Today, women throughout religion are still fighting to be heard and gain more power. Women have gone through centuries of oppression and it is a common belief that within the Christian tradition, women have oftentimes been excluded and silenced, resulting in their subordination. This has occurred since the very origin of Christianity, from St.Paul’s first-century teaching, that women should “learn in silence with all subjection” and not “teach or usurp authority over the man,” to the more recent controversy of rejecting the ordination of women into the priesthood (MacHaffie 153, 216). From the birth of Christianity, there have been not so welcoming ideologies within the institution, which have led to this subordination of women. Three prominent ideologies, patriarchy, sexism and asceticism, caused much oppression for women and are very clear to see throughout the history of the Christian church.

A patriarchy can be described as a social system in which there is male authority and a clear hierarchy is present, in which this male dominance exists at the top of the system. The word itself, patriarch, comes from the word “pater,” meaning father. In a patriarchal system, the “father” or man rules over everything, including women. There is a substantial amount of evidence to prove that Christianity was indeed a very patriarchal system for centuries and that men were the natural leaders in Christianity. This can be seen from very early on, as the majority of apostles that followed Jesus were themselves men as well. It can be seen throughout the history of the papacy in Catholicism as well, in which all popes have been male. Women were not even allowed to be ordained into positions of higher power in other Christian churches until fairly recently. For example, the Presbyterian denomination ordained their first woman minister, Margaret Towner, in 1956 (MacHaffie 205). The Catholic Church still refuses to this day to allow women into the priesthood. It has been such a struggle for women to gain power within the Christian church, that some advocates of feminism, such as Mary Daly, have even urged women to simply reject such patriarchal institutions rather than try to reform them (MacHaffie 210).  

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Clear evidence of such patriarchy can first be seen in the bible itself. Here we see that Jesus, the Christian savior of the world, was the “son” of God, sent to save humanity from sin. Throughout history, many interpreted from the bible that sin existed because of the great “fall” of man, which of course was caused by an “evil” woman. In the Old Testament, we find that in Genesis 2-3, the creation story tells of how man was created first, then woman from his rib. She was formed as a “helpmeet” or helper to man, but was also the ...

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