The Christian Patriarchy is Back and There’s Hell to Pay

This is my third and hopefully last essay on the current hot topic of abortion.

Frankly, I’m getting tired of talking about it. I’m actually tired of talking about women’s rights. I mean do I really still need to try to convince men that their daughters should enjoy the same freedoms that their sons enjoy? C’mon!

Apparently, the answer is a big fat yes. (sigh)

There’s no doubt in my mind that the root cause of women being denied the same rights as men in America can be traced back to the Christian patriarchy. Yep! That old male dominated, women should live in subjection to their husbands, cultural model in the western world has done so much harm to women that it makes me want to vomit.

Christianity is the fountain from whence cometh most backwards ideas in the western world.

It’s a death sentence for all girls who want to live a life with the same freedoms as a man. The Christian patriarchy tell us that the only reason we were created was to provide them with companionship and pleasure.

Women were an after thought.

We were never a part of the original plan. God took a look at his creation, man, and decided he needed a playmate. We were an add on.

I’m seventy-one years old. In my lifetime, I’ve seen how my great grandmother, grandmother, and mother lived.

My daughter has a very different life than they did. Maybe Americans can no longer remember how it used to be for women. I’m not talking about ancient history either. I’m referring to within my lifetime.

Did you know, for example, that once upon a time, women weren’t given access to birth control unless they were married.

We weren’t allowed to have premarital sex unless we wanted to risk being called a slut, whore, bad girl, loose woman, tramp, prostitute, or harlot. Trust me, that’s the short list of disparaging names thrown at girls from the time they were mere children.

Are there even any comparable names for guys?

Oh, yeah, they were called a lady’s man or something that implied that they were virile and entitled, even expected to pursue as much pussy as they could get.

Hold on. I’m not finished with what life had to offer women during the last seventy-one years.

Women weren’t allowed a credit card. They also couldn’t remain in the work force if they were pregnant and had started to show. My third grade teacher was banished from our sight before her baby bump made an appearance. Female teachers weren’t allowed to even be married before that.

Make a choice, girls, because you can’t have it all.

Oh, and since birth control was off limits and boys insisted on sex in the back seats of cars or in the haylofts of their daddy’s barns, girls got pregnant a lot and then were banished to homes for “unwed” mothers. The shame in being a pregnant girl without a husband called for a short term prison sentence in an institution far from home and family where nuns ran a tight ship. The girl remained hidden from society, friends, and relatives until the baby was born. It was taken from the girl and given to a more deserving woman, someone who was married.

Ugh!

We rarely reported a rape to the police because, let’s face it, we probably had done something to encourage the rape. No one would believe us. And god forbid that we were victims of incest or were molested by our ministers or priests. Not even our mothers would believe our stories and come to our rescue.

In many states our husbands were allowed to whip us because let’s face it, we probably were acting like children or were being hysterical.

Our husbands could commit us to an insane asylum on a whim. Oh, and some of us were considered unclean during menstruation, a bodily function that was whispered about because it was so filthy.

But never forget, men who had a healthy desire for sex were allowed to get it wherever they could find some. Once women married, they were expected to give their husbands as much sex as they required or else who could blame the man for going elsewhere. It was his god given right, don’t you know.

For many years, one major cause of death among women was childbirth.

Having a few random moments of sexual pleasure could kill a girl, literally. Oh, well, she probably deserved it. There’s a whore inside all women. Old Eve passed her legacy on to the millions and millions of women who came after her. Clearly, even a virgin had a touch of the whore in her. After all, the virgin Mary was seduced by God. Her first encounter with sex as a mere child was with a god who would throw her in hell if she chose to have a one night stand with a mere mortal man outside the marital bed.

But, hey, who can resist a god, right?

The message to women that comes from the Christian patriarchy has always been confusing and contradictory. Do men even know what they really want from women. Well, other than sex that is. Of course, that’s what’s mostly on their minds. But even when they get sex, they’re not really satisfied.

Ultimately, men want power.

The Christian patriarchy was designed to insure that power remained in the hands of men. Power is the number one aphrodisiac in the world. Humans crave it. Most relationships are built upon a power structure. There’s always a pecking order which means someone must be at the bottom of the heap.

The gender culture is a an organized power struggle.

Abortion rights are merely the tip of the iceberg. Men want sex as often as they can get it, but traditionally if women want it, too they’re labeled immoral. We were supposed to be the gatekeepers, but if we said no, men would go elsewhere to get sex. Our cultural roles were defined as virgin/whore/mother. Birth control was off limits to us for years. We’re not supposed to enjoy sex. We’re supposed to have babies. Men are entitled to the pleasure and the power.

Women are forced to pay a high price for their own sexual pleasure.

Then, in my lifetime, there was a shift in the American puritanical culture. Women started earning more money, going to college, using new forms of birth control, they could sign for loans, own a house, buy their own cars. Women were getting divorces, lots and lots of divorces. They weren’t willing to stick around any longer until death do us part. Living together without being married became socially acceptable. Sex without being married no longer carried the same stigma that it had for our mothers and grandmothers. Women were having lots of sex with lots of different men.

This shift was terrifying. It threatened the Christian patriarchy.

Women were choosing to have fewer children, far fewer than in the past. There was even an increasing number of women who were refusing to have any children at all. It wasn't that they couldn’t. They didn’t want children. They were making a personal choice based entirely on their own needs, goals, interests, and aspirations.

Uh-oh. The plot suddenly thickened.

Because in America not only is Christian patriarchy the foundation of our cultural expectations but white Christian patriarchy even more so. Just as there were no foremothers mixed in the pool of forefathers, there were no black or brown forefathers either.

We like to think that we’ve kept church and state separate in this glorious democracy we claim to be enjoying, but that’s far from the truth.

The church has had enormous influence on our world view. It is so deeply embedded in our DNA, stories, and cultural expectations that it literally limits our collective abilities to interpret life through any other lens. Divorce, for example, wasn’t legal or easy to attain because the church frowned upon it. So laws were passed that made getting divorce difficult. Shame was attached to getting a divorce. Our attitudes toward biracial marriages, birth control, gay marriage, living together outside of marriage, marriage itself, and, of course, abortion were all entirely influenced by the church. Never underestimate the power of cultural expectations to control human behavior. It is far more effective at doing so than laws will ever be.

People rarely question the culture they inherited through the lottery of birth.

Abortion is an easy and useful target, however. When mixed with the notion that life starts at conception and then that rationale is used to appeal to our emotions and empathy, a range of reactions can be expected. Also, when we live in a modern world that has significantly reduced the power and influence the church once had over our personal choices, the Christian patriarchy needs something, anything that they can use in order to wield power again.

They need a moral high ground. Abortion fits the bill.

So,they stir the pot with the fear that white Christian patriarchy is under threat by brown men who may soon outnumber white men as well as stories about white women killing babies. Life gets pretty dicey. Regressive networks form. Religion gets a recharge. A swiftly growing movement develops in order to reclaim what was lost and preserve what’s under threat.

Abortion is the focal point now, but that’s not the end goal.

We’re precariously trying to maintain the progress gained in the last century while pushing for the next progressive steps even as a regressive slide backwards is gaining strength.

It’s so much easier to fall from a mountain peak than it is to climb a mountain. If we’re not very, very, very careful, we’re going to find ourselves in a terrifying free fall. The Christian patriarchy will push us off the cliff, praising god, as women fall to their own deaths. And, yes, I freely admit that there will be other women helping the patriarchy to accomplish their dreams.

Why? Because humans are stupid, gullible, emotional, and uninformed creatures by in large.

Teresa Roberts is a retired educator, author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.