@JaniceSelbie Though I’m now an atheist, I was raised in a Jewish home and have found Judaism to be much more matriarchal than patriarchal. The more conservative sects differ, I suppose, but fundamentalists are much more problematic in any religion or hierarchy. I would suggest that you consider several aspects that seem to be in opposition to your premise, such as the way the religion is passed through to the child by the mother, not the father and the fact that a woman can divorce a husband if he refuses her sex.
@JaniceSelbie I’m surely no expert and can only relate my own lived experience. My religious education at a primary grade was through a Conservative temple (not Orthodox) and as a teenager through a Reform congregation. My last temple had a woman rabbi, but my educators used the OT and the Talmud, which is the commentary on the OT stories that try to find meaning in the stories so that they stay contemporary to the world. When religion provides questions as well as answers, it gives followers a basis for reflecting on life and taken together I don’t think my education in Judaism was problematic but then I’m sure my perspective is very narrow with regards to misogyny and patriarchy and ymmv, but mostly I think it’s when religion invests power in the leaders as go betweens for the man in the sky is where the dangers lay.
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