No one who reads through the Bible can ignore the blatant misogyny and barbarity toward women. There are examples of sexism toward women in both the Old and New Testament, and Christians today still use those scriptures to oppress women.
Moses orders his army to kill enemy men, boys, and women who have already slept with a man, “but all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves” (Numbers 31:17-18). If taking a human war trophy based solely on the prisoner’s gender and sexual status isn’t implied permission to commit rape, I honestly don’t know what is. Even God receives thirty-two virgins as his share of the spoils, but they’re handed over to the priest for obvious reasons (Numbers 31:40-41).
Moses provides a long list of people with whom we are not to have sexual contact in Leviticus 20:10-21, but noticeably absent from this list is the debauchery of a father with his daughter.
Childbirth is another natural event that God deems foul. If a woman gives birth to a boy, she will be unclean for seven days while she undergoes the same ritual for her menstrual period. She must then be purified for thirty-three days and barred from entering worship during this time. If she produces a girl, the sentence of solitary confinement is doubled to fourteen and sixty-six days, respectively (Leviticus 12:1-5). In addition to God unfairly designating women as filthy individuals following childbirth, this passage heavily insinuates that girls are dirtier than boys because it punishes a woman more harshly for giving birth to a female child
We find several more cruelties perpetrated against women in these historical books. Such atrocities include a woman given away as a prize (Judges 1:12-13); a woman offered as a sacrifice (Judges 11:29-39); married daughters given to other people (Judges 15:2); rape, murder, and mutilation by a mob; (Judges 19:22-30); abduction of virgins (Judges 21:7-23); purchasing of wives (Ruth 4:10 and 1 Samuel 18:25-27); and God punishing David by allowing his son to sleep with his wives and concubines, an act for which the women were later imprisoned (2 Samuel 12:11-12, 16:22, 20:3).
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