From Eve the Temptress to Eve the Innocent Victim

In the book Faces of Feminism by Olive Banks, 1981, there is a particularly interesting chapter entitled "The Ideal of Female Superiority".  I found this section clearly spells out how we got to where we are today(emphasis mine):

"In the hands even of the most conservative of them the cult of domesticity became transformed into the ideal of female superiority, and the doctrine of separate spheres into the attempted invasion of the masculine world not simply by women but, potentially even more revolutionary in its impact, by womanly values. Moreover, the process by which this change occurred was bound up, as we have seen in the previous chapter, with the transformation of woman from Eve the eternal temptress to Eve the innocent victim. According to the new ideology, it was now the male who was naturally evil; the female essentially good, and through her goodness and purity was able to redeem mankind from sin."

"Fiedler(1960) has pointed out that this reversal of attitudes to women was associated with a conversion of Calvinist dogma into sentimental piety or, as he himself calls it, the Sentimental Love Religion. It was, he argues, part of 'a genteel transformation of Christianity from a religion of duty and the conviction of sin to one of benevolence and the conviction of innocence'.  This increasing 'feminization' of religion, as it has been called, was associated partly with the increasing importance of women in the congregation, partly with a growing stress on the softer feminine virtues of love and forgiveness (Welter, 1974). As Stevenson (1956 p.137) puts it, 'the harshness of an earlier era was slowly melting  throughout the nineteenth century, like an iceberg in warmer seas'. In the United States this transformation of Calvinism is associated particularly with Henry Ward Beecher, a brother of Catherine Beecher and an active supporter of women's suffrage in the 1860s, although in later years the scandal associated with his alleged adultery with Elizabeth Tilton was actually to harm the suffrage cause. Beecher preached 'a new experimental Christianity that emphasized God's love for man and the availability of salvation for all'. The new religion was a 'religion of the heart, an appeal to the feelings and emotion that replaced the cold, formalistic evangelical theology of the previous generation' (Clark, 1978, pg. 4)."

Conservative feminists of the time and also today, perhaps even more so than the radical/liberal feminists, are responsible for the current superior women mentality. It is easy to see how the adherents of the cult of domesticity could easily become full of themselves and transform what should be the humble, self-denying sphere of motherhood, tending the home, and being a virtuous wife into a weapon of 'women know best' and in turn create the cult of women's superiority. Pride simply overcame them. They took the God given gifts of feminine character, made them their own, and continue to use those gifts as leverage over men and society in general to be the world's moral gatekeepers and saviors of society.

The Christianity of today is largely variations of this new experimental Christianity that appeals to "feelings and emotion", which is what instinctively convicts women, not sin. To some women, Christianity is still "a religion of duty" as long as they are telling and overseeing what the duties are and who should be doing what duty, especially as it relates to men and their duty to marry, provide, etc. The transformation of the cult of domesticity into the cult of women's superiority has placed women as the authority for morals and duty. The authority to claim what is moral, what/who is true/real, what is good, can also go the other way with the authority to claim no morals or everything is relative, as the liberal feminists tend to do.

Christianity and the culture in general has gone from viewing woman as temptress and capable of sin, to women who are innocent victims, free of sin, and can do no wrong. What keeping women viewed as temptress' did was give a healthy dose of reality and humility in suggesting that all women, just like all of humanity are sinful and fall short of the glory of God. Take away that 'harsh' reminder, and women can have a field day of relishing in their pride as God's morally superior beings. With the new "Sentimental Love Religion" and the push for emphasis on feelings, its only natural that Eve as temptress did not make the women feel good, therefore that image was done away with; to be replaced with "innocent victim", which does make women feel good because it creates one big umbrella to bring her morally superior claims under. As an "innocent victim" the sky is the limit to how she can wield her power and authority.

This is also why I believe All Women are Like That (AWLT). By default, all women are natural sinners (just like men) and its only by the grace of God that we become pure and virtuous. The key to remember is that it is the grace of God, his gift, not by our own understanding or superior authority, that grants one a virtuous spirit.When we start thinking our better qualities come from ourselves or come innately from our own sex, we forget the true source and should give praise to God, the only true morally superior being, rather than give praise to our own sex as women. Only through God can mankind be redeemed from sin, not through the "goodness and purity" of women.