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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Jan 13, 2010 20:05:05 GMT -5
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Post by susan on Jan 13, 2010 20:43:29 GMT -5
Yikes! That Wilson guy is scary!
Thank you so much for writing this, Journey. You are so right: people are always saying that the abusive situations aren't the fault of the teaching.
But, honestly, how does a wife who's trying so hard to follow the teachings, know where to draw the line?
I mean, someone who'd advocate a husband telling a wife when she needs to do the dishes, or how much she should weigh -- that's just hyper-control ... he's really advocating abuse, in my opinion.
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Post by wifeoflot on Jan 13, 2010 21:58:43 GMT -5
Great post, Journey. I love reading your thoughts. Doug Wilson is revered in the circles my husband and I have always been a part of. I greatly dislike that man.
I mean, seriously? Call the elders because your wife won't do the dishes?? Hell, man, get your ass in the kitchen and help the poor woman!! And throw a load in the washing machine while you're at it.
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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Jan 13, 2010 22:49:37 GMT -5
Journey ~ I'm so excited about this new series! I agree that it's important to look at the QF/P leaders actual words ~ and then hold them accountable for these teachings. I read Doug Wilson's little essay ~ and I have to say that what he recommends does not just have the potential for abuse ~ it is abuse, plain and simple. Wow ~ it's been a while since I've read that sort of bullshit ~ I'd forgotten how crazy it all is! And yes ~ anyone who is reading patriarchal teachings is going to have a very difficult time identifying abuse and naming it for what it is. This explains why I could not think of a single charge of abuse when I was filling out the request for a protection order. Our following of QF deprived us of the language to call abuse by name. For instance, the father/daughter relationship teachings made it impossible for Angel to say what was the problem between her and Warren. She could not say, "He's smothering me" ~ because we'd been taught that it was his duty to have a very close, intimate relationship with is children. She could not say, "He's obsessing over me" ~ we thought of it as protection ~ a godly father's obligation to his daughter. Etc., ... ad nauseum. Thank you so much for this series, Journey ~ you are fabulous!
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autumn
Junior Member
Posts: 56
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Post by autumn on Jan 13, 2010 23:26:17 GMT -5
I think that biblical patriarchy or "the god card" lead SOME men who might not otherwise be abusers to believe the controlling/abusive behavior is OK when, if they were part of the larger culture, the message might be different.
Then there are the men who would be abusive in any context who regard "the God Card" as a handy excuse and part of the net they use to keep control.
Finally there's the "Blame the victim/woman" issue that exists throughout our culture, not just in the biblical patriarchy movement.
The teachings are responsible for giving men permission to behave like jerks, the fact that not all men take advantage of the "free pass to be a fisthead" doesn't take away the fact that it is a free pass!
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Post by journey on Jan 14, 2010 0:35:45 GMT -5
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Post by mommybunny1 on Jan 14, 2010 9:32:46 GMT -5
Good Morning!
This is my first post on your very interesting and informative site, although I have been reading for the past month or so. I am a secular Jewish woman, so my background is not in Christian Fundamentalism at all. My family is observant on major holidays and has a strong sense of identification with the Jewish faith and people. Other than that, we are a typical middle-class American family.
One of the things that I have observed in reading your stories is that although the Fundamentalist extremes of many religions have exploited women though Patriarchy in very obvious ways, Patriarchy exists in religious culture even in the most moderate of families.
I am a survivor of abuse and of infidelity, invalidation and voicelessness in my own marriages. Every experience that you describe, has also been my own experience in the ending of these 2 marriages. My Rabbi was supportive of my decision to divorce when I brought the abuse to light. However, after making my decision, my social circle fell away. My position in the Temple was peripheralized and eventually, I stopped attending.
Even my mother thinks that I am clearly an unstable woman to have failed at marriage twice. The thing is, I was not the one who failed. I was a dedicated wife and mother. I did work outside the home, but I also cooked dinner, was in charge of the household, raised my three children and catered to my spouse. I will admit that I did have control of my womb and that I had more freedom to dress as I pleased. However, in our culture, Abrahamic religion still reigned over my life. I got the same messages about how I should not have tolerated abuse. On the other hand, I also got messages about how it was my job to please my husband and hold my family together.
When I was thirty four years old (and still married to my first husband), I was attending religious classes with the Rabbi. I did not have a strong education in my faith and decided that if my children were to attend religious school, that I would as well. It became apparent to me, as we learned the commandments of G-d when it came to our rituals, our gender roles and our lives, that there was something very suspicious about the whole thing. You see...women's work is so clearly "G-d's work"-bearing and raising children, keeping the home, managing the peace....men had to create a G-dly role for themselves. I do not mean to offend, but it seems to me that the whole thing has been created to give men domain over women and to obscure the importance of the female in society.
By studying my own religion, and learning about comparative religions, this theme resounds.
I believe now that religion is man-made. Life is predominantly woman-made.
MB
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Post by crwilley on Jan 14, 2010 9:45:39 GMT -5
What I took away from that article? "There's not much difference between your wife and your dog. If she piddles on the floor doesn't keep the house to your standards, the problem might be that you're an ineffective "pack alpha" head of household. Here's a tried and true training method - you just have to be sure you're dominant in every situation - but if it doesn't work out for you, you might want to call in an expert..."
Will we see a team of "elders" on TLC with their new show, "The Wife Whisperer"?
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jeb
Junior Member
Posts: 97
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Post by jeb on Jan 14, 2010 10:16:03 GMT -5
Loved your comment, wifeoflot: "I mean, seriously? Call the elders because your wife won't do the dishes?? Hell, man, get your ass in the kitchen and help the poor woman!! And throw a load in the washing machine while you're at it." Saw this cartoon this morning and thought, 'Yeah, that's the patriarchy for sure, for sure. Y'all be good to yourselves, eh? John
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Post by rosa on Jan 14, 2010 10:50:30 GMT -5
Mommybunny, thanks for pointing that out - the really radical patriarchalists make the rest of the culture look egalitarian, but we all have that underlying "it's supposed to be this way" message. The overlay of "you have rights, don't tolerate abuse" is pretty recent and lots of us haven't really internalized it.
The further step of "people should not be abusive, it's wrong" instead of "you should have seen the warning flags and left sooner!" is even rarer.
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juju
Junior Member
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Post by juju on Jan 14, 2010 11:45:43 GMT -5
I always thought Douglas Wilson was a prat and after reading that little gem I have even less respect for him than I did before, which is to say that I now have NEGATIVE respect for him because I never had any to begin with.
Basically, if your wife doesn't do what you want her to do, sit her down and tell her that it's your fault because you weren't firm with her in the first place and she's got to do the dishes after every meal? If my husband tried that I'd wet myself laughing. Please. And if you tell her to do the dishes and she doesn't do them, you get to call in the Church Elders to tell her to do the dishes. At which point she gets to tell you, and the Church Elders, what exactly you can DO with those dishes.
Vyckie's right. That kind of crap IS abuse, plain and simple. When you start condescending to your wife as though she were a three-year-old you were trying to teach to pick up after herself, something is VERY wrong in your relationship dynamic and it ain't because she doesn't do the dishes. It's because you are an arrogant prick who thinks God has deputized you to control the actions and thoughts of every female organism on earth. Probably even including protozoa, if they are sex-differentiated.
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Post by rosa on Jan 14, 2010 12:06:09 GMT -5
Journey, what I actually came over to say is - this is excellent. I'm going to be referring people to this post (and later ones in the series, if you keep writing them) forEVER. A lot of people I know shrug off the complementarian teachings as "whatever floats your boat" because they are more familiar with BDSM relationships. The difference is that there's no outside "authorities" saying *everyone* should be in a BDSM relationship, or calling it the one right way to be religious, the way the radical Christians do.
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Post by rose31759 on Jan 14, 2010 12:12:45 GMT -5
This is exactly what was being taught in the 'main stream evangelical' churches my husband and I attended, though is wasn't spoken in so many words, the intent was still there. When we were first married, there was great controversy in whether or not a wife was 'permitted' to work outside of the home, whether or not children were involved. Also there was much discussion about whether contraceptives should be 'permitted' to be used by married couples. All I can say is that when we had our first daughter, everyone was absolute thrilled for us, but when our second daughter 16 months later and our 3rd daughter 2 1/2 years later, let me tell you that there was no one around to be of service, but instead they seemed to stand in judgment of us, that we were naive and did not know how to 'control our urges', which of course was no one's business.
What I am trying to say is that no matter what we did, we could do no right, we were always being judged for something and that is one reason that we finally walked away from the whole thing. My husband was forever being told that he was not being 'the man that God wanted him to be' because he refused to 'put me in my place' by demanding that I be totally submissive (read subservient) to not only him, but to every other man in the church. That was not how my husband was raised, not was it how he read the Bible, so in a sense he was ostracized from the men's group because he chose to take a stand and put the family and me ahead of the teachings of the church.
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Post by Sierra on Jan 14, 2010 12:45:40 GMT -5
A lot of people I know shrug off the complementarian teachings as "whatever floats your boat" because they are more familiar with BDSM relationships. The difference is that there's no outside "authorities" saying *everyone* should be in a BDSM relationship, or calling it the one right way to be religious, the way the radical Christians do. Complementarians don't have a 'safe word,' either.
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Post by anatheist on Jan 14, 2010 13:02:56 GMT -5
The article by Wilson really hit me at almost every point, especially this line: "Suppose for a moment that he really wants to serve God in their marriage, and she appears to be distinctly unenthusiastic about changing". There was a patriarchal problem of course, that I wasn't accepting of his "god-given" leadership... but then there was also the problem that he really did have some sincerity about having a Christian family and I was deconverting.
And my ex-H went about this almost the exact way that Wilson describes. He repented of having married me (believe me, I repented of having married him too!) He took ownership (I won't say "responsibility") for MY "sins". This part is a little bit of trickery with language, both in my life and in the article. What the husband is being asked to do is not to admit that he has faults that contributed to problems in the relationship, but to assume ownership of EVERYTHING that goes on in the house and in the marriage. Taking ownership of problems might seem like a good thing on the surface, but it's actually just another measure of control, since his "solving" the problems that his wife has lets him dictate her behavior.
When my ex-H took ownership of our problems in this way, it made it even harder to seek a divorce. It really shocked me to see the way that people outside the church viewed our relationship- I shared the emails with my lawyer that my husband had written me about my need to return and model the example of Christ and the church, and he instantly said that they were some of the most manipulative things he'd seen. And this is someone who's probably handled hundreds of divorces.
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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Jan 14, 2010 14:26:52 GMT -5
Journey ~ thanks for sharing. I had not seen that thread before ~ I think it's an excellent resource, so listed it on the NLQ website ~ look for the link just under the "search box" on the right sidebar. Be sure to check it out, 'cuz I found such an appropriate graphic to illustrate how I feel about those quotes. LOL
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Post by sargassosea on Jan 14, 2010 15:02:28 GMT -5
Journey - Thanks for this series! I started reading Dougie's contribution to the Dom's Handbook but had to stop (!) wondering if I'd accidentally dropped some acid or something... (but, then, I always react this way to his *stuff*) __________ Of course, this brings up my peeve of people (oppressed by one or more of the following 'fraternities': religion, military, government, sex industries, medicine, entertainment, police/emergency services, advertising, law - did I cover everything!?) still not being able to see that the Patriarchy can not exist without the underlying, pervasive and entrenched patriarchy - just as a forest can not seem to exist without an uncountable number of solid, healthy trees. I simply - and continually - posit that without examining the pervasive 'social structures' that allow/encourage women like Journey, Arietty, Vyckie, Tapati, and so many more women all over the planet to NOT question their own good sense and gut instincts is to be akin to forever chipping away at the top of the iceberg.
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Post by duplessis3 on Jan 14, 2010 15:15:47 GMT -5
While this whole argument is alarming it also recommends that the wife submit to the man's sexual desires, and that if whatever he's doing to try to help her **** him doesn't work, he brings her sexual inadequacies to the church elders? THis is an advocation of rape, pure and simple.
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Post by AustinAvery on Jan 14, 2010 15:53:42 GMT -5
Not that Sargassosea is looking for a male's contribution here, but the Harper's index this month had a weird set of facts that seem to underscore her point: Percentage of Americans who think women are smarter than men: 38% Percentage of Americans who think women are more honest than men: 50% Percentage of Americans who think women make better political leaders than men: 6% Aside from the social cognitive dissonance here, which seems to say we want to be ruled by dishonest men, it certainly betrays a deep social illness in the way Americans in general view the capabilities of women (with the possible caveat that a huge segment of Americans think that dishonest schmucks make "better" political leaders ).
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Post by krwordgazer on Jan 14, 2010 16:20:02 GMT -5
Journey, thanks for this new series. I hope that more and more people will see how wrong all of this teaching is, and that the current mindset among moderate Christians that this is to be tolerated for the sake of unity, will be shaken.
Austinavery, your statistics were interesting but odd. I mean, I would say "no" to all of the above, because I believe that men and women are equally smart, equally honest, and equally good political leaders-- depending, of course, on the individual person, not upon his or her sex.
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Post by margybargy on Jan 14, 2010 18:35:13 GMT -5
It's creepy how the husband gets to catalogue all the wife's "sins". She might not think there's anything "sinful" about not doing the damn dishes. Perhaps, because she's got 6 kids and a demanding, lazy $hit for a husband, she is forced to prioritize her activities, and dishes simply don't make it to the top of the list. Maybe the husband should walk in her shoes for a day and see how much he gets accomplished.
Perhaps the husband has habits the wife views as "sinful", like infidelity or gambling or drug smuggling. What happens then? Oh never mind, it's all her fault, I suppose.
And what happens if the wife still doesn't do the dishes "properly" after a chat from the elders? If this was the Catholic church they could go all the way up the chain of command and eventually have an audience with the Pope I guess.
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Hillary
Full Member
"Quivering Daughters ~ Hope and Healing for the Daughters of Patriarchy" Now Available!
Posts: 129
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Post by Hillary on Jan 14, 2010 21:46:23 GMT -5
Excellent new series, Journey. Thank you. I can't wait to see it finished ~ what a fantastic resource.
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Post by arietty on Jan 15, 2010 3:12:35 GMT -5
It really does read like instructions for training a dog. Start slowly, when she has mastered this you can move on to the next stage.. and yes I'm wondering what happens if the elders get called and the wife says,"I don't feel like doing the dishes, why can't he do them?" Excellent series Journey. It will be invaluable having these teachings exposed. The worst thing I ever read was by Virginia Fugate., The Other Side of the Garden. www.amazon.com/Other-Side-Garden-Biblical-Womanhood/dp/0867170085I remember how she proclaimed that submission would solve any problems you had with your husband and she used an example from her own life, how the most annoying thing in the world about her husband was solved by submission. The most annoying thing in the world was that he would, after washing his hands in the sink, briefly shake them dry in the air so that WATER DROPLETS were on her counters. Even as I was eagerly reading this book I remember thinking "THAT is a problem?!" Meanwhile I was living in hell.
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Post by sargassosea on Jan 15, 2010 9:47:57 GMT -5
Water droplets on the counter... Got me to wondering how many QF women develop full blown obsessive/compulsive disorders.
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Post by xara on Jan 15, 2010 11:20:14 GMT -5
Thank you for starting this series Journey.
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