Eve’s Seed – McElvaine – Millsaps College
At the end of December, 2005, a New York Times article reported on a new South African law placing limits on virginity testing in this nation. During the debate over the law, Zulu leaders described virginity tests as “a revered tradition.” King Goodwill Zwelithini Zulu called the tests “an umbilical cord between modern Zulus and their ancestors.” In 2004, then Deputy President Jacob Zuma endorsed virginity tests “as a way to shield African values against the corrosive effects of Western civilization.” 1 The question that must be asked is why such traditions and values of ancestors arose. There is, of course, nothing unique to Africa about male insistence on female virginity—or about the many other traditions that consign women to positions of subordination. We are all aware of the horrible treatment of women under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, for example. Similar, if not quite as harsh, mistreatment of women exists in Iran. But there is nothing unique to Islam about male insistence on the subordination of and male control over women and their bodies. The problem with the misogynistic rulers of the regimes that most mistreat women is often said to be that they are religious fanatics. This is true, but we need to be careful that we properly identify what their religion is. It is not Islam. Rather, it is what Woody Allen’s character in his 2001 movie, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion identified as his religion: “insecure masculinity.” Insecure masculinity is a malady that has been a—perhaps the—major force in many of the horrors of history—and one that Christians and Jews should realize is also deeply imbedded in their religions. That insecure masculinity is an important part of our religions should not be surprising, because it is imbedded in almost all aspects of our culture—including, most significantly, our language. It is, I believe, a primary source of what Sigmund Freud referred to as civilization’s discontents. Let us begin by asking why the Taliban insisted on the complete separation of men and women? Why were women required to be fully veiled and men required to have beards? Are such attempts to make the sexes polar opposites something unique to the Islamic tradition? The last of these questions is easily answered. The insistence that the sexes are opposite is a phenomenon with which those of us who have grown up in the Judeo-Christian tradition are very familiar. Indeed, it seems to be a common feature of most cultures around the world.
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