Hi. It's me. I run this blog and make the polls. I submitted Eve because I kept waiting for someone else to do it and then no one did, so the blasphemy you see before you is all mine.
Anyway, it seems kind of silly to explain why Eve is a victim of fandom misogyny. It's pretty self-evident. But I went and reread the relevant chapters in Genesis for this (because I'm just that dedicated to procrastinating lol) and yeah, unsurprisingly, Adam's agency in the eating fruit from the tree of knowledge incident is totally erased. The Bible does acknowledge that Eve was talked into trying the fruit by the snake, just like Adam was talked into trying the fruit by Eve, but Eve is depicted as a far more active agent than Adam. Here's the quote (using NIV for the sake of simplicity): "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it." So apparently Adam was just standing there the whole time ig? Just twiddling his thumbs, having nothing to say while his wife actively broke the one rule God gave them about living in the garden of Eden (and He threatened to kill them btw if they didn't follow this rule). And then Adam also breaks that rule, not out of any desire to do so, but just because his wife gave him something to eat. So I guess he has to eat it. It can't be helped!
But of course it has to be written that way, because the point of the Adam and Eve myth is to be an origin story for the patriarchy. That's how creation myths work; they're explanations for the way the world works. There are seven days in a week because that's how long it took God to make the world and also take a nap ig. And women exist because God didn't want Adam to be lonely. But that's not why women have to be subservient to men, it's specifically a punishment for Eve's crimes, or as God so delightfully puts it: "Because you have done this […] Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
Also, let's be so for real, God totally set Adam and Eve up! He builds this beautiful garden right? And then in the middle of the garden He puts a tree that Adam and Eve aren't allowed to eat from. But importantly, the tree's fruit are what grants you knowledge of right and wrong, and also knowledge in general. Before they eat the fruit, Adam and Eve do not have the capacity for knowledge. Like everything else in the Adam and Eve story this is is yet another creation myth explanation for how life works; this is how humanity gained the ability, or at the least the potential to be knowledgeable and ethical. So, in other words, not only is God sticking this really enticing thing right in front of Adam and Eve and just daring them to test His boundaries, He also does this while deliberately denying them the capacity to differentiate right from wrong!!!!! God basically punishes them for pursuing the very thing that could have prevented them from eating the fruit in the first place! Total set up!
Anyway, I know just spent a long time talking about the text, and this is a tournament about fandom misogyny, not the misogyny of the source material, but I think it's relevant because the Bible is famously a pretty influential book. The Adam and Eve story didn't invent the patriarchy, it's a creation myth, an explanation for something that already existed. But it did provide annoying sexist uncles everywhere with ammo for their bullshit sexist beliefs. You see, they insist, we can't challenge the patriarchy, because it's not some bullshit artificial hierarchy that ultimately makes the world worse in every way. No, it's divinely ordained because God decided it would be womankind's collective punishment for Eve's actions.
All of which is especially annoying given that literally all she did was eat some fruit! Her son Cain killed his own brother for no fucking reason! And this was after Adam and Eve gained knowledge and like ethics or whatever from eating the fruit and presumably passed that ability down to their descendants and by extension to all of humanity. So when Cain killed his brother, we know he did so with the capacity to understand right from wrong which is not something Eve was capable of when she committed her big sin (eating fruit). But somehow Eve's actions, not Cain fully murdering his brother, are the origin of all sin??? Make it make sense!!!
Well actually, the reason it doesn't make sense is completely the fault of fandom misogyny. You see, the concept of "original sin", i.e., the idea that Eve invented sin by eating the fruit, is actually not in the source material at all (and by source material I mean the Old Testament of course). See that stuff is a later Christian interpretation that takes the already quite misogynistic text and makes it way more misogynistic for no real reason. I cannot stress this enough, this shit is fully Christian fanon. As a Jew, I can't remember a time when I didn't know this story, but I only learned that Christians believe that original sin shit about Eve by reading His Dark Materials when I was like eleven. And another thing that's fully fanon is this common portrayal of Eve as this like sexual seductress who uses her feminine wiles to make Adam eat the fruit. As you saw, that actually has zero basis in the text. That fucker didn't need any convincing. She literally just gives him the fruit and he eats it like the fucking dope he is.
Speaking of which, because the Bible needs Eve to be the guiltier party compared to Adam, in order to justify her punishment and by extension the patriarchy, it inadvertently results in Eve being a way more interesting character than her husband. Adam is a passive loser who does nothing of his own accord. Eve gives him fruit from the tree of knowledge, and he has no thoughts about it, head fully empty. He eats the fruit because his wife gave it to him. But Eve has motives! It's not just the snake manipulating her, she wants to gain wisdom! She's curious! Within this creation myth framework, she is the reason human beings have knowledge and wisdom. If it weren't for her eating the fruit (and getting Adam to eat it too, because he certainly wasn't making going to make any decisions on his own), we wouldn't have the capacity to know things, to understand right from wrong, or to learn. Eve gave us that!!!! She's kind of amazing!!! She's not supposed to be, obviously, we're supposed to judge her for her disobedience. But idk, I like having knowledge. Learning is one of the best things about being alive imo, and according to the Bible's creation myth, we only have that capacity because Eve decided to break the rules, to defy God openly. And she lived to tell the tale. That's fucking iconic, who's doing it like her?
So shout out to my girl Eve! What a legend! She doesn't deserve the hate and it's definitely not her fault that her husband is a little bitch.
prguitarman
germansingergirl
romaincrisis
stormborns
tangentwithtanner
blakekathryn
yousharknotpass
