We love you, Sinful Mother Eve.
Mother’s Day is Sunday, the 8th. Facebook Newsfeeds are covered in “I love you, mom!” posts and pictures. I’m not on any other social media sites (gasp, I know), but I imagine there were more out there. Celebrating moms is great. I love that idea. But why are we celebrating moms on this one day when every other day of the year we treat moms like they are second-class citizens?
Let me explain. Once upon a time (in Judeo-Christian-Islamic faiths), God made Adam and Eve. Then, Eve ate the forbidden fruit and gave some Adam to eat. Then, God kicked them out of the Garden of Eden. God punished Adam by making him work to grow his own food. Eve’s punishment was (drum roll please - we all know this one) to have pain in child birth and to have so much desire for her husband that he would have power over her. (This version of the story is taken from the Gospel According to Shelby.)
First, the second part of Eve’s punishment makes no sense to me. Adam was given the direct instruction not to eat the fruit and was there on the ground first. I don’t think the fact that Adam then ate the fruit — that he was specifically told not to eat, that he had experience avoiding — means that Adam is a good leader. And as far as the desire part, if there were only two people on Earth, and Eve was one of those people, who else was Eve to desire anyway? Did God say this just so that conservatives could use it against women for all of eternity? … I don’t think God works that way.
Second, men have majority power in modern American society (in which this author is residing). The men in leadership roles constantly make rules about women’s bodies. What women can or cannot use as a contraceptive. What and when women can get an abortion. What women can and cannot do or use to cope with childbirth. What young women can wear to school. (And most recently, what women are allowed to use the restroom.) The list goes on. All for the sake of remaining biblically correct and helping women to fully embrace their punishment for wonderful, sinful mother Eve eating forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. (Even if these rules and laws are not made with explicitly Christian motivations, they are still coming from Christian influences, as American culture is saturated with Christian ideals.)
Yet, how many of these good, strong, devoted Christian men are breaking a sweat across their brow, tilling the soil, and working to make food grow for them? And of those men that are still farming, why is it alright that they have air-conditioned cabins on their easy-to-use machines? Why is it alright to use chemicals and genetically modified material to produce massive amounts of food when the Bible clearly says that, as punishment, man must only receive food through painful toil?
Let me take this little brain exercise a little further. If we hear a joke, or a story, or read in a book about a culture calling for the sacrifice of a virgin, why do we always assume that virgin is a girl? When it comes to the Great Bathroom Debate, why are we making laws out of “concern for the safety of our women,” but we never feel a threat of safety for our men?
Are mothers only “good mothers” if they undergo pain of childbirth? Is there a difference between a “good mother” and a “great mother,” depending on how long and terrible the labor was? Is a woman a “good mom” if she goes through all the pain of labor but does not keep her child to raise? Are adoptive mothers not really mothers, or just not “good mothers”? Are MOGAI moms “bad moms” no matter what because clearly that’s not what God has intended? Are you a mom if you have a vagina and give birth to a baby (suffering through the pains or using meds) yet you are masculine presenting, use he/him pronouns, and have changed your sex marker on all official documents to “M”?
If I have any say in it (and I do, because Odyssey is included under the laws protecting free press), we should use Mother’s Day to think about why women are still being oppressed in the 21st century. And when we celebrate moms, we need to not be patronizing, patting them on a back for living up to (or trying to live up to) an ideal imposed upon them by cultural norms. When we celebrate Mother’s Day, we need to remember that we’re celebrating people. And all people should have equal rights, regardless of any text — religious or legal — that a culture embraces as its own.
God gave us life. And God gave us punishment. The men get to improve their quality of life and move past their forefather’s sins. Your mothers have had to put up with your bad behavior for long enough. When you celebrate women, when you celebrate your moms, for once in your life, mean it. Give them the dignity they deserve. The respect that is long overdue. The equality that they require but have been denied their entire lives.
