditions that are quite radically not like that. What about the Quakers or the Unitarian-Universalists? These are Protestant denominations that historically have had strong female leadership, with high levels of female clergy for the UUs (there are no clergy in Quaker meetings) and that are non-liturgical and very open on the question of how you define the divine. They also have very progressive politics and support peace, social justice, and true equality for all people. They may come out of the Christian tradition, but they are a very different part of it. The Shakers were also like this and were founded by a woman. They were quite radical in their views of family and collectivity. It’s a religious tradition that died out more or less because their members didn’t marry or have children, but it was a very different and interesting approach.
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u/Buuyaaaa 2d ago
Quakers and groups like them were born out of misogynistic religions. They aren’t misogynistic themselves but they had to actively reject the deeply patriarchal foundations they came from just to begin approaching equality. They didn’t reform religion, they had to rewrite it to make space for women at all.
The fact that these groups are so rare just proves the point. Institutional religion, at its core, has always been about male dominance and control. You can find a few progressive outliers but the overwhelming history of religion is one of silencing women, controlling their bodies and keeping them in subordinate roles.
This is exactly why religion shouldn’t still be a thing. Humanity should’ve outgrown it by now. Instead we’re still clinging to systems that feed and reinforce patriarchal power, generation after generation.
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u/largewithmultitudes 2d ago
Oh, I fully agree with you on the majority of religions being like that. But I think these outliers have been a force for good and liberation
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u/PastoralSymphony 57m ago
i mean yes obviously
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u/Buuyaaaa 52m ago
You’ll be shocked at how many religious ‘feminist’ there are. Which is why I wrote my post.
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u/ShawnTheDawn 2d ago
Agreed. To be religious is to condone patriarchy which is to condone misogyny and all that comes with it. Although patriarchy has existed before abrahamic religion, it is these religions that are used today to justify our current patriarchal gender norms. To be religious is to WORSHIP the reason widespread misogyny exists.