Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Hahahahaha.
*ahem*
This isn’t about me*, and it isn’t about you* and it isn’t about my husband* and it isn’t about any of our neighbors* or our parents* or literally anyone specific*
*it’s about Generic People A and B. naturally.
Seriously though here are some semi-unedited opinions:
1. The church encourages women to gaslight themselves in the name of submission and spiritual obedience, when a man pursues them. To say, “maybe this is from God.” To override their intuition and undermine their feelings.
2. The church encourages women to have no boundaries when it comes to men other than that they appear to be “following God.” Personality flaws are all to be forgiven in the 7 x 77 times fashion. Controlling or otherwise bad treatment is “leadership.” Sexual attraction is looked at as kind of the icing on the cake of what you should look for in a person. Add in a little bit of Victorian “I’m so lucky! A man has taken interest in me! I shall go arrange my Hope Chest, I shall not be an old maid after all” could lead a woman to marry a rodent.
3. The church encourages men to give in to their testosterone to the point of aggression, in the form of sermons that beat people down,”proclamations” of “this is how things are going to be now” across their family (wife and any kids), and other ways.
4. A disdain for sex education and frank sexual talk, and the judgment of masturbation lead to people not knowing their own bodies, feeling shame about their own bodies, and not having knowledge about their own bodies, much less the type of body they don’t personally have, so when they’re put together it’s quite amazing anyone figures out how to have sex at all, but the spiritualization of it just focuses on “it happened therefore it is a success, check box,” along with lies like “it’s normal for it to hurt” and icky messages to men about dominating their wives… *cough* not like anyone has written any books spiritualizing semen recently… ANYWAY all of this is very bad for people. It’s especially bad for women, who are then told to “smile” and just submit and act happy and put on a show of “happy wife.”
5. Teachings about “complementarianism” lead to this: men feel they have a right to disregard the beliefs and opinions of women, and that God has called them to do that- to “lead” once they’ve “taken into account” what their partner thinks (or any other woman in their life thinks). It leads to men having a sense of entitlement, like they were born to a certain crown, and then they spend their entire life mad that no one has properly worshiped them. Women get taught that they only matter insofar as they serve and please men, which they are gaslit into believing is “serving God.” Women are taught to silence themselves and negate their own opinions and thinking, hold themselves back, to fear the judgement of others and to fear “stealing the spotlight” from the men who should have it, and to hate themselves until they are small enough to feel like they are sufficiently “nothing” for God to be pleased with them. They are gaslit about all of this, and told “it isn’t hatred, it’s submission” and “you’re not of lesser worth, you’re just designed to have these specific roles that aren’t actually lesser.” Joy can be found in all manners of living, and that’s true for women who work, women who don’t work, etc. The gaslighting that the power difference is God’s design, is good, and that it is a form of equality is the real knife twist. And people say “men are called to love their wives unto the point of death like Jesus” and…. it has no real application, when they’re also told that they are meant to dominate those same people. How can you love someone while also not viewing them as a full person with equally valid thoughts and opinions? You can’t. And then people come around to “egalitarianism” but often are still trapped in a whole lot of the gender roles that are inherently such that women are still disempowered. K.
6. So. The men end up in therapy trying to connect with themselves, because their entire life has been spent in self-judgment, and the women end up in therapy trying to connect with themselves, because their entire life has been spent in self-judgment. And no one knows how to know themselves and trust themselves, and to both respect themselves and respect other people. Women often don’t know how to respect themselves, and men often don’t know how to respect women other than in the Victorian “hold the door” and thinking of her as a “weaker vessel” to be protected like a vase. Men don’t know how to respect women the same way they respect their guy friends. Women don’t know how to face the fear of sin or judgment if they were to value themselves as highly or even more highly than they value others. And so in a relationship, you get people who may know how to do a dance of “roles,” but aren’t actually in a relationship since they’re both wearing masks. It’s a drama rather than person-to-person. But they go to church and see everyone else and their masks, and it’s a nice little masquerade and people walk away feeling normalized, unless someone or something shakes them up.
Eh. I think that’s enough for now.
I want to see this get broken by the time our kids are adults. We’re a big step away from the culture our parents had, and even farther from the one our grandparents had. But it isn’t far enough, and I haven’t even talked about the churches that still literally teach parents to beat their kids.
I think it matters to everyone in my country, whether they’re religious or not, because Christianity informs so much of societal culture in general. All this “return to family values” conservative crap we keep hearing in politics is really about this- how do we keep everyone who isn’t a rich, white male down? How do we get women back in the kitchen, barefoot, pregnant and opinionless? How do the men get to reestablish their hoity toity manly throne? Maybe deporting more immigrants will solve it? (scream-sob) What if we made everything in the home made of gold? Oh wait someone already tried that. Guess it wasn’t enough? Should have been gold-pressed latinum?
PS: Note for future reflection: is the problem the church, or is it something else, that informed the church? Is it that men who act like this are more likely to reproduce, because only a dominated woman would have 12 kids, and so selection has favored these traits? Fuck, I bet that’s it. Who is writing about this? What part of biology are we fighting as we fight for a respectful world? How do we make the Elon Musks the dweeb, and the Fred Rogerses the hottie? How do we make the empowered women attractive rather than seen as “manly,” and undo the fetishization of child-like women?
Un-gaslighting and empowering women? Breaking the affirmation cycle that rewards poor treatment of women? Breaking the affirmation cycle without blame-shifting onto women who are victims, for the bad behavior or men? Not breaking the little boys to begin with? (where my heart is). Healing the man? (my heart is here, too). All of the above?
Can we collectively blame-shift onto evolution for a bit and everyone heals once we see the real enemy?
