HST 253
Response Paper #1
John Calvin on Women “teaching”
I would love to know exactly which day it was in history that men in general became
irretrievable morons. John Calvin displays extraordinary effort in his attempts at the mental
gymnastics of justifying why women are not fit to teach. Frankly, the only extraordinary things
about his declarations were that they were actually listened to.
For example, his opening remark is, I suffer not a woman to teach.” 1
I’ll bet that raised his mother’s eyebrows.
He qualifies it by saying he didn’t really mean a woman couldn’t teach…oh…say the family or
something nice and basic like that. Women just shouldn’t be teaching anywhere relevant, like
education and legal institutions, and above all, (God forbid) the church.
So apparently in the eyes in the Calvinist church you were good enough any day to be a
breeder, but just don’t dare have an actual thought in your head while you are slaving through
motherhood and whatever duties you perform in your station in life. What an insult to the
person, the woman who bore HIS sorry butt couldn’t even been given credit by him for raising
him.
Now THAT’S ego!
Attempting to ward off any further inquiry (as evidenced by the following rambling nonmessage) Calvin attempts to explain away any deviations from the male historical script when it
comes to the inconvenient task of explaining away such undeniable historical figures as Judge
Deborah; “Extraordinary acts done by God do not overturn the ordinary rules of government,
by which he intended we be bound” 2, Calvin declares.
I would have been the one in the crowd asking, “Excuse me sir, but how do you know that to be
absolute?”
He would interrupt me by continuing with, ”Accordingly, if women one time held the office of
prophets and teachers, and that too when they were supernaturally called to it by the Spirit of
1
2
http://echoesfromthepast.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/ From the syllabus
Ibid
God, he who is above all law might to this, but being a peculiar case, because it is a peculiar and
extraordinary case. This is not opposed to the system of government.” 3
What?!
Even by Calvin’s logic, isn’t any person involved in the priesthood, etc doing so under a “calling”
from God? If they were called, were they not called “supernaturally”? And let’s be blunt; isn’t
ANY “personal contact” with God considered a little “peculiar”?
Calvin further inflames the argument by flipping through the hoops of the consequences of the
fall of man (hers) and goes so far as to state.” …it was not proper for woman by her own fault
make her condition better than before…” and finished with some twaddle on how Moses
declared woman to be a sort of appendage to man, “that she was joined to him on the express
condition that she should be on hand to render obedience to him.”
Ouch.
Calvin desperately needed therapy and a dog.
What astounds me is the finality with which he makes his declarations, as if he had brunch with
God the very day he wrote it, God not only speaking the words to him directly, but haranguing
him to write them down as well. Urging Calvin all the while, “Speak them with authority, share
them with the world!”
Imagine having the power of being an absolute authority on the unknowable. The power and
prestige must have been utterly intoxicating, no doubt doubly buried in layers of false modesty.
Being respected and world renowned for knowing absolutely everything about absolutely
nothing (religion). Having the confidence of “God just told me today” when telling others,
“lesser people” than your jolly pious self that this shall be the LAW by which they will conduct
their lives.
And that women allowed it! I don’t even know what to say about that.
I have a theory about John Calvin. This contemptible little man , always defiant and gloryseeking in his religious work, seems like a sycophantic, over-entitled self loathing gay man who
HAD to take his self hate out on women. He was fortunate to live in an age where
“blowhardiness “ alone could bring you “world” audience for whatever control game
government and clergy want to throw the public’s way this year. He didn’t seem like a very
charismatic personality to me, but I could be missing something (rolling eyes).
3
Ibid
He justified his assault of women’s very right to humanity by quoting the Bible, but inside his
privately hellified world, any empathy toward the feminine aspect whatsoever signified to him
his overabundant love for the part of him he hated, and in order to make it right with the
haranguing God, he was obligated and ordered by God to declare the law. The inescapable law.
On women who …” (for whom)…it was not proper for (woman by her own fault)to make her
condition better than before…” in order to suppress his own self hate and loathing through an
assault on the female members of the population, which he expressed through his
“blowdardiness.”
I know these things for sure because I just made them up.
Just like he undoubtedly did.