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Post by cherylannhannah on Jul 9, 2010 1:45:21 GMT -5
Sorry if this has been posted before, but since Mary Pride is blamed a lot for contributing to the misery some of us "enjoyed", I thought it would be interesting to get her take on patriarchalism. www.home-school.com/Articles/phs89-marypride.html
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Post by nikita on Jul 9, 2010 2:51:34 GMT -5
Wow. Thank you for this, Cheryl. (Can I call you Cheryl? Your full name is so pretty when vocalized but when I'm typing I am always worried about counting 'n's, and 'h's and 'a's and if they are all in the right order...) Now I feel like I have to read everything Mary Pride has said or written for the last twenty-five years to see how it matches up with this new article. I mean, is she really 'clarifying' a long held belief or is this her redemption arc? She writes as though she has had her head in the sand and had NO IDEA there was gambling going on in here... That seems a little disingenuous at best. She could not help but be aware of what was happening out in the homeschooling world and how often her book was cited as a reference for the patriarchy movement's purposes. Perhaps the fact that the abuses are more visible now and getting more exposure on tv and radio and in the Quiverfull book she is backpedaling so that she doesn't get blamed for this. I don't think she can escape blame quite so easily. Either way I am totally fascinated. I wonder if her book(s) are on Kindle. The one I ordered in the Woot sale (yay I got one in the special merger sale!! ) arrives tomorrow and I need to order some books for it.... Anyway, the article Pride has written here is quite right, in a conservative fundamental worldview, but she does explain the standard traditional husband as leader set up in the past, before all this patriarchy nonsense came into vogue. Whether she is doing the redemption arc dance or not, at least she has put a counter argument out there and called the patriarchialists on their unbiblical practices. At least it's one more thing out there to help warn and steer people away from this trap. At least there's that. Thanks for posting this Cheryl.
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Post by arietty on Jul 9, 2010 3:10:50 GMT -5
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the Prides attend Phil Lancaster's church? And didn't they have a long association with Phil Lancaster? You know the same Phil Lancaster that published Patriarch magazine, that word that Mary Pride now seems rather taken aback at?
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Post by cindy on Jul 9, 2010 7:48:43 GMT -5
Mary Pride came out of ATI homeschooling, programmed by Gothard himself, so to speak. He's the granddaddy of all this mess, and she is like the high priestess. (Nancy Campbell just paved the way for Mary's organized approach.)
I recently had some correspondence about Mary with someone who cannot understand why I don't like her take on things, describing how I cried for hours when I read this book because of how condemning it was. So I recently pulled this out and looked through it again. It was laying here on my current pile of reading.
How can she dare to say that she's not patriarchal, just because she's not identical to some of these MORE fringe groups? She wrote this in the eighties. in "The Way Home":
Evangelism Through Reproduction (pg 80 in my copy)
We Christians can sometimes be inconsistent. We'd fight and scream if someone tried to stamp out our evangelistic efforts....Let's say that Christians are 20 percent of the US population. If each Christian family had six children, and the humanists, feminists, and others kept on having an average of one.....then in twenty years there would be sixty of us for every forty of them. In forty years, 90 percent of America would be Christian! That is without outside evangelism. All we'd have to do would be to have children and raise them for Christ... [T]hen in two generations...we would be over 40 percent of the population.
Now, come on. These young things that followed in her footsteps and didn't get started until the '90s did not come up with these ideas. She was one of the first angry militants to publish these ideas. It was not Phillips who invented the You Tube math lesson where that little boy figures that he can spawn a million kids of his own. This came right from Mary Pride. Whether this was common discussion in her circles (Cambell, Gothard, Lindvall, Lancaster, and Thompson) before her book, I don't know. But I also don't know how she can claim that she's innocent of some of these things. She carved out many of them herself including this Spiritual Eugenics business. The general category produces the same kind of half-rotten fruit. There are children and people do love mothering, but mothers are falling over with exhaustion, broken bodies and broken spirits.
I don't get it at all. I understand that she is really upset about being named in Joyce's book, and that she doesn't think very much of some of these others in the general group, but then Gothard and Pearl got together last year to distance themselves from the extra fringe fringe, too. She has the same core tenets and beliefs.
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Post by cindy on Jul 11, 2010 11:37:22 GMT -5
Alright,
Did I kill this thread or are we all just tired of 25 years of talking about Proud Mary?
Rollin', Rollin', Rollin' on the River...
doo do do, doo do do, doo do do do do do do do do
I do really despise that militant fecundity spiritual eugenics stuff, spawning for salvation or breeding in the new religious right stuff. Why don't they put more effort into crisis pregnancy centers as well? And evangelism?
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Post by sigaliris on Jul 11, 2010 13:08:19 GMT -5
Hi, Cindy--you haven't killed the thread yet as far as I'm concerned. I was really interested in what you said, especially the part about Pride's books having a tone of condemnation. I wish I still had them around to mine for quotes, but I got rid of them some time ago. I read them during my vulnerable years and thought badly of myself because I obviously wasn't as committed to God as she was, and my husband and I must be bad parents because we felt we had all we could handle with four. I definitely remember feeling scolded and condemned. There was a pat comeback for every problem, and a feeling that it was her way (GOD'S WAY) or the highway. And people who didn't agree with her were caricatured in such unflattering terms. I got the feeling there was a lot of inner spite and rage being dumped on other women who didn't see things her way.
I went and read the article cherylannhannah linked to. I think Mary Pride doth protest too much. She does say some good things in the article--like that husbands shouldn't micro-manage their wives' work, and that wives have a right to express an opinion, and that daughters have their own lives before God, not just as tools of Daddy.
However, there was some other disturbing stuff that logically ends up canceling out many of her caveats about patriarchy. For starters, any possible over-emphasis on patriarchy by Christian men can be blamed on feminists! Who knew? Since feminism glorifies women, the knee-jerk reaction was to glorify men just a teeny bit. See? Men's self-glorification is entirely caused by feminism! And it's just "a teeny bit," so really no big deal.
Then this: Then, after full and free discussion, the captain has the final word. It's nice that she lets women have a chance to express their views. But, in the end, the husband is still "the captain." As long as his word is "final," the woman is still subjugated and has to obey. It's not a cooperative model.
This is how she discusses Dad "helping out" at home: Although he could help if she asked for help and no female friend or relative was available (e.g., if she was sick or after giving birth to a child), or he could take over if she was absent or unfit (e.g., crazy due to psychoactive drugs), . . . Again, it's misleading. It sounds okay at first--but this is precisely the kind of enforced gender distinction that led, in the group I was in, to fathers actually calling a neighbor on the phone to come over and change a diaper when no female relative/flunky was in the house! Why should the FATHER go to a female friend before he'd care for his own children? To me, this is completely in line with patriarchal thinking, and it's weird. Also, how weird is it that Pride's example of a woman not being fit to care for her own children is "crazy due to psychoactive drugs"?? Why would that even come up as an example? Wouldn't it be enough that a woman was TIRED for a loving, caring husband to pitch in and do some household stuff? I think that would be a good enough reason--unless he was enmeshed in the skewed thinking of the patriarchy.
Okay, that's enough critique for now--but I agree with Cindy that Mary Pride has a lot to answer for, no matter how she tries to dissemble it now.
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Post by cindy on Jul 11, 2010 14:42:04 GMT -5
I was also told that you can't really get a full spectrum view of Mary Pride's book until you read her husband's book in concert with it, "Flirting with the Devil." It is apparently more legalistic than hers is, but that is based on what someone else who was in ATI with them told me. I don't intend to waste much more of my life or money reading any new material.
I did hear that she once wrote in her HELP magazine/newsletter thing that surgery for ectopic pregnancy was permissible, so I sent a query letter asking for help with the ectopic pregnancy matter to a mutual acquaintance to ask them to forward it on to her to see if she would also like to make a statement about this matter since she doesn't seem to agree with Vision Forum regarding other matters. I was hopeful that if she really was upset with he association with more patriarchal people, she might republish old material.
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Post by usotsuki on Jul 11, 2010 15:09:24 GMT -5
Is bashing on psych drugs common to oppressive religious movements? </semirandom>
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Post by km on Jul 11, 2010 15:50:08 GMT -5
Is bashing on psych drugs common to oppressive religious movements? </semirandom> It's common to Quiverfull and other manifestations of the Christian Right, as well as Scientology and Christian Science. Probably more oppressive religious movements than this, but that's the extent of my knowledge on the question.
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Post by krwordgazer on Jul 11, 2010 16:58:40 GMT -5
Mary Pride says she is not the founder of the modern Patriarchy movement. Ok. She is not responsible for the fact that other teachers took the ball and ran with it past where she would have gone. But she is still one of the main ones who started the ballgame in the first place.
She is still stuck in the hermeneutic that leads to modern Patriarchy: it takes the settings of the Bible and calls them "biblical," meaning not "of Bible times" but "according to God's will." She says "traditional Christian families" understood that there were strict gender roles-- Mom's in charge of the home and kids, but Dad's in charge of Mom. This is indeed a "traditional" family structure, but there's nothing whatsoever that makes it inherently Christian. Many traditions have followed this model throughout history. (And what it comes down to, logically, is that Dad's the one who gets to decide how Mom's going to run things. There's no way you can get away from that if you're going to insist that he's ultimately in charge.)
Mary Pride is the one who said it was every woman's call-from-God in life to marry and have lots of kids-- any woman and all women. She is still saying it's every woman's call in life to marry and have lots of kids. A particular woman may be a nurse or have some other side job-- but she is supposed to dedicate her life to marriage and kids. Mary Pride apparently doesn't like it that some people have said, "If her calling is to be a wife and mother, surely it would be more 'biblical' if she dedicated herself exclusively to that?" But everything Ms. Pride's blog post says indicates that she still considers it all women's primary calling to marry and be mothers. She is one of those who started the ball game, and now she doesn't like how far some people have carried the ball.
That's her prerogative, of course. But she was one of the ones who was instrumental in the current conflation of the cultures of the Bible with the teachings of the Bible. And she's still doing it.
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Post by Ex-Adriel on Jul 11, 2010 18:03:55 GMT -5
When I was a child, everywhere we went, it was pretty clearly equated with drug abuse of any sort - the verse about "your body is the temple of Christ" was invoked many times in regards to any question of mentally or emotionally-altering drugs, whether they were legal or not. In addition, although there was never any scriptural backing, it was considered to be a breach-point in your spiritual armor for demons or Satan to influence you. I don't really know how exactly to explain it - the feeling I always got from the sermons and lectures was that it was like a Trojan Horse - presented as a gift, but filled with evil spirits and influences inside. Once you let that stuff in at all, it was over for you, and the devil would have a beachhead in your psyche to start corrupting you. I have no idea what that's based on, other than another application of black/white thinking = drugs and alcohol are bad, therefore ALL drugs are bad. Then again, we were also in churches where taking medicine for any reason was seen as evidence that you weren't trusting God enough with your life.
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Post by sigaliris on Jul 11, 2010 18:13:11 GMT -5
Here's what puzzles me so about Mary Pride, and many of the other women who preach and teach that all women everywhere should be stay-at-homes (moms or daughters), have unlimited children, and be submitted to male authority: if you looked at her actions, rather than her words, she'd look a lot like those feminists she claims to despise!
She took advantage of higher education, and chose a specialty that doesn't fit a traditional feminine stereotype. Her knowledge of computers has helped her, I'm sure, to run her empire from a work station at home, and to review all those home-schooling programs and apps.
She is blunt, outspoken, dominating and aggressive in her manner of speaking. She is eager to proclaim her own authority, is argumentative, and believes she is right and is smarter than others. She has pursued the way of life she chose for herself, delegating to subordinates (her daughters, for example) to get more done than she could do by herself. She runs her own small business. Her husband seems very much in the background--almost a zero next to her high profile.
Far from learning meekly at home and deferring to male authorities, she boldly interprets the Bible for herself, and decides what God's will for her is based on her own discernment.
Not that there's anything wrong with that! I'd have no problem with her if she just said, "Look, here's what I did with my life, and I'm very happy with it, and I think I'm serving God. Check it out--it might work for you too." Where I do have a problem is that I think she has ruthlessly exploited the guilt and fear of other women to scramble to the top of the heap. I have a problem with what seems to me like preaching one thing--and being admired for it--while doing the exact opposite. And what she preaches is often going to harm other women rather than helping them--but she doesn't take any responsibility for that. Meanwhile, she leads a life where she does have financial security and the support of her Christian community. It seems as if the top-tier leadership get all kinds of perks that are not available to their followers, kind of like Communist leaders in the old Soviet Union.
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Post by nikita on Jul 11, 2010 18:57:15 GMT -5
When I was a child, everywhere we went, it was pretty clearly equated with drug abuse of any sort - the verse about "your body is the temple of Christ" was invoked many times in regards to any question of mentally or emotionally-altering drugs, whether they were legal or not. In addition, although there was never any scriptural backing, it was considered to be a breach-point in your spiritual armor for demons or Satan to influence you. I don't really know how exactly to explain it - the feeling I always got from the sermons and lectures was that it was like a Trojan Horse - presented as a gift, but filled with evil spirits and influences inside. Once you let that stuff in at all, it was over for you, and the devil would have a beachhead in your psyche to start corrupting you. I have no idea what that's based on, other than another application of black/white thinking = drugs and alcohol are bad, therefore ALL drugs are bad. Then again, we were also in churches where taking medicine for any reason was seen as evidence that you weren't trusting God enough with your life. In my group it was definitely NOT DONE. Period. If you were prescribed an antidepressant, say, then you sure didn't mention it to anybody. The only reason given for this was that God was all sufficient to take care of your heart and mind and soul and if you prayed and trusted Him you would be delivered from depression or whatever. No evil spirits were thought to be involved, just a lack of trust in God that was only to be remedied by trusting in God more. When I was about twenty or so, one of the moms in church suffered a serious post-partum depression after her third child was born. This mom, who otherwise was a calm and gentle person with a wicked sense of humor had become a spiritless automaton who never smiled. It was eerie. Everyone was really concerned about her. When she began to speak and act about her kids in a dangerous way it was finally decided that she would move out of the family home and live with someone else (I forget who) in order to protect her children from her, and other moms helped her husband out with the kids while he worked. This went on for months. Meanwhile, every single church service, where we all prayed for an hour before and an hour afterwards, about five moms would surround this mom and pray with her while she sat there like a stone and tried to muster up some prayer for herself as well. Weeks and months went by like this and then she broke through it (read: it resolved on it's own) and became the old 'mom' again and had other children and no sign of the depression again. Which was a great relief to everybody. Her kids were great too. But how much of this whole sorry period could have been relieved by the judicious use of psychotropic medication at the right time? So much pain and so many people affected because it wasn't even a question that she would be medicated for this. Fortunately it resolved and she didn't suffer it again, but that didn't have to be the outcome. The only course of action that was considered was to get the children protected and cared for properly, help out the dad, and pray with and over and for the mom and try to 'cheer her up'. I am glad that we were protective of the children and never thought her problem was sin of some kind or played a blame game with her or her husband. Our primary outlook was confused and sympathetic and desperately trying to help them. But medication? Not even a blip on our radar screen. Because that would have been wrong. ETA: And when I say 'prayed before and after church' that meant about six times a week if you counted services and nine if you counted 'off nights' where we usually went to pray for an hour, too. That's a lot of prayer right there. But it didn't resolve until it resolved because it was a medical condition, postpartum depression. It needed medication.
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Post by krwordgazer on Jul 11, 2010 20:14:52 GMT -5
Here's what puzzles me so about Mary Pride, and many of the other women who preach and teach that all women everywhere should be stay-at-homes (moms or daughters), have unlimited children, and be submitted to male authority: if you looked at her actions, rather than her words, she'd look a lot like those feminists she claims to despise! She took advantage of higher education, and chose a specialty that doesn't fit a traditional feminine stereotype. Her knowledge of computers has helped her, I'm sure, to run her empire from a work station at home, and to review all those home-schooling programs and apps. She is blunt, outspoken, dominating and aggressive in her manner of speaking. She is eager to proclaim her own authority, is argumentative, and believes she is right and is smarter than others. She has pursued the way of life she chose for herself, delegating to subordinates (her daughters, for example) to get more done than she could do by herself. She runs her own small business. Her husband seems very much in the background--almost a zero next to her high profile. Far from learning meekly at home and deferring to male authorities, she boldly interprets the Bible for herself, and decides what God's will for her is based on her own discernment. There are several "loopholes" in the Scriptures that Mary Pride can use to justify her actions. First of all, her books and sermonettes are supposedly aimed at women and are part of the homeschooling movement. "Older" women are allowed to teach "younger" women according to the passage she outlines in the linked blog post. ("Older" can be read as "spiritually older", so that even back in 1994 Ms. Pride could set herself up as a teacher of "spiritually" younger women who hadn't been Christians as long as she.) And the book of Proverbs says women can teach their own children-- so as long as she's not "teaching or exercising authority over a man," she can claim this as her God-given ministry. Secondly, as long as she has some kind of rubber-stamp approval from her husband, Ms. Pride can claim she is being a "Proverbs 31 woman" in running her own business, selling books, etc. I would guess that her husband might be one of those going-along-for-the-ride husbands who is not a controlling person himself. The fact remains that if he were to put his foot down and say she couldn't do any of this, she'd have to quit-- but as long as she's doing it with his approval, she's free to do as she likes-- and she needn't worry about what living under her own teachings might be like if he were a different kind of man. So she's free, like the Pharisees, to "bind heavy burdens and lay them on other's backs, without lifting a finger to help carry them." If she's not naturally prone to compassionate listening and putting herself in others' places, she need not ever face the fact that what works for her might not work for others. She has created a problem and simultaneously offered a solution, to Christian women eager to show devotion to God. That the solution may not work for them, is entirely their own fault.
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Post by cindy on Jul 11, 2010 22:37:53 GMT -5
I appreciate this discussion, as it is very validating for me. There are things about that book that I agree with, and it stated some things that did need to be said. I think my mother was sold a bill of goods that promised her something -- that if she worked, she would feel fulfilled to some extent (though I know she would have been happy to stay at home). Mary did present that very well. Many Christians did look down on parenthood. QF promises the same thing for opposite reasons, though I think that some people are definitely happier in different settings, and whether one works part time or full time can be a factor, too. There is no one-size-fits-all answer for anything like this which can give us the significance we seek. Each life is unique, and ultimately, we need to give ourselves that gift of significance from the inside.
And everyone can find a loophole in the Bible for anything if you go proof-text fishing! So Mary is not unique there. There's even a verse in support of public, outdoor urination!!!
But I know how I felt after 9 years of marriage when I read that book, having lost a baby and having done very little to prevent pregnancy, only when taking sterioids so that I could breathe, and they would hurt a baby. My husband had just gone of FMLA for a 3 month wicked, wicked migraine, and I didn't know if he was going to even make it. (He was so sick, I can tell you that there was not any and had not been any baby making activities going on!) And we had medical bills galore because we'd started BoTox and other things that our insurance did not cover. He'd had a procedure that was denied, and a month later, I got a bill for 100K that the insurance company had denied. (We didn't have any money or any other assets and had no equity at all in our home at that point.) I was doing all the driving and staying at work with my husband to help him there, so he could keep up and not get fired. I was blessed to be able to help him in his workplace like that.
I was at least a third of the way into the book, and I hit a two sentence tirade about how childless women would be going through early menopause and growing mustaches, those who followed Mary would look young and have glowing skin. We were only two years out of our spiritual abuse experience, and between the horrible stress of it and the long periods of unhealthy fasting on veg juice I did (3-4 weeks at a time), my adrenals were bad and I'd started with a single recurring chin hair (round about age 32 or so). The adrenal glands overwork and then you overproduce androgens that promote this type of hair growth. I didn't have a mustache, but I had a chin hair that kept coming back which completely disgusted me. I started crying, and I laid on my bedroom floor and cried hard for well over an hour.
I don't know why that book had to be so cruel and why patriarchy does also. It's excessive paternalism that goes completely to the side of exclusivity. Why is it not enough to say "This is how I live because this is how the Holy Spirit leans on my heart, and I must be true to my conviction"? But they cannot rest with this only. It must be true for all, all must follow, and those who don't or CAN'T are demeaned, castigated, and rejected. There is no mercy -- NO MERCY for the one who doesn't fit neatly in the perfect pigeon hole.
So it isn't just the finding of loopholes that is a troubling thing but that in concert with the condemnation of it all. And it doesn't have to be that way. I have tremendous respect for zeal and those who fearlessly follow their convictions, going against the flow. I LOVE that in people, even in those with whom I disagree. But that book was too personal on too many levels and too mean. It was just acerbic, and I found that to be the nearly perfect descriptor. It didn't need to be that way.
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Post by sigaliris on Jul 12, 2010 9:35:30 GMT -5
I was at least a third of the way into the book, and I hit a two sentence tirade about how childless women would be going through early menopause and growing mustaches, those who followed Mary would look young and have glowing skin.
OMG, Cindy--I remember that part! I'd be LOL-ing, but it hurts too much to laugh when I imagine you crying because of a silly, off the top of her head comment like that one. Neither Biblical nor scientifically supported--she just pulled it out of her, er, hat. And presto, it worked! Instant self-blame for readers.
You mentioned your mother having been "sold a bill of goods" in being told that work would bring her fulfillment. And the patriocentrists have sold women a bill of goods in telling them that unlimited childbearing and wifely submission will always bring fulfillment. Maybe I'm veering off-topic here, but I connected the dots from that to your very astute comment on how they create a problem and then sell us the solution.
Could it be that the patriocentrists have keyed into a culture-wide artificially created problem? It seems as if the only "good" woman is a woman who is one hundred percent happy and perfect. All these voices in society compete to tell us that's a HUGE problem, one that should make us ASHAAAAAMED of ourselves, and one that has a perfect solution if only we're willing to pay the price. But seriously, why should anyone think that a job will make a woman perfect and happy? Why should anyone think that not having a job will make her perfect and happy, either? I've done both--worked full-time with three kids, and stayed home with four. And worked from home part-time, as well. All had their pros and cons, and no situation made me perfectly happy, or turned me into a different person without my normal ups and downs.
I was going to say that this "problem" of not achieving an inhuman standard of perfect fulfillment only seems to apply to women. But, on second thought, I think it does affect men, too. I'm sure the men who are lower in the hierarchy of patriarchy also feel bad that they can't perfectly rule their little family kingdoms, and wonder why their home business barely keeps them in beans and cloth diapers, while the Vision Forum leaders ape the lifestyles of the antebellum plantation. They too are being sold a bill of goods.
However, I do think that women are expected always to be happy and nice and sweet in a way that men aren't. And when we feel miserable, depressed and angry, we are taught to blame ourselves and look for a magical transformation powder rather than seeking practical solutions to change the situation.
In any case, I just want to say that my heart aches for you in retrospect. You should have been getting praise and support for your courageous efforts to support your husband while suffering so much pain yourself. Someone should have been there for you--to help and comfort, not to blame and condemn! That would have been the "Christian" thing to do . . . sigh.
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Post by ambrosia on Jul 12, 2010 10:08:24 GMT -5
snip/ it takes the settings of the Bible and calls them "biblical," meaning not "of Bible times" but "according to God's will." She says "traditional Christian families" understood that there were strict gender roles-- Mom's in charge of the home and kids, but Dad's in charge of Mom. This is indeed a "traditional" family structure, but there's nothing whatsoever that makes it inherently Christian. KR: I wish more Christians understood this basic principle.
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Post by krwordgazer on Jul 12, 2010 14:19:57 GMT -5
Thanks, Ambrosia. Me too. And everyone can find a loophole in the Bible for anything if you go proof-text fishing! So Mary is not unique there. There's even a verse in support of public, outdoor urination!!! Of course in this particular case, I (and you too, I think, Cindy) view the "loopholes" as actual indications that Ms. Pride's readings of the other passages she uses to support male domination and female subordination as being "Christian" are incorrect. Of course older women can teach younger women! But the idea that a woman cannot "teach or exercise authority over a man," when read in its literary and cultural context, does not appear to mean what Ms. Pride's school of thought believes it does. Neither do the passages that are read to give husbands God-mandated authority over their wives. The Proverbs 31 woman owns her own business and sells her own wares as an example that married women can and should be free to do this. Ms. Pride's doctrines give the husband the right to forbid, but there is no indication in the Scriptures that it is "Christian" for a husband to wield any such power over his wife. Rather, Christian husbands in the first-century Greek and Roman cultures were advised to "give themselves," to lay down their cultural privilege and raise their wives up. Sure, people proof-text the Scriptures to say what they want them to say. But I believe that read in context, it is not Ms. Pride's "loopholes" that are wrong; it's her underlying doctrines of male privilege.
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Post by cindy on Jul 12, 2010 15:12:45 GMT -5
Note that my situation is much improved from the dark night of the soul that my life was when I first read that book.
I had the book within easy reach and marked the quote that sent me weeping:
Pg 79 from the chapter entitled "Family Banning and Planned Barrenhood":
While other women are having hot flashes and growing moustaches and experiencing all the other delightful effects of early menopause, you will sail serenely along with your youthful complexion (although maybe not a youthful waistline!). While other women are smitten by empty nest syndrome and midlife crisis and all those other modern ailments affecting women whose span of motherhood only lasts to age forty, you will still have little ones who need you.
I remember thinking that I would die alone with my chin hair, abandoned by the church, a target for breast cancer (I'd hope to nurse a baby by age 30 to decrease the very high risk I have due to family history).... As if I set out to make this true.
I wish Mary Pride had been there the day I wept and wept before I moved this last time, as I decided to give away the shelves and shelves of homeschooling books and videos that I'd collected for my babies that I never had. But I decided that if God wanted to give me this gift, I could take joy in collecting all these things again, and in the interim, other kids could benefit from these resources. But it broke my heart. I also decided that day to give my wedding dress to the Salvation Army rather than saving it for a daughter I would likely never birth. All these things could be used and appreciated by other people.
I am very happy that I am not tortured like this anymore. I have made peace with where I am and what I have. I'm glad my husband is alive, and though he's still got chronic health problems, he is alive and in a better place, too. I am his ezer (helper), and he is mine now that he's doing better than he was that day I read this awful book. And I wouldn't have it any other way, because it is what it is.
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jeb
Junior Member
Posts: 97
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Post by jeb on Jul 12, 2010 15:20:29 GMT -5
sigaliris said . . . "I was going to say that this "problem" of not achieving an inhuman standard of perfect fulfillment only seems to apply to women. But, on second thought, I think it does affect men, too." Here's a comment about that very thing . . . . www.stufffundieslike.com/2010/07/doing-your-best/Yes Sir or Mam, as the case may be . . . "Get back to work". John
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Post by cindy on Jul 12, 2010 15:33:00 GMT -5
I was at least a third of the way into the book, and I hit a two sentence tirade about how childless women would be going through early menopause and growing mustaches, those who followed Mary would look young and have glowing skin.
OMG, Cindy--I remember that part! I'd be LOL-ing, but it hurts too much to laugh when I imagine you crying because of a silly, off the top of her head comment like that one. Neither Biblical nor scientifically supported--she just pulled it out of her, er, hat. And presto, it worked! Instant self-blame for readers. You mentioned your mother having been "sold a bill of goods" in being told that work would bring her fulfillment. And the patriocentrists have sold women a bill of goods in telling them that unlimited childbearing and wifely submission will always bring fulfillment. Maybe I'm veering off-topic here, but I connected the dots from that to your very astute comment on how they create a problem and then sell us the solution. Could it be that the patriocentrists have keyed into a culture-wide artificially created problem? It seems as if the only "good" woman is a woman who is one hundred percent happy and perfect. All these voices in society compete to tell us that's a HUGE problem, one that should make us ASHAAAAAMED of ourselves, and one that has a perfect solution if only we're willing to pay the price. But seriously, why should anyone think that a job will make a woman perfect and happy? Why should anyone think that not having a job will make her perfect and happy, either? I've done both--worked full-time with three kids, and stayed home with four. And worked from home part-time, as well. All had their pros and cons, and no situation made me perfectly happy, or turned me into a different person without my normal ups and downs. I was going to say that this "problem" of not achieving an inhuman standard of perfect fulfillment only seems to apply to women. But, on second thought, I think it does affect men, too. I'm sure the men who are lower in the hierarchy of patriarchy also feel bad that they can't perfectly rule their little family kingdoms, and wonder why their home business barely keeps them in beans and cloth diapers, while the Vision Forum leaders ape the lifestyles of the antebellum plantation. They too are being sold a bill of goods. However, I do think that women are expected always to be happy and nice and sweet in a way that men aren't. And when we feel miserable, depressed and angry, we are taught to blame ourselves and look for a magical transformation powder rather than seeking practical solutions to change the situation. In any case, I just want to say that my heart aches for you in retrospect. You should have been getting praise and support for your courageous efforts to support your husband while suffering so much pain yourself. Someone should have been there for you--to help and comfort, not to blame and condemn! That would have been the "Christian" thing to do . . . sigh. This reminds me of the Mormon adage to "Stay Sweet." People like women who just smile, keep food on the table, don't make too much of a fuss over things. Don't have problems and be intensely happy. But we all do this all the time. WE do it at Christmas, too, so the suicide rates climb and continue to do so into January when the bills come in. I appreciate your kindness, and I'd have loved for all of you to have been there for me that day. In a way, you all were -- but I just had to wait to catch up to all of you today.
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Post by usotsuki on Jul 12, 2010 16:56:28 GMT -5
"Stay Sweet" ? More like "Stay Stepford", am I right?
*hides*
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Post by nikita on Jul 12, 2010 17:53:12 GMT -5
Technically, it's 'keep sweet'. From the ever-popular 'If I Could Only Get a Woman to Obey and Love Me Cheerfully and Unconditionally Just Like My Dog Does' school of marriage and family living. Of course, to achieve this, you have to train up the little girls right... The thing that really strikes me about the teachings regarding 'training' your wife, 'leading' your wife, making sure your wife is constantly improving and becoming more pleasing 'just as Christ purifies the Church' is that the definition of the faults and things that 'need improving and correcting' are all things that men decide are 'faults'. They mine scriptures for proof that what ever makes their lives easier and well regulated is what they must 'train' their wives to do. The goal seems to be to get women to think and react 'rationally' and less emotionally, less socially, less empathetically...more like their no-nonsense husbands. Women are social = redefine talking to her friends as 'gossip' and 'unproductive'. Women seek to nurture and empathize with others, including their own children = redefine that as 'weakness' and 'lacking discipline'. This is the type of thinking that results in Doug Phillips dismissing a miscarriage as a teaching moment and not something any normal woman would mourn. Mourning a miscarriage is a messy, female emotional reaction and that will never do. Women need to buck up and get on with it. Above all, wives must be constantly 'productive', like good employees. Show up for work (your own home) always attractive, well groomed, ready to work without complaint and smile smile smile... After all, you just want her to be 'perfect in Christ', right? What could be wrong about that?
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Post by rosa on Jul 12, 2010 20:06:25 GMT -5
Nikita, it's also sweeping permission for men (who want to) to focus on the faults of others instead of working on their own personal growth.
I mean, sure, they have ideals to reach for too but it's just one of the things they have to do, along with "discipling" everyone else around them, which if course is way easier emotionally anyway.
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Post by nikita on Jul 12, 2010 21:07:52 GMT -5
Nikita, it's also sweeping permission for men (who want to) to focus on the faults of others instead of working on their own personal growth. I mean, sure, they have ideals to reach for too but it's just one of the things they have to do, along with "discipling" everyone else around them, which if course is way easier emotionally anyway. That is so true. Wouldn't it be great if the wives could follow their husbands to their jobs and give them instant feedback on everything they are doing 'wrong'? "You didn't handle that client right, John. You can do better than that."
"That correspondence isn't going to answer itself. Do you really think you should be going to lunch right now?"
"Tsk tsk tsk. Drop that donut, mister. You know Jesus wants you to lose those five pounds..."
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