Sara Stone

Sara.Stone@glasgow.ac.uk

Judges 11 tells us the story of Jephthah and his daughter, his only child, whom he must sacrifice in order to keep his vow to God. The narrative is written in a way to make the reader feel sympathy for Jephthah which, I argue, communicates a himpathetic mindset. Himpathy is a concept proposed by feminist philosopher Kate Manne describing how sympathy is redirected from female victims to the male perpetrators.[1] For example, in 2015 Brock Turner sexually assaulted Chanel Miller and the media focussed heavily on the loss of Turner’s promising athletic career, whereas Miller’s lasting trauma and violation was ignored. This article connects three recent examples of himpathywith the story of Jephthah’s daughter to indicate the motifs and strategies they have in common. Ultimately, the aim of this article is to illustrate just how prevalent himpathy is, and to show the dangers of holding such a mindset.

Himpathy

First of all, what is himpathy? In short, feminist philosopher Kate Manne defines himpathy as: ‘The disproportionate or inappropriate sympathy extended to a male perpetrator over his similarly or less privileged female targets or victims.’[2] In other words, himpathy makes the perpetrators seem like the real victims. Manne describes himpathy as, “the often overlooked mirror image of misogyny.”[3] Misogyny regards the entrenched prejudice against women—whether that be individualistic or systemic. Manne states that:

Misogyny attempts to force women back into [their place/role], or to punish them for desertion. Alternatively, it may punish women for taking men’s place, or trying to. It does so via hostile treatment enacted by individual agents as well as collective or group activity, and purely structural mechanisms.[4]

Manne further writes that misogyny comes in a “range of flavours.”[5] This could be outright nastiness and aggression or pointed indifference and stony silence. From the outset, misogyny is generally hostile towards women.[6] Manne claims that we have a disposition to sympathise with the pain of men over women’s, especially those men who are deemed as privileged.[7] This tendency to forgive men for their actions is connected to the general hostility towards female victims.[8]

However, resentment towards women is only the tip of the iceberg of misogyny. Hostility towards women works in tandem with the reward and valorisation of women who conform with gendered norms and expectations. Manne uses loving mothers, attentive wives, and loyal secretaries as examples.[9] I argue that we can also see this rewarding of gendered expectations in Judges 11:39–40 when Jephthah’s daughter is rewarded with an annual Israelite custom for all the daughters of Israel to remember her role as a dutiful daughter, which I will discuss in due course. Ultimately, as Manne states,

Misogyny upholds the social norms of patriarchies by policing and patrolling them … it involves anxieties, fears, and desires to maintain a patriarchal order, and a commitment to restoring it when it is disrupted.[10]

Therefore, himpathyis a misogynistic tactic used to control women and a tool used to maintain the patriarchal order. Fundamentally, himpathy centres male experience and is a complement to misogyny:

Given that misogyny often involves punishing and blaming a woman for her “bad” behaviour—bad by the lights of patriarchal norms and expectations, that is—you can understand himpathy as the flip side of misogyny; its understudied mirror image; its natural (albeit highly unjust) complement. Misogyny takes down women, and himpathy protects the agents of that takedown operation, partly by painting them as “good guys.”[11]

When misogyny is not physically hurting anyone, it still acts as a barrier so to speak, which discourages women from venturing out of bounds.[12] Himpathy is one of these invisible barriers which discourages women from coming forward with their experiences because they fear that the sympathy will fall onto the male perpetrator and they will be blamed, or at the very least be questioned on their role in their experiences.[13]

Jephthah and his daughter

Jephthah’s daughter appears towards the end of her father’s story in Judges 11:34–40.[14] Presumably, Jephthah has built up a reputation as an experienced fighter and a skilled warrior due to being forced to live as an outsider and an outlaw by his brothers (Judges 11:2–3). Hence, the elders of Gilead appeal to Jephthah specifically to be their commander when they are being threatened by the Ammonites (Judges 11:4–6). Jephthah agrees to be their commander after being enticed by the promise that he will be their leader if he is successful in the battle (Judges 11:8–11). Jephthah then makes a vow to God, promising that he will sacrifice the first to come out of his house to greet him after being successful in battle:

And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD and said, “If you will give me the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the LORD’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.” (Judges 11:30–31)[15]

Jephthah is successful in battle, but his rejoicing is short-lived when it is his daughter—his only child—who comes out of his house first (Judges 11:34). He must now sacrifice his daughter in order to keep his vow with God.

The nature of the intended sacrifice is unclear in the vow. The Hebrew is ambiguous and could easily be translated as “whatever” as well as “whoever.”[16] So, a certain vagueness prevails. What, or who, did Jephthah think would come out of his house? Did he intend for a human sacrifice, or was he expecting an animal? Robert G. Boling argues that the architecture of houses in the ancient Middle East allows for the suggestion that Jephthah may have been expecting an animal.[17] However, animals, clean or unclean, would hardly be expected to come out and meet the hero.[18] Pamela Reis also states that an animal would be “too ludicrously trivial a sacrifice in exchange for a bounteous victory.”[19] Instead, Reis believes that Jephthah expected an enslaved person.[20] However, the fact that it was his daughter who came out was a very likely outcome, is it not? Mieke Bal suggests that the ritual of young women meeting the victor first was well-known enough in ancient Israel for Jephthah to know the risk he was taking.[21] Furthermore, Cheryl Exum states that Jephthah may well have been expecting a woman on the basis of 1 Samuel 18:6 and Exodus 15:20 where women also come out to meet the victor with tambourines, song, and dance—in a similar manner to how Jephthah’s daughter greets her father.[22] Bal describes Jephthah’s character as someone who “speaks too much and sees too little”—he lacks insight and it is his daughter who must suffer the brunt of his actions.[23] All in all, it is common consensus that Jephthah makes a rash and foolish vow.[24]

Jack M. Sasson describes the appearance of Jephthah’s daughter as making “her debut as a supernova.”[25] In other words, Jephthah’s daughter appears all of a sudden with no prior introduction. Whilst there is no mention of her before she meets Jephthah after battle, we can safely assume that Jephthah knows his daughter exists. The appearance of Jephthah’s daughter is a crucial scene in the unfolding of Jephthah’s character because it presents itself as a moral dilemma.[26] Should he keep his vow and sacrifice his only child, or should he break the vow and spare her? This episode with his daughter is Jephthah’s defining moment because it is an episode that becomes representative of him, his personality, and his career as a judge in Israel.[27]

Jephthah chooses to commit to his vow, but he blatantly blames his daughter for this situation that he has created for himself:

When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Alas my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the LORD, and I cannot take back my vow.” (Judges 11:35)[28]

The horror that Jephthah expresses here is bewildering considering the very high likelihood that it would be his daughter who would meet him. Yet, his horror confirms he had never actually imagined that this would be his reality. Judges 11:35 is a mournful cry because Judges 11:34 emphasises that his daughter is his only child: “She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except for her.” The repetition here emphasises the poignancy and the magnitude of Jephthah’s situation.[29] If Jephthah sacrifices his daughter, his only child, he will have no descendants and his name will die as a consequence.[30] This deepens Jephthah’s conundrum because in biblical Israel the eradication of lineage was considered the worst fate that could befall anybody.[31] Jephthah has placed himself in a tragedy of his own making.

Indeed, Jephthah does not question why his daughter is the first to greet him; instead, he immediately expresses his horror and hastily blames her for his self-inflicted catastrophe. He does not try to object to try to prevent his lineage from becoming obsolete—he simply accepts the sacrifice. While it is somewhat commendable that Jephthah does acknowledge the role he plays in his conundrum—“For I have opened my mouth to the LORD, and I cannot take back my vow” (Judges 11:35)[32]—he still explicitly exhibits a victim-blaming mentality which results in severe consequences for his daughter.[33]

Furthermore, Jephthah’s daughter’s virginity is emphasised (Judges 11:37–39). On the one hand, in the story’s androcentric backdrop, having children is the most important function of a woman and the thing she is seemingly most valued for.[34] Unsurprisingly, we do not hear from Jephthah’s daughter on whether she wanted to have children or not. However, in the biblical context, if Jephthah’s daughter dies without children, she is seen as dying unfulfilled and incomplete.[35] As Robert B. Chisholm Jr states, the continual emphasis on her virginity highlights the tragedy of the narrative for the reader by noting her “unrealised potential.”[36] Here a question arises, if his daughter had managed to have a child before this episode, would this sacrifice end up having so much poignancy and pathos?

On the other hand, virginity and male honour are also inextricably linked in the biblical text. Jephthah’s daughter is sacrificed by Jephthah in order to protect his honour and his status as a victorious leader, as it would be considered dishonourable if Jephthah were to disregard his vow with God. In the biblical text, the protection of male honour takes precedence over the lives of virgin daughters.[37] Women in the biblical text are simply objects that can be used by men to resolve their conflicts.[38] Anne Michele Tapp suspects that virgin daughters who have yet to have their fertility exploited by husbands occupy an ambiguous role in patriarchal society.[39] They are understood to be in a transitory state by men because they are capable of childbearing (necessary to maintain male lineage, an important factor in biblical Israel), they remain possessed by their fathers, and they are desired by other men. Therefore, they are placed in a dangerous position sandwiched between two male forces competing for ownership. As Bal states, “there is an intrinsic bond between the idea of virginity, the competition between fathers and next-generation men, and the extreme violence that takes the form of ritual sacrifice.”[40] Indeed, Jephthah’s daughter, as a virgin daughter, is the “powerless property” of her father, and is his “barterable possession” that can be utilised to protect his honour as a warrior.[41] Ultimately, Jephthah’s daughter’s role in the narrative is reduced to a transaction between her father and God in order for him to keep his vow, and subsequently keep his honour. Along with her namelessness, this simplified role adds to the erasure of her character in the narrative (this is herasure, something I discuss shortly).

Himpathetic mentality in a contemporary setting

The aim of this article is to demonstrate how the episode of Jephthah and his daughter provides us with a biblical example of himpathy. As discussed, feminist philosopher Kate Manne defines himpathy as “the disproportionate or inappropriate sympathy extended to a male perpetrator over his similarly or less privileged female targets or victims.”[42] In other words, himpathy makes the perpetrators seem like the real victims, and this is what I believe we can see in the story of Jephthah: the shifting of sympathy from his sacrificed daughter onto him, the father who now no longer has an heir.

To help us understand the significance and prevalence of himpathy, let us compare it with some contemporary parallels first. We often see this shifting of sympathy from the victim to the perpetrator, especially in cases of sexual assault. Brock Turner is one such example. In 2015, Turner sexually assaulted Chanel Miller.[43] Turner was characterised by the media as “the champion swimmer,” whereas Miller simply became known as “the drunk girl at the party.”[44] The characterisation of the perpetrator (Turner) and the victim (Miller) by the media, as well as by the legal system, implied that because the victim was drunk, she brought the assault upon herself. In the media, Turner has often been referred to as the “ex-Stanford swimmer” or the “former Stanford swimmer” before, during, and after his trial – when his athletic abilities had nothing to do with the assault he committed.[45] This is himpathetic language. Language such as this indicates a shifting of sympathy from the victim to the perpetrator because the focus is that Turner had a promising athletic career before his sexual assault was exposed. However, the media are not the only ones subject to a himpathetic mentality, the legal system is too. Turner received a sentence of only six months, rather than the fourteen years he was potentially facing. This decision came after the judge, who followed the sentencing recommendation of the Santa Clara County Probation Department, considered a number of factors, including the negative effect the sentence would have on the perpetrator’s life.[46] The focus is on what Turner, the perpetrator, has lost in this ordeal of his own making, rather than what Miller has lost; the ongoing trauma for a victim is often ignored, and it is often forgotten. Turner “sacrificed” his promising athletic career, and Jephthah sacrificed his only child, eradicating his lineage in the process.

Brett Kavanaugh provides another example. In July 2018, Kavanaugh was nominated by then-President Donald Trump to the United States Supreme Court. Soon after, Christine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were both in high school.[47] Subsequently, in September 2018 Kavanaugh was questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the allegations. The allegations against Kavanaugh were picked apart and ultimately dismissed, and Kavanaugh’s nomination to the United States Supreme Court was confirmed by a slim majority.[48] Kavanaugh’s treatment highlighted the himpathy phenomenon because the threat to Kavanaugh’s career received more sympathy and concern than the allegations that he had caused multiple women serious harm. Even for people who claimed to believe Ford, the allegations were not worth jeopardising Kavanaugh’s nomination, they were not worth depriving Kavanaugh of the future he had seemingly worked so hard to achieve. For example, a former colleague of Kavanaugh stated:

As much as I admired Dr Ford’s courage and found her personally to be convincing and sympathetic, it does not change my conviction that uncorroborated and un-investigable accusations from a pre-adult time in a man or woman’s life shouldn’t derail a demonstrably exceptional career.[49]

The idea of the Senate Judiciary Committee not confirming Kavanaugh became synonymous with ruining his life, rather than just withholding an opportunity for career progression.[50] Like Turner, the majority of the concern lay with Kavanaugh’s future. Again, this is similar to how the primary concern of Jephthah’s narrative is that his lineage is about to be eradicated because of a rash and foolish vow he has made.

More recently we have the case of the former Paralympian, Oscar Pistorius. Pistorius was released on parole from a South African prison in January 2024 after serving half of a 13-year sentence for murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.[51] Whilst the trial for Steenkamp’s murder had its controversial moments,[52] the news of Pistorius’s release on parole has been similarly controversial. For example, BBC News Africa posted on X (formerly Twitter), “Oscar Pistorius – the fallen hero and his future” (@BBCAfrica, 5 January 2024) with a link to an article looking at what is next for Pistorius now he has been released.[53] The language used by the media is significant because it frames Pistorius as a tragic character who has fallen from grace. News articles that have come out regarding Steenkamp’s murder include substantial discussion of Pistorius’s former athletic career and his prior achievements.[54] In a similar way to Turner, the media gives the impression that Pistorius gave up his future as a successful athlete due to an apparent misjudgement he had made. Once again, the focus is often on what Pistorius has lost, whereas there is less focus on what Steenkamp and her family have lost as a result of his actions. Just as with Jephthah, the focus is on what he loses as a result of his actions. This is all himpathy.

Himpathy in Judges 11

Now that we have explored examples of himpathy in present-day culture and society, let us use it as a lens to view the biblical text. As has been established, Judges 11 focuses on what Jephthah loses as a result of his vow (i.e., his daughter, and subsequently his lineage), but not what his daughter loses (i.e., her life).[55] Hee-Sook Bae notes how Judges 11 does not adopt a polemic tone; instead, the narrative sympathises with Jephthah’s supposed tragedy by continually emphasising that his daughter is his only child and a virgin.[56] The sympathy is directed towards the sacrificing father, not the sacrificial daughter.

Furthermore, Jephthah’s daughter is denied a name in the text. By not giving Jephthah’s daughter an actual name, the narrator emphasises what his daughter means to Jephthah, rather than who she is. In addition to her namelessness, her father is of illegitimate birth, her mother is never mentioned, her grandmother was a “harlot,” and her grandfather cannot be identified.[57] Thus, Jephthah’s daughter emerges as an isolated figure.[58] Arguably, due to the isolated nature of her character, the reader may struggle to feel sympathy for the daughter, unlike the sympathy that can be easily generated for her named father.[59] Esther Fuchs writes that the narrator has presented the daughter as a flat character who fulfils the “perfect filial role model,” so she does not have the ability to generate the kind of sympathy in the reader in the same way her father does.[60] Fuchs points out that this attitude comes from the “ideology of male supremacy.”[61] Ultimately, the ideology of male supremacy centres male experience at the expense of women’s experience. As previously discussed, this is what misogyny requires.

Additionally, the nature of Jephthah’s daughter’s sacrifice is only alluded to at the end of the story, and is not described in any detail:

At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to the vow he had made. (Judges 11:39)

Not describing the sacrifice further understates Jephthah’s culpability. The manner in which Jephthah’s daughter chooses to “bewail” her virginity with her friends is also not specified (Judges 11:37–38). Fuchs claims that greater specificity would likely generate too much sympathy for the daughter, which the narrator seems to want to actively avoid.[62] Fuchs also hypothesises that any protest from Jephthah’s daughter would have highlighted her tragedy. Instead, her calm response and subsequent silence anaesthetises the reader and allows them to remain focused on Jephthah’s grief.[63] It is Jephthah who often emerges as the victim in this story, his daughter is instead presented as, and is read as, a role model for a dutiful daughter.[64] Jephthah’s daughter is “rewarded” for this act with an Israelite custom where the daughters of Israel go out and lament her for four days every year (Judges 11:39–40). As mentioned earlier, hostility towards women works hand in hand with the reward and valorisation of women who conform to gendered expectations. Therefore, arguably, the aim of this custom is to celebrate Jephthah’s daughter dutifulness to her father and, at the same time, encourage other young women to do what may be expected of them in the future.

Herasure

Our discussion so far has been on himpathy seen in contemporary society and in Judges 11. However, in these examples we are also able to see how victims can be erased from their own narrative. Manne terms this herasure, something she describes as “the disappearing woman trick.”[65] Is this collateral damage from a himpathetic attitude? For example, during Turner’s trial Chanel Miller was simply known as “Emily Doe” and characterised as “the drunk girl at the party” in the media.[66] Aside from displaying a blatant victim-blaming mentality by implying that because Miller was drunk, she must have been responsible for Turner’s assault, it also blurs Miller’s experience in her own sexual assault. In her victim impact statement, Miller said that she had only learned the full details of her assault from a news article whilst she was scrolling at work, and she referred to the himpathetic attitude she experienced:

At the bottom of the article, after I learned about the graphic details of my own sexual assault, the article listed his swimming times. She was found breathing, unresponsive with her underwear six inches away from her bare stomach curled in the foetal position. By the way, he’s really good at swimming. Throw in my mile time if that’s what we’re doing. I’m good at cooking, put that in there, I think the end is where you list your extra-curriculars to cancel out all the sickening things that have happened.[67]

Miller was anonymous until she identified herself in 2019, just before the release of her memoir which aims to reclaim her story.[68] As Manne states, claiming victimhood involves “placing oneself at the centre of the story.”[69] Miller goes on to describe in her victim impact statement how the himpathetic mentality demonstrated throughout the trial left her feeling effaced:

In newspapers my name was “unconscious intoxicated woman,” ten syllables, and nothing more than that. For a while, I believed that that was all I was. I had to force myself to relearn my real name, my identity. To relearn that this is not all that I am. That I am not just a drunk victim at a frat party found behind a dumpster, while you are the All-American swimmer at a top university, innocent until proven guilty, with so much at stake. I am a human being who has been irreversibly hurt, who waited a year to figure out if I was worth something.[70]

Similarly, then-President Trump rushed to express his support for Kavanaugh after the allegations from Ford were published.[71] However, he effectively erased Ford from the discourse because he did not mention her name. Manne claims that in this example of himpathy, Trump’s support for Kavanaugh essentially erased Ford from the moral picture because, according to Trump, the only victim was Kavanaugh – not the woman he assaulted years earlier.[72] According to the himpathetic mindset, only Kavanaugh can be the victim because why should a “mistake” such as committing sexual assault “deny us chances later in life”—as was suggested by former White House press secretary to George W. Bush, Ari Fleischer.[73]

Finally, the significance of Reeva Steenkamp’s murder is played down due to the focus being repeatedly shifted onto Pistorius’s former athletic career. Emphasis has also been on the unrecognisable appearance of Pistorius since he has been released on parole, alongside his newfound faith as a Christian.[74] Barbara Ellen notes how Pistorius cannot just leave jail like most other murderers, there must be “a victim narrative with saintly flourishes.”[75] The sympathy Pistorius has received as a former sport celebrity has meant that Steenkamp has been sidelined in her own murder. Ellen describes this as “victim erosion.”[76]

The herasure we see in these contemporary examples we also see in the narrative of Jephthah and his daughter. During Turner’s trial, Manne writes about how Miller did not figure as a character in the eyes of the judge or Turner’s father; they erased Miller from the narrative, the focus was on what Turner was going to lose, and Miller’s ongoing trauma was ignored.[77] Arguably, the fact that Jephthah’s daughter is nameless indicates she is not a worthy character in the narrator’s eyes, but is simply used as a prop to move Jephthah’s narrative forward. We have also discussed how Trump did not mention the names of those who put forward allegations against Kavanaugh, just as Jephthah’s daughter is never named. The not-naming of names highlights how sympathy is reserved for the perpetrators—Jephthah and Kavanaugh in this instance. Moreover, the sidelining of Steenkamp in her murder is similar to the way in which Jephthah’s daughter is sidelined in her death. The way in which Jephthah’s daughter’s sacrifice is only alluded to at the end of the story further diminishes the significance of her demise at the hands of her father. As a result, the sympathy the reader generates for Jephthah, the man who is about to lose his only child, is amplified.

There is also a rushed shift of focus from Jephthah’s daughter’s sacrifice to the apparent Israelite custom that for four days every year the daughters of Israel would lament her (Judges 11:39–40); which, as Fuchs sees it, results in eclipsing Jephthah’s daughter’s role in the story.[78] This custom, a custom in which Jephthah’s daughter is supposedly remembered and in her sacrifice, established, is ambiguous. Besides the brief mention of it at the end of Judges 11, there is no record of such custom anywhere else in the biblical text or outside of the biblical text.[79] So, how can we say she is remembered when the custom has been forgotten and she does not have her own name? This is herasure, collateral damage from focusing on what Jephthah loses as a result of his vow. It is interesting to consider the question that if Jephthah’s daughter were not needed as a narrative prop to move her father’s story forward, would the narrator even have bothered to write that Jephthah has a child?

Conclusion

In conclusion, we have looked at Kate Manne’s concept of himpathy: how sympathy is shifted from the female victim(s) to the male perpetrator(s). We have explored this by discussing some prominent contemporary cases, and then we applied this understanding to the biblical text by examining the himpathy demonstrated in Judges 11. Diverting the sympathy from the sacrificed nameless daughter to the sacrificing named father must be resisted, otherwise Jephthah’s culpability is diminished. Put simply, it lets Jephthah off the hook. Ultimately, diverting the sympathy away from the victim(s) and instead projecting it onto the perpetrator(s), means that the perpetrator’s culpability is lessened, the victim’s experience is devalued, and justice is hard to seek thereafter. Unfortunately, himpathy is inescapable. Once you learn how to spot himpathy, it is then difficult not to see it everywhere – both in the Hebrew Bible and outside of it.

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Lovelace, Vannessa. “‘We Don’t Give Birth to Thugs’: Family Values, Respectability Politics, and Jephthah’s Mother.” Pages 239–261 in Womanist Interpretations of the Bible: Expanding the Discourse, edited by Gay L. Byron and Vannessa Lovelace. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2016.

Manne, Kate. Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women. London: Penguin Books, 2020.

———. Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. London: Penguin Books, 2019.

Marcus, David. Jephthah and His Vow. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech Press, 1986.

Mark, Michelle. “Here are all the sexual-misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh.” Business Insider, 27 September 2018. tinyurl.com/3fb58n79.

Miller, Barbara. Tell It on The Mountain: The Daughter of Jephthah in Judges 11. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005.

Miller, Chanel. Know My Name. London: Penguin Books, 2020.

Roberts, Rachel. “Brock Turner: Former Stanford swimmer appeals sexual assault conviction.” The Independent, December 4, 2017. tinyurl.com/4h79rtcb.

Sabur, Rozina. “Ex-Stanford swimmer loses appeal against sexual assault conviction.” The Telegraph, August 9, 2018. tinyurl.com/yc2xsejv.

Sanders, Tom. “Oscar Pistorius has become a ‘grey and bloated’ smoker who now fears for his life.” Metro, 5 January 2024. tinyurl.com/2ddmhuhb.

Sasson, Jack M. Judges 1–12: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014.

Sham, Abigail Greves. “Daughter of Courage.” Pages 20–35 in Grieving, Brooding, and Transformation, edited by Cheryl Bridges Jones and Lisa Stephenson. Leiden: Brill, 2021. doi:10.1163/9789004469518_004.

Sheets, Megan and Clark Mindock. “Brett Kavanaugh: What was he accused of and what happened at his Supreme Court confirmation hearing?” The Independent, 21 March 2022. tinyurl.com/yc4htpsb.

Stiebert, Johanna. Fathers and Daughters in the Hebrew Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Stone, Sara. “‘Those Who Plow Iniquity and Sow Trouble Reap the Same’: An Exploration into Blame-Shifting Culture in the Hebrew Bible.” Pages 204–21 in Women and Gender in the Bible: Texts, Intersections, Intertexts, edited by Zanne Domoney-Lyttle and Sarah Nicholson. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2021.

Tapp, Anne Michele. “An Ideology of Expendability: Virgin Daughter Sacrifice in Genesis 19.1-11, Judges 11.30–39 and 19.22–26.” Pages 157–174 in Anti-Covenant: Counter-Reading Women’s Lives in the Hebrew Bible, edited by Mieke Bal. Sheffield: Almond Press, 1989.

Trible, Phyllis. Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress , 1984.

Weems, Renita J. Just a Sister Away: A Womanist Vision of Women’s Relationships in the Bible. San Diego, CA: LuraMedia, 1988.

[1] Kate Manne, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (London: Penguin Books, 2019), 196–205.

[2] Kate Manne, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women (London: Penguin Books, 2020), 36.

[3] Manne, Down Girl, 197.

[4] Manne, Down Girl, 84.

[5] Manne, Down Girl, 84.

[6] Importantly, since writing about misogyny in her book Down Girl, Manne reflects in her next book, Entitled, that she has become “more cognizant of the way misogyny is inextricably bound up with related social ills.” These include racism, xenophobia, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism. (Manne, Entitled, 10–11)

[7] Manne, Down Girl, 193.

[8] Manne, Down Girl, 193.

[9] Manne, Down Girl, 71–72.

[10] Manne, Down Girl, 88.

[11] Or “misunderstood guys”; Manne, Entitled, 36–37.

[12] Manne, Entitled, 7–8.

[13] For a further, in-depth analysis on misogyny, see Manne, Down Girl.

[14] The text denies Jephthah’s daughter a name. Mieke Bal and Cheryl Exum are examples of scholars who attempt to restore her to the subject position she is denied in the text by giving her a name. Bal names her “Bath,” Hebrew for “daughter”, to remind the reader of the role which defines her. She is bath-Jephthah, “the daughter of Jephthah”. Exum follows Bal’s lead but uses the fuller form of the name, “Bat-jiftah”. Exum claims that this is a closer approximation to the original Hebrew than Bath-Jephthah and is easier to pronounce. See Mieke Bal, Death and Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 43; and J. Cheryl Exum, “Feminist Criticism: Whose Interests Are Being Served?” in Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies, ed. Gale A. Yee (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1995), 75.

[15] Biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version (Updated Edition) unless otherwise stated.

[16] J. Gordon Harris, Cheryl Brown, and Michael Moore, Joshua, Judges, Ruth (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2000), 228.

[17] Robert G. Boling, Judges: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 1975), 208.

[18] Bal, Death and Dissymmetry, 45.

[19] Pamela T. Reis, “Spoiled Child: A Fresh Look at Jephthah’s Daughter,” Prooftexts 17, no. 3 (September 1997): 281.

[20] Reis, “Spoiled Child,” 281.

[21] Bal, Death and Dissymmetry, 45.

[22] J. Cheryl Exum, Tragedy and Biblical Narrative: Arrows of the Almighty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 164.

[23] Bal, Death and Dissymmetry, 44.

[24] For example: David Marcus, Jephthah and His Vow (Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech Press, 1986), 54; Renita J. Weems, Just a Sister Away: A Womanist Vision of Women’s Relationships in the Bible (San Diego, CA: LuraMedia, 1988), 56; Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1984), 104; Valerie C. Cooper, “Some Place to Cry: Jephthah’s Daughter and the Double Dilemma of Black Women in America,” in Pregnant Passion: Gender, Sex, and Violence in the Bible, ed. Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 182; Barbara Miller, Tell It On The Mountain: The Daughter of Jephthah in Judges 11 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005), 80; Anat Koplowitz-Breier, “A Nameless Bride of Death: Jephthah’s Daughter in American Jewish Women’s Poetry,” Open Theology 6, no. 1 (January 2020): 1, doi:10.1515/opth-2020-0001; Rhiannon Graybill, “No Child Left Behind: Reading Jephthah’s Daughter With The Babylon Complex,” in The Bible, Gender, and Sexuality: Critical Readings, eds. Rhiannon Graybill and Lynn R. Huber (London: T&T Clark, 2021), 347; Abigail Greves Sham, “Daughter of Courage,” in Grieving, Brooding, and Transformation, eds. Cheryl Bridges Jones and Lisa Stephenson (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 28, doi:10.1163/9789004469518_004; Katerina Koci, “Whose Story? Which Sacrifice? On the Story of Jephthah’s Daughter,” Open Theology 7, no. 1 (August 2021): 332, doi:10.1515/opth-2020-0167; Boling, Judges, 210.

[25] Jack M. Sasson, Judges 1–12: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 438.

[26] Peggy L. Day, “From the Child is Born the Woman: The Story of Jephthah’s Daughter,” in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, ed. Peggy L. Day (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2006), 58.

[27] Sasson, Judges 1–12, 432.

[28] Emphasis added.

[29] Harris, Brown, Moore, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 229.

[30] Num. 27:1–11 indicates that women are able to preserve the family name and ensure that ancestral inheritance remains within the family.

[31] Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of Their Stories (New York: Schocken Books, 2002), 108.

[32] Emphasis added.

[33] For a more thorough look at blame culture in the Hebrew Bible, see: Sara Stone, “‘Those Who Plow Iniquity and Sow Trouble Reap the Same’: An Exploration into Blame-Shifting Culture in the Hebrew Bible,” in Women and Gender in the Bible: Texts, Intersections, Intertexts, eds. Zanne Domoney-Lyttle and Sarah Nicholson (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2021), 204–221.

[34] Exum, “Feminist Criticism,” 76–77; Cooper, “Some Place to Cry,” 184.

[35] Exum, “Feminist Criticism,” 77.

[36] Robert B. Chisholm Jr, “The Ethical Challenge of Jephthah’s Fulfilled Vow,” Bibliotheca Sacra 167 (October-December 2010): 409.

[37] Anne Michele Tapp discusses the expendability of virgin daughters in relation to male honour in Genesis 19, Judges 11, and Judges 19. See: Anne Michele Tapp, “An Ideology of Expendability: Virgin Daughter Sacrifice in Genesis 19.1–11, Judges 11.30–39 and 19.22–26,” in Anti-Covenant: Counter-Reading Women’s Lives in the Hebrew Bible, ed. Mieke Bal (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1989), 157–174.

[38] Tapp, “An Ideology of Expendability,” 166.

[39] Tapp, “An Ideology of Expendability,” 172.

[40] Bal, Death and Dissymmetry, 93.

[41] Tapp, “An Ideology of Expendability,” 172.

[42] Manne, Entitled, 36.

[43] Miller was referred to in court documents as ‘Emily Doe.’

[44] Emma Brockes, “Chanel Miller on why she refuses to be reduced to the ‘Brock Turner sexual assault victim’,” The Guardian, 25 September 2019, tinyurl.com/3sym64at.

[45] Examples include: Sam Levin, “Ex-Stanford swimmer gets six months in jail and probation for sexual assault,” The Guardian, 2 June 2016, tinyurl.com/ye2a84uk; Rachel Roberts, “Brock Turner: Former Stanford swimmer appeals sexual assault conviction,” The Independent, 4 December 2017, tinyurl.com/4h79rtcb; Rozina Sabur, “Ex-Stanford swimmer loses appeal against sexual assault conviction,” The Telegraph, 9 August 2018, tinyurl.com/yc2xsejv.

[46] Mark Gollom, “Stanford University sexual assault case sentencing seen as too lenient by legal experts,” CBC News, 8 June 2016, tinyurl.com/bppxxz7; Paul Elias, “Judge in Stanford rape case often follows sentencing reports,” Associated Press News, 17 June 2016, tinyurl.com/mr4yyfrb.

[47] Kavanaugh was also accused of sexual assault and/or misconduct by three other women: Deborah Ramirez, Julie Swetnick, and an anonymous complainant who later recanted their allegation. See Ellen Cranley and Michelle Mark, “Here are all the sexual-misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh,” Business Insider, 27 September 2018, tinyurl.com/3fb58n79.

[48] Megan Sheets and Clark Mindock, “Brett Kavanaugh: What was he accused of and what happened at his Supreme Court confirmation hearing?” The Independent, 21 March 2022, tinyurl.com/yc4htpsb.

[49] Anneke E. Green, “We can Believe Ford and Confirm Kavanaugh,” RealClear Politics, 3 October 2018, tinyurl.com/269bxn9d.

[50] Manne, Entitled, 7.

[51] Daniel De Simone and Damien Zane, “Oscar Pistorius released on parole 11 years after killing Reeva Steenkamp,” BBC News, 5 January 2024, tinyurl.com/3tertmxm.

[52] BBC News, “Oscar Pistorius trial: 10 key moments,” BBC News, 3 December 2015, tinyurl.com/r82dev37; Jason Burke, “Oscar Pistorius: case that obsessed a nation and captured its reflection,” The Guardian, 13 June 2016, tinyurl.com/4peuy8cc.

[53] Daniel De Simone, “What next for Oscar Pistorius?” BBC News, 5 January 2024, tinyurl.com/2n7j59sf.

[54] Examples include: Tom Geoghegan, “The making and unmaking of Oscar Pistorius,” BBC News, 3 November 2015, tinyurl.com/58usx68d; Luke Baker, “Could Oscar Pistorius make Paralympic return after prison release?” The Independent, 5 January 2024, tinyurl.com/bddt62z2; Rachael Bunyan, “Oscar Pistorius CAN restore his image and even attract sponsorship deals now he is out of prison, specialists say, as they reveal the one thing he needs to do most to get brands back on side,” Mail Online, 5 January 2024, tinyurl.com/3yssvba3.

[55] Due to the ambiguity of the text, there is some speculation regarding whether Jephthah’s daughter is actually killed or if she is sent away to live as a virgin. For a more thorough discussion into this debate, see Marcus, Jephthah and His Vow.

[56] Hee-Sook Bae, “A new approach to Jephthah’s vow: Antanaclasis (Judges 10–11),” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 48, no. 1 (2023): 4, doi:10.1177/03090892231182167.

[57] For an invaluable discussion on Jephthah’s daughter’s unnamed and unheard grandmother, whose social status affects how people see Jephthah, see: Vannessa Lovelace, “‘We Don’t Give Birth to Thugs’: Family Values, Respectability Politics, and Jephthah’s Mother,” in Womanist Interpretations of the Bible: Expanding the Discourse, eds. Gay L. Byron and Vannessa Lovelace (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2016), 239–261.

[58] Trible, Texts of Terror, 101.

[59] It is important to note here that the dismissal of victims is a form of misogynistic violence. This is also herasure, which I discuss in more detail further ahead.

[60] Esther Fuchs, “Marginalization, Ambiguity, Silencing: The Story of Jephthah’s Daughter,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 5, no. 11 (1989): 42.

[61] Fuchs, “Marginalization, Ambiguity, Silencing,” 45.

[62] Fuchs, “Marginalization, Ambiguity, Silencing,” 43.

[63] Esther Fuchs, Sexual Politics in the Biblical Narrative: Reading the Hebrew Bible as a Woman (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 188.

[64] See Fuchs, “Marginalization, Ambiguity, Silencing,” 35–45; and Johanna Stiebert, Fathers and Daughters in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 72–101. Interestingly, Pamela Reis argues against reading Jephthah’s daughter as the victim. Instead, she claims that Jephthah’s daughter is the archetypal “daddy’s girl”, who manipulates Jephthah to secure herself a life of comfortable independence (see Reis, “Spoiled Child,” 279–293).

[65] Manne, Down Girl, 179.

[66] Brockes, “Chanel Miller.” There are laws in place which gives sexual assault victims the right to anonymity. However, the downside of this is that it allows the media to characterise sexual assault victims as somewhat responsible for the violence committed against them. Whilst victims are able to waive their right to anonymity (as Miller and Ford did), often the damage of the characterisation by the media has already been done.

[67] The Guardian, “Stanford sexual assault case: victim impact statement in full,” The Guardian, 6 June 2016, tinyurl.com/3puf97t8, emphasis added.

[68] The Guardian, “Stanford sexual assault survivor identifies herself before release of memoir,” The Guardian, 4 September 2019, tinyurl.com/38pxrr76. Also see: Chanel Miller, Know My Name (London: Penguin Books, 2020).

[69] Manne, Down Girl, 225, original emphasis.

[70] The Guardian, “Stanford sexual assault case.”

[71] Lauren Gambino, “Trump defends Kavanaugh as fate of hearing unclear: ‘I feel so badly for him’,” The Guardian, 18 September 2018, tinyurl.com/52e7pbar.

[72] Sean Illing and Kate Manne, “Brett Kavanaugh and the problem of ‘himpathy’,” Vox, 28 September 2018, tinyurl.com/5xacs4sm.

[73] Michelle Goldberg, “Boys Will Be Supreme Court Justices,” The New York Times, 17 September 2018, tinyurl.com/2j9mpc3y.

[74] Jane Flanagan, “How prison turned Oscar Pistorius into a grey, bloated smoker,” The Times, 3 January 2024, tinyurl.com/ypu6bpss; Tom Sanders, “Oscar Pistorius has become a ‘grey and bloated’ smoker who now fears for his life,” Metro, 5 January 2024, tinyurl.com/2ddmhuhb.

[75] Barbara Ellen, “Let’s not pity ‘poor’ Oscar Pistorius. Reeva Steenkamp suffered far worse a fate,” The Guardian, 6 January 2024, tinyurl.com/yt5h8nsk.

[76] Ellen, “Let’s not pity ‘poor’ Oscar Pistorius.”

[77] Manne, Down Girl, 202.

[78] Fuchs, Sexual Politics, 195.

[79] There is the assumption that the narrator is referring to a custom that was practised in their day, and their intended audience was already acquainted with it so would not need the custom explained further. See: Alice Logan, “Rehabilitating Jephthah,” Journal of Biblical Literature 128, no. 4 (2009): 682–83. For a thorough discussion on the speculation surrounding the nature of the custom, see: Mary Ann Beavis, “A Daughter in Israel: Celebrating Bat Jephthah (Judges 11.39d-40),” Feminist Theology 13, no. 1 (2004): 11–25, doi:10.1177/096673500401300102.