How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Early religion was based on the divine order of Nature. The goddess Venus and the planet Venus were one and the same. The goddess had a place in the nighttime sky and was known by many names – Venus, the Eastern Star, Ishtar, Astarte – all of them powerful female concepts with ties to Nature and Mother Earth." (6.45)
Yup, that's right. Early religions were all about the ladies. So what gives, patriarchal society? (Don't worry. Langdon and Teabing will explain at length…)
Quote #2
Opus Dei had always made her uneasy. Beyond the prelature's adherence to the arcane ritual of corporal mortification, their views on women were medieval at best. She had been shocked to learn that female numeraries were forced to clean the men's residence halls for no pay while the men were at mass; women slept on hardwood floor, while the men had straw mats; and women were forced to endure additional requirements of corporal mortification … all as added penance for original sin. It seemed Eve's bite from the apple of knowledge was a debt women were doomed to pay for eternity. Sadly, while most of the Catholic Church was gradually moving in the right direction with respect to women's rights, Opus Dei threatened to reverse the progress. (7.16)
Sister Sandrine is right to feel a bit uneasy about Opus Dei. Any organization that purposefully requires one gender to live a life of subjugation and pseudo-servitude sounds dubiously unethical, at best. The fact that it can all be traced back to the belief in Original Sin (and that bite from the apple) makes it even worse, when you think about the fact that the Bible was written by men, to be read by men…
Quote #3
The ministry's ongoing foray into political correctness, Fache argued, was weakening the department. Women not only lacked the physicality necessary for police work, but their mere presence posed a dangerous distraction to the men in the field. As Fache had feared, Sophie Neveu was proving far more distracting than most. […] And by far the most troubling to Fache was the inescapable universal truth that in an office of middle-aged men, an attractive young woman always drew eyes away from the work at hand. (9.9-10)
Ugh, the misogyny. It's not Sophie's fault that she's an attractive young woman in an office full of leering old farts.
This is a perfect example of some old-fashioned thinking that still persists today, regardless of evidence that women are more than capable of doing many jobs formerly considered the sole purview of men. We're not sure whether Dan Brown decided to make Fache a misogynist in order to highlight what Sophie has fought against her whole life, or just to make us not like him too much. Either way, it's not a good look on anybody.