Religious Practice of Separation of the Sexes

I don't agree that "separate can be equal." This we learned from the civil rights movement. The idea might be there, to make everything completely symmetrical. Yet, one of the entrances to the temple worship area has got to be closer to the parking lot, to give just one example of how the real world complicates even simple ideas. If you let the men walk a shorter distance from their cars, they are "privileged." If you allow women to walk the shorter distance, they are "the weaker sex."

I appreciate that Buddhist thought demands that distractions be kept to a minimum, and I see how clothing and body chemistry might affect that. However, other concepts also provide strong distraction, and are not considered or given any weight, much less equal weight.

In group counseling of addicted children and their families, the individuals sitting in the circle are instructed not to sit next to a family member, so they can focus on their own situation and their own recovery. They are not instructed to not sit next to a member of the circle who might distract them because of their gender, sexual orientation, clothing, or history of friendship or drug use, though all of those also might be considered relevant. The family ties are thought to be most distracting to an individual's journey to health and well-being.

As I sat in the Buddhist worship area, apart from the men, my anger at realizing that I am seen as a person whose most important attributes to consider are my body parts, which might be "distracting" to the majority of men, who are heterosexual, was not so easy to set aside, making my experience of the practice of this religion just another low point in my search for meaning in this existence we call life.

The separation by genitalia also totally ignores sexual attraction between those of the same sex. The practice is inherently discriminatory because it does not recognize those whose sexual orientation differs from the majority. This practice denies these persons' sexual feelings or negates the importance of those feelings. And you can't just put the gay men in with the women, as I myself would find the near presence of an attractive man to be a distraction, even if I knew the attraction was not mutual. There is no way to separate a group of people so that no one will be sitting next to someone they are sexually attracted to. Some people are attracted to everyone. For this reason alone, they should not separate people by sexual organs, so they won't discriminate against someone by ignoring their sexual preference. Feeling marginalized because of one's sexual orientation diminishes the worship experience before it begins. Knowing that the religion encourages heterosexual preference feels like a slap in the face to members who are not heterosexual. Knowing that the lesbian sitting next to me is expected to hide her attraction to me, in the name of "fitting in," made me, a heterosexual, feel sorry for her and angry at a religion who would deny her the identity she was born with. We were not on equal footing if, within the worship area, I was free from distraction and she was purposefully made to feel her attraction was not normal and was not accounted for. She was not free to sit with the men, who would not be distracting to her, because she had body parts that would be attractive to men (but only the heterosexual ones).

The Catholic Church houses men and women, the brothers and sisters, separately, which makes it convenient to deny women the opportunity for engaging "the old boy network" to find out how things really run, politically, within the church. It is no different in public schools. No matter how "equal" a school that has only black students may seem to be, when compared to the school that only admits whites, the experience of the students is diminished due to a lack of interaction between the students of different races.

The Buddhist religion does the same thing.

When the men and the women sit apart during meals, the conversations that occur, on each side, do not reach all ears. Okay, I know that, even during meals, one's thoughts are expected to remain lofty.

But the thought that these separations are "good" continues, outside of the worship and food areas. Men and women are encouraged by their religious leaders to always be "good," to always be "holy," even after they leave the weekly service, and it is likely that this would include, even if not spoken aloud, a continued encouragement to not mingle with the opposite sex, because it might "be distracting" or "lead to sin." In the Catholic church, at the end of mass, the parishioners are instructed to "go and sin no more" and to "avoid the near occasion of sin."

In my experience with the Buddhist temple, as we left, we were not instructed to "go ahead and mingle freely with the opposite sex," "go about your business as usual," or anything that hinted that the experience of separation of the sexes was meant to be temporary and limited only to the worship services.

"Separate" within the walls of a religious building means they are preaching that "separate" is equated with "good." Then, beyond those doors, the continuation of being a "good" person means continuing to avoid "temptation." This leads to women being excluded from the old boy network, the power structure, and information they would find helpful in many ways, but which is denied to them simply by way of physical separation from men during important conversations.

This is not fair.

I was instructed by the Buddhists that this realization, that "unfair" is part of life, is important, so that we can set it aside, along with all the other unpleasant thoughts we might have, and enjoy the freedom from feeling connected to worldly things and ideas, any of which may lead to pain.

That is like saying, if you recognize that your leg is broken and it hurts, simply reflect on the fact that life includes things like broken legs, and when you let go of your feeling that you think it is important for you, personally, to be free of things that hurt, you will feel joyful. This is not the same thing as saying, let's fix your broken leg and see if that makes you feel a little better, even though the rest of life might be unfair and other things might hurt your feelings.

Separating men and women in the religious environment is more like making sure everyone has a broken leg, so they know what pain is, when the religious leader talks about letting go of painful attachments and being joyful. Heterosexual men are pained on being kept apart from sexy women, homosexuals are pained on having their attractions ignored and in having to keep them hidden, women are pained on being excluded from the real world of power.

My guess is that the Buddhists feel that the joy of enlightenment is an end which is worth enduring the institutionalized pain.

Organized Religion: Check Your Genitals at the Door

I attended services at one particular religious institution a couple of times in the past. It concerned me greatly that there was still a specific practice of separating females from males, with each sex occupying one side of the worship hall. This continued after the service into the shared repast, when the men lined up to be served the meal first and then the women after. Food was available in normal portions, but only until it ran out, so if it ran out before you were served, you were out of luck. It did not matter that they assured me they always made sure to have an abundance of food, plenty for all and with leftovers to give to the poor. The idea was there, that if there ever was not enough food, the poor would starve, and then the women, and lastly the men.

This was the practice in my husband's childhood family. However many pork chops there were at hand that had been cooked for dinner, they were doled out, one at a time, first to those who were male, the oldest served before the youngest, and then to those who were female, oldest to youngest. Often, there were not enough pork chops to go around, but the meat they had was not divided evenly, as was the practice in my own family. Those people in his family who were at the bottom of the status ranking went without if there was not enough. My sisters-in-law report that they often did not get a serving of the evening's protein dish, and had to fill up on rice.

It still amazes me that in order for one to participate in a modern organized religion, one would have to do a check of one's genitals and act according to the traditions reserved for your particular set of body parts. From what I understand, this has nothing to do with gender identity, it is strictly "gentlemen parts belong on one side of the room, lady parts on the other."

If I remember correctly, I was instructed that when one is faced with such discrimination, it is a reminder that life is not fair and that instances of discrimination are not important in the larger scheme of things, where all such identifications with the body eventually disappear anyway. Recognizing this and accepting it helps one to let go of earthly expectations that do not lead to happiness anyway. Letting go of attachment to things that do not matter leads to an inner peace, which leads to joy.

Somehow this still does not seem to me a satisfactory answer. I would have thought that a wise leader of a new religion could have found a more innovative way to make the same point, maybe lining up people by height, or dividing the room according to net worth, rather than going along with the contemporary discriminatory practice of sexism. Choosing such a traditional method of discrimination and institutionalizing it in religious practices makes me doubt the veracity of the retelling of the religion's story. It shakes my faith, making me question whether any part of the story is at all meaningful. I feel as separated from all religions which discriminate on the basis of biology as I do from my own, which labels me as unqualified to become a leader because of the peculiar nature of my body, which is female.

I understand that, in all religions, the stories are metaphors for our life experiences and understanding our place in the universe. But in putting women in second place, as usual, it just seems like sexist man-made religions are made by men in power to keep men in power, using pretense of metaphor to maintain the status quo, rather than to provide real enlightenment on the meaning of life, which might bring true satisfaction.

This continuity in institutionalized sexism might have been practical when religions first came into being, useful as a method to assure peace and social order, rather than the disorder which might have resulted if there had been a sudden shaking up of societal expectations. However, seeing that sex discrimination is still in practice today is seeing an anachronism that simply feels painful.

Mary Did Not "Know Man"

The Christian Bible tells the story of the conception of Jesus by a woman who had not "known man."

This tells a larger story, the story of how a new definition of what it means "to be a man" came to be.

Here's the scenario: when Mary revealed that she was pregnant, she furiously insisted that she was not pregnant by a "man." She probably described her impregnation, "There was this guy who got me pregnant, but he was not a real man. Yes, he was a guy with a penis, but a "real" man would not force me before marriage and then abandon me and my child. That was no "man" who fathered this baby!" Being a good girl, she may not have had appropriate words to describe what she really thought he was.

Mary likely despaired for the baby's future, because the belief of the day was that the children of a bad man were definitely destined to also be bad.

Mary told her tale of woe, and it was her enlightened listener who guided her to see that the child's potential had nothing whatever to do with the despicable way in which he was conceived. No matter whether the father was a louse or not, the baby would grow up to be a good person. Despite the fact that its parentage was tainted, the child, untouched by sin of its own, could be raised in love. It could develop fully its unlimited potential to do good for mankind. Out of Mary's despair came instead the joy of hope for a wonderful future for her child.

This change in perception was a miraculous giant step in mankind's development of a consciousness of the self as independent of the family or society.

In the new way of thinking, every child is born with a potential for good that is unlimited by the history of his birth. The story of the successful glory of Jesus, despite his lack of a "man" for a father, cements this new belief.

The biblical account of Jesus' conception and eventual glory is a metaphor for the societal sea change. It reflects the new idea, that individual people, no matter their background, really do have control over their own destiny.

Religious Reform, and Hurry

Slavery has been abolished by law, with no exceptions made for members of any church, not even the Catholic Church, to hold slaves. The very thought is intolerable. People do not have the right to own other people. Each person is valuable as an individual in his own right and is master of his own fate.

People of every race are people. Men and women are people. In every country live people. No person is higher than another person. Each is a miracle of God's creation, loved equally by God.

Dare I say, each person was created by God to be considered, by every other person created by God, to be worthy of being loved by each and every human being?

Did God ask each of us to treat each other one of us as a neighbor, and to love this neighbor as much as we love ourselves?

The highest love of a person would be to wish for them the highest joy and to spend our lives working toward their achievement of that joy. What higher joy than to spend one's human life in union with God?

The task of a priest is the highest task on earth, to bring other people to the joy that comes from a closeness with God.

The head of the Catholic Church, the pope, has said there will NEVER be female priests in the Catholic Church. Women have two X chromosomes and men have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome. The pope has said that God has revealed that in order to receive the sacrament of the priesthood, there is something important about having one of each, both an X and a Y chromosome.

How is it possible that the Catholic Church believes that, among the job requirements for becoming a priest is included the physical manifestation of having a Y chromosome? Why has the Catholic Church institutionalized sexism?

Maybe it is all metaphor, on the microscopic level, represented by the X and the Y chromosomes.

Considering that, from what I understand of science, a Y chromosome is simply an X chromosome off from which a piece has been broken, so that it is really just an incomplete X chromosome, This essay will attempt to examine the evidence as to whether there might be any redeeming logic to salvage the papal argument for institutionalized sexism.

Eve, with two X chromosomes, represents woman. Adam, with one X and one Y chromosome, represents man.

God is represented by a single X chromosome, incomplete because God is lonely for a partner with whom to share the universe. God knew he was not perfect because he was lonely, so he created another had known to create an equal to himself, he would have created a creature with two X chromosomes, an Eve, rather than an Adam. Instead, he created an Adam, a human who was not a God and who shared with God a desire to not be alone throughout existence.

Adam was created by God to be God's mirror image. Eve was created by God out of Adam, at Adam's request, because Adam was lonely. Since Adam before the fall is a mirror image of God, God himself must have been lonely. He created man, to share the whole of existence with himself.

Since Adam represents God's idea of what a mirror image of God would be like, Adam's desire for company represents God's own loneliness. God's creation of Eve represents God's realization of what was missing in himself, someone to share existence with.

Eve represents the new perfection of God, who is no longer lonely, because Eve had a partner right from the very beginning of her existence. Her two X chromosomes represent God and his equal counterpart, existing happily together.

Eve has two X chromosomes, which represents the perfection of what it would be like if two Gods lived in equality of power and essence, no different from one another. The X chromosome represents the whole and perfect human of God's creation. This is Eve, but it is also what Adam and God inhabiting the universe together were like, while Adam was still living in Eden and in perfect obedience to God. At that point, Adam still had his two X chromosomes. Then God took a part of one of his X chromosomes in order to create Eve, leaving Adam with one X chromosome complete and one broken, his Y chromosome.

The Catholic Church has institutionalized sexism so that we don't forget that God made a mistake in creating a subservient person rather than another God to be equal to himself and to keep himself company in his existence. In a perfect existence, there would be two equal Gods to keep each other company. Only a man of broken chromosomes can represent this horrible reality, and bring humans to an understanding of God's brokenness.

The priesthood is a reminder that it takes a perfect God, represented by an X chromosome, and an imperfect and broken man, represented by the Y chromosome, to create a church, a bunch of fallible humans whose desire it is to be united with God. The Catholic Church allows only men to become priests because it feels that only a chromosomally incomplete person can truly understand the yearning for the wholeness that is only possible when man is reunited with God.


The Y chromosome, when seen as a broken fragment of an X chromosome, represents the broken man, a creature who was perfect and whole, but now is lesser since the God part was torn off. Adam was the image of God himself, complete, yet alone as one God. The X chromosome represents the perfection of God's creation, man complete, before the God part was torn off. The Y chromosome represents man after his fall and in his subsequent banishment, roaming the earth apart from God. The part of man that is now missing and represents the manifestation of his imperfection is represented by the part of the X chromosome that is missing from the Y chromosome, the God which is missing from man's life.

Woman, who is comprised only of mirrored X chromosomes, represents perfection, that of a God who coexists with an equal, another God like himself.

In the beginning, God was existing in the grand existence but was not content enough to maintain himself by himself, so he started creating.

God created Adam, in his own image, and unsurprisingly, saw that Adam was not happy because he was lonely, just as God was lonely, or at least unsatisfied with simply existing by himself. Adam's loneliness represents the error in God's creation and in God himself. The whole and perfect man, as God had thought to create him, was not a whole and perfect man after all, because God had neglected to consider man's feelings. Adam began to see that having someone like oneself to love and spend his life with was more important than having been created and given life in the first place. God himself had seen that merely existing was not enough, that even God is drawn to having a partner to share it all with.

Metaphorically, this unhappy Adam represents God himself, as Adam was supposed to be a mirror image of God. God was lonely, not happy in his own existence, and therefore started creation.

The problem is that God did not create another God, to be his own equal and partner. He created a lesser being, either because he did not have the power to create another of his equal, or else in his urge to share his universe he did not think equality between himself and the one he would share the universe with was an important consideration.

Therefore, when we think of priests, as men, representing the imperfect creation of a God trying to create a mirror image of himself, we are reminded that God himself is less than perfect, because he is alone, somehow existing but without anything else existing to share that existence with.

The institutionalized sexism of the Catholic Church is a constant reminder that God, in isolation, is not perfect. The unmarried priest represents that a person can only be complete when joined with God, not with another person. Thus, the Catholic Church demands that the human priest act out the metaphor, in the sacrifice of the fulfillment of his own life in which marriage is denied, as a demonstration of the idealization that the only perfect marriage possible is that between God and the creation God made in order to give himself a partner in existence.

Thus, also, is denied gay marriage, since the idea is that imperfect man, the Y chromosome, cannot substitute for God. In the wholeness of God's desire, he created something different than himself to co-exist with himself. God did not create another God, which would have been two X chromosomes. Adam, the broken Y chromosome, cannot become a whole X chromosome by adding another Y chromosome, but only by adding the part missing from the X chromosome that resulted in the Y chromosome in the first place.




This logic essay is still in construction.