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Monday, January 25, 2010

Day 25: Wicked!

Today's Reading: Genesis 38-40

[He] was wicked in the LORD's sight; so the LORD put him to death." 38:6,10

Her name was "palm tree." I'm wondering if it was because she was willowy and beautiful or because she was flexible enough to survive the stormy family of Judah?

She survives Mean Husband #1 and Raping Husband's Brother #2 and Prostitute Chasing Father-in-Law #3.

This idea that women are non persons, only profitable and useful to bear children or to relieve men of their sexual appetites, is a wicked, wicked, wicked thing in my sight.

I am appalled at the way women are treated by the men and other women in Genesis: Shoved into harems, used to shield men, given to men without any consent of their own, thrown out into a desert without sustenance, seen as son producing machines, and burned to death if called out as a prostitute.

Is all this part of the curse for picking that forbidden fruit?

Or is there something deeper going on?

Is it a jealousy that men have because women bear children?

Is it a matter of the stronger physically oppressing the weaker?

Is it a need to pump up egos?

Whatever it is, it is wicked.

How can Judah say, "Bring her out and have her burned to death!" [38:24] Is he not the second party in the act of prostitution? Why is the woman burned and the man allowed to laugh about the whole act with a brew in his hand? When did all this start, this double standard? Men are studs who sow their wild oats. Women are whores, and considered "dirty" or "ruined" if they are not virgins.

Why are women still exploited in such situations as "College Girls Gone Wild?" Why are "adult clubs" places where women bare their bodies or dance erotically while men watch? Why is most pornography either the exposure of women, or men and women in brutal acts of sex? Why is most sex traffic the exploitation of women and young boys?

I have more questions than answers today. And the situations and the questions make me madder and madder the more I think about it.

The answer: Wickedness!

And wickedness leads to death!

1 comment:

  1. Your commentary reminds me of the ways in which women are still so vividly exploited in the media. It's not just in pornography and "adult" entertainment, but in the world around us. Go through any fashion magazine, and you can see, especially in the advertisements, how women's sexuality, violence against women, and the degradation of women in many other ways is used to see products like clothes, soap, alcohol, and perfume.

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