The Vatican Calls For Equal Pay Between Men and Women
Personally I think the last place you would expect support for gender equality is in religion. This is just an opinion mainly due to the narration in the Bible where it is written Eve was created as the helper of Adam. This scripture has been interpreted by many religious leaders to mean that a woman’s primary role in life is to play second fiddle to man, bear him children, and attend to his needs.
In societies where religion is followed avidly, with little to no Democracy and ‘Western Education’ as they call it, like in Arab Islamic Countries. Women are not only not allowed to leave their house unaccompanied by a male figure, but also they are not allowed to drive, get an education, and vote among other things. So the topic of same-pay-for-same-work is these very religious countries is simply, many light years away.
For religious leaders living in a more tolerant societies, where education and democracy thrives. They argue that the rise of divorce cases especially in the 21st century and the lifestyle choices where you find many adults choosing to be single over getting married. life, has been brought about by the breakdown of the God’s intended social order. Where women are not particularly supposed to get married, bear children for their man and let him be the head of the house.
Today’s woman is considered not to be submissive to the man, and sees herself as an equal and not as help. As some would like us to interpret the Bible to be saying. This has all been attributed to the breakdown of ‘chain command’ where the man is the head, and the woman must be submissive and follow the head. Leading to a disruption of the pecking order and turmoil in marriage and relationships.
So it comes as a surprise when a leader of one of the world’s oldest religion, the Catholic Church, to come out and publicly support gender equality. Yesterday, Pope Francis expressed his support for the equal pay for men and women. The Pope termed the pay disparity as a “pure scandal”.
The Pope made this announcement during his weekly general audience at St. Peter’s Square, where he asked the crowd: “Why is it expected that women must earn less than men? No! They have the same rights. The disparity is a pure scandal.”
The Pope went as far as giving his view on the increasing rate of divorce throughout the world especially in the last decades. He said that by advocating for women’s equality this does not mean we are promoting the failure of the institution of marriage. He further urged Christians to reflect on this “with great seriousness.”
“Many consider that the change occurring in these last decades may have been set in motion by women’s emancipation,” Pope Francis said.
But he was quick to refute these claims saying that it is “an insult” and “a form of chauvinism that always wants to control the woman.”
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