The REAL Reason God Took Adam’s Rib… And Why TikTok Doesn’t Want You to Know!
Somewhere between a YouTube alpha-male podcast filmed in a rented Lamborghini and a TikTok feminist holding a megaphone screaming about “the patriarchy” at a suburban Starbucks, two rival mythologies now dominate the modern imagination:
The Manosphere Gospel: “Women exist for male dominance, submission, silence, and sandwiches.”
The Progressive Feminist Creed: “Men are evolutionary mistakes, marriage is slavery, and all authority is misogyny in a trench coat.”
Both sides shout.
Both sides posture.
Both sides rage at God’s design.
And both sides are profoundly offended by something very simple:
God made woman from a rib.
And that single anatomical decision—properly understood—calmly annihilates both ideologies.
Creation, According to God — Not According to Influencers
The narrative begins, inconveniently for social media theorists, in Genesis 2:21–23, where God does not “assemble Eve from spare parts,” but builds her:
“The Lord God took one of his ribs… and built it into a woman… and brought her to the man.”
The Hebrew verb banah—to build—is architectural, intentional, and exalted. God does not fabricate Eve like a tool. He constructs her like a sacred structure.
St. Thomas Aquinas answered whether this build from the rib was fitting when he states:
“It was right for the woman to be made from a rib of man.
First, to signify the social union of man and woman, for the woman should neither "use authority over man," and so she was not made from his head; nor was it right for her to be subject to man's contempt as his slave, and so she was not made from his feet.
Secondly, for the sacramental signification; for from the side of Christ sleeping on the Cross the Sacraments flowed—namely, blood and water—on which the Church was established.”
Want it simplified? Here it is:
Not from the head → no domination of man by woman.
Not from the feet → no domination of woman by man.
From the side → equality in nature, distinction in role to walk side-by-side
Near the heart → ordered toward love, not rivalry
This is the original Catholic doctrine of complementarity—a theological truth now hated equally by:
Men who want control, and
Women who want erasure of difference.
The Manosphere Fantasy: “God Made Woman for Me”
The manosphere confidently announces that woman exists as a “helper,” meaning something like:
“A domestic employee with reproductive functions.”
Unfortunately for them, the Hebrew word for helper (ezer) is the same word repeatedly used for God Himself as the helper of Israel.¹
So unless the manosphere is now prepared to argue that:
God is subordinate,
God is a domestic accessory,
And God exists merely to serve man,
…the translation collapses.
Woman is not created as a servant-object. She is created because man is incomplete without her.
Then comes the real scandal:
Aquinas—whom the manosphere attempts to cosplay without ever reading—explicitly teaches that woman is equal in nature, intended by God, and necessary for the perfection of humanity.²
And the rib itself, Aquinas teaches, signifies unity, not inferiority.³
Which presents a theological problem for any man whose masculinity collapses unless someone else is beneath him.
Therefore every man should understand: Woman was made from your rib to be your compliment. She completes you. She is not to be trampled by you but originates under your arm to be protected by you and near your heart to be loved by you. Don’t forget it.
Modern Feminism’s Counter-Myth: “The Rib Is Patriarchal Oppression”
Enter the opposite extremism.
Modern feminism looks at Genesis and sees not symbolism, but scandal:
“Patriarchy!”
“Male-first narrative!”
“Power structure!”
The only problem is that the Church already condemned male domination as a result of the Fall, not as the design of God.
Pope John Paul II, in Mulieris Dignitatem, states plainly that:
Man and woman are equal in personal dignity
The rib symbolizes reciprocal communion
Male domination enters only after sin
Domination is a distortion of creation, not its purpose⁴
In other words:
Patriarchy is not God’s design.
Radical gender erasure is not God’s design.
The Fall is responsible for both domination and rebellion.
Feminism screams, “Men are the problem!”
The manosphere screams, “Women are the problem!”
The Church quietly answers:
Sin is the problem.
The Rib and the Cross: The Symbol No One Wants to Talk About
Adam’s side is opened.
Life is drawn forth.
Woman is formed.
Christ’s side is opened.
Blood and water pour forth.
The Church is born.
The Fathers always saw this parallel.⁵
The rib is not only about marriage. It is about sacrificial love.
Which leads to the most hated verse in both modern ideologies:
“Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her.”
— Ephesians 5:25
The manosphere hears “headship” and thinks “authority.”
Christ defines headship as crucifixion.
Modern feminism hears “submission” and thinks “slavery.”
The Church defines submission as mutual self-gift ordered toward holiness.⁶
Both camps recoil because self-sacrifice destroys their entire power narrative.
Why God Specifically Did Not Choose the Foot
If God wanted dominance, He had clear anatomical options:
Foot → explicit subjugation
Head → explicit supremacy
Dirt again → total independence
Instead, He chose the rib, which says to both sexes:
You are neither tyrant nor rival.
You are partners under God.
You are different on purpose.
And you are doomed to need each other.
And modern culture absolutely cannot tolerate that.
The manosphere wants hierarchy without holiness.
Modern feminism wants equality without difference.
Catholic theology allows neither.
Complementarity: The Doctrine That Offends Everyone
The Church teaches:
Equality of being
Distinction of function
Mutuality of gift
Unity without sameness
Or, as Gaudium et Spes states, man and woman are equal as persons and ordered toward a communion of life and love.⁷
Complementarity means:
Men and women are not interchangeable
Neither is superior
Both reveal something of God the other cannot alone
The manosphere hates this because it denies their fantasy of dominance.
Modern feminism hates this because it denies their fantasy of sameness.
God remains stubbornly Catholic on the issue.
Conclusion: The Rib Still Preaches, While the Internet Still Screams
The rib stands in quiet contradiction to:
Red-pill rage
Pink-megaphone ideology
Power struggles dressed as justice
Lust for domination disguised as tradition
And elimination of difference disguised as equality
The rib says:
You are equal.
You are different.
You are incomplete alone.
You are sanctified only together.
And in response, the manosphere yells, “Submission!”
Modern feminism yells, “Oppression!”
And the Church calmly replies:
“No. Communion.”
God did not create woman to be dominated.
God did not create woman to overthrow man.
God created woman so that together, man and woman might learn how to love like God loves.
Which, incidentally, requires death to ego.
And both sides hate that the most.
Endnotes
Genesis 2:18; usage of ezer throughout the Old Testament (e.g., Psalm 121:1–2).
Summa Theologiae, I, q. 92, a. 1–2.
Ibid., I, q. 92, a. 3.
Mulieris Dignitatem, §§6–10.
St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram; St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians.
Ephesians 5:21–32; Catechism of the Catholic Church §§1601–1617.
Gaudium et Spes, §12.