What is Reddit's opinion of Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts?

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Tertullian was an early influential Christian author. He's the one who baked misogyny into the DNA of Christianity. The book De Cultu Feminarum was the one that used the Old Testament to blame women for leading men to sin.

The argument he makes is from the parable of the pit: the person who digs a pit is responsible for whoever/whatever falls into the pit. Therefore, women, by being beautiful, are responsible for men sinning, even if they don't realize that a man is looking and lusting. Blaming women started with Adam: "she made me eat that apple!"

The book Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts lists his and other works that put women under the boot heels of Christianity.

I'd agree with you, but the New Testament clearly does not. Nothing written by Paul is friendly towards women. The Catholic Church takes those passages so strictly that it is still an automatic [excommunicatable](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excommunication_(Catholic_Church\)#Excommunicable_offenses) offense to ordain a woman (or to accept ordination if you are a woman).

> Can. 1379 — § 1. The following incur a latae sententiae interdict or, if a cleric, also a latae sententiae suspension:

> § 3. Both a person who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive the sacred order, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; a cleric, moreover, may be punished by dismissal from the clerical state.

https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2021/06/01/210601b.html

> "Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says."

> "I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet."

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29513427
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle_and_women

The traditional marriage ceremony goes "who gives this woman?" followed by "who takes this woman?" - asking the woman what she wants isn't part of it because it is a transfer of ownership. Likewise, common law treatment of rape was that it was a property crime committed against the father or husband (or other male guardian) but never against the woman.

For more details of how misogyny is baked into Christianity, I refer you to the book Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts. It has detailed quotations from the early leaders of Christianity and how their misogyny got baked into the DNA of Christianity from the very beginning. This was one of the texts in one of my women's studies classes.