My Journey: Why No Prophetess?

If the word "Prophetess" seems odd to both the secular and religious, it does for good reason: the overwhelming majority of the representatives of Gods in human history are male; as such, they are called "Prophets" or "Heroes" (in Greek, Roman and Norse faiths). In a house beaming with feminist pride from my three sisters, I find it difficult to believe that no one has critically analyzed this aspect of religion and I want to delve deeper into the subject in this post. I find the gender discussions that concentrate on the meaning of holy texts to be extremely relative to one's beliefs, whereby, the Atheist always sees an oppressive sexist God while a progressive theist always sees a gender-neutral and gender-loving divine being. Instead, I want to look at the statistics of the prophecy which are quite revealing.

Let us first look at the numbers. Judaism and Islam both clarify that they believe that Yahweh/Allah has sent thousands if not hundreds of thousands of prophets across the world to preach the word of God. Of those many, most of the messages were meant to be restricted to their time and/or circumstances. Those noted in different holy texts were the ones with the most important messages for all humanity. This notion of thousands of prophets isn't so different from Buddhist, Hindu, Greek, Roman, Norse, and Egyptian belief in thousands of Heroes, Deities, and those things in between. I may be wrong, however, I can't tell if Christianity also holds a similar belief, but as you will see, that's irrelevant. Given that thousands of prophets have gone undocumented, it wouldn't be worth wondering (if even possible) what their teachings much have been like. Therefore, we are stuck looking at the prophets that were of notable mention in different holy texts when looking at gender balances (or rather imbalances). 

By my own count, it is easy to see the overwhelming gender inequality in the prophecy. Out of Judaism's 55 mentioned prophets, 7 were female; in percentages, that means that 87% of the time, Yahweh chose a man over a woman to preach to the crowd and commit glorious acts. 

In Islam, out of 24 prophets mentioned in the Quran 0 are female. That means, Allah chose a man over a woman to spread word of his existence 100% of the time. Even when considering 7 "other prophets" recognized by Islamic scholars but not explicitly mentioned by the Quran, the number remains unchanged. It should be noted that Islam does recognize "holy women" but none, not even the "holiest woman" Miriam (Mother of Jesus) is considered a prophet despite talking to angels. 

In Christianity, out of the 75 explicitly recognized prophets in both the Old and New Testament, 9 are female. One wouldn't be surprised to find the difference to be so stark: 88% of all recognized prophets were men. Even when considering those who had "prophetic" experiences (14 others and the genderless "seventy elders of Israel") only two more women are added and the percentage declines to an unimpressive 87.6%. To get an even more complete picture, we can also include "False prophets" or those recognized as having misused their gifts from Jehovah. Out of the ten, 1 is female and the percentage changes to 87.8% male prophets.

I won't discuss the gender inequalities in the Christian Sainthood and Islamic Umah (among others) lest I start to bore you.

With such stark contrasts in gender balances, one wonders why feminists haven't analyzed why God avoided women when spreading word of his existence. What is more interesting is that, if this inequality existed in any other institution, we would all be outraged (and have been).

Let's remember when women were (in the U.S.) and still are (in Saudi Arabia) specifically not allowed to attend colleges. Let's remember when women were specifically barred from voting (still exists in many countries). Let us remember when institutions barred women from leadership positions because of their gender. By resisting the inevitable push toward greater gender equality, the men of their time actively and consciously chose male candidates for jobs in the private and public sectors (even after the institutional sexism was long gone). In all these cases, women (and some men) became outraged that personal sexism became institutionalized sexism. If the Abrahamic God shows the sexism of a university in the 1800s in U.S. history, why do we avoid calling it like it is? We have at all other instances, yet in this case, we blind ourselves to the striking statistics.

It seems plainly obvious to me, from my studies and family religious teachings, that God makes conscious decisions and in fact, his existence as the omnipresent omnipotent creator of all things demands it. Therefore, such a divine being actively made decision after decision to choose men over women.

After researching it and asking around (everyone from my father, brother in law and friends pitched in), I've received unsatisfactory excuses for God's sexist selection of prophets. Some have suggested that women can't be prophets because they have periods (also used as an excuse many decades ago against females in leadership roles). During their periods, women can't think straight and can't possibly preach the word of God. Such an argument is constantly proven wrong by millions of women today in leadership positions unaffected by their menstruation cycle.

Another honestly made argument is that the words of God prove that men and women are equal. Although all my atheist friends will take up the challenge to debate such a statement, it doesn't really matter. Like many institutions, the declaration of the equality of sexes has been given many times, yet when words don't match the statistics, it is plainly obvious that sexism exists, no matter what the institution or person says. Take a law school that says it views female and male applications as equal, yet has a population of 90% male. More likely than not there are sexist practices barring women from joining. Words are different than numbers.

After sifting through some other bad reasons, another one stuck out: Women weren't respected and couldn't have been taken seriously by the people of their time. This excuse is especially troubling. The nature of prophet-hood includes doubt by members of any community. Almost all prophets have had to prove that they were truly the messengers of God, take Moses' staff transformation into a snake; Jesus resurrecting the dead; Mohammad ascending to Heaven; Lot's protection of the angel (the list goes on). I can't see how with a female, it would be very different. Yes, there will be doubt, and strong doubt because of her gender, but a few staff transformations or angel visits and God could have easily given the women the validation they needed. If you reject that proposal, then it seems to me that God is a push-over to human biases. The idea that God would bend to what humans want is complete lunacy as shown by the story of Lot, by destroying entire cities because of sin, and Moses, by sending wave after wave against the Pharaoh of Egypt. The Abrahamic God is not a push-over, and makes his decisions on who he wants to represent him; we can clearly see who he's chosen. 

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