the vast majority (although not all!) critiques of "religion" as a concept when you boil them down are really just "humans seeking to oppress others will use social constructs to do so."
& most people do not critically engage with the western construct of "religion" itself! people just take for granted this post-euro-enlightenment model of what religion means. which is where you get, at the worst, people criticizing "religion" who clearly genuinely do not know anything about any religion other than christianity (whatever kind they were raised with) & some vague half-facts about judaism and islam.
its also like. at the same time as (people living as) women have historically experienced religion as a tool of patriarchal control, it has equally been a feminized sphere of life. just in the western eurasian world, from the ancient mediterranean societies to medieval saints and nuns, people living as women have found personal existential autonomy and direction from their spiritual traditions, and cis men have viewed them negatively because of it. plato complained about how all the shrines in Athens were set up by women, but this was also a means for women to exist in the public sphere, to find meaning in their personal concerns and feelings and perception of the world, to connect with not just other women but also men and others who were similarly touched by these traditions. in late 19th-century southern Italy, facing the imperialist violence of the Risorgimento and brigandage wars, peasant women organized their communities in explicitly socialist and explicitly Catholic ways (from here):
A wave of popular unrest washed over Sicily at the close of the nineteenth century. In town after town, peasants mobilized labor strikes, occupied fields and piazzas, and looted government offices. While the island had a long history of revolt, this marked a new era of social protest. For the first time, women led the social movement and infused the struggle with their own mixture of socialism and spiritualism.
The activity began in the autumn of 1892, in the towns surrounding Palermo, in the northwestern part of the island. In Monreale, women and children filled the central piazza shouting âDown with the municipal government! Long live the union!â After attacking and looting the offices of the city council, they marched toward Palermo crying âWe are hungry!â waving banners with slogans connecting socialism to scripture. In Villafrati, Caterina Costanzo led a group of women wielding clubs to the fields where they threatened workers who had not joined the community in a general strike against the repressive local government. In Balestrate, thousands of women dressed in traditional clothes and also armed with clubs marched through the streets, demanding an end to government corruption. [...]
In Piana dei Greci, thirty-six women were arrested after they occupied and then destroyed the municipal offices, throwing the furniture into the streets. [...] They celebrated the founding of the group as they would a religious festival, with music and food, and wove their political and spiritual ideologies together in their speeches. In the words of one woman, âWe want everybody to work as we work. There should no longer be either rich or poor. All should have bread for themselves and their children. We should all be equal. . . . Jesus was a true socialist and he wanted precisely what we ask for, but the priests donât discuss this.â [...]
the extreme patriarchy of the Catholic church still existed, and was still immensely harmful to many people. but existing alongside it was the lived Catholicism of peasant women whose fire for socialism was lit by their belief in God and Jesus and Mary. in all cases these people living as women could be depicted by as superstitious and irrational and driven by emotion and bodily sensation, not the proper logical rule-driven faith of the patriarchal state. which is another example of hyperobjectivity!
i'm ranting here but my point is that as in all things Its More Complicated Than That & it frustrates me to see people act like religion being used oppressively is 1) something unique to religion rather than a natural consequence of oppression and spiritual/existential traditions both existing in human cultures, or 2) brought up in a way that ignores the long history of oppressed people finding personal relief and collective vision and motivation for radical social change in religion. be nuanced about religion damn you
