Let My People Go

In the Jewish Torah, not a single woman is ever born. Women lived during this time and were mentioned slightly, but they didn’t have rights or a voice. Christine de Pizan gave the idea in The Book of City of Ladies that the men were freed from Egypt, whereas the women were moved from Egypt but stayed in suffering. This radical idea suggests that the freedom of the Israelites was not beneficial for women. Though most believe that Moses led all of his people to freedom, the women continued to be very neglected.

The Book of City of Ladies is considered the first feminist novel written. Pizan writes, “Now, however, it is time for [women] to be delivered out of the hands of the Pharaoh.” (Book 11). She is emphasizing the fact that women were neglected during the exodus of Egypt by exaggerating that the women were so mistreated that they weren’t even freed from slavery. There is very few evidence that women actually left Egypt because they are rarely mentioned in Exodus. An extreme amount of neglect and mistreatment must have gone into the escape from Egypt in order to ignore an entire gender.

After the exodus from Egypt, laws and commandments were made for the new Jewish people. The most important laws made during this time we the Ten Commandments. These were the only laws spoken by God directly to the people.

The last of these laws was, “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.” (Exodus 20:17). This commandment prohibits envy towards other people’s objects. This being said, the wife was considered an object, property. The wife was on the same level as the male and female servant,...

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...mily. When Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt, he removed the Jews from the Egyptian culture which had more feminism than its own.

The women of the Bible were not freed when the Jews left Egypt. This radical concept is overlooked and unappreciated. The Judeo-Christian faith has always had lots of power in the world, and its roots are tainted with anti-feminism. Is it possible that the roots of the Patriarchy today stem from the anti-feminism in the Bible?

Work Cited:

"KJV Dictionary Definition: Seduce." AV1611.Com King James Bible Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2014.

"Passages Treating Women as Inferior to Men." THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 May 2014.

Pizan, Christine De. The Book of the City of Ladies. New York: Persea, 1982. Print.

The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments. Trenton: I. Collins, 1791. Print.