God Collar by Marcus Brigstocke

Author:Marcus Brigstocke
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409045144
Publisher: Transworld

9

Why not, then?

THIS RELUCTANT ATHEIST WOULD LIKE TO BELIEVE IN God, if only I could, but I couldn’t be religious. That is to say I couldn’t join any of the major faith groups. I am most familiar with the Abrahamic faiths but I couldn’t be a Jew or a Christian or a Muslim because I just don’t hate women that much. I really don’t hate women at all. If truth be told, I rather like them. Obviously, as a man, I’m often baffled by women. They are strange and exotic and clever and soft and multi tasky and alluring, and there have been at least three I can think of who have made me feel dizzy. They aren’t from Venus and we men aren’t from Mars. Martians are from Mars, Venetians are from Venus, men are from sheds and women are from shoe shops. The differences between the sexes are pronounced enough for generation after generation of comedians to build entire careers out of playing spot the difference between the two and keeping audiences in thrall to the variations. Sheds and shoes … As a comedian I have to pretend to be much more baffled by women than I actually am. Before I worked out what sort of comedian I wanted to be, I was almost contractually bound to say things like ‘Oh, where’s the clitoris?’ The answer is that the clitoris is broadly where you’d expect it to be. The key is to keep poking until you hear a noise. Unless it’s ouch, then you’re probably in the wrong place. (Of course, in some places where religion is used to its most barbaric effect the clitoris is to be found beneath the scalpel of a maniac zealot, but it’s harder to make people laugh with that observation.)

I deliberately used the word hate in my description of why I couldn’t be a Jew, Christian or Muslim. It’s a very strong word, and I don’t use it thoughtlessly. I’m not suggesting that every individual Jew, Christian or Muslim actively hates all women but certainly none of them, man or woman, cares enough about the status of women in the world to address the leaders of their respective faiths to the problem. Perhaps complacency, contempt or ambivalence would have been better words but I think they might very well be worse. If not the people in these faiths, then the structure, culture and history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam seem to me to be deeply contemptuous of women and for that reason the followers of these faiths choose a path I cannot go down. I feel the same way when I see people shopping in Primark. They don’t all hate the children and exploited poor people stitching wear-it-once-and-bin-it garments but they don’t care enough about them to make a different choice. Amongst the Abrahamic faiths there is a level of misogyny that could make even John McCririck, the racing pundit, say, ‘Steady now. The totties have some use!’

They all believe in the same God.

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