Paulina the Apostle (New Testament)

As a Christian feminist, I find some parts of the bible pretty difficult. One particular passage is from Paul the Apostle – 1 Corinthians 11. In this post I’ll re-word this passage, swapping “male” for “female” words. Why? Because doing this makes me happy 🙂 It feels great being the favoured gender in the Bible, for a change!

Paulina the Apostle writes: Now I want you to realize that the head of every woman is Jesusa Christa, and the head of the man is woman, and the head of Jesusa Christa is our Mother God. Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head covered dishonors her head. And every man who prays or prophesies with his head uncovered dishonors his head—it is just as though his head were shaved. If a man does not cover his head, he should have his hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a man to have his hair cut or shaved off, he should cover his head. A woman ought not to cover her head, since she is the image and glory of our Mother God; but the man is the glory of woman. For woman did not come from man, but man from woman; neither was woman created for man, but man for woman. For this reason, and because of the angels, the man ought to have a sign of authority on his head.

 In our Lord, however man is not independent of woman, nor is woman independent of man. For as man came from woman, so also man fathers a daughter who becomes a woman. But everything comes from Mother God. Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a man to pray to Mother God with his head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a woman has long hair, it is a disgrace to her, but that if a man has long hair, it is his glory? For long hair is given to him as a covering. If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God.

Is society still sexist? A man’s opinion vs a woman’s opinion

 

My family starting a conversation about feminism a few months ago, and one of us asked whether each of us considered ourselves a feminist. Surprised, I said, “of course!” and so did my Mum. But my Dad and brothers wouldn’t call themselves feminists because they thought feminism wasn’t useful anymore because society was no longer sexist. It surprised me to learn that my brothers thought there wasn’t a shred of sexism in society today. I had felt the complete opposite for a long time, and it seemed obvious to me that much of society was still sexist to a degree.

THE MAN who says society is not sexist is commenting without personal experience . He isn’t affected by (most) sexism at all so he doesn’t have to notice it. He also has a strong personal stake in not noticing sexism. He knows he is a good person, really, and that he tries in every way to treat women as well as he treats men. He feels a personal attack if anyone insinuates that any part of society can still be “sexist”. This prejudices him against noticing sexism, and against accepting that certain acts/situations are sexist.This man thinks a lot less than a woman does about whether something is sexist or not. He rarely thinks about sexism, or about things that might be sexist. This is because he has a personal stake (self-pride) in not noticing sexism. This is also because as a man, sexism hardly affects him, so he simply doesn’t need to bother thinking about it.

THE WOMAN by contrast, when she says there is sexism in society is commenting based on her personal experience. She  is victimised by the sexism so she notices it easily, and experiences it much more intensely than the man will. She is more sensitive to noticing sexism because it deeply affects her. Because of this she will think much more about situations and whether they are sexist or not. She will notice sexism – if it exists – more readily than a man would.

I think men who are quick to state “oh, society isn’t sexist nowadays!” should shut up for a long while and put their prejudices and self-pride aside – and simply listen really well to women and their experiences. These men should try really hard to understand these women’s viewpoints and reasons before they decide for themselves whether society is sexist or not. Men should acknowledge that they have a personal bias towards ignoring or belittling sexism if it does exist. They should consider how this bias affects their perception of whether sexism still exists in society or not.

 

COMPARING THIS TO RACISM:  If I compare this to racism – how can I think that my perspective as a white person is as good as a non-white person’s perspective on whether racism still exists? As a white person I get the privilege of being relatively blind to issues of ‘race’. So I know that I better shut up and listen well and hard to non-white people who believe that much of society is still racist – they will have different experiences from me.