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Designed by Man, For Men: How Religious Power Structures Reinforce Patriarchy [1]
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Date: 2025-04-25
“When God is male, the male is God.”
—Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father
For centuries, religion has served as a guiding force for billions. But the structures behind most of the world’s major religions are anything but divine when it comes to gender equity. The reality is stark: most religions are designed by man to benefit men—and often at the direct expense of women, nonbinary people, and LGBTQ+ communities.
This isn't just a critique of spiritual belief, but of the power structures that have shaped religion into a tool of male dominance. From pulpit to policy, the fingerprints of patriarchy are all over the sacred texts and hierarchies that claim to speak for God.
The Divine Hierarchy: Male by Design
Across Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Mormonism, one thing becomes immediately clear: men write the doctrine, men interpret the texts, and men control the leadership.
In Catholicism, women are barred from the priesthood—a ban upheld for centuries under the justification that Jesus chose only male apostles. Evangelical churches often enforce “complementarianism,” a theological stance that suggests men and women are equal in value but have different (read: hierarchical) roles. Unsurprisingly, this often leads to women being shut out of leadership and urged into submission within marriages.
In Islam, while interpretations vary widely, traditionalist readings of the Quran have often been used to justify polygamy for men, male guardianship laws, and the silencing of female religious scholars.
Karen Armstrong, a former nun and leading religious historian, argues that patriarchy became embedded in religion not by divine decree, but by the needs of power:
“Religion has often been used to support the domination of men over women, but this is a travesty of what religion should be.” (The Battle for God, 2000)
Mormonism: A Case Study in Patriarchal Structure
Perhaps no modern religion so explicitly reinforces male hierarchy as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). Mormon theology is not just influenced by patriarchy—it is a product of it.
Women in the LDS Church are excluded from priesthood authority, a central tenet of Mormon worship and governance. The priesthood is restricted to “worthy” males, and leadership at every level is male-dominated. While women may hold auxiliary leadership roles (like in the Relief Society), they are always subordinate to priesthood leaders.
The family structure promoted by Mormon doctrine is equally rigid. According to the LDS Proclamation on the Family (1995):
“By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness... Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.”
There is no ambiguity here—“preside” is not partnership; it’s control.
Moreover, Mormon temple ceremonies until very recently included vows where women promised obedience to their husbands, who in turn promised obedience to God. Only in 2019 were some of those vows quietly adjusted—but the theology remains deeply gendered and steeped in patriarchal control.
Religious scholar Joanna Brooks, herself a Mormon feminist, writes:
“Mormonism is not exceptional in its patriarchy. But the precision with which it organizes and enforces gender roles is notable—and devastating.” (The Book of Mormon Girl, 2012)
Redefining the Sacred: Liberation from Below
To say that religion is patriarchal is not to say that spirituality or the divine must be. Around the world, feminist and queer theologians are reclaiming sacred texts, reinterpreting scripture with lenses of equity, compassion, and justice.
Audre Lorde spoke of reclaiming the erotic as power—a spiritual force that patriarchal systems feared. bell hooks wrote of love as the foundation of justice. Black womanist theologians like Delores Williams and Katie Cannon have created space for liberationist readings of the Bible that center lived experience and mutuality, not hierarchy.
These women are not abandoning spirituality—they are liberating it from man-made chains.
A Call to the Faithful and the Faithless
If religion continues to uphold systems that oppress, then it’s not only reasonable—it’s moral—to question those systems. Many have left the pews not out of faithlessness, but out of clarity: they cannot worship a God draped in misogyny.
To believe in something greater should never require surrendering your dignity, your agency, or your equality.
So let’s say it plainly:
If your religion requires women to be lesser,
If it silences survivors in the name of forgiveness,
If it punishes love, expression, or identity—
Then your religion needs to evolve, not your humanity.
Sources & Suggested Reading:
Daly, Mary. Beyond God the Father, 1973.
Armstrong, Karen. The Battle for God, 2000.
Brooks, Joanna. The Book of Mormon Girl, 2012.
Hooks, bell. All About Love, 2000.
Lorde, Audre. Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power, 1978.
LDS Church. The Family: A Proclamation to the World, 1995.
Ostler, Valerie Hudson. Women in Eternity, Women of Zion, 2005.
"This article was developed with the support of AI to help shape and structure ideas. Final content and message reflect my own voice and perspective."
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