Gender issues

1. Gender issues A global perspective

2. Men, Women and the BibleOur story in several parts • Creation • Sin • Israel • Redemption • Future glory

3. Creation of men and women- part of the goodness of Creation. Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air.. So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. Genesis 1 26-27

4. Men and Women • Part of the rest of creation • Male and female for a purpose • Different from the animal kingdom • Expressing Unity of humankind • Joint stewardship of creation • Made for intimacy, love, respect, care • Made different, the same, complementary and to be in union

5. Our relationship with each other • Pro-creators, joint stewards • Renewing and restoring of life • ‘Leaving and cleaving’ • Sexual faithfulness and exclusivity • Protection of the vulnerable • According each other dignity and respect

6. No wonder I have problems One of my parents was a man And the other was a woman • Groucho Marx

7. Broken images • Genesis 3 • Sin of disobedience and movement toward autonomy • Blame and recrimination • Violation of gender harmony • Difference in result of sin: male rule, women ‘desire’ • Difference in response to creation

8. Sin and Gender in Scripture Scripture • Blame, rape, incest, manipulation, betrayal • Violence, aggression, lack of respect • Animosity, rivalry, oppression of women, sexual abuse, control, hardness of heart. • Male lust, female manipulation – often using sex to get their own way • Genesis 16, 19, 20, 29, 34, 38, 39, • Judges 19

9. St Jerome • There is something not good in the number two….while scripture on the first, third fourth and sixth days relates that having finished the works of each God saw that it was good, on the second day He omitted this altogether, leaving us to understand that two is not a good number because it prefigures the marriage contract.

10. Just kidding, just kidding! I’m not Really going to Preach from the Song of Solomon today

11. Redemption and Gender Christ’s redemptive love is not simply related to our individual sin, but touches into every aspect of gender relationships

12. ‘Women hold up half the sky, but it is the heavier half’ ‘Women are 51% of world’s population, do 66% of world’s work, earn 10% of world’s income, own 1% of world’s wealth

13. Women account for nearly 70% of the 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty • Illiteracy rates amongst women are higher in every poor country than amongst men- 66% worldwide • Loans for small businesses/ grants from IMF traditionally benefited men • Little legal protection for their land ownership • Sexual violence and trafficking of women increases poverty, vulnerability, destitution • In India estimated that discrimination against girls increases rate of child mortality by 20% • More than half a million women die in pregnancy and childbirth each year. • Gender-based violence causes more deaths and disability among women aged 15 to 44 than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war

14. 1. Gender and poverty • In every society where studies have been undertaken, the majority of the poor are women, and their children. Women bear the brunt of global poverty often forming an underclass below the existing underclass. • E.g.Poverty reports in the UK have indicated situations of differentiated poverty within the same family. A woman may fall below the poverty level when the man is above it. • Poverty’s multiple gender aspects means that it cannot be addressed by policies or programmes in one area alone

16. Multiple Poverty of women • Hunger, malnutrition, high infant and maternal mortality rates, low access to fresh water, health, education, information, transport, and financial services; illiteracy, low income, indebtedness, exposure to disease and epidemics, vulnerability to climate change, global exclusions (including from decision-making) powerlessness,

18. 2. Gender and Health • Lack of freedom to explore health issues for many women in poor countries • Problems over childbirth and maternal mortality: grandmothers’ burdens • Issues specifically affecting the girl child: e.g child brides • Women survivors of disasters • Spread of HIV/Aids • Difficulties over cost of vaccinations

20. Maternal mortality rates • ‘I can remember back in the late 90s when I was overseeing the publication of The State of the World’s Children for UNICEF, and we did a piece of maternal mortality, and realized that the same number of actual deaths –between 500,000-600,000 had not changed for 20 years. And now it’s 30 years. You can bet if there was something called paternal mortality, the numbers wouldn’t be frozen in time for 3 decades.’ Stephen Lewis

21. Selective AbortionGuardian newspaper report Feb 07 • Earlier this month police arrested two people after the discovery of 400 pieces of bones believed to be of female foetuses in the town of Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh. Last September, the remains of dozens of babies were exhumed from a pit outside an abortion clinic in Punjab. According to investigators, that clinic was run by an untrained, unqualified retired soldier and his wife. To dispose of the evidence, acid was use to melt the flesh and then the bones were hammered to smithereens.

22. India’s missing girls • For the two years up to 2004, India had just 882 girls per 1,000 boys. India now has 930,000 missing girls every year. "What we are talking about is a massive, hidden number of deaths.“ Sabu George

23. India report • Although gender-based abortion is illegal, parents are choosing to abort female foetuses in such large numbers that experts estimate India has lost 10 million girls in the past two decades. In the 12 years since selective abortion was outlawed, only one doctor has been convicted of carrying out the crime.

24. Sabu George, a Delhi-based researcher who has worked for two decades on female foeticide, describes the first few months in the womb as "the riskiest part of a woman's life cycle in India". The sex ratios in the country, he says, are getting worse "day by day".

25. The demographic consequences of mass female foeticide are most pronounced in the most developed parts of India. In Delhi, one of the richest cities in India, there are just 827 girls per 1,000 boys being born. Not far away, in the wealthy farming belt of Kurukshetra, there are only 770.

26. The dowry problem • The bride's side, according to convention, is supposed to give but never take from the groom's family. In today's India that translates into an evermore expensive gift list of consumer goods. Decades ago, a wealthy bride's father would have been expected to give gold bracelets. Today it is jewellery, fridges, cars and foreign holidays - and the bride's family may end up paying the bill for the rest of their lives

27. Until the last few years, China was worse. Beijing's harsh, yet effective, family-planning policy limited urban couples to a single child -which was usually a boy. China's sex ratio stands at just 832:1,000

28. HIV/Aids • 20 million people have died of Aids over the last 25 years: 8000 will die today. • 39 million are currently infected with HIV: • Most of all new infections occur in Sub-Saharan Africa • Many African countries have an infection rate over 30% • 15 million children have been orphaned through the pandemic one fifth of all deaths = child under 15 • In some cultures women often infected by their husbands on their wedding night. • Cost of injection to prevent pregnant mother to child infection £7 mth but poverty means very low take-up

29. ‘It took until the Bangkok AIDS conference in 2004 - more than twenty years into the pandemic --- before the definitive report from UNAIDS disaggregated the statistics and commented, extensively, upon the devastating vulnerability of women. The phrase "AIDS has a woman's face" actually gained currency at the AIDS conference in Barcelona two years earlier, in 2002, and even then it was years late. Perhaps we should stop using it now as though it has a revelatory dimension. The women of Africa have always known whose face it is that's withered and aching from the virus.’ Stephen Lewis

30. Microfinance to keep HIV orphans in school

31. 3. Gender and War –Sexual violence

33. Ownership of women’s bodies • Female genital mutilation • Rape as a weapon of war • Trafficking of women • Enforced child prostitution • Abortion of girl babies- female foeticide • Global incidence of domestic violence, rape and murder

34. ‘Female genital mutilation, the contagion of violence against women, sexual violence in particular, rape as a weapon of war --- Rwanda, Darfur, Northern Uganda, Eastern Congo --- marital rape, child defilement, as it is called in Zambia, sexual trafficking, maternal mortality, early marriage .

35. Who are we? Dubious theology • Man made in the image of God, woman in the image of man (women= ‘misbegotten men’) • Woman under the ultimate authority of man (as a universal creation ordinance ) • Men called to be icons of Christ, women called to be receivers of grace (Men lead- women follow) • Men reflecting the rational-soul principle: women reflecting the emotional-body principle • Men -struggling for purity, women as temptresses. • Men as lustful, women as angels of the home. • Women in subjection at the bottom of cosmic hierarchy: God – Christ – man – woman

36. Who are we really? • Made male and female in the image of God • Created, fallen, redeemed. • Joint sinners, bearing equal responsibility • Joint-heirs of salvation and of the promise. • Members together of the body of Christ • Co-workers for the kingdom of God • Both anointed with the Spirit of God • Given gifts from God for the work of the Gospel

37. I am come that they might have life- and life in abundance

38. The International Christian Alliance on Prostitution (ICAP) • Unites, equips and empowers practitioners and advocates, who compassionately challenge injustice and offer freedom to people exploited by prostitution, including sex trafficking.

39. Samaritana Transformation Ministries • ‘Inspired by Jesus’s example, Samaritana reaches out to modern-day ‘Samaritan’ women in the Philippines. By offering them community, friendship and companionship, these women are also slowly freed up to be who they truly are, as people loved just for who they are, regardless of their backgrounds. They are valued for who they can yet become as they begin to trust in God, and others, gain confidence in themselves and renew and pursue their dreams and aspirations’

40. Restored • Aims to highlight the issues of violence against women across the globe • Aims to network with and enable Christian organisations working in specific areas • Aims to raise theological awareness so churches can help abusers and abused. • Aims to work for the protection of women and the restoration of male- female relationships