for this discussion is to make us aware of some of the root causes of gender injustice. Thus, we try to trace back the history of some societies and discuss how women were vulnerable.
At least two societies will be used as examples and these are the Jewish society and the Early Christian Church. On the Early Christian Church we shall focus mainly on how the Fathers of the Church defined women.
2.4 History of Women’s Vulnerability
Women’s vulnerability can be described as a vicious circle; one which has its roots mainly in the Jewish culture as we shall see in our discussion. Thus, issues of gender, culture, patriarchy and stigma have always existed in different forms throughout human history. Their position in the history of humanity has always been considered of less value. This means that even before the advent of HIV, women had always been exposed and been vulnerable in one way or the other. While there may be many other situations that reduced women to a lower status in humanity, we shall focus only on two situations that clearly point to how women were considered to be less than human, hence fuelling their vulnerability in those particular societies.
2.4.1 Women in the Jewish Culture
In the Jewish culture, women were restricted to roles of little or no authority and were largely confined to their father’s or husband’s home.82 From the Second Temple period, women were not allowed to testify in court trials and they could not go out in public, or talk to strangers.
When out of home, they were to be doubly veiled.83 “They had become second-class Jews, excluded from the worship and teaching of God, with status scarcely above that of slaves.”84
82 http:www.religioustolerance.org/cfebibl.htm (Accessed on 11 October 2009).
Women could not actively participate in the synagogue services. The Jewish tradition did not allow a woman to study Law, nor could she teach in any formal manner. Rabbi Eliezer wrote
83
84 B.M. Metzger and M.B. Coogan, 1993. “The Oxford Companion to the Bible”, New York: Oxford University Press, pg. 806.
33 in the 1st century CE: “Rather should the words of the Torah be burned than entrusted to a woman…Whoever teaches his daughter the Torah is like one who teaches her obscenity.”85 One Jewish Morning Prayer said by the free Jewish men was to thank God that they had not been born a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.86
Everyone that talks much with a woman causes evil to himself, and desists from the work of the Law, and his end is that he inherits Gehena. A strict Jewish Rabbi would not greet a woman on the street, nor even his wife, daughter, mother, or sister. The duty of a good Jewish woman was to send her sons to the synagogue, to attend domestic concerns, to leave her husband free to study the scriptures, and to keep house until he returned.
One Rabbi is also quoted as saying that men were not to talk too much with women because according to him,
87
According to Nasimiye-Wasike, “In the Jewish worldview a woman was considered a constant danger to the man. Therefore women were kept away from the public eye in order to protect men from this danger.”88
2.4.2 Definition of Women According to the Fathers of the Early Church
From this definition of women in the Jewish culture we can see that the oppression of women has its roots in the patriarchal society. Women were disempowered, excluded and meant to submit to their male counterparts.
Thus, the oppression of women in the Jewish culture may appear as history in our thinking but this oppression continues to emerge seriously in different forms, both in the Christian Church and in society. Women in every generation and in every society go through their own experience of patriarchal oppression. The problem of gender is even found common in the Ancient Jewish patriarchal world where women were also treated as less than human. We also see the same understanding of women within the Early Church.
It is generally agreed that Christianity has been strongly influenced by Jewish culture. It has adopted many Jewish practices. Its teachings are shaped and formed by the Jewish way of life. As such, the understanding of women in Christianity for instance, cannot be understood
85 Rabbi Eliezer, ‘Mishnah, Sotah 3:4.
86 http:www.religioustolerance.org/cfebibl.htm (Acccessed on 11 October 2009.
87 William Barclay, The Letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, (Revised edition pp 66-67).
88 Anne Nasimiyu-Wasinke. 1991. “Christology and an African Woman’s Experience”, in R.J. Schreiter (ed).
Introduction: Jesus Christ in Africa Today. New York: Orbis Books, pg. 74.
34 outside that of the Jewish culture. In the following section, we shall discuss the attitude of some of the Fathers of the Church who were influential in the Early Christian Church.
The teachings of the Fathers of the Church have made an impact in the growth of the Christian Church. Their teachings have been considered very important, for they have been used to form the basis of the Christian faith. While the Fathers of the Church have contributed substantially to the growth and development of the Early Church, most of them have not paid attention to the role of women both in Church and in society. Instead, they have even fuelled the undermining of women in the world. In trying to explain how the early Church Fathers negatively defined women in the early centuries of the Christian Church, Rakoczy (2004) describes the whole enterprise as “Bad News”.89
Ruether (1983) cites the works of Thomas Aquinas who presented the view that women are malformed males and therefore constitute the abnormal half of the human species.
During that time, women were generally described as the cause of sin by the Fathers of the Church.
90
Similarly, Rakoczy (2004) quotes Kaene (1988:4) where John Chrysostom (349-407) rages against women in the following words: “Among all savage beasts, none is found to be harmful as women.”91 Rakoczy also proceeds to quote Kaene (1988) who explains the horrible words of John Damascene as follows: “Woman is a sick she-ass… a hideous tapeworm … the advance post of hell.”92
The mentality of the Jewish culture and the teaching of the Early Fathers of the Church on women have not spared the African culture. Christianity came into Africa shaped by these
The above definitions of women by the Fathers of the early Church clearly indicate how women were totally undermined during the early centuries. This teaching about women by the respected Fathers of the Church contributed heavily in pushing Christian women back into their original place of marginalisation. The transformation that had happened during the time of Jesus gradually disappeared. These negative views have continued to shape the mentality of many Churches and societies up to this present day.
89 Susan Rakoczy. 2004, pg. 30.
90 Rosemary R. Ruether. 1983. Sexism and God-Talk. Boston: Beacon; London: SCM.
91 Susan Rakoczy. 2004, pg. 31.
92 Susan Rakoczy. 2004, pg. 31.
35 teachings. However, this does not mean that African culture did not have its own oppressive practices regarding women. Culture for instance, has always been an instrument of oppression for women. Christianity could have come to liberate women from cultural and religious forms of oppression but the transformation had been too slow. The Church in Africa has not done enough to challenge different forms of women’s oppression.