am reading Tertullian -- poisonous stuff -- but here's the gist so far:

the post-curse Eve is not an equal to Adam

she laid the groundwork for the situation of Original Sin that made
Jesus' death necessary

after Eve, woman is the doorway / opening of the devil

Mary didn't conceive in sin, but her birthing of Jesus was still
punishment

Mary, in her time and place, if Roman or pagan, would have been likely to
abort the fetus or expose the baby, killing it

i.e. all women are being punished -- facts of their gender are punishment, they are no longer equal to men, yadda, yadda -- all women bear the responsibility for having killed the child of God -- sort of like the first abortion, no?

perhaps just an aside -- their beauty points to their inherent evil

good point by Hassan on the POETICS list that it is a Christian *identity* many use, not Christian belief or practice; identity being something that is used to include / exclude -- lot about Identity in Da3 -- in some ways ALL about Identity, just as all the poems in the CONFITEOR project --

Tertullian uses women as an indeity / other from him, but also uses control of women TO ESTABLISH HIS / Christian identity

Tertullian uses control of women (and control of their bearing, appearance, way in public) to establish his / Christian identity. He uses veiling and cloistering to distinguish Christian women from pagan women who had occasion to be in public for religious festivals -- since Christian women had no reason to appear in public whatsoever. Recognize us as us because we treat our women like crap. Sound a bit familiar?
He interestingly used references to the apocrypha, etc. as well as the bible to make his arguments. Religions of the book. Bleah.