A friend posted a meme that said:
Woman does not emerge from a man’s ribs, not ever, it is he who emerges from HER womb.
One of the greatest lies of patriarchy is framing the father as the life giver.
I many problems with this, and other memes that assert the rights of woman or anti-patriarchy based on the role of women in bearing children.
Let me start by saying that I am not a Biblian nor a Paulian. I consider myself a follower of Jesus, though I don’t make any claim of being particularly good at it. Also, I detest the twitterization of the Bible, as well as making it into some kind of magic book. Chapter and verse were added much, much later. The Bible is not univocal. The Bible is a library, not a book. The Biblical Canon was chosen by men with a particular agenda. Nobody in the Bible ever read the Bible, therefore it is not, nor can it be, the basis for our faith.
Since this meme starts with a reference to Genesis, let me start with that. First off, the creation and Eden stories are myths. This is not derogatory, it just means that, as the Rt. Rev. Curry would say, these are stories meant to tell you something, not a to be taken literally. Now, the book of Genesis has two very different versions of the creation myth. In Genesis 1, “God created [him/adam] in his image, in the image of God He created [him], male and female he created them.” No, there isn’t a lot of gender or number agreement in that. The original was in Hebrew, with a different structure, and it came from a certain milieu. The point is that God created them male and female, and that was very good. It is only in Genesis 2 that Adam and Eve become proper names, and one finds the story of the rib. If one wants to justify Patriarchy, one certainly can use that story and might even be correct as far as the original intent, but it isn’t the only way to read it. If one does not want to use it to justify Patriarchy, one can focus instead on the unity of male and female, of one flesh, part of the same thing, bound together. I think that is a much better reading.
Paul writing in 1 Corinthians is actually a bit dismissive of the issue: “Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God.”. Now there is all sorts of weird stuff in 1 Cor 11 about whether women and men should have veils or wear long hair or whatever. I am not a big fan of Paul. He can be full of himself. But if you turn off the verse numbers and read the whole thing outside of Magic Book Mode, it isn’t really the main point. The church in Corinth was having a big fight about modes of dress and hairstyles. Paul states his opinion but makes it clear that the important thing is that they should not fight so much among themselves.
This bit of 1 Cor 11 is exactly my point, though: “Woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman.” It is good for men and women to be together. It is best for children to have good men in their lives, ideally their father, but not only their father. I was fortunate to have many good men in my life growing up, some of whom I can name. Yes, they were all flawed human beings, but still true gentleman with characteristics to which to aspire.
The Christian mystic Julian of Norwich twisted gender all over the place. Of her writings, this particularly resonates with me (Revelations of Divine Love, ch. LIX):
Thus Jesus Christ that doeth good against evil is our Very Mother: we have our Being of Him,—where the Ground of Motherhood beginneth,—with all the sweet Keeping of Love that endlessly followeth. As verily as God is our Father, so verily God is our Mother; and that shewed He in all, and especially in these sweet words where He saith: I it am. That is to say, I it am, the Might and the Goodness of the Fatherhood; I it am, the Wisdom of the Motherhood; I it am, the Light and the Grace that is all blessed Love: I it am, the Trinity, I it am, the Unity: I am the sovereign Goodness of all manner of things. I am that maketh thee to love: I am that maketh thee to long: I it am, the endless fulfilling of all true desires.
The next problem I have with the meme is simply that it is non-sequitur. The right of women to agency and to live their lives as they choose does not derive from their role as the bearers of children, nor is it related to or limited by that role. The right of agency derives from their humanity, and as bearers of the Image of God, whatever that means, that is sufficient. No other argument need be made.
The last problem I have with the meme is that it is not correct. The father is a life-giver, as is the mother. It takes both mother and father to produce children. Sure, life is not perfect, and nobody should be forced to pretend that it is. Relationships don’t always work out. Some men shouldn’t be fathers. Some women shouldn’t be mothers. A single mother can raise children to healthy adulthood. So can a single father. So can same-sex couples, though they need some help to produce the child. And of course, I am not suggesting that the contribution of the father is the same as that of the mother. But children are every bit as much their father’s as their mother’s. Just as it is wrong for a man to tell a woman that the child she bore is not hers but belongs to a man (which, sadly, has and continues to be done), it is wrong to tell a man that the child he fathered is not his but belongs only to a woman. Instead, we should be encouraging men, and raising boys, to be fathers to their children.
Fighting the Patriarchy need not take anything away from men, nor does it only benefit women. The Patriarchy reduces and pigeonholes men in subtle ways. Rather than try to erase the contribution of men, the feminist/anti-Patriarchy movement should help men recognize how the existing system damages them. At some point, we have to circle back for the boys.
Lastly, there are some women who use “The Patriarchy” to avoid accountability and responsibility for their own choices. Men have their own ways of doing that including, unfortunately, religion. (There is a lot about certain strains of American Christianity that is all about avoiding responsibility.) One of the most frequent criticisms that I hear from the other side that I think might be fair is that some women want freedom and independence without the accountability that comes with it. To be clear, nothing that ever happened to you or can happen to you can ever justify you harming others. And it is not fair to blame someone else when your choices have consequences.