Usually in writing about young-earth creationism, the focus is on the damage it does to science and to science education. This is quite understandable, as the primary focus of the young-earthers is to push a narrow, sectarian, and highly unscientific worldview that has done serious harm to science education. While this is, usually, enough to worry about, I've been thinking over the past few days about the damage that creationism does to women, having read my way through a handful of feminist books in recent weeks. At first glance, one may think that this is a silly idea, but as creationism in the United States represents the worldview of reactionary elements within Christianity it also does serious harm through its portrayal of women. This may seem incidental, that the view young-earth creationism holds of women is merely collateral damage from an already harmful worldview (to say nothing of their view of homosexuality, which is, as it were, rather unevolved), but it is important to recognize regardless.
This hostility to women emanating from the creationists takes two forms. The first form is in smearing feminism, and the second form is in asserting the "submissive" role of women as both Biblical and natural. The first is quite standard fare for organizations that sit on the far Right of the political spectrum (and while creationism is not exclusive to the political Right, the opposition of creationist organizations to both abortion and homosexuality, as well as the support of prominent GOP figures for creationist/Intelligent Design ideas makes me comfortable in saying that creationism is largely a phenomenon of the Right). Creationism smears feminism as something out of the mainstream and harmful to women, both of which are untrue. An article by Becky Stelzer published on the Answers in Genesis website asserts that "modern, extreme feminism places women in authority over men, while traditional Darwinian evolution places women far below men." Both are bizarre ideas; modern feminism is merely the radical idea that men and women are equal and should be treated as such! Evolution has, in my understanding, nothing to say about gender roles, and it certainly does not assert that women are somehow less than men! Another article on the AiG website, this one by Steve Golden, begins with a slur against feminism as something that "has had incredibly destructive effects on marriage and the family..." While I would love to see them try and support that assertion with hard evidence, one can be quite certain that they don't have any at all, and that these assertions merely encapsulate their fears and insecurities about the changes in traditional gender roles.
The second part of their hostility towards women is expressed in a bizarre little dance wherein creationist writers assert that while they believe that men and women are equal, women are still to be "submissive." How a woman is submissive but still equal is the interesting part of the dance creationist writers perform; they don't, after all, want to appear as the backwards-looking reactionaries that they most assuredly are, so they must at least make it seem that they agree with equality of the sexes. After all, saying that women are lesser than men isn't as popular a sentiment as it used to be, and I'm sure that these writers would be loathe to burden the already ridiculous assertions of young-earth creationism with explicit sexism. Yet in expressing its own twisted version of "equality," the creationists proffer something even more dangerous than outright sexism. Their view the genders is a classic evasion technique in which they offer not a true version of equality but another form of "separate but equal." Men and women simply have different roles. While repeatedly asserting that men and women are equal and quoting verses from the Bible with an interpretive gloss that seems to support this view, an article over at Creation Ministries International by Lita Cosner reveals the true thoughts of creationists on the matter when she writes that "the role of men is to teach, and the role of women is to learn in submission." Women may, of course, teach, as long as they don't teach other men, she notes, in citing a verse written by Paul in the New Testament. Well I suppose that's equality for them. Everyone can teach, as long as women don't teach men. Funny though, for most people (including this writer), real equality is that both men and women have the same opportunity, whether it is in teaching or any other work. Real equality is not this limited version that the creationists are offering up, for if women are equal unless they want to lead or teach, then that is not equality at all.
What the creationists are offering up isn't actual equality, but a re-packaged version of the same old misogyny that should be shouted down and vilified. In the final paragraph of an article tying together feminism and evolution, author Ian Taylor at Creation Moments expresses this hateful view clearly when he writes that "Plain common sense and experience tells us that sex does make a difference and than [sic] normal men are better suited to leadership roles while normal women are better suited to supportive roles. This observation fully supports the creation account that women were never intended to be rivals but rather helpers..." The language may be changed to improve the PR, but the message is the same. Creationists adore female submissiveness and hate feminism for daring to assert that women are the equals of men and should be able to do the same jobs. While the creationist view of women may be incidental to their overall anti-science goals, it is yet another component of a long-antiquated worldview, one that we must ensure never again is allowed to become the ruling paradigm.
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