“He made them high and lowly/He gave them their estate”

The title comes from the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful which rhapsodizes about how God placed “the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate” — there’s a hierarchy and God likes where we fit in it, therefore disrupting the hierarchy is bad. Bob Altemeyer has pointed out disruption is a common fear among authoritarians: society is a fragile construction and people challenging authority or changing the way things are could topple it all like a house of cards. As one woman quoted by Christian Feminism Today says of why racial integration is wrong, “He wants each of us to know our place. And to stay in it. Otherwise, there would be disorder. And God doesn’t want disorder.”

A big part of that, as Kristen Kobes du Mez and Fred Clark have both pointed out, is that if the hierarchy automatically places you in the upper tiers, you have every reason to support it. Clark:

“It means you’re in charge by virtue of having been born in charge, and hierarchy brings all manner of privileges. You get paid more. Your legal rights are better protected. Society is literally designed to meet your desires and appetites and emotional needs. Plus someone else is going to make you food, clean up after you, launder your clothes, and tend to your children. Being “above” and being deferred to by default is, all things considered, a pretty terrific arrangement for you. It’s good to be the king.”

Du Mez: “Who divides work, who assigns authority? Who wields power, and to what ends? What check is there on that power, besides a self-avowed commitment to “virtue” and “self-restraint”—terms that are much more slippery in practice than in theory?” (She also quotes Abigail Adams and others on this topic).

(All of this also applies to hierarchies of race, religion and nationality but as usual, my focus is on gender).

Male supremacists want to believe Clark is wrong, that there’s a reason for power being divided up this way. Misogynist crybaby Dalton Clodfelter, for instance, insists not only that women’s “place is subservient to their husband” but that’s because they’re too stupid to do anything but clean house and raise the kids (which he apparently thinks takes no brains). Right-winger Charlie Kirk claims that if college affirmative action is necessary, that proves Michelle Obama wasn’t qualified for college and stole a spot that belonged to a white guy (see here for my thoughts).

As I’ve mentioned before, believers in patriarchy don’t want any limit on male power. When James Dobson tells an abused spouse to provoke her husband into even worse abuse to shock his conscience (this is not a good way to deal with spousal abuse) at no point does he question the husband’s right to beat his wife. Shocking him into realizing he’s abusive is supposed to inspire the husband to get Christian counseling; while Dobson is fine telling the wife not to get divorced, at no point does he suggest their pastor should order the husband to stop. It’s entirely his decision whether to beat his wife or not.

Not that some people on the lower ranks don’t embrace the hierarchy too. Lori Alexander is a patriarchal anti-feminist writer who opposes women voting, supports marital rape and opposes women going to college (they’ll get ideas their husband doesn’t like!). Perhaps she finds supporting patriarchy is in her own interest, perhaps she’s got some other motivation.

As Christian Feminism Today puts it in their post, nobody wants the world, or the country, or the community sliding into chaos, “his prescribed order has been “ordered” for you, not by you.  If you’re in the subordinate category, you’re taught you have no choice but to submit and stay in your place.” Like Du Mez, she argues that Jesus and his followers were all about challenging hierarchy, preaching that the powerful and the powerless are equally loved, equally vital and should have equal rights.

But misogyny is a poisonous tree and too many conservatives (and many others) have eaten of the fruit. They’d sooner die than give up the sense that having a penis doesn’t, can’t and shouldn’t make you special.

For more about hierarchy and misogyny, feel free to check out my Undead Sexist Cliches, available as a Amazon paperback, an ebook and from several other retailers. Cover by Kemp Ward