How Sexist Was Your Church?

[belladonna]

Speaking of Christians being morons... Has anyone else noticed that Satan in The Passion was played by a woman? And that the witch also portrayed Satan in Narnia? And God forbid I suggest that God's a woman. But Satan on the other hand... In conclusion. Mel Gibson must die.

 

As for the Harry Potter bullshit. I find it amusing (and sad) that my neighbor won't let his daughter read Harry Potter, but he doesn't mind if she gets piss drunk every weekend and occasionally date-raped by a handful of her peers. I have reason to believe she's a boarderline alcoholic and just turned sixteen. But atleast her poor little mind isn't being tormented by those dirty witches! [sarcasm]

 

Holy shit...I thought I was the only one who noticed that in The Passion! I argued with my other half for days on that one; he kept telling me I was wrong, and so I finally bought the fucking DVD and showed him. He was like, oh...I guess you're right. (Well, duh, Barbie. Of course I was right. I'm always right. ) But I had talked to others who had watched it, and none of them caught it. They thought I was mistaken until they watched it a second time. I've never watched another thing related to Mel Gibson since.

 

Your neighbor needs to be taken out and horsewhipped. Tell me where and tell me when, and I'll do it.

[belladonna]

I literally cannot imagine a woman who has come away from Xianity based on her own thought research...

 

I did.

 

I bet I'm not the only one here, either.

 

So did I. In fact, it was my own thoughts and knowledge that finally led me away from it, despite being surrounded by it.

 

It was interesting what you said about your church putting the woman on a pedestal, doing things for her and talking about how wonderful she is. I have always looked at that as insulting to women (patronizing), maybe because I am strange, I don’t know.

 

You're not the only one who finds this insulting, mainly because when it happens it isn't really about appreciating a real woman for her own abilities and character. It's about creating a limited role for all women and revering the role, and doing honor only to the women who fit the fantasy. Pedestals are tall, too, and it's easy to fall from them by being imperfect or human or real or somehow not fitting into the projected desires of the men in charge - and typically when a woman falls from her pedestal, she tends to get shamed for it.

 

Plus if you're up on a pedestal guys can look up your skirt.

 

That's all rather a different thing from men who can just dig a woman for who she is, not what they want her to be.

 

Pedestals are cold, lonely places...not to mention a little drafty. I find the thought of being on a pedestal, as if I'm too delicate to do anything on my own, horrifying.

 

I don't want to be on a pedestal. I want to be side by side.

[belladonna]

To answer the original question, the church I was thrown out of taught men were the leaders and women were the supporters. Men held all the positions of power, and women taught Sunday School. The (male) pastor's word was final.

 

My grandfather, however, was pivotal in my learning that women were not the "weaker" sex. He had been raised by a very strong woman, and he married a very strong woman. He told me flat out that he had believed women were suppose to be the weaker sex, until his grandmother and his wife set him straight. My grandmother had been kicked out of her home at 13, in the middle of the Great Depression, and had managed to not only survive, but to thrive; she became a certified welder and worked in the shipyards.

 

When I moved in with them after my trials with my mother (long story), he was the one who made me get up every morning and go out and work on the farm. Don't get me wrong; my grandmother was just as involved in my recovery, but he was the one who pushed me. He made me load and unload the calf grain, haul the bottles, etc. At first, I could only do a little at a time, and I would cry because I couldn't do more. But he would only encourage me and push me to do a little more each day. As my strength grew, my confidence grew. He also taught me to be verbally assertive (ok...so it borders on aggressive), and he taught me how to throw a punch, which saved my ass more than once. The farm, the cattle, the daily chores...it became my refuge from the stress I was under because of so many of the "Christians" in our area (they made my life a living hell, as if my mother hadn't done enough), and the cows are still my refuge.

 

I still live in a predominantly LDS area, and still deal with abounding sexism all the time. The stupidest thing ever said to me, though, was by another woman. She had seen me loading five gallon buckets of milk into a truck to go feed calves. She told me that women were not built for that kind of work, and I should let men do the men's work and take care of the woman's work at home.

 

No...no...take that back. That was the second stupidest thing. Stupidest thing:

 

I had just delivered calves to my other place, and was heading back to the house. I ran into the store for a drink, and as I was pulling out of the parking lot, my trailer hitch popped off the ball. Fortunately, I had the safety chains on, so I didn't lose the trailer, but it still pissed me off.

 

So anyway...I had to block traffic while I hooked the trailer back up (this was a two horse trailer, so the hitch was on the ground). Across the street from the store, this group of guys all stood there watching me; they had all seen what happened, but not one offered to help. It was summer, I had my kids, and I was tired, and now pissed. I was getting ready to lift the trailer to fit the jack when this older woman, groomed to the teeth, walks up to me. She says, "Honey, you aren't going to do this by yourself. You need one of those big, strong men to help you." She pointed to the group across the street, and immediately their chests all puffed up waiting for the little woman to come begging for help. That did it. I went from pissed to fuming. I didn't bother to set the jack. I just grabbed the hitch, lifted it up and slammed it down on the ball. I looked at her and said, "I don't fucking think so." The look on her face was classic.

 

And I couldn't resist giving assholes across the street the finger. Pointless, but it felt good.

 

By the way, I'm only 5', too. Dynamite comes in small packages.

[Shadow Wolf]

Surprisingly, for as conservative of a Church I went to, it was actually fairly progressive towards the treatment of women. I doubt they would have a woman pastor, but women were actually held in high regards. And it was emphasized that "woman was made to be of meek help to man" did not mean women were to be slaves of men, but were to help her husband through whatever trials may come.

[DuchessAtreides]

Surprisingly, for as conservative of a Church I went to, it was actually fairly progressive towards the treatment of women. I doubt they would have a woman pastor, but women were actually held in high regards. And it was emphasized that "woman was made to be of meek help to man" did not mean women were to be slaves of men, but were to help her husband through whatever trials may come.

 

That's still pretty damn sexist if you ask me.

[lunaticheathen]

The church I went to as a kid was comparatively progressive - they had a woman pastor, for one. But the christian school I went to in jr high-high school certainly was of the "Man is head of the house" bent. I walked out of more than one assembly where the speaker would start berating the girls for being "temptresses" and it was made very clear than any sexual mishaps that happened were all the fault of the female. That also carried over to when I was groped in the hall by a football player - not his fault, mine, and SHAME on me for kicking the snot out of him! The sexism there made me ill, and yet, I still tried to believe in what they were pushing.

Oh, and this little gem still makes me giggle. I told a fellow female classmate that I believed that I didn't really want to get married. She looked terrified, and asked "but...where will you live??" Because, you know, I couldn't get my own job and earn money to rent/buy my own place.

It's amazing how many people still live in the 1950's. Or 1850's, for that matter.

[freespirit]

I read the posts now. There is practically no way to compare the Old Order Mennonite or Amish culture/society and way of doing church with what people here described. The way I see it is that the Amish-Mennonite horse and buggy culture retains a way of life that was normal for European society several centuries ago. What the rest of you described is a society that has moved away from that "idealized golden age of the past," of which people think the basic structures such as patriarchy should still be retained. However, Western society has moved so very far from that model that it simply no longer fits.

 

Because the horse and buggy people have renounced "the world" at the level of material worldly goods beginning with the automobile, and in many cases electricity, and because they forbid divorce, they of necessity develop a situation that is very different from that of surrounding society. As a way of life, men had the visible positions of authority but what woman wanted it??? Women had their own positions of power wielded in their own way. Women were the chefs supreme. No matter how much a man might love working with food he NEVER had the opportunity to serve his guests--NEVER. Chances are he never had the opportunity to develop his talent.

 

As an example of patriarchy affecting men's talents, we have one male member on here who has mentioned abuse because of patriachy's idea of man's work. Knitterman. He LOVES knitting, etc. Sorry if you're reading this and I've got the details wrong, knitterman. I never learned enough about knitting and crotchetting to really understand what it is you do. I cannot believe that he is the only man who has suffered because of this problem.

 

However, I as a woman desperately wanted to be a school teacher. That was considered an honourable woman's position but I was not ever hired, due to some prejudiced ideas held by the community. They thought I was borderline retarded and incapable of the responsibility. The fact that I was able to step into a family home and manage large families with children of all ages when the mother went to the hospital to have a sixth or tenth child somehow or other did not count. That was simply the one of the by-products of close-knit communities where everyone knows everyone from birth to death, and had nothing to do with patriarchy.

 

I'm thinking that the evangelical fundamentalist churches many people here came from probably try to hang onto the remnants of what the Amish-Mennonite society still has as a way of life. And that it becomes sexist in the fundamentalist setting whereas in the horse and buggy setting it might not be because it's part of a way of life. In my family there were many more women than men so the girls and women got to do a lot of things that really were "men's" tasks. We helped in the fields and barn. In our community, there were a lot more women in my generation than men. Since marrying outside the church was strictly prohibited this meant that many women had to go into business of some sort or other. This opened the way for many women to own their homes and do "men's work" as in running small farms. My sister and I had our own little set-up.

 

We had quite an opportunity there to experiment with our own talents. There was a table saw and used lumber and some land that we were allowed to use as we wanted. So we built some things and used the land in various creative ways. It was an old farm on the edge of town that a wealthy church family had bought with the plan to sell to developers sometime down the road, so we could rent it really cheap. Due to economic slumps it was quite a bit further "down the road" than originally expected and we lived there the best part of twenty years. I was there fifteen years and my sister stayed on for another year or two after I moved to town to be closer to school.

 

I had lived with two elderly ladies before we had that place. And I learned how to arrange things so that women could handle it--for example, not to make items so heavy that a man's strength would be needed to lift or move everyday items. Cleaning out and maintaining the horse barn was up to us. On the rare occassion that something needed doing that we couldn't do we informed the owner.

 

At one point I did encounter sexism. I wanted to learn how to fill out income tax (I know it's crazy because my brain can't cope with numbers but I wasn't aware of this at the time) and I asked a man who worked in the field how to get the necessary training to do this. He informed me that this was not an appropriate job for a woman. I couldn't quite get my head around that idea. He was only my age and I could not quite accept that he knew what he was talking about. Both of us were perhaps 30 or younger--not exactly mature community advisors. I don't think he did because some years later my dad's cousin, also an unmarried woman, got into that kind of work.

 

So there's a long rambling post. Good thing about posts is you can always skip them. Writing it out helps me make sense of things. With no one else here of similar background I guess I have to talk to myself. Sorry bout that but more people just don't leave "all the way."

 

So, were you raised OOM or Amish?

 

The plain people are very close to my heart, as I studied them intensively for about 8 years while I wrestled with the "standards"in our church (no pants on women, no make-up, jewelry, television etc.)

[freespirit]

In our church (UPC) the women were both put on a pedestal and subservient. It is a strange paradox.

[VacuumFlux]

I'm not sure how to answer the poll. For one, my views have been changing slowly since I quite believing, and I have a hard time separating what my parents believe from what the churches we attended believed, and separating what my dad believes from what my mom believes.

 

The first church, that we went to for most of my childhood, was Southern Baptist. But sexism wasn't the problem so much as classism. The church was run by rich, strong-willed, elitist couples. I don't remember how the spouses related to each other because it was overshadowed by the way those of either gender with power would hold it over everyone else. The women in charge had careers and looked down on my mom for staying at home, because that meant we didn't have enough money to be part of the "in" crowd.

 

Pretty much every church we went to taught that men are in charge. That women are "separate but equal". That women can NEVER hold positions of authority over men, so women can only teach kids' sunday school classes or other women. Men did work in the nursery, though, even though it was mostly women. I think it was guys who had nursery age kids themselves, or they'd work in the nursery with their wife. Women weren't allowed to lead the music, though they could participate as singers or musicians. Physically abusing your spouse was taught to be wrong, and women were encouraged to leave abusive husbands. That probably didn't include spousal rape, though, because Paul says that each spouse should always be available to the other to prevent adultery (and I do have to give Paul some credit on this one for saying that it goes both ways, even though the churches only ever preached that one at the women). Married women were told not to have close male friends. I sorta vaguely see the point that you shouldn't go to a male friend to bitch about your husband instead of working things out between you and your husband, but it went way too far in telling women that since we're so emotional about sex (whereas men are visual), that it's not safe to ever feel too much affection for a male friend.

 

At the christian school I went to, we always split up the genders for sex talks. There were a few optional things on weekends where they'd talk to us about relationships. It was always the same thing, that guys are visual and want sex, and that women are non-visual and want relationships, so it's up to the women to not tempt the men. Excessive examples were held up as ideals, like the couple who never touched more than holding hands until the wedding, and their first kiss was at the ceremony. At the time, I thought that was romantic. Now I find it creepy. We were even told once to be careful about wearing over-the-shoulder bags (or seatbelts, even, but you can't really avoid that) because the strap crossing our chests could accentuate our breasts and that's not fair to the men who are struggling so hard to be pure. We were told to never, ever, be alone with any member of the opposite sex except our spouse.

 

As others have mentioned, I was also raised with the "woman on a pedestal" thing. It took me a long time to realize how sexists that is even in marriage because, uh, I'm really kinky and like dominant partners. I was annoyed by my male friends' tendency to be a annoyingly overly-chivalrous to the point of ridiculousness. Like the time I was bored but they would not let me help move folding chairs because that's too much like heavy lifting, which is men's work. Or the time I was helping a friend move and wasn't feeling very good, so I was only moving light things. Then I found the cement blocks, which were heavy but small. Now I get that as a woman I am physically weaker, and even for a woman I'm pretty scrawny. But what I do have is strong legs and wide hips. So I slid a cement block over to the end of the truck and let it rest on my hip. I'm built for that. One of the guys saw my carrying a heavy thing, ignored my explanation that my hips make it easy for me, and insisted on carrying two at once, one dangling from the end of each arm, which meant he ended up more tired than me and less useful than he should have been for moving furniture later.

 

Then there's my parents. My dad is more sexist than my mom, and has said some pretty awful things about women to my face, but in general he doesn't act sexist towards me because he's too busy feeding his ego by living vicariously through his kids. My mom is a weird mix of annoyingly helpless, less generically sexists than my dad, but more inclined to traditional gender roles. We used to fight a lot over me not being feminine enough. She would have preferred a girly girl who obsessed over clothes and makeup, I think.

[paul34]

Men and women stood on different sides.

[Noggy]

I went to a few different churches.

 

In one (And assemblies of god church), we had a woman pastor for awhile

 

In the Church of God church I went to, women weren't allowed to wear pants.

 

They are all fucking stupid.

[blackpudd1n]

I was raised with the whole submit to your husband bs. I'm not a radical feminist, but I do believe in equality, which was a very rude shock to my dear Christian ex-husband. I was 18 when I got married, and still trying to finish high school. I thought I was doing the right thing getting married. But that whole submit business? Nah-uh. So my darling husband said we had to spilt all the expenses 50-50, despite him being 26, earning a good wage, and oh, did I mention I was still doing high school? So I had to get a job, and struggle to meet my end of the bargain. I said to him, wouldn't it be fairer if I did more housework and you paid more bills? Apparently not. So I said to him, fine. I'll pay half the bills, and you do half the housework. And then, over the course of our 11 month marriage, I'd wait until he had a 12 hour day at work, completelty trash the house, and when he came home and found me reading a book, and would ask me why the house was such a mess, I'd smile sweetly at him and say, oh honey, it's YOUR turn to clean today!

 

Now I am 26, and I am engaged again. This time, things are very different. Dan and I pool all our money, and pay our bills first, then split whatever is left over down the middle. We spend or save our share of the leftover money however we want; it's our prerogative. We pretty much share the cleaning, but we have no set roster, and dan's great in that he's like me: we don't mind a messy house up to a point. If it reaches that point, meaning it's gotten out of hand, we clean. Otherwise we do stuff as we feel like it. And any major decisions are made together, like today, when we decided we could afford another computer, so we didn't have to share anymore. Sharing one computer just wasn't working for us, particularly as I am working on a book and start university at the end of this month. So instead of letting it become an issue, we just went and got another one

[Yask]

Our church was not only sexist, but racist too.

 

Women were seen as Genesis 2:18 described them; helpmeets . Attire in church, and later in the school the church opened after they raised money for the project, was that ladies wore skirts who's hem reached below their knees, for modesty. No zippered pants were permitted, not even at retreats, by any female in the congregation. Be they 2 or 102. Because they would then appear as a man and that was not Biblical. (Deuteronomy 22:5 )

 

The retreats were in the woods at a camping facility that also afforded cabins for rental by large groups. Our church had rented the entire facility this one season. When the girls arrived in their cabins, 8 girls per cabin, sharing bunk beds, our bag's were inspected to make sure we'd brought the proper attire. Meaning the hemlines were to standard; i.e. below the knee.

 

How this was determined was the cabin mother would take out one of the skirts or a dress, from the young womans suitcase, and hold it up to her to see how the hem fell. If it was mid-knee or above, she'd lay it on the bed and instruct the girl that she wasn't to unpack until the mother returned to her bed.

 

When she did, the cabin mother took out a seam ripper and right in front of the young woman cut the threads holding up the hem of the "sinful" dress. After that the mother went through the rest of her suitcase and checked all the hems, holding the dress or skirt to the girl and the same ritual would repeat until finally the girl had a suitcase full of un-hemmed dresses or skirts. All of which she was left to wear as was, because unless she brought a needle and thread with her, the mother who'd ripped them wasn't about to sew them.

Why? To demonstrate through the girls shame, the example that sin has a price.

 

Racism entered in when our all white church, which I never paid attention to until this one particular Sunday, had our first black family visit for a Sunday morning service. They walked in the doors at the back of the church, walked straight up the center aisle and took a seat in the first pew.

The murmurs that followed them was hard to miss. After the service, heads turned and murmurs resumed as people would look toward the family, who was trying to mingle but were being rebuffed, and then looked away. As the couple finally figured out they weren't welcomed and started to walk back up the center aisle toward the exit, the murmurs that were low in volume before, escalated the closer they approached the foyer. And finally, when they were out of the parking lot, voices were at full volume. And they weren't discussing the underlying message at the service.

 

Amazing!

And not surprisingly, we never saw that couple again.

 

During my attendance at this particular church, the minister would on occasion speak of other faiths and those faithful unto it. Jews were going to Hell because they didn't accept Jesus as god's son and the prophesied Messiah. Catholics were going to hell because they were idol worshipers. Seeking access to god through the intermediaries that were their clergy and Saints.

 

All that was missing were dunce caps, kerosene and the sacrificial cross!

[ConureDelSol]

My church has this organization of burly, rough-looking men who ride motorcycles. They go out and preach, they act as security at church and at events. They have all these special benefits where they can go out to lunch to Quaker Steak and Lube. They're always really close to the pastor. No women are allowed to be a part of it.

 

They have the women's version of it and it isn't even close. It's kinda like the difference between Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Boy Scouts get to do all the cool stuff like hiking and rock climbing. Girl Scouts get to do arts and crafts and sell cookies. That's all the women's version of the organization does. It disgusts me.

[mymistake]

My church has this organization of burly, rough-looking men who ride motorcycles. They go out and preach, they act as security at church and at events.

 

That reminds me of the Set Free "church".

 

MM

[Positivist]

ex mormon here...

Hello, HGL! I laughed out loud at your reflections on Mormonism. I interact with 'mo-mos' on a pretty near daily basis and have had some good and bad experiences. The men are as you describe and they tend to be pretty stuck-up towards me. They seem to be self-important even if I have more degrees then they do.

 

Was it hard to let go of the magic underwear? I've heard from some ex-Mormons that this is a big step. Just curious. Sorry if it's too personal.

 

Peace.

[Positivist]

My church has this organization of burly, rough-looking men who ride motorcycles....They have the women's version of it and it isn't even close. It's kinda like the difference between Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Boy Scouts get to do all the cool stuff like hiking and rock climbing. Girl Scouts get to do arts and crafts and sell cookies. That's all the women's version of the organization does.

This was my experience also. The men have their special breakfasts (they are, after all, our leaders at home and at church!), special speakers with advanced degrees and/or cool jobs, etc. The women, however, had teas and talks about how to be more subservient. This one time the women's group had a speaker talk about car maintenance. I was doing some transmission work on my own car at the time and had hit a snag, so thought I'd ask this mechanic my question about the issue. He couldn't answer my question. The talk was about where the gas goes and how to check your oil.

 

That's the last time I attended. I always hated those events so only attended 3 in my life.

 

I never understood why gender separation has to occur, and why women always got the shitty stuff.

[blackpudd1n]

When I was growing up in the churches of Christ, women served afternoon tea and made the flower arrangements and taught Sunday school. The men did the more important stuff like preaching and handing out communion. Women never aspired to be preachers. But they were allowed to wear pants.

 

I forgot to add in my xtimony about my time with the bible baptists as a teenager. Probably because I didn't want to remember. My mother thought the church of Christ we were going to at the time was moving toward whats loosely known as the liberated churches of christ movement (read: Pentecostal) and away from the traditional CoC, and so we started going to the bible baptists, a breakaway, more extreme version of the baptists. Women had to wear long skirts and have long hair. Women were primarily homemakers. Even the youth group had a uniform- navy, long culottes for the girls, navy shorts for the boys, and loose-fitting yellow polo shirts. Makeup was discouraged, though it was allowed for one girl who had a large birthmark covering half her face. It was awful. When I left home in year 8, they came and visited me at the refuge. They told me the posters on my bedroom walls were demonic. I told the refuge they weren't allowed back.

 

When I went pentecostal after that, I thought it was more liberated. But one church I went to in particular really irked me. Sure the women all worked and preached, etc. They made out they were so progressive. But what bothered me was how they all dressed the same. There was such an emphasis put on beauty and being fashionable. The women were always thin and immaculate. They had their makeup perfectly done, hair perfectly done, dressed in the same fashionable style... And their houses were always immaculate. They made me feel like a failure as a woman, and often still do. I still compare myself to those women when my house is a mess, or I've got regrowth in my hair. They did more to damage my self-confidence than many other factors in my life. And they were always talking about the gym and dieting. I am 5'11", and when I was going there I went down to 53kg. And these beautiful, immaculate women in their perfect clothes would berate me for being thin, without ever considering the effect they were having on me. It was a sexism of: wear the right clothes, look perfect, and then your husband and god and everyone else will love you. It revolts me. I am more than the sum of my appearance.

[ConureDelSol]

My church has this organization of burly, rough-looking men who ride motorcycles. They go out and preach, they act as security at church and at events.

 

That reminds me of the Set Free "church".

 

MM

 

Actually my church is pastored by the son of the very man who started Set Free. The pastor has this entourage that surrounds him everywhere he goes.

[blackpudd1n]

My church has this organization of burly, rough-looking men who ride motorcycles. They go out and preach, they act as security at church and at events.

 

That reminds me of the Set Free "church".

 

MM

 

Actually my church is pastored by the son of the very man who started Set Free. The pastor has this entourage that surrounds him everywhere he goes.

 

 

An entourage??

[TotalWreck]

The church I went to was extremely sexist. The basic view was that MEN were in charge and MEN made all the decisions. Women obeyed and if they didn't, a man could hit a woman and that was OK. Abuse was not seen as justifiable reason for a woman to divorce her husband. The only justifiable reason for divorce was adultery.

 

Isn't Christianity's "God" just lovely?

 

If I was a woman and I was in a church that said some shit like this, I would have been out the door right then and there and would have never went back.

[Tapper]

I hear this completely. I was a regular church goer until I called the police and divorced my ex-husband who had caused permanent damage to my eye by hitting it repeatedly. All of a sudden, the church decided the divorce was my fault because I was a harlot who deserved what she got and didn't deserve a husband. Fuckers. I got kicked out, but it wasn't nessecary. I was leaving.

[buffettphan]

I hear this completely. I was a regular church goer until I called the police and divorced my ex-husband who had caused permanent damage to my eye by hitting it repeatedly. All of a sudden, the church decided the divorce was my fault because I was a harlot who deserved what she got and didn't deserve a husband. Fuckers. I got kicked out, but it wasn't nessecary. I was leaving.

 

 

I see this is your first post, so first of all, welcome to Ex-C, Tapper!

 

It takes a strong person to get out of abusive situations. Good on you for escaping the domestic and the church abuse!

[kruszer]

I was raised in a Brethren Assembly where women had to wear head coverings (pretty little lace doillies) and above all: women were to stay silent in the church, with exception to singing. Silence was the golden rule.

 

Looking back, this was one of the first things to plant seeds of questioning into my faith. The argument came from the Bible that women had to be in silent submission because Eve had been the one to be deceived.

 

1 Timothy 2:

¹¹Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

¹²But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

¹³For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

¹⁴And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

 

 

I often heard it explained that women were more emotional and therefore more easily swayed by false teachings. Women could teach other women and children, but never men.

 

I was a smart kid and as I grew into my adolescence, that teaching really really irked me, and I remember talking to other women about this. Brethrens have no pastor, just a series of "elders" and "brothers" who take turns delivering the word from Sunday to Sunday. Some of these men were TERRIBLE speakers who delivered dry expositional messages from their notes that made it hard to stay awake, let alone learn anything new. When I compared these particular men to some female speakers I'd heard at ladies' conferences - some of whom were incredibly dynamic, articulate and inspiring, I found it hard to believe that God could prefer that someone deliver a message that makes his word barely pallatable - simply because the speaker had a penis.

 

I was a gifted speaker myself. I'd won public speaking awards in school from the time I was 11. I remember asking my mother "What does a penis have to do with one's ability to share truths from the Bible?" She told me to stop being so crude, but I always found myself staring at the speaker's pant bulge and wondering what the damn big deal was supposed to be. We women knew the exact same doctrines and verses as our brothers did. Many of us were just as educated and capable of reason and rhetoric quite apart from our "emotional swaying". And a woman could - and often did - deliver essentislly the very same message that any of the men did. I inwardly joked that one day I would buy a dildo and put it up on the podium shouting "Hey! I have a penis! Now let me speak!" My younger brothers preached. Their genitals were longer than mine and their voice was deeper so God liked them better than me and my damn silent vagina.

 

It always dawned on me: Why is it acceptable for women to teach children when some of those children have penises? If having a vagina makes a woman so deluded and easily swayed that she'll be succeptible to deception - why on earth would you allow her to teach the future preachers and teachers of the church? I recall asking that question. I don't recall ever getting a good answer.

 

1 Corinthians 14:34 "Women^[f] should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. ³⁵ If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.^[g]

 

When exactly is "church"? Bible study was a strange time. For one hour between opening and closing prayer, I was a potentially deceived learning in silent submission woman. When a doctrine was discussed or challenged and men offered alternative interpretations, women had nothing to offer. We had to wait until the coffee break after meeting to actually engage men in conversation about these doctrines. For some reason, women could teach or challenge a man if she had a coffee in her hands but not when she had a doillie on her head.

 

Churches have stiffled great potential. I know one woman, incredibly intelligent and very knowledgeable in the scriptures and boy could she ever deliver a message! In fact she is a medical doctor and a professor at the local university. She spends Monday to Friday teaching men how to do surgery. But in Biblical matters? Couldn't teach a man. Listening to her was like taking a doctorate course in Biblical studies and boy could we learn in a single hour! But only the women were ever able to hear her. In fact she was and is widely recognized as a Christian speaker to women's conferences across the local denominations. Only one group of men ever had the priviledge. A group of men from another denomination broadcast her womens-only message via live-feed into another conference room. Of course when she found out, she was livid.

 

Sad. Very sad.

 

Thankfully, I did have my season of preaching before I ex-communicated myself from Christianity. As a pro-life activist I team-taught with another man in pro-life apologetics. In such context most churches were quite willing to allow me to expound on a few passages of the Bible as I made the case for life and for our duty to social action. It was "training" and "teaching" or "sharing and testimonies" not "preaching". Unfortunately, I had to sit down and shut up and listen to my male colleague do all the talking when we got back to my home church. Because clearly, I still have a vagina. And I might suddenly become deceived and swayed the next time I open my mouth to share the same message I've delivered for years. I really have to learn how to get my vagina out of my eyes when I'm reading the Bible. Damn vagina.

[kruszer]

I really have to learn how to get my vagina out of my eyes when I'm reading the Bible. Damn vagina.

 

Am I allowed to like my own quote? I wrote this late last night and I have to say that in re-reading it, I especially love this line. It's a quote that sarcastically sums up the experience of so many, I presume.