"Not One Upright Woman"

"I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all," says the Teacher in Ecclesiastes 7:28.  What might seem overtly misogynistic on a superficial level has nothing to do with gender stereotypes.  First of all, out of the thousand men the author observed, only one was upright morally.  Out of however many women the author observed, none were upright.  This would pertain to nothing other than the exact people examined by the writer, who would not be the whole of humanity at any point in time, much less across all of history.  On a literal level, this cannot be anything sexist in any direction.  Aside from the more fundamental creation narrative of Genesis and laws of the Torah, one can look to Proverbs to find that the Bible certainly acknowledges that women are not incapable of moral greatness.

Proverbs 31:28-29 describes the family members of a righteous and industrious woman (not that industry always overlaps with righteousness) praising her, saying "Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all."  This, obviously, could not be the case if no women are rational or morally upright and would contradict the author of Ecclesiastes if he was supposed to be describing all men or women beyond just the small, happenstance number he analyzed.  The statement of Ecclesiastes 7:28 could be hyperbole, and it could be accurate about the specific people the Teacher encountered, but it is absolutely not a Biblical endorsement of sexism against women.  Either way, it is referring only to the people who were encountered.

The real affirmation of Ecclesiastes 7:28 is that, as any socially experienced rationalist has seen, most people are fucking imbeciles who of course would either not have even tried to know what is humanly possible about the subject of morality (as opposed to making mere assumptions based upon conscience or their cultural background) or would care enough to abide by moral obligations when it is "beneficial" to do otherwise, even if they could know such a thing with absolute certainty.  They live only for emotional gratification, social approval, utilitarian ease (when it comes to moral philosophy, not just matters of sheer practicality), and ideological assumptions, having neither knowledge of nor concern for things like logical axioms, the uncaused cause, absolute certainty, or justice.  One would be fortunate to find anyone rational and truly pursuing or in possession of righteousness, especially by Biblical standards, in a thousand people or more of either gender.

The Bible is thoroughly cynical in the sense of never teaching to expect moral character from people, in the sense that they will almost inevitably be apathetic or prone to unrepentant but voluntary failure.  It absolutely agrees with reason that, since something can only be morally obligatory if one can achieve it (Deuteronomy 30:11, Job 1:1, and Matthew 5:48 are consistent with this), and since it is always more likely for someone to be irrational or evil than the opposite because it takes more initial effort to do otherwise, most people are delusional and avoidably damned (Matthew 7:13-14).  This has nothing to do with gender.  Men and women equally bear God's image (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2), have the same human rights (such as with those of Exodus 21:26-27 or Deuteronomy 15:12-14, with the latter showing that the male language of Exodus 21:2-6 of course prescribes the same obligations regarding both genders), are equally in need of redemption (Romans 3:23), and are equally able to access salvation (Galatians 3:28).

Verses like Ecclesiastes 7:28 do not teach that women are morally inferior to men by default or that there are special, yet surmountable, psychological barriers for women to becoming upright.  Individual women or men are righteous or wicked.  In a given population, some, most, or all men might be irrational and wicked.  The same could be the case of women.  This only reflects the nature of those individuals, and it is a nature that could be exchanged for devotion to reason and the pursuit of righteousness at any time.  Genesis 1:26-27 and Proverbs 31:28-29 are not necessary to realize that Ecclesiastes 7:28 does not positively address misogyny, as if everything in Ecclesiastes falls outside of proverbial declarations that might not be literally or universally true to begin with.