Thoughts on women...

In this journey through the bible, next on our list is Dinah in Genesis 34. In preparing for this I started to read some commentaries because I knew that there is not complete agreement among the scholars with some believing it to be more of a love story than rape. A perspective I hadn't see before though caught my eye and it was so unexpected and shocking that I think it's a good place to focus today. To say it's a reach is an understatement and you can read it here if you like for the long version (its a section of a longer discussion and a suggested interpretation rather than a categoric statement). Essentially however, it takes a similarity in the language used for when Leah (her mother) "went out" to see Jacob to have see with him to conceive Dinahs brother, and compares it to how Dinah "went out" to visit the women of of the land. They suggest that she went with the intention of sexual immorality. They are suggesting "like mother, like daught...

As the saying goes, you cannot make a purse out of a sows ear. Folks, this one is difficult to read, think about and write. Lot was Abrahams brother and he lived in Sodom and Gomorrah.  Genesis 19 picks up right after Abraham has pleaded for the lives of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. God has 'sent' two angels to the city to see if even 10 'good' people can be found. Lot met them at the gates (where he was sat as a Judge) and insisted they stay with him in his home. 2 Peter 2:7 suggests that Lot was a righteous man, distressed by the depravity of the city he lived in. Perhaps the righteousness is credited to his position of Judge. Perhaps he was trying to make a difference. Lots of 'perhaps'.... 4  Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house.   5  They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” 6  Lot went outside ...

Numerous times in the Bible we see sexual violence used as a weapon of war. Women are taken as spoils of war and it's hands down one of those most uncomfortable things to read in there. One of the passages which deals with this is Deuteronomy 22:10-14. It first reads as legalising the rape of women taken captive in war. Women taken captive were to be brought into the house of the captor, then married after a month.  As abhorrent as it is to us in this era, taken in the context of the time it was revolutionary. Women were possessions (to man, not God), pawns in war, family and estate. In this scripture, men were forced to humanise the women they encountered and treat them as wives, given time to grieve, then married honourably. If they changed their minds, they couldn't be sold as slaves, only divorced as a wife with the onus being on the man as the one who dishonoured her. As with many of these ancient directives, this was a confronting law made to curb the sexual violence that...

Exploitation: "the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work" The exploitation of women and girls represents the ultimate outcome of multiple layers of inequality. Women and girls are more likely to be in poverty, less likely to have an education, more likely to have suffered abuse at the hands of family members. Girls who have no access to school but need to work end up with no autonomy over workplace so are more vulnerable to being exploited by 'recruiters'. They are therefore disproportionately represented in modern slavery - 99% of victims of sexual exploitation are women and girls. One of the reasons modern slavery continues to proliferate is the gendered power imbalance which is upheld by patriarchal structures globally. Culture, some religious beliefs, laws, societal norms and gender roles all contribute to this power imbalance and this is clearly demonstrated in human trafficking where women are dehumanised to the extent t...

This week I heard about the Red Chair project. The idea is that you place a red chair somewhere public and put a sign above it. It is intended to represent the women who are now missing from the world because they were murdered victims of domestic violence. Read more about the project here and download the resources you need to join in. This got me thinking about how many women and girls are not alive due to gender based violence and honestly looking at those numbers and related information is even more chilling than you'd imagine. Did you know that men's violence against women is one of the leading causes of premature death globally? In 2022, just under 89,000 women and girls were murdered due to their sex. The number of gender based murders is actually UP when the overall global murder rate is DOWN.  The Femicide Census is the only project independently collating this data. By looking at the data they can identify patterns and risk factors and this targeted information is abl...

Today marks International Day for the Elimination of Violence against women. It triggers 16 days of worldwide activism to raise awareness of the many atrocities and oppressions suffered by women and girls globally. It also aims to provoke action by both individuals and governments. Things can change, we have to believe it, the lives and wellbeing of women and girls relies on it. This cause has been important to me for many years and my faith has only made me more committed and more sure that this is the right thing to be doing. In the Old Testament in the Bible, Micah 6:8 says "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God". This verse states really strongly that justice and mercy can co-exist. We can seek justice but still have mercy for a fallen world. The only way to do that well is to be humble, recognise the part we all play in upholding systems of oppression and how "th...

1 Timothy 2:11-15 11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. First things first. I'm no theologian but I'm grateful to the many amazing voices and brains who've dedicated time, faith and energy to the Word. Second thing... This passage is HARD so the second thing is actually the most important thing. When reading passages like this, which on the surface really seem to subjugate women, we have to remember the premise which underwrites everything we know. God is good. That's it, full stop, no "God is good... but...", Psalm 107:1 says "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures fore...

I've always appreciated the fact that Jesus' family tree is a bit suspect and had it's fair share of nuts. I've also been pretty guilty of skipping past verses 1-16 because I'm just not that interested in a boring list of names. Truth bomb. However I set out recently to look at every single interaction Jesus had with women and study them. So I started to read Matthew and so here I am, stuck at the first verse because wow, there He goes again. Including women even before He was born. And not just any women. Specifically those who in the first century church, at the time it would have been written, would have been seen as even more 'less than' than your average first century woman. Two apparent prostitutes, a Moabite widow and 'Uriahs wife' (who?). Tamar - This woman had a tumultuous and tragic life life. Married to a man who was 'wicked in the Lords sight', she was widowed young. She was subsequently handed off to her husbands brother, Onan, ...