“Cultural mythology, for example, often associates femaleness with evil, with images of the castrating bitch, the whore, the temptress who brings about a good man's downfall, the morally weak vessel ripe for the devil's seductions, the wicked witch who eats small children, and so on. "But what about the Christian devil?" comes a ready retort. Isn't he an evil figure who parallels and in some sense balances negative images of women? Isn't this therefore a human thing rather than a gender thing? Although male and female images of evil may seem equivalent and parallel, in fact they're quite different. The devil may be male, but his evil isn't based on the simple fact of his being male. He isn't regarded as evil because he's male, because maleness itself is associated with evil. Instead, the devil is evil because of his particular and special relation to God. If anything, this elevates him as a fallen angel who began as God's moral sparring partner, formidable enough to be a worthy adversary of none less than God Himself. In contrast, the evil attributed to female figures such as Eve, Pandora, and witches is associated with femaleness itself. In patriarchal culture, females are seen as naturally weak, carnal, corruptible, and corrupting. What power they do have is portrayed as disgusting, contemptible, lacking in character, and destructive. This is very different from the power attributed to the devil, who, like Hitler and other larger-than-life, monstrous figures, earns at least some degree of awe and fascination, if not respect, for his power. It's hard to imagine how patriarchal Christianity would ever develop an evil female figure powerful and substantial enough to challenge God, for this would require that women be taken seriously. In other words, under patriarchy, women aren't good enough to be the devil.”