I have found that some claim Biblical Judaism--which is vastly different from the irrationalism and legalism or rabbinic Judaism--disallows women from participating in the system of animal sacrifices as if they were secondary worshippers of Yahweh or to be kept out of public life. Also, it is not unlikely that many complementarians default to imagining men as being the primary or exclusive ones to bring animals to be sacrificed to God under the Torah's commands, which they might also think is tied to the misandrist idea (as well as its misogynistic inverse) that moral responsibility for women and children falls on men, specifically fathers. The Bible never says any of this or teaches anything from which this logically follows. It also contradicts this entirely.
To start with, two passages detail sacrifices that are specifically to be given by women, one because of childbirth and one because of menstruation. This means they could not be for sexist purposes because these actions are about being ceremonially clean as pertains to female anatomical and physiological characteristics, not mythical psychological traits women supposedly have because they are women. Regarding the phrase sin offering in the following two passages, purification offering is a more fitting substitute that some translations offer in footnotes. Giving birth to children, among other things, is not sinful. God specifically invites humans to procreate in Genesis 1 and repeatedly promises children as a reward from him in the Torah (as in Deuteronomy 7:12-14). Therefore, the woman who gives birth has not sinned. She is still required to give a sacrifice for purposes of ceremonial cleansing rather than to make up for some wrongdoing.
Leviticus 12:6-8--"'"When the days of her purification for a son or daughter are over, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin offering. He shall offer them before the Lord to make atonement for her, and then she will be ceremonially clean from her flow of blood. These are the regulations for the woman who gives birth to a boy or a girl. But if she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean."'"
Leviticus 15:28-30--"'"When she is cleansed from her discharge, she must count off seven days, and after that she will be ceremonially clean. On the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting. The priest is to sacrifice one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement for her before the Lord for the uncleanness of her discharge."'"
Two doves or two pigeons is the same sacrifice a man--a literal man, not a general person, though there a vitally relevant truths about Hebrew and English words for humanity that I will bring up later on in this post--is prescribed after discharges of his own earlier in Leviticus 15. Note that, since the following passage about a man bringing sacrifices to the priest after a discharge comes chronologically prior to the portion of Leviticus 15 above, the reference to coming before the presence of God at the tent of meeting is not some declaration of a special relationship between God and male people. Since it has already been said in this very chapter that the person who goes before the entrance to the tent of meeting goes before the Lord, it does not need to be reiterated again.
Leviticus 15:13-15--"'"When a man is cleansed from his discharge, he is to count off seven days for his ceremonial cleansing; he must wash his clothes and bathe himself with fresh water, and he will be clean. On the eighth day he must take two doves or two young pigeons and come before the Lord to the entrance to the tent of meeting and give them to the priest. The priest is to sacrifice them, the one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement before the Lord for the man because of his discharge."'"
While these excerpts do not have the acknowledgement of men and women as equal within the very same verses as do the likes of Exodus 20:8-10, 21:28-32, Leviticus 13:29-39, Deuteronomy 15:12-17, 17:2-5, and many more passages, it is clear that men and women are allowed or required the same sacrifices for cleansing from uncleanness, brought by them to the priests and not, in the woman's case, by a spouse; it is just that men do not menstruate, and thus women have an additional source of discharge which is gender-specific. This is not a stereotype or any sort of sexism, like the idea that women naturally gravitate towards a given sin or that they are not allowed to offer sacrifices because they are women, though they are metaphysically capable of bringing an animal and offering it just as men are. Both men and women bring sacrifices of the same animals to the priests at the tent of meeting themselves.
There are also, indeed, multiple examples of the Torah mandating the same animal sacrifice for men and women who commit the same sin. Because men and women are both equally human as logical consistency requires and the Bible plainly affirms (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2), the same actions that would be mistreatment against one are equivalent mistreatment against the other (Exodus 21:15, 17, 20-21, 26-32, etc.), and the same sins by men and women deserve the same punishment (besides Numbers 5 below, see passages like Leviticus 20:15-16, 27, Deuteronomy 13:6-10, and so on). Just as these things are true, the animal sacrifice for sinners is the same for men and women guilty of the same offense. This is directly taught in the Bible and not just necessitated by reason itself, which would be the case either way.
Numbers 5:5-8--"The Lord said to Moses, 'Say to the Israelites: "Any man or woman who wrongs another in any way and so is unfaithful to the Lord is guilty and must confess the sin they have committed. They must make full restitution for the wrong they have done, add a fifth of the value to it, and give it all to the person they have wronged. But if that person has no close relative to whom restitution can be made for the wrong, the restitution belongs to the Lord and must be given to the priest, along with the ram for which atonement is made for the wrongdoer."'"
Numbers 6:1-3, 9-10--"The Lord said to Moses, 'Speak to the Israelites and say to them: "If a man or woman wants to make a special vow, a vow of dedication to the Lord as a Nazarite, they must abstain from wine and any other fermented drink . . . If someone dies suddenly in the Nazarite's presence, thus defiling the hair that symbolizes their dedication, they must shave their head on the seventh day--the day of their cleansing. Then on the eighth day they must bring two doves or two young pigeons to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting."'"
While the sacrifice in the above portion of Numbers 6 is specifically invoked if someone dies in the Nazarite man's or woman's presence, since they are not to go near a dead body even if it belongs to their father or mother or brother or sister (6:6-8), verses 13-20 detail what sacrifices were to be brought when the period of the vow ended for good (it would reset if the conditions of the vow were violated according to 6:12). In these two cases, men and women, who are both explicitly emphasized in verse 2, are to bring sacrifices to the Levitical priests, with no difference in the requirements for either gender. Even the animals are the same. Again, men and women are equals in the plain teaching of the Bible so that neither is privileged in religious worship or penalties, including the animal offerings accompanying certain forms of restitution.
Also, the words for man/men or he/him, as is customary in some uses in English, really refer to all people unless clarified. One can see how English translations of this look in versions of the Bible like the KJV, with the Torah repeatedly mentioning men and women in egalitarian ways (that is, without prescribing different obligations or rights) in the same verses only to suddenly speak of both using male words. Generic passages that use male words, therefore, in no way prescribe burdensome duties for men as opposed to women or exclude women from activities like animal sacrifices outside of the ones tackled. Compare Numbers 6:1-3 in the KJV, although many other verses exhibit this linguistic trend after plainly mentioning men and women, with Leviticus 4:27-28 in the KJV and the same verse in the 2011 NIV. Since I already quoted Numbers 6 from the NIV, you can contrast the King James wording with the wording above. Unless the context specifies otherwise, there is nothing about male words that means only actual male people are in view, and accordingly, the 2011 NIV used in this post was translated to reflect gender neutral meaning (still, it is not as if a statement about literal men or only women would mean the other gender is not to act or not act likewise, if the thing is good/evil and doable by all, unlike circumcision of the foreskin):
Numbers 6:1-3 (KJV)--"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a vow of a Nazarite, to separate themselves unto the Lord: He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink . . ."
Leviticus 4:27-28 (KJV)--"And if any one of the common people sin through ignorance, while he doeth somewhat against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done, and be guilty; Or if his sin, which he hath sinned, comes to his knowledge, then he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, for his sin which he hath sinned."
Leviticus 4:27-28 (NIV)--"'"If any member of the community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord's commands, when they realize their guilt and the sin they have committed becomes known, they must bring as their offering for the sin they committed a female goat without defect."'"
Male nouns and pronouns absolutely, in the literal wording of Hebrew, can refer to men and women. Aside from how Genesis 1:26-27 and 5:1-2 emphasize unflinching gender equality at the heart of Judeo-Christian metaphysics, which has obvious logically necessary ramifications for all sorts of moral issues, if the Bible is consistent, regarding what it would require or permit of men and women, this alone demonstrates that the male words in miscellaneous passages about bringing sacrifices in no way exclude women. To truly prescribe gender-specific obligations to bring sacrifices, the text would have to say something like "Only men may bring animals before the Lord, but not women" or "A woman shall not bring an animal to the priest; her husband must do it for her". Such statements are not present in the Torah, and the Torah also says not to add to its commands (Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32), which is not the same as recognizing what would logically follow from the idea of a given command so that in prescribing or condemning one action, another is also prescribed or condemned.
Moreover, it would not be sexist against women alone if the Bible did teach that men have to be the ones to bring forth animals. Far from being strictly a role of honor they must comply with due to the happenstance factor of their genitalia, this would be a great burden on them because they are men, as this would be a sexist expectation of them. If men are the ones who "should" engage in warfare or protect women (as opposed to able-bodied people protecting people), then violence against them is expected, normalized, or trivialized; they are regarded as expendable or deserving of whatever violence befalls them at worst and as being more "fit" to receive violence at best. If they are, then they are either treated as guilty of the sin others commit as long as the latter people are women of their family, which is itself unjust, or they are made to go beyond women for what would ultimately be irrationalistic reasons.
If the Bible did teach these things, it would be sexist against men as well as women, despite how utterly neglected this fact is among those who misunderstand the Bible and think it misogynistic, and it would have to be false on at least this matter since the same actions committed by men or women would have to be equally obligatory, permissible, or evil if morality exists. There is nonetheless in truth no sexism in Biblical animal sacrifice laws, not that this would stop some people from making assumptions based upon scholarly writings or their own non sequitur misinterpretations rather than look to pure reason and the actual statements of the Bible. What a fool someone is who believes that the sacrificial system was for men and not women (and that this would be solely sexist against women and not against both men and women in different ways)! They can only have assumed this since the text never directly or indirectly teaches these things and quite blatantly gives examples refuting it.
Logic, people. It is very fucking helpful.
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