The Original Sin

Where misogyny comes from — and why it endures.

The Fall from Grace, circa 1552. Found in the Collection of Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice — Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

By Francine Prose

Hardly anyone noticed this summer when former president Jimmy Carter explained why he had decided to leave the Baptist Church. However “painful and difficult,” wrote Carter in an essay that appeared in the Guardian, his break with the denomination to which he had belonged for sixty years had begun to seem like…