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Post by AustinAvery on Feb 25, 2010 14:35:01 GMT -5
Thanks. I missed it. I'll go back and read it.
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Post by dangermom on Feb 25, 2010 15:09:22 GMT -5
I have to agree with Sierra. Being OK with the Pill or just wanting one's parents to stay out of one's personal life when it comes to contraception is not "radical pro-abortion feminism." Nor is it productive to use inflammatory language in order to shut down responses or discussion.
Obviously we need to be gentle on both sides, but I'm not qualified to comment on that.
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Post by cindy on Feb 25, 2010 15:54:02 GMT -5
The process of recovery from patriarchy and all of it's varieties is a pretty complicated one. Everyone comes into it from a different perspective, and everyone heals at a different rate.
I certainly don't agree with everyone on everything, but I am unwilling to change my deeply held convictions, opinions, or even my interests because others want me to, as it will make them feel more secure. But when anyone exits any high demand, high pressure situation that requires conformity, that urge to please and fit in doesn't go away overnight. The urge to control doesn't go away magically either. In patriarchy, you judge whether you are on track through comparison, and your "locus of control" is always outside of yourself. It is in performance and how other people receive you, or perhaps on your circumstances. And then there are years of looking hard at what you adopted as your beliefs, trying to figure out if they are yours, someone else's and what you want to do with them now. That is a great deal to work through.
The trick most of us have to work on when we leave controlling relationships is how we can get comfortable with an "internal locus of control" wherein we are okay in our own skin, regardless of what's going on around us or how we are received (within reason, of course). Learning how to do that, however, is huge! It's a painful journey that requires a lot of work and the development of new maturity. We all do that at different rates. In other words, we are works in progress that came from bad situations, and some of our situations were worse than others. And if we are going through something or just got out of a bad situation with bad dynamics, we are not going to be in stellar shape ourselves. Much of recovery involves the vomiting of the poison we need to get out of our bodies, and sometimes you just need someone to help hold your hair out of the way!
If we are here to recover and help one another recover, we have to learn to not only consider that we are all coming at this from different angles, but we are also likely going to end up different places. I think that's an important thing to consider, even moreso because this blog is not expressly open ended about the final destination, so far as I can tell. We will definitely sharpen one another, but it can be a good proving ground that will help teach us how to have a good internal locus of control and peace if we can give each other a lot of room.
I generally don't end up in the same circles with Charis. We agree on many things and we disagree on some things also. That doesn't diminish me and it certainly doesn't diminish Charis. But if we've been marinating in Patriarchy and these comparison driven environments, maybe even knowing nothing but this way to be, this is going to be tough. Patriarchy encourages women to be passive and never assertive. It takes confidence that must be learned to be assertive, so people often will follow the path of least resistance and be passive. But that almost always results in aggression at some point, because we get pushed beyond our points of tolerance.
For that reason, though it is sometimes a really big struggle for me, I try not to take people's more aggressive comments like this too personally. I don't always do that, but that's my ideal. I also find myself in discussions that I think, in my mind, are all factual or cerebral on my end, but for the other person, they are entirely emotional. So I keep plugging along, as if things were totally cerebral, sometimes failing to realize that for the other party, they are deeply emotional. For this I've been called a bully on other forums because I state my often unpopular opinions, but I am pressed to change them or temper them because others feel uncomfortable. But then, if I am contending for a particular idea, I'm usually operating, in that matter, from an internal locus of control. But it helps me to stop and consider that other people are coming at this stuff from very different vantages. They also may have more resources than I do or fewer resources with which to cope with all of this. That's often a hard thing for me to get.
That said, from my experience on forums with Charis, and from our limited contact via email, she's traversed a lot, and it is very different from what I've gone through. Sometimes, I don't even know where to start to comprehend her perspective. But I've seen her react this way before, and I'm saddened by it. When you're sore, a poke, though it is not intended to cause hurt, can hurt deeply, so our reactions seem very grand by comparison. I believe that this is what I've seen in Charis.
So though it's not smart to poke the bear, I can give Charis lots of charis (grace) because I see some of her comments as her trying to work her way through the mire and the drag that pulls at her as best she can. I think we are both headed in the same direction, but we all need to work more on our methods. I could be entirely wrong, as I see this as more of a sign of internal pain than as some kind of malice.
However, It is uncharitable to say that this board is pro abortion in any way. I have read more of Vyckie's account (and Laura's) than everyone else, and I get the strong impression that she is very pro-life, backing it up with her life, even before she was a Christian if I am not mistaken. And a perfect opportunity to demonstrate a pro-abortion stance could have come through that ever so disturbing Pole Dancer's Creed discussion in terms of the procreation issue of #3. But there was nothing like that, and it certainly would have been apparent in that discussion. It was markedly absent in that venue.
Oral contraceptives may not be quiverfull or very ultra conservative, but they are not on all counts abortifacient. Some of them are (an ethical problem if they do not prevent ovulation per the research) and many of them are not abortifacient because they inhibit ovulation almost entirely. If physiologists, gynecologists, and fertility specialists accept that the sexually active woman who does not get pregnant while using no contraception say that this results in conception (fertilized ovum) 4-5 times annually, then all women are guilty, moreso than the woman who takes the pill.
That's not a pro-abortion position. To say so is pejorative.
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Post by cindy on Feb 25, 2010 16:19:33 GMT -5
Correction/clarification of something poorly written above:
I have read more of Vyckies account and of Laura's account than I have read of the other accounts written by other contributors on NLQ. Far more people have read more of her account and likely with greater attention than I have.
>>>>
Another element of this concerns what constitutes essential and non-essential doctrine in Protestant Christianity. This has been an issue between Catholics and Protestants to some extent, but now it takes place within the ranks of the Protestant Faith.
Matters of reproduction are not considered, or did not used to be considered essential facts and doctrines related to salvation --knowing who God is and something involved in becoming a follower of Christ through spiritual rebirth. It was seen as a peripheral discussion, certainly with importance, but not central to saving faith. It used to be an intramural doctrine about which people used to be able to agree to disagree. But patriarchy has expanded what is considered essential doctrine to include these non-essentials and things open to debate because they are inconclusive. In their hubris, they assume that they are sure about things that are less clear in Scripture, and then they teach it to people in their churches as immutable truth. Shame on them. This is what the Pharisees did when Jesus told them that they made the legal requirements so stringent that they closed up heaven for everyone else (Matt 23).
For people like Charis, I see them arguing what they've been taught to argue and what they trust. And sometimes people who argue what these declared and sometimes errant experts have taught them expect that others follow their own convictions which might be different than the convictions of someone else. Paul said that this was a matter of meat sacrificed to idols in Romans 14. If you thought it was wrong to buy the cheaper meat that had been used in a pagan rite, then it was your choice to pay more for the other meat that had not been used this way. That is a good thing and shows conscience and conviction. But if you had no such conviction that such a thing was wrong and if you felt more convicted about the frugality or that you didn't want pagan nonsense to have any bearing on you by altering your course to show it that much deference, then you could buy and eat that meat with liberty.
So we definitely have to follow our own conscience. We do not get a pass on that. And it's great to state your case about such things. But unless we are talking about central saving essential matters related to salvation, we are to bless those who have other convictions and show them liberty.
But patriarchy is all about demanding that everybody follow the conscience of the king or the cult or the consensus of the group. They are not about balance of power and respect, they are about seizing it, or manipulating you with guilt and other pressure to twist you to hand it over so that they don't have to seize it in their hegemony.
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Post by coleslaw on Feb 25, 2010 16:24:47 GMT -5
I'm not sure that charis intended to do that. Her comments about her daughters' use of birth control came in the context of someone saying she hoped that charis didn't try to discourage her daughters from entering male dominated professions just because charis' own experience was bad, and charis was responding by pointing out that her influence over her daughters was limited, giving the BC issue as an example. At least, that was my take on it, which could be wrong, too. I don't think that charis meant to say "hormonal birth control is wrong because it's abortion, ick" so much as she meant to say, "don't worry about my daughters, because even on a subject on which I feel more strongly than I ever did about women's job choices, they went their own way."
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Post by margybargy on Feb 25, 2010 16:53:00 GMT -5
I have to agree with Sierra. Being OK with the Pill or just wanting one's parents to stay out of one's personal life when it comes to contraception is not "radical pro-abortion feminism." Nor is it productive to use inflammatory language in order to shut down responses or discussion. Exactly. Using the pill is pretty mainstream. I don't think the millions of women who use the pill consider themselves "radical pro-abortion feminists". They're just trying to be responsible and not have kids they can't manage. I would think that opposing the pill is on the extreme end of the "pro-life" spectrum. Presumably, most women who consider themselves "pro-life" have used the pill at one time or another. They'd probably be pretty shocked to learn they were "pro-abortion". Obviously we need to be gentle on both sides, but I'm not qualified to comment on that. Agree. Perhaps when a person has come out of an environment where everyone marches in lockstep, differing opinions come as a bit of a shock. They're not used to being questioned or challenged. They're not used to questioning or challenging others. Maybe they don't know where the boundaries are? I grew up in a family of arguers and debaters. Growing up, it gave me a headache. Nowadays, I'm grateful for it. ETA: Maybe I don't know where the boundaries are either 'cuz in my family controversy was a sport.
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Post by rosa on Feb 25, 2010 17:09:21 GMT -5
I think a lot of us are being more gentle here than we are in other places.
And for me personally, since it was so much work to get comfortable with conflict, it's an effort. I know I fail at it sometimes.
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Post by ambrosia on Feb 26, 2010 1:50:39 GMT -5
I grew up in a family of arguers and debaters. Growing up, it gave me a headache. Nowadays, I'm grateful for it. ETA: Maybe I don't know where the boundaries are either 'cuz in my family controversy was a sport. Me too. And then did a lot of philosophy in university. I really edit some of my posts to make sure I'm not too confrontational, but with years of practice "going for the jugular" I don't always succeed. ;D
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Post by rosiegirl on Feb 26, 2010 3:33:29 GMT -5
Sierra, I understand you completely. Completely. However, I am in a challenging mood today, and I'd really like to know what all these pro-lifers on here have to say about this article, in which it says abortion is biblical. And I do completely agree with this article. I was not around for the "abortion" topic in August, so I wasnt able to present this. www.elroy.net/ehr/abortion.htmlAnd really, the posts in here about "microaborting my grandchildren" (do you hold funerals for them?) made me squick and blanch to think that someone actually thinks they have such sway in their children's lives in which to influence their sex lives. I find it ridiculously selfish and self serving.
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Post by cindy on Feb 26, 2010 11:07:18 GMT -5
Sierra, I understand you completely. Completely. However, I am in a challenging mood today, and I'd really like to know what all these pro-lifers on here have to say about this article, in which it says abortion is biblical. And I do completely agree with this article. I was not around for the "abortion" topic in August, so I wasnt able to present this. www.elroy.net/ehr/abortion.htmlAnd really, the posts in here about "microaborting my grandchildren" (do you hold funerals for them?) made me squick and blanch to think that someone actually thinks they have such sway in their children's lives in which to influence their sex lives. I find it ridiculously selfish and self serving. Unless I'm on a break, I probably won't be back here for a few days, so this might seem like a cowardly "hit and run." But if anyone wants to hang in there and wait, I'll follow up in about a week. But I wanted to address this. First, I agree about the question of whether one has funerals for their microaborted babies. Maybe they will start. I wouldn't be surprised if people start having an annual vigil service. In a reaction to a cavalier attitude toward life and the good ethics of the abortion issue, rather than present a good case, some of the pro-life people go overboard. I think that in the process and over time, not all but some have turned anything birth and conception and sex related into a sacrament, as if it imparted some spiritual substance in addition to the blessings that come as a result of the experience itself. I think that they've turned it into a sacrament, including gender, and it just continues to mushroom. And since groups like this need to keep people engaged and a little off balance, they always come up with new twists. So they very well might. Some people are all into their placentas and photograph them. Maybe we should start burying our soiled sanitary napkins in the earth, too. I've heard of a woman in these circles who sits on the ground in the yard when she menstruates for some greater ideological purpose related to all this. Hey, it's America. Knock yourself out. So I would not be surprised if they include that in prayer vigils and days of mourning for abortion or if they started a day of weeping for people who use contraceptives. (I guess I'm not observing the moratorium.) But again, I would rather see this accountability directed toward the leaders of the movement, though it is good to ask the question of all who follow it. I have more understanding for people who have taken up these positions in earnest than I do for the people who make the original argument. It's the guy who writes this stuff in books that other people buy that I'd like to direct the most frustration. But I've been one of those people who bought the book in the past, then defended someone else's argument at all costs. BTDT. (I tend to be more empathetic when these kinds of things come up, because I think people are parroting what they've been taught.) Concerning the article you linked to, I quickly noted that I do not share this author's approach to Scripture by way of hermeneutics. He definitely is not following an historical grammatical hermeneutic, so the significance of the meaning and how it applies to life will be different than the way I attribute it. And I am hard on people in my own camp on this note, and I've knocked heads with plenty of people online in the past before I understood that our hermeneutics were very different. So I don't share many of the conclusions that this author presents, because my approach to the foundational text is very different than his. If I shared his approach, I might find value in his work, but I do not remotely. So, within his own framework, this may be fine work, but I cannot identify with how he frames out his belief system well enough to even connect with his conclusions. If I had the opportunity to talk with him directly, I could learn more about where he is coming from and disagree agreeably. If I didn't already have a very well-developed and well-considered belief system of which hermeneutics has been a part (taught to me as it relates to my unrelated profession, actually), I might be more sympathetic to what he has to say. But I'm not persuaded by this at all for that reason because I don't share his basic assumptions.
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Post by cindy on Feb 26, 2010 11:12:15 GMT -5
I grew up in a family of arguers and debaters. Growing up, it gave me a headache. Nowadays, I'm grateful for it. ETA: Maybe I don't know where the boundaries are either 'cuz in my family controversy was a sport. Me too. And then did a lot of philosophy in university. I really edit some of my posts to make sure I'm not too confrontational, but with years of practice "going for the jugular" I don't always succeed. ;D Ambrosia, I like your confrontations, and they sharpen me. With me, I think you're doing great. But it seems that for me, this is always an ongoing learning process. I appreciate your approach. I feel respected and that engenders trust.
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Post by AustinAvery on Feb 26, 2010 11:45:49 GMT -5
Me too. And then did a lot of philosophy in university. I really edit some of my posts to make sure I'm not too confrontational, but with years of practice "going for the jugular" I don't always succeed. ;D Ambrosia, I like your confrontations, and they sharpen me. With me, I think you're doing great. But it seems that for me, this is always an ongoing learning process. I appreciate your approach. I feel respected and that engenders trust. Me three! It was not until I was out of college that I realized lots of people don't think that arguing is fun recreation. It was eye opening, in fact, to learn that many people found my style to be down right rude. But I have to credit Sea with giving me some insight here. Whatever else she actually meant, I read one of her posts to say that on this board, one's first reaction needs to be stepping into the shoes of the other and responding with emotional understanding. After that, engaging intellectually in debate, perhaps with a gentle overtone, is fine.
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aimai
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Posts: 172
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Post by aimai on Feb 26, 2010 12:43:11 GMT -5
In Recovery seems to mean a ton of misdirected anger.
I went over and read Charis's post on how "pro-aborts" are the same as hard line evangelical quiverful men. I've always really liked Charis but that thread reminded me that people coming out of any kind of abusive, addictive, situation can very rapidly become kind of "dry drunk" on a new kind of rage and judgmentalism.
Let me throw something out there for all of you. Its pretty clear from looking at the life histories some QF women offer that QF and the cycle of multi birth/submissive behavior was very often something chosen by the woman to stave off feelings of worthlessness, anguish, guilt and fear over the dangers of the world, family life (family life without god), control over children, control over finances. I'm saying this because the idea that the perfect, godly, family would magically overcome poverty (or caring about wealth), loneliness, disease, death, hell etc... seems to have been at the root of much of the submissive behavior, and the insistence that the children (and especially the girls) go along with the "family plan" for salvation.
Those feelings: of fear, anguish, worthlessness don't go away when the contradictions between the "godly life" and the real life people are living get to be too great. When one more baby doesn't magically make your husband a selfless, christ like, leader. Or when the children hit adolescence and start having their own opinions about the family plan.
What I truly admire in Vyckie's life is her willingness to open her eyes, see the harm her personal choices were wreaking on her children, and to move on--unencumbered by the need to justify herself or excuse herself or valorize that past Vyckie and, apparently, unwilling to demonize her children further for not wanting what the old Vyckie wanted. Its not to be expected that that kind of free thinking and daring is to be seen in every woman leaving QF. Charis, apparently, is going to have to go through a stage of blaming everyone but herself for her choices and the havoc they have wreaked on her family.
I'm not trying to attack Charis, I'm just seeing in her story some very important tropes in the struggle between women as abused wives/mothers and women as abusive *as* mothers. As we know from Lydia's story, and the Milgram experiement, we all have in us the ability to be both and the strongly patriarchal/authoritarian family really puts women in the position of being both all the time. As wives and mothers they are subordinate to the male hierarchy--but as mothers and potential senior women in a tight family they have their first chance at domination and control. That can be an irresistable lure to women who have given up a lot of control and power to submit to the patriarchy in the first place.
I see Charis's posts here, and the one where she withdrew into safe territory to excoriate her blog friends as "pro aborts" as a kind of lashing out at everyone else for failing to come to Charis's rescue and protect her from the choices she was making. What is absent is recognition that she made those choices and if they didn't work out for her she has to take some responsibility for them. WEll--she doesn't have to, but the authoritarian family structur e and mindset she chose were clearly addictive and any 12 step program would argue that she has to take responsibility for her actions before she can start to break her addiction.
Why do I say she is shifting responsibility to everyone else but herself? First it was the feminists who failed to "let her have it all," and who failed to order her to stay in a woman dominated profession where (she thinks) she might have had an easier work/family balance. Of course, feminism explicitly took on the task of fighting for that very work life balance. Before Feminism women teachers were forced to resign as soon as they became pregnant. ETc...etc...etc... Before title 9 there was no money for women athletes.
Then it is the "pro aborts" on the board who are "driving QF women away." Nonsense. Being pro birth control is not being pro abortion. That's an out and out absurdity, as lots of other posters have demonstrated and as the science demonstrates. QF women who have had a lot of periods, or outright miscarriages, ought to be very leery of arguing that every missed pregnancy is a form of "micro-abortion." Charis doesn't speak for all QF women, in recovery or out of it.
But the point of Charis's observations on her own blog isn't to argue the point logically. It is to retreat into a sphere where she can control the discussion and where she feels safe. Where she can represent herself as "at the midpoint" between two extremes. Its angry, and its ugly, and its a bit dishonest, really--she came back here because she didn't feel safe on her home blog because of the ways in which *her privacy* and *her boundaries* were not respected by members of her own family and social circle. So she moves her thoughts and discussions "off site" to a more congenial company of women and then finds that they are not so congenial, that they challenge her a bit, and she retreats back to her home territory to slag them? Maybe that's a place she has to be, for a while before acknowledging that she, too, has been a boundary violator, an abuser of privacy, sex and reproduction obsessed with respect to her children and potential grandchildren? Because that's the absurd truth that is covered up by her accusations that the board is full of "pro aborts"--ridiculous term. The board is full of *other women* with children and without, with different life experiences and, frankly, better developed moral codes than hers. If she doesn't feel comfortable with them, talking about big issues, so be it. But this drawing back of her skirts in horror and this pearl clutching act about birth control? Grow up. Everyone in this country doesn't share your narrow morality and your conflicted feelings about sex, reproduction, babies, and god. That doesn't make us amoral, or immoral--it makes us people who believe things that are different from you. aimai
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Post by km on Feb 26, 2010 13:19:31 GMT -5
I would also add that "pro-abortion" is a ridiculous term. While I avoid getting involved in abortion discussions here, I would note that the pro-choice people that I know do not feel giddy and gleeful about the reality of abortion. Everyone knows it's a fraught, complex, difficult, and emotional issue.
Normally, I recognize that this is true of both sides, and I do "pro-lifers" the courtesy of naming them with the term that the movement has designated. But perhaps the only response to being called a "pro-abort" baby killer is to respond in kind with "pro-forced birthers."
I could probably outdo Charis at coming up with inflammatory hyperbolic names, and though it would be fun, I will avoid the temptation.
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Post by km on Feb 26, 2010 13:27:09 GMT -5
aimai: I agree pretty strongly with most of the content of your post, though I would like to say that I am personally a little ill at ease with some of the armchair psych I see in what you've written. If I were feeling alienated from the forum, I think I would probably find an analysis of my state of mind and emotions even more alienating and offensive, fwiw. In particular, I would find your assertions about the reasons women gravitate to QF offensive (i.e., "low self-esteem," etc.). I understand what you're saying, and for the most part, you do take specific evidence from Charis's own posts to back up your arguments.
I am not defending what Charis has said by any means, and I overwhelmingly disagree with the content of it on this thread and at her blog. That said, I find that the armchair psych approach feels a little condescending. It may just be me, and of course, I realize that this isn't your intent. But I did want to voice my discomfort with it.
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Post by km on Feb 26, 2010 13:33:54 GMT -5
]Then it is the "pro aborts" on the board who are "driving QF women away." Nonsense. Being pro birth control is not being pro abortion. That's an out and out absurdity, as lots of other posters have demonstrated and as the science demonstrates. QF women who have had a lot of periods, or outright miscarriages, ought to be very leery of arguing that every missed pregnancy is a form of "micro-abortion." Charis doesn't speak for all QF women, in recovery or out of it. I also wanted to speak directly to this bit about "driving QF women away." I've never seen anyone make a concerted effort to drive anyone out of here, but I would say that... The name of the place is "No Longer Quivering." It exists to support ex-QF people. That means that current QFers are going to get offended when the come in and see criticisms of QF ideology. It also means that ex-QFers may often feel triggered and offended when they see QF catch phrases (such as "birth control as abortifacient") in a place like this. I think this is perfectly understandable. And I don't really understand why anyone was offended by anything that Sierra and others have said.
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Post by Sierra on Feb 26, 2010 13:45:11 GMT -5
I am not defending what Charis has said by any means, and I overwhelmingly disagree with the content of it on this thread and at her blog. That said, I find that the armchair psych approach feels a little condescending. It may just be me, and of course, I realize that this isn't your intent. But I did want to voice my discomfort with it. KM, I disagree - I saw aimai's post as an effort to get the rest of us into charis' headspace and remind us that there are stages and exceptions to the process of leaving. If charis wants to come back and tell her she's got it all wrong, she has that power. But I appreciate aimai's insight into the way charis' behaviour reflects the experiences of many QF/newly-ex-QF women.
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Post by sargassosea on Feb 26, 2010 13:56:15 GMT -5
Falling on my sword here to say that I feel a bit like I'm the one who 'poked the hornet's nest' on this one, but you know, I calls 'em as I sees 'em... In a comment I left this morning on Charis' blog (but which she has apparently decided to kill in moderation) I tried, in part, to clarify my *shakes head* comment. I said that I did not mean to chastize her but to convey how confused and sad I was that she reacted to NLQ Daughters' pain with what boils down to as demeaning insults and gross misrepresentations of NLQ as a whole. I mean that's just. not. cool. Anyway, I agree with Aimai (with or without armchair! ) that Charis (Beloved Desciple) does, I think, come here because we are an intelligent, caring, learning-from-each-other, diverse group of women* and she obviously is finding something here just as the rest of us are. She's not the only one who's had to face some truths about herself around here - and it's hard work, too! So Charis - we'll still be here when you feel like it's time to come back *that's for AA and JEB - I haven't decided about jwr yet
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aimai
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Post by aimai on Feb 26, 2010 15:58:10 GMT -5
km,
I take your point about "armchair psych" but I think you are wrong in accusing me of accusing women in the QF movement of having "low self esteem." There's a difference between talking about women's conversion narratives and asserting that I believe that they share certain emotional or psychological traits.
I certain argued that there are very frequent tropes in QF stories of conversion and enlightenment that include testimony about feelings of worthlessness, anguish, fear of the secular world, fear of sexuality etc... Those aren't even just typical of women's stories, btw, they are also typical of christian conversion/epiphany stories generally. "I was lost, now am found" isn't a true statement of fact or feeling, its culturally nested. Its religiously necessary. I don't think those are evidence of "low self esteem" or signs that the person who feels that way should feel badly about themselves. I just note, on the record, that stories of such feelings are very common in explanations that women give for why they enter into QF--among other minority/extreme secular rejectionist religious communities. The other story is, of course, rejection of worldly success/beauty/pleasure/joy/arrogance/education. I don't remember so many of those stories but I'm sure they exist as well.
And thanks to the others for taking my post in the spirit with which it was offered. Although I've clearly missed a lot of back and forth with Charis and the board I remember her original story of her experiences, and her many earlier contributions fondly.
aimai
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Post by margybargy on Feb 26, 2010 18:26:45 GMT -5
I hope charis/beloved disciple comes back. That's not very realistic, is it?
Sometimes people need to let new ideas marinate for awhile.
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Post by krwordgazer on Feb 26, 2010 18:39:05 GMT -5
I've been sick and missed a lot of this discussion, and I didn't go and read Charis' blog-- but I wanted to say one thing about her initial statements.
I know a lot of people disagreed with her that her daughters' use of certain oral contraceptives amounted to "microabortions" of her "grandchildren." I disagree myself-- but here's the thing. I didn't hear her say she had said anything like this to her daughters-- she said it here, to us. It appeared to me to reflect, not an impulse to control, but a simple statement of her beliefs. Charis honestly does believe that life begins at conception, not implantation, and that any method of birth control which prevents implantation causes the end of a life. Stepping back from this and looking at it objectively, I don't see that her statement of this belief was, in and of itself, manipulative or controlling of anyone. The way she expressed it seemed ill-advised to me, but it's a position she's entitled to hold. Also, if she does believe that a fertilized egg is a human life, it is a logical step from there to believing that fertilized eggs of her daughters are her "grandchildren." Does that mean she has necessarily attempted to use this kind of language to control her daughters' choices? I didn't see anything in what she said that would lead me to that conclusion.
I will admit that to many women here, who (very understandably) react negatively to anyone's assertion of these sorts of terms as reminiscent of patriarchalist control, these statements came across as inflammatory. But I don't think they were meant to be. I think Charis felt that she was stating her own beliefs and perspective-- and that we assumed she had used it to inflict guilt on her daughters and was attempting to push her own views on us. Under the circumstances, it would have been much better if she had qualified her words with "for me," or some other such qualifier. But this is a common error that people make on message boards-- asserting their opinion without qualifiers that let the reader off the hook for having to agree.
In any event, though I don't agree that OC is "microabortion," I can see how Charis might have felt attacked simply for stating her point of view. This has been followed by various analyses of where she might be coming from, which guess at possible motives that she has not admitted to having. Oftentimes this can come across as condescending, to the subject of such analyses.
I have said all of this without going to read what Charis posted on her own blog, because I didn't want that to color what I saw as happening here. If she has responded in anger and defensiveness, I can't find myself blaming her-- though I did think her initial comments were insensitive (probably inadvertently), to the natural affect they'd have on readers in this forum.
FWIW.
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Post by jemand on Feb 26, 2010 20:11:41 GMT -5
KR, she has definitely said such things to her daughters. Her post was
note, they all lectured her thoroughly-- it implies that she has repeatedly brought this up with them, and her focus is on the relationship to HER all the time, HER grandchildren. It's possessive language, and charis has had a history of possessive language and a complete lack of boundaries when discussing her daughters.
And also, given that the thread has branched off into discussing the huge harms that were inflicted on quiverful daughters through innocent intentions, your continued focus on explaining away her reasoning is--- frustrating to me. I think we all KNOW she "didn't mean to."
That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, and it certainly doesn't invalidate a critique of it. When I or sierra critique an attitude that is harmful to us, it really isn't very nice to say, oh, you just don't understand the motivation well enough, I will explain it to you. You don't know where she's coming from. Etc. What about where WE are coming from? Sierra was forced to validate herself through relating extreme pain. Is it because we AREN'T reactionary or inflammatory or go hide in our little corners that people think we can be offended more because we'll just "take it?"
The bias on this forum is still very much in favor of the person who doesn't point out where something is wrong-- to make things still look good, to focus on intentions rather than actual results. I really don't like that, when someone says, this language is bad and it hurts and your view is seriously violation the boundaries of daughters, that the automatic reaction of SO MANY people is just to double back onto the motivation of the mother. Whatever, that's a DIFFERENT conversation. Can we just talk about results here? Try to actually allow a large fracture of opinion, without reflexively trying to "peacemake" like women in fundamentalism are taught to do all the time?
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Post by km on Feb 26, 2010 20:21:34 GMT -5
krwordgazer: A lot of what you're saying makes sense to me, and I'm especially sympathetic to what you're saying as to speculation about Charis's state of mind. However, I also want to note what she has said at her own blog (She has, in fact, tried to influence her daughters in this way):
"Actually, the issue that got me excoriated on NLQ THIS time was the fact that one of the mechanisms of hormonal methods of BC is that they cause micro-abortions of fertiliized eggs and one Christmas when they were both there, I tried to dissuade my married daughter and DIL from using them. They did not want to hear it and lectured me about it (both are in PA school), and it grieved me because it is an issue I care deeply about. I never used hormonal birth control, ever- even before we were QF- because of its abortifacient properties. There are effective barrier methods of BC.
I used to believe that all aborted babies went to hell. Now I think they all go to heaven, so maybe I’ll have lots of grandchildren there who were conceived, but never born, never felt pain, and got to go right to heaven. That is not such a bad thing. I can live with that."
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Post by km on Feb 26, 2010 20:22:57 GMT -5
The bias on this forum is still very much in favor of the person who doesn't point out where something is wrong-- to make things still look good, to focus on intentions rather than actual results. I really don't like that, when someone says, this language is bad and it hurts and your view is seriously violation the boundaries of daughters, that the automatic reaction of SO MANY people is just to double back onto the motivation of the mother. Whatever, that's a DIFFERENT conversation. Can we just talk about results here? Try to actually allow a large fracture of opinion, without reflexively trying to "peacemake" like women in fundamentalism are taught to do all the time? Yes, I do agree with this.
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Post by arietty on Feb 26, 2010 21:28:14 GMT -5
This is what I posted on Charis's blog, I have no idea if she will approve it. I was going to write something bigger but there are a lot of well thought out comments in this thread here so I don't think it's necessary.
***
Hi Charis. As an ex-QF, christian, pro-life, long time poster on NLQ I am quite hurt by your post here. On a personal level I have replied to quite a few of your posts there in a spirit of agreement, including on the topic of abortion. You have never responded to me, choosing instead to keep looking for a battle with those whose opinions differ from yours. I have had to conclude that you are not looking for kindred souls there but looking for people to be angry with.
I see that even after Journey replied to you that she was not saying you would “process” into being pro-choice you still repeat this as though you were told on NLQ that this is what was expected. This has been my experience trying to talk with you there which has led me to conclude you are there to do battle rather than find common ground. Even in the thread you post about above I wrote a long and supportive post to you but you ignored it in order to keep arguing with others.
Your suggestion of dividing NLQ into sections based on being mothers, daughters, atheists really misses the point of the forum. Most everyone there has been abused by patriarchal and twisted interpretations of the bible, *that is our common ground*. For the most part we really do get along well and learn from each other. It’s healthy to accept that people will come to different places in their life after leaving religious abuse behind. Unlike what the abusive systems teach us we are not all aiming to be exactly the same.
I hope you know you are always welcome back.
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