VI
(Leviticus 12)
Most of us are aware by now that the LORD’s not too fond of women. He’s fine with them being used as sex slaves, or sold to their rapists, or stoned to death for getting pregnant out of wedlock. But this is the chapter where we’re going to see just how much of a misogynistic asshole he actually is.
See, we know from our Biblical readings so far that a woman’s only worth is in her ability to squirt out babies (or convince her husband to fuck her handmaid pregnant if she herself is sterile). There’s pretty much no other value assigned to womenfolk. And we know that ritual purity is a Big Fucking Deal.
So what does God do? He decrees that women who give birth are unclean. Yes, that’s right. The only way they can achieve any slight value in the world God made for them is to become all gross in the sight of the LORD. Charming.
If a woman births a boy, God tells Moses, she’s considered just as icky as if she’s menstruating – and LORD knows he can’t stand a lady on the rag. Sure, he’s the one who created the uterus and vagina and set them up to work the way they do, but he finds them just soooo yucky. So after squirting a manchild out her hoo-haw, a woman’s considered ritually impure for seven days. (Lev. 12:1-2)
On Day 8, when her little man baby gets a piece of his dick chopped off to please God, Mommy’s still considered disgusting. She’s got 33 more days to go before the LORD can stand her. She can’t touch anything holy. She can’t visit the sanctuary. She’s totes impure and God wants nothing to do with her. (Lev. 12:3-4)
And it’s even worse if she has the audacity to give birth to a girl. God may have made it impossible for the human race to “be fruitful and multiply” without ’em, but he thinks giving birth to a girl is twice as icky as birthing a boy. Any woman who gives birth to one of those horrible feeemales is to be considered unclean for two whole weeks rather than just one, and then she’s got 66 more days to go before she’s purified. (Lev. 12:5)
So you see, kids, girl babies are twice as grody as boy babies.
Once a woman’s served out her sentence, she has to bring a yearling lamb for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or dove for a sin offering, and the priest must sacrifice them for her so that God won’t think she’s so disgusting anymore. Seriously. The miracle of childbirth means God wants nothing to do with you for at least a month or two, until you bribe him into liking you again. Meanwhile, men can sire as many children as they want, and they don’t have to sacrifice a bunch of stuff to get ritually clean again. At most, they’ll be unclean for like a day after having teh sex. (Lev. 12:6-7)
Now, God likes people to think he’s generous. So if Mom’s poor, she doesn’t need to sacrifice a lamb: she can offer a second bird instead, and God will overlook her terrible act of birthing a child. (Lev. 12:7)
It’s hard to come away from this chapter feeling like the LORD loves the ladies. And for a dude who wants humans to make as many more humans as possible, he sure doesn’t seem to appreciate childbirth very much, either.
What a pathetic fellow.
Copyright © 2016 by Dana Hunter. All rights reserved.
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Ahhh, brings me back to the goddamn bad rationalizations I used to bring up in my own brain while reading this shit half-critically.
Bible: Women are unclean after giving birth.
“Uh, well, maybe it’s to let them rest? Unclean sounds bad, but in effect, it means they get less responsibilities, right?”
Bible: They have to go outside the camp.
“Uh, quarantine means better rest….I guess? Maybe some sort of medical thing that doesn’t make sense without more context? Shit, that still seems kinda fucked up…”
Bible: Baby girls inflict twice the uncleanliness on mothers.
“Well…shit.”
Then I fell back to selfish/willfully ignorant stuff like “well, God probably has it figured out, let’s stop thinking.” or “God’s ways are higher, and unknowable”.
God’s ways are indeed mysterious…….ly exactly what you’d expect from a shitty misogynistic monster, not a God worthy of any respect, worship, or praise.
I’m all for having a rest period after giving birth, where other people do
everythinga lot of things for you (this part missing from god’s plan). I’m against discriminating on the basis of baby’s genitals, and I’m against imposing a set limit and additional conditions upon rejoining society. So… god got, like, less than 5% of that one right? Not a good statistic for someone who’s supposed to be omnipotent and omniscient.