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Post by musicmom on Apr 4, 2010 14:21:21 GMT -5
The only good thing I can say about that blog is that she is so far into it that she comes off sounding pretty wacko. It's even possible that many QF women who read it will perceive the nutiness of it since it is so blatantly stated.
The more I think about it, the more I sense that having these expectations (that God will bless and take care of me as a wife and woman if I follow traditional rules) stem from the fear of being a woman and all that it entails. Recently, I have dealt with a lot of anger in myself for all the things I have to put up with as a woman that I never noticed when I was QF. Things like: men leering at me, worrying about what I wear and whether men will think I want attention, my ex-husband getting off scot free with society's approval and I have total responsibility for 8 kids because, well, I'm a woman and he's man, of course!
Not that I really would want him to have access to them, but I almost never sense any society disapproval that he's basically abandoned them. Now, if I did that, I'd be satan incarnate.
Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've recently had to come to terms with the fact that it's scary and hard to be a woman. We really don't have an equal chance and we have to put up with a lot of crap that men don't. Yes, things are better than they used to be and better than in some countries (worse than in others), but there is a long, long uphill climb to real equality and I was not ready to face that.
I think there was in me, some kind of resistance to realizing this because it is so depressing and scary. So, instead, I rebelled against this knowledge by thinking that if I just EMBRACED traditional womanhood, all would be well. It wasn't being a woman that was problematic - it was rebelling against being a woman! I really thought I had the problem solved, when really I had just forfeited the whole issue, not having had the heart or courage to fight.
Anyone else think that they might have been running from the unpleasant reality that, in many ways, it sucks to be woman and there's not much we can do about it?
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Post by kisekileia on Apr 4, 2010 18:25:27 GMT -5
Interesting how the husband here gets all of the authority and none of the responsibility. He's babied in terms of having his messes cleaned up and the like, but otherwise treated as a god in his own home.
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Post by setfree on Apr 4, 2010 20:47:25 GMT -5
Yes, I agree - the husband is coddled and infantilised, (prevented from anything that could lead to genuine spiritual maturity, such as selflessness, servanthood, submission, surrender or sacrifice - at least as it pertains to his relationship with his wife and the sharing of the domestic load) but at the same time he is put on a pedestal and looked to as the Leader who can do no wrong. The wife gets all the work and all the responsibility and the husband gets all the kudos and status and privilege. This is really insightful: Yes, things are better than they used to be and better than in some countries (worse than in others), but there is a long, long uphill climb to real equality and I was not ready to face that.
I think there was in me, some kind of resistance to realizing this because it is so depressing and scary. So, instead, I rebelled against this knowledge by thinking that if I just EMBRACED traditional womanhood, all would be well. It wasn't being a woman that was problematic - it was rebelling against being a woman! I really thought I had the problem solved, when really I had just forfeited the whole issue, not having had the heart or courage to fight. Isn't the religious spin something? The books make out that you are being this courageous radical by embracing "God's" role for women. But I have sensed that fear before in women who cling to the hierarchical doctrine. As well as this that MusicMom put her finger on, there's also the fear of rebuke and rejection, of being disapproved of and censured, like what happened to That Woman. Oh, the shame! Oh how terrible to cast out into the 'outer darkness' ... if you just be a Good Girl and fulfill your role, you can at least have the assurance of being Acceptable and Approved Of. Even if you have to quench your soul and keep your Wild Woman captive to earn that. I never thought of this aspect, that the traditional subordination could be a kind of refuge for women wanting to live in denial about the wide-spread misogyny throughout society and the world. It reminds me of Stockholm Syndrome: "If I just be a very good, compliant, righteous girl, my captors won't hurt me too badly, will they? Surely it's really for my good and they know best ..." (As a doula, I see this dynamic in obstetric hospitals too. I think it is a typically feminine survival tactic.) It's just that if you are doing this, it would seem to imply that your soul is regarding you as a captive, even if your (programmed/brainwashed) head is not.
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Post by journey on Apr 4, 2010 21:08:57 GMT -5
I never thought of this aspect, that the traditional subordination could be a kind of refuge for women wanting to live in denial about the wide-spread misogyny throughout society and the world. It reminds me of Stockholm Syndrome: "If I just be a very good, compliant, righteous girl, my captors won't hurt me too badly, will they? Surely it's really for my good and they know best ..." (As a doula, I see this dynamic in obstetric hospitals too. I think it is a typically feminine survival tactic.) Really insightful musings here. I think that it's a lot easier to just comply than it is to stick your neck out and say no. Plan B can result in the loss of your head. Plan A, of course, results in the same thing, only it's a lot slower process and is much easier to hide. I know that compliance, for me, ensured safety on a number of different fronts. Safety, in that my conservative Christian crowd would smile on me. Safety, in that my immediate intimate relationship (my husband) would not be angry or upset. Safety, in that the God who loved order and perfection and hierarchy (or so I was taught) would be pleased and would not consign me to hell. There were a number of different things like the above that made compliance with female subordination a seemingly positive choice. As with most defense mechanisms, however, they can sure come back to bite you in the end.
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Post by dangermom on Apr 4, 2010 22:03:29 GMT -5
That's quite interesting. So you think the very conservative folks' strong interest in male protection of female vulnerability ties back to that? I think you have something there--the women are maybe thinking that since the world is so dangerous, the best way to survive and be safe is to encourage that paradigm? Goodness, that's pretty biological at bottom. The other day I was in the bookstore and happened to see this book: Karen Kingsbury's The Princess and the Three Knights. I was pretty horrified at the story, I have to say. I thought it was quite odd the way she took a common story about avoiding sin and turned it into a story about how love = male protection of fragile woman. As a folk tale, it doesn't work too well, but then that probably wasn't her goal.
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Post by passionfruit on Apr 5, 2010 1:14:14 GMT -5
No. No. No? Is she for real? I think she is. So basically it seemed to me that she wants to be a machine.
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Post by justflyingin on Apr 5, 2010 1:43:16 GMT -5
No. No. No? Is she for real? Agree, 100%. The referenced post is rather unbelievable. Wow.
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Post by setfree on Apr 5, 2010 6:34:41 GMT -5
I emailed it to my husband. He was pretty horrified.
Then he said, if you exchanged all the hes and shes and hims and hers, what would it look like?
It's an interesting exercise. If these were instructions to a MAN, it would be like some of the extreme doctrines we've seen in Communist totalitarian regimes (we were missionaries). If it were a man being given all these instructions, there's a twisting in your gut as you think in horror of how this poor man is going to be totally emasculated and oppressed and reduced.
Somehow it's strangely less shocking when it's directed towards women, we are more accepting of the total domination of women, and of the concept of women 'pouring themselves out' or emptying themselves' or 'throwing themselves into' or 'losing themselves' in a role.
Just changing the hes and shes around puts it in a whole new light.
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Post by sargassosea on Apr 5, 2010 7:57:48 GMT -5
Kiery – Thanks so much for this series – you have such an insightful point of view that goes a long way towards furthering the understanding of the oppressiveness of QF/P on women. Again, thank you! I really don’t want to derail here, but I took the time to copy the rather lengthy (sorry – this author cannot be *excerpt-ized* without losing her entire meaning) passage which follows from Andrea Dworkin’s Right Wing Women (1983, pp. 21-23) because it addresses Musicmom’s excellent musings on fear and safety so perfectly: “The political Right in the United States today [1979] makes certain metaphysical and material promises to women that both exploit and quiet women’s deepest fears. These fears originate in the perception that male violence against women is uncontrollable and unpredictable. Dependent on and subservient to men, women are always subject to this violence. The Right promises to put enforceable restraints on male aggression, thus simplifying survival for women – to make the world slightly more inhabitable, in other words – by offering the following:
Form. Women experience the world as mystery. Kept ignorant of technology, economics, most of the practical skills required to function autonomously, kept ignorant of the real social and sexual demands made on women, deprived of physical strength, excluded from forums for the development of intellectual acuity and public self-confidence, women are lost and mystified by the savage momentum of an ordinary life. Sounds, signs, promises, threats, wildly crisscross, but what do they mean? The Right offers women a simple, fixed, predetermined social, biological, and sexual order. Form conquers chaos. Form banishes confusion. Form gives ignorance a shape, makes it look like something instead of nothing.
Shelter. Women are brought up to maintain a husband’s home and to believe that women without men are homeless. Women have a deep fear of being homeless – at the mercy of the elements and of strange men. The Right claims to protect the home and the woman’s place in it.
Safety. For women, the world is a very dangerous place. One wrong move, even an unintentional smile, can bring disaster – assault, shame, disgrace. The Right acknowledges the reality of danger, the validity of fear. The Right then manipulates the fear. The promise is that if a woman is obedient, harm will not befall her.
Rules. Living in the world she has not made and does not understand, a woman needs rules to know what to do next. If she knows what she is supposed to do, she can find a way to do it. If she learns the rules by rote, she can perform with apparent effortlessness, which will considerably enhance her chances for survival. The Right, very considerately, tells women the rules of the game on which their lives depend. The Right also promises that, despite their absolute sovereignty, men too will follow specified rules.
Love. Love is always crucial in affecting the allegiance of women. The Right offers women a concept of love based on order and stability, with formal areas of mutual accountability. A woman is loved for fulfilling her female functions: obedience is an expression of love and so are sexual submission and childbearing. In return, the man is supposed to be responsible for the material and emotional well being of the woman. And, increasingly, to redeem the cruel inadequacies of mortal men, the Right offers women the love of Jesus, beautiful brother, tender lover, compassionate friend, perfect healer of sorrow and resentment, the one male to whom one can submit absolutely – to be Woman as it were – without being sexually violated or psychologically abused.”
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Post by margybargy on Apr 5, 2010 9:21:07 GMT -5
Again you ladies have opened my eyes. I'm still processing all that I've read, but have a few comments so far.
musicmom, great insight! Yes, the world is a more dangerous and difficult place for women. There is more responsibility. It's harder to prove yourself. I'm sure it's comforting to think that one can find a safe, little nest.
setfree, I read some fundie blogs. And I have observed a strong need for approval and excessive sensitivity to criticism or disagreement. There's no agreeing to disagree. There's an aversion to substantive debate. I realize this is a huge generalization.
sargassosea, thanks for posting that. I think people in general, women in particular, are raised with a lot of fear. Sure, there's a basis for some of it. But a lot of it is just whipped up to gain a psychological edge.
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Post by margybargy on Apr 5, 2010 9:47:53 GMT -5
I just read this article. Holy Crap!!! I...I...I'm flabbergasted. There was some discussion of this blog over at FreeJinger, too. There are 77 items on the checklist!!! Seventy-seven!!?? I like how she's not supposed to read the Bible in front of him. What? She can't possibly come off as sincere to her husband. He must see the obsessive rule following, the over-the-top ass kissing. I'd love to hear what he thinks. How does he not find all this phoney and annoying? Is he just totally unplugged? If I found out my husband had a 77-item list on how to interact with me, I'd be wondering why he thinks I'm so difficult to live with.
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Post by musicmom on Apr 5, 2010 11:26:53 GMT -5
Sea,
Wow!!!! Thanks so much for posting this lengthy excerpt! I am definitely going to have to get that book and read it.
Rules: I do remember when joining my ex's fundamentalist Catholic church, that I would now be safe in my marriage (unlike my mother) because we both had certain rules to follow. I did notice that my rules were harder than his (and in the future they would be MUCH harder) but I loved believing that we were both held accountable to doing certain things.
The beginning of the end came when I realized that he didn't really believe his religion - well, he did as a sort of OCD ritual. But I actually remember showing him religious books and articles about how he wasn't supposed to be mean to me, he was supposed to be loving, not to hurt the children, etc.. He looked at me like "Are you an idiot? Do you really think I care?". And I realized that the whole system had been used to get ME under subjection and that he had absolutely no accountability. He felt no guilt and he had no faith. And he had all the power.
I remember having the priest to our house when I was getting close to filing for divorce. He acted so interested to hear my side of the story and why I was about to do it. Then he told me that if I would just quit my job and keep the house cleaner, my husband would be nice and stop abusing us. That was accountability? That's when I realized I had been scammed.
Yep - they scared us (by enabling men to misbehave in all kinds of ways) and then offered us the "solution" to our fears - willingly subjecting ourselves to them, in hopes of escaping a worse fate. Isn't that the M.O. of all dictators and tyrants?
One more comment on this: I so much wish that I had not gone the artsy fartsy route in college. I did not take one course in economics or women's studies. I earned a bachelors' degree in music education but learned almost nothing about the world. It IS scary to live in the world, supposedly as an adult, and not understand how it works. I think my parents should have required me to take some basic, worldly wise courses. It is one of the big reasons that I got married and accepted QF teachings - sheer terror of the world.
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Post by musicmom on Apr 5, 2010 11:30:14 GMT -5
Oh, and one more thing!!! I am going to have all my girls read "The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan. I've just read it recently, and I just wonder how different my life would have been if I had read it in college. My goodness - she answers every single one of the QF selling points that I bought into. And it's been published for 40 years!!! Seriously - I will pay them to read this book. Maybe the boys too
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maicde
Junior Member
Posts: 69
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Post by maicde on Apr 5, 2010 16:45:13 GMT -5
Regarding Mrs. E's "cheat sheet", I'm going to make this simple and sweet: any woman that feels that she needs to be like this to/with her husband and any husband that feels that he needs his wife to be like this with him - deserve each other. They are two peas in a pod. This is not how two adults treat each other. One is the simpleton (the wife/woman), the other is some sort of "child" (not man). End of story,
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Post by passionfruit on Apr 5, 2010 18:05:33 GMT -5
Just wanted to comment on how it seems like a theme in the QF/P lifestyle about keeping up the appearance of being happy and fulfilled, now I'm not saying there aren't any women out there who aren't happy. But I don't understand why you're supposed to maintain the appearance of being happy. I guess you're being told how you should feel too.
I can sort of get that mentality of "rebelling" against society. I am assuming a lot of women in this lifestyle feel women these days have given up their femininity and are turning away from the "god" given duties. And that's quite a shame that these women feel they have to bury their emotions so you would get some approval, but to me it seems that these women don't get much.
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Post by duplessis3 on Apr 5, 2010 21:31:58 GMT -5
The other day I was in the bookstore and happened to see this book: Karen Kingsbury's The Princess and the Three Knights. I was pretty horrified at the story, I have to say. I thought it was quite odd the way she took a common story about avoiding sin and turned it into a story about how love = male protection of fragile woman. As a folk tale, it doesn't work too well, but then that probably wasn't her goal. In reading the Amazon blurb about this book, it says that this is "fairy tale perfect, starting with the blonde haired blue eyed princess" (more or less - the stuff about the princess looks is right) and I'm wondering about racism in this movement. WHy is a blonde/blue eyed princess more princessy than a brunette or black haired princess with brown eyes?
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Post by usotsuki on Apr 5, 2010 22:01:28 GMT -5
I've almost always seen princesses depicted as brunettes. The blonde one in Sleeping Beauty was quite the exception.
But when one mentions in particular blonde hair and blue eyes, it seems there's something else involved.
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Post by setfree on Apr 6, 2010 0:58:55 GMT -5
If I found out my husband had a 77- item list on how to interact with me, I'd be wondering why he thinks I'm so difficult to live with. Good point, Margybargy! I dunno about the racism. Mu Lan has Asian colouring. Pocahontas has Indian colouring. These are iconic heroines of their cultures. Sleeping Beauty was German fairytale, for her and other Grimms characters to be depicted as Caucasian seems reasonable. What does strike me as racist though, is when Mary or Jesus are depicted as Caucasian instead of Mediterrannean.
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Post by usotsuki on Apr 6, 2010 6:56:52 GMT -5
Sleeping Beauty was as much French (Charles Perrault) as German (the Brothers Grimm), and ISTR that only Perrault was *credited* for the original story in the movie although they obviously took a few hints from the Grimms too.
(Folklore was one of my escapes from my childhood. Go fig.)
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em
Full Member
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Post by em on Apr 6, 2010 9:39:35 GMT -5
The original Sleeping Beauty story (which is extremely, extremely sick and disgusting actually ... Even by fairy tale standards) was Italian. It's called The Pentamarone.
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Post by usotsuki on Apr 6, 2010 12:31:15 GMT -5
Ugh. Yeah, I'm aware of that version.
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em
Full Member
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Post by em on Apr 6, 2010 20:30:43 GMT -5
Haha. I hear that. I can't look at any fairy tale or Disney movie the same after it.
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Post by duplessis3 on Apr 6, 2010 23:43:24 GMT -5
I meant specifically in QF/fundamentalist families since presumably they would be the primary people interested in The Princess and the Kiss rather than Sleeping Beauty and all the classic fairytales. Disney doesn't count!
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nimue
New Member
Posts: 22
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Post by nimue on Apr 7, 2010 0:45:53 GMT -5
Wow, that lady's children are going to be really messed up. They are not happy with obedience, so they are going to add brainwashing and guilt-tripping to the mix. No child is going to be happy doing chores 100% of the time, but if they aren't happy, they are surely going to "grow careless of God" and go straight to hell. Nice.
I noticed she deleted the comment thread too.
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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Apr 8, 2010 11:41:39 GMT -5
Whatever it was that was driving me to take good care of the house and obsess over nutritious and home made everything when I was QF.. well that is well and truly gone and a great apathy has settled in its place, LOL. I realize I will never recapture that old drive, it's just GONE. Lots of stuff I just did without thinking is pure drudgery to me now. This has happened to me too, Arietty ~ and I am not sure if it's such a good thing ~ especially with so many kids still at home. It used to be that every little detail of my life was eternally significant ~ that's a very powerful motivator and it is what got me up out of bed all those years when I was so incredibly exhausted and worn out from perpetual childbearing. Having experienced such a noble and worthy calling ~ I find that ordinary reasons for doing what needs done are not nearly motivating enough to get me going. I'm struggling with taking care of the responsibilities I heaped on myself when I had ultimate purpose for doing so ~ Here's something I wrote to my uncle early in our correspondence (I've probably shared this before): If I did not believe in Eternity and that one day I will give an account for my life ~ I wouldn't do all that I do. Why would I? The crap and the creeps of the world have been too close ... I am convinced that without God (capital G) and His word to make sense of it all, and the hope of redemption and the promise of ultimate justice and the indwelling Holy Spirit to enable me to carry on ~ I would give up. It's a scary thought ~ but sometimes, I think this really is happening to me ~ I want to give up ~ and the only reason I haven't is because my kids are all still young and there's nobody except me to take care of them. With the health problems I've been experiencing recently, someone asked me if I have written out a will ~ "just in case." I do have a will, though it hasn't been updated since the divorce, and truthfully, I'm fairly hesitant about taking care of that ~ because I'm a little worried that if I go to the trouble to ensure that the kids will be taken care of and provided for in the event of my death ~ then next time I get hit with a bout of depression and anxiety, the one thing that so far has kept the suicidal thoughts at bay ~ fear of leaving my kids to fend for themselves ~ would no longer be there keeping me from the temptation to make a quick end of my troubles. Yikes, huh? This is why I'm back in counseling ~ and I'm even considering expending a bit of brain power on figuring out a new or modified "Something" to believe in ~ something to keep me going when I am so darned tired and feeling like my life is taking way too long.
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