Henry Idema: Religion and the control of women


Henry Idema
Sat, October 1, 2022

A woman friend of mine, a Republican (or used to be), said to me recently, when I asked her about her stand on abortion, "Men have controlled me my whole life! Women should have total control over their own bodies."

I agreed with her, and one of the main ways men have controlled women is through religion. Men since the days of Adam and Eve have feared women, especially because of their sexuality. So men created religion in part — in large part — to control women. Women have been seen within religions as tempters, as in the story of Adam and Eve.

We don't know why Jack the Ripper killed prostitutes, but most likely it had to do with sex. In the classic 1944 movie about Jack the Ripper, "The Lodger," the murders are committed because a man, played by Laird Creger, loathes and lusts for women's sexuality. Because Jack the Ripper in the movie cannot control women, or appeal to them sexually, he slaughters them.

If you read the Bible from Genesis to the Revelation of John, you see a long history of women being controlled by men. Just one example. Women caught in adultery, were stoned. Men caught in adultery were not. Kings like David and Solomon had multiple sexual partners and had the freedom to have sex outside of marriage, with no consequences from other men, many of whom were doing the same thing.

If you read an account of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, again you see male judges fearing women, and when these judges could not control the women in their little village, they hung them if they believed they were in fact witches and handmaid's of Satan.

Speaking of handmaids, see the 1990 movie, "The Handmaid's Tale," about a future world where young, healthy white women are brainwashed to become bearers of children for a new "pure" generation. Hitler in fact did this with SS men who forced young blonde women to bear their children in camps set aside for this purpose. Many Germans today are the descendants of these forced rapes and forced births.

This world of forced births has now arrived in America, at least in certain states. The religious right has dreamed for fifty years of overturning Roe, and then imposing prohibitions on abortion, even in many states with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother. We are now living in an age of forced births. These new abortion restrictions have been or are now being enacted by mostly men in various state legislatures. The religious right supported a twice divorced and serial adulterer for president in the hope that he would appoint conservative judges, especially on the Supreme Court, who would overturn Roe. That gamble obviously paid off. But now the wrath of women against being controlled by men and their religion, has been unleashed, and who knows what the consequences will be for our religious and political institutions.

I am amazed that women support with their money and attendance places of worship which try to control them. The Roman Catholic Church will not even let women be priests, and tells their the women in their pews not to use artificial birth control. In many evangelical churches women are taught to obey their husbands. No wonder organized religion is declining in America!

Sen. Lindsey Graham, an unmarried man, now wants to have a national ban on abortion after 15 weeks, with some exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother. Here is another example of a man who wants to control all the women in the United States. We will see if his desire gets any traction in Congress.

I agree with my Republican friend, men do want to control women, and men are and have been using religion to control a woman' s body for centuries. In my view the government should have nothing to do with medical decisions women make. When abortions happen late in the development of the fetus, it is usually for medical reasons. Most if not all women who carry a baby into the seventh month and beyond, want that baby. But medical issues in the development of the baby sometimes show up only late, after 15 weeks. Let's keep the government, controlled by men, out of these very private and deeply emotional decisions that women make.

Right now in Iran the government is trying to force women to wear hair coverings out in public, and thousands of women are protesting. The government in Afghanistan is using religion to force women to remain uneducated, thus preventing training for careers. In Russia the Orthodox Church, which does not have women priests, supports Putin in his war against the women, and men, of Ukraine. All over the world men are using religion to control women.

In our own country, men are increasingly using religion to control people, especially women. If your religious institution is part of this effort to control women, try to reform it or leave it. If your elected leaders or political candidates are part of this effort to control women, vote them out of office and certainty do not elect the candidates who want to control a woman's body, using religion as their justification.

— Henry Idema lives in Grand Haven. He can be reached at henryidema3@yahoo.com.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Henry Idema: Religion and the control of women