Over at David Marshall's blog he's written a series of posts about how Christianity has supposedly raised the status and well-being of women throughout the world. In my review of his book I tackle some of his claims on this issue. The only argument that seems half way legit is that of Christianity's positive influences and reforms in India. All the others are factually flawed in some way, or Marshall greatly exaggerates the role of Christianity.In the third post of his series he references the same outdated paper he used in his book from 1988 (!). For part of my research I looked at a 2009 UN Gender Empowerment study which showed how the united states' ranking in gender equality was number 18. The countries that occupied the top spots were Sweden, followed by Norway and then Finland, some of the most secularized countries.
I also find it odd that in his book Marshall doesn't explicitly say which countries occupy what rank but in his blog post he gives some basic information that's in the paper. What's even funnier is the fact that according to his source, from 1988, the united states was ranked number five, while the U.S. is currently occupying the 18th spot. If Christianity did have any influence, it seems to be slipping fast. Furthermore, in Marshall's study two of the most secular countries, Finland (1st place) and Sweden (2ed) top the list as having the most gender equality. Now, to be fair, the two studies weren't comparing the exact same issues, thus likely causing the rankings to be off somewhat, but both studies do compare most of the same or similar factors. Marshall notes that his study compared the following: employment, education, marriage and children, and health. The UN study looked at the percentage of women in high governmental positions, their status in the workforce, maternal health, and education. So, Marshall cannot claim that the two studies are that different. They look at almost entirely the same issues.
When doing a little bit more research for this piece I looked up the 2010 Human Development Report and found something shocking. The united states' ranking for gender equality was 37. The country with the least gender inequality was – you guessed it! - secularized Netherlands. In second place was Denmark, and in third place, Sweden, each secular countries.
So, I will once again pose the same question I asked Marshall on his blog, to which he never responded: Why, if Christianity engenders equality among the sexes, does the U.S. have such a poor standing in that regard and some of the most secular countries are at the top of the list? [1]
If Marshall's argument had any validity I don't see why he would have such a hard time answering such a simple question.
1. Again, to be fair, Marshall did respond to my first attempt (but has since ignored me when I repeated the question to try to get a better answer from him) at answering the question by arguing that,
If Sweden, say, elects 55% women to its parliament, and the US elects 25%, that is of no relevance to my thesis at all. In some ways, I would argue, the US often mistreats men because of over-zealous Nanny State secularism. Justice does not mean going to the opposite extreme: Christianity balances good ideals, rather than rushing blindly to some secularly-mandated extreme.
Marshall ignores the relevancy of womans' place in government, plus the other factors that the studies did look at. He also pitifully tries to downplay the poor status of women in the U.S. with his poor excuse about a nanny state backed up with no evidence whatsoever. What's even more ironic about his argument is the fact that this “ Nanny State secularism,” or the welfare state, is what seems to be helping these European countries take care of its citizens so well and attain such a high degree of human development.
I'd also like to address one more potential counter-argument. It may be claimed that the studies on gender equality I used as evidence have little or nothing to do with a woman's status in a society. In fact, Marshall even made that statement. He said,
My thesis is not about "gender equality," which strikes me as an inherently absurd goal. I spend some time in part I pointing out that Nature seems to offer few, if any, examples of pure equality between the sexes, nor is there any reason to expect it.
First of all, my study used much the same criteria as his study, which he used to support his claim, so by this reasoning his study would be irrelevant as well. Second, the very issue of equality is very relevant to the discussion since it is a womans' status in a society that we're looking at. All gender equality studies look at is a womans' status in society as it relates to a man, but even this kind of study still looks at the status of women in a given society, it's just comparing them to mens' status. And that is exactly what Marshall was trying to show with his study. He's simply trying to dismiss my study because it contradicts his (and mine is much more up to date and I have more studies backing up my assertion: 2 to 1) but his argument was horribly disingenuous.
I also take offense at his belief that gender equality shouldn't be a goal. Of course it should! Women are just as important and equal as men are. And the fact that these European countries have such good measures of gender equality is proof that there a lot of gender equality out there, but it probably could be better for sure.
Posts
