I found this "losing my religion" essay by Jimmy Carter to be interesting and thought-provoking. Also memory-inducing as I've lived through several incarnations of hierarchical religious groups preaching doctrines that subjugate women.


Losing my religion for equality
Jimmy Carter
July 15, 2009

http://www.tutufoundationusa.org/2017/04/27/jimmy-carter-losing-religion-equality/


Excerpts:

"Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God.

"I have been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

"This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries.

"At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

"The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met.

...

"It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. We need to challenge these self-serving and outdated attitudes and practices - as we are seeing in Iran where women are at the forefront of the battle for democracy and freedom.

"I understand, however, why many political leaders can be reluctant about stepping into this minefield. Religion, and tradition, are powerful and sensitive areas to challenge. But my fellow Elders and I, who come from many faiths and backgrounds, no longer need to worry about winning votes or avoiding controversy - and we are deeply committed to challenging injustice wherever we see it.

"The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by former South African president Nelson Mandela, who offer their influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity. We have decided to draw particular attention to the responsibility of religious and traditional leaders in ensuring equality and human rights and have recently published a statement that declares: "The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable."

"The carefully selected verses found in the Holy Scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place - and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence - than eternal truths. Similar biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers.

"I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same Scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn't until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.

"The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views."

-----

As a JW, being female, in the weekly evening "Ministry School" meeting to teach members how to preach I could not address a congregation in a talk. Rather, I had to be on stage with another female and we would look at and speak to each other, the congregation "overhearing" our conversation, to avoid having women "teaching" men directly (a male JW would by merely standing alone at the podium giving their talk directly to the assembled masses).

If I was teaching Bible study to a male prospect, as soon as he committed to being baptized I would have to don a head covering (scarf) to complete his lessons, as even a non-baptized (but committed) male would be higher in the hierarchy than I was, being female. If he seemed particularly like a very good prospect, even leadership material, often a male JW would take over the lessons at that point, to prevent a lowly female from teaching such a vaunted almost-member.

When I left the JWs and started attending a fundamentalist BAC church with a friend (yes, I was a glutton for punishment on the religion front) same deal. "Women should remain silent in the churches" according to the Apostle Paul, whose words in this regard are zealously followed by men who are happy to perpetuate the discriminatory beliefs. Once, during an informal evening meeting, the male speaker lost track of a scripture he wanted to quote. He was stumbling around, getting the words mixed up and it stopped him in his tracks as it was an integral part of his address. Without a second thought I called out and recited the words of the scripture to help him move on and the mouths of the men around me dropped open and their eyes bugged out as they stared at me. A male friend sitting nearby whispered "Nighty, you're not supposed to talk in church". I didn't actually consider that "talking in church", especially as it was not a formal meeting of the entire congregation but merely a voluntary evening gathering. I didn't find out til later too that women weren't supposed to be in church without their heads being covered. I was the only female at the Sunday services not wearing a scarf or hat but I thought it was just their fashion, not a biblical requirement (according to them). The day it was preached from the pulpit about "the wicked amongst us", eg, females with uncovered heads, was my last day attending that church. Ever.

As a Mormon, as you all know, the discrimination is also ingrained into the doctrines and policies. In my experience, though, LDS practices seemed actually more liberal than churches I was accustomed to! However, it did seriously bug me that in one of my callings, the major essential world-shaking calling of being bulletin board monitor, the bishop required me to pass everything by him before I displayed it on the board, including announcements and decorations and pictures. Once I tacked up some postcards depicting Jesus that I thought were really interesting because they weren't the common ones you see around everywhere and I thought they'd make a nice change. I didn't ask the bishop first because they were pictures of *Jesus*. How could he object to that (I thought - mistakenly). I got called into his office for him to reiterate that *everything* must go through him first. I was clueless enough to argue, saying "but it's Jesus". Ha. Yeah. The missionaries, with whom I was still friendly (especially as I found the Mormons there decidedly frosty and didn't make friends except with other converts) told me that Mormon Jesus in his white robes and scarlet sash is the preferred image. OK, so I got rid of quiet Jesus with his birds and kids and no red sash or pristine white robes.

My sister, who interacts with LDS women in an interfaith group (and yes, we're both so surprised they take part as they are not usually involved in community activities that way, especially including other religions), recently told me of a Mormon woman she likes who has a calling I've never heard of, that is certainly higher than mine of bulletin board monitor under the bishop's thumb. I don't want to give the name of the calling as it could tend to ID the woman or at least the local congregation. This calling brings the Mormon woman into contact with this interfaith group which otherwise she likely wouldn't be involved with. Recently, she told my sister that she wouldn't see her again as her calling was over.

My sister's understanding of a 'calling' was the more common one, that a person themselves feels drawn to a certain area (like a Catholic woman may feel a calling to become a nun) or interest of their own; in other words, that it comes from within the person themselves (or from God, if you think in those religious terms). When she expressed this to the Mormon woman, saying I thought you had a calling to do this work, the Mormon laughed, saying yes, I enjoy it but my calling has been changed. Then she explained to my sister that the bishop is the one who decides what your calling is and it is not permanent and is subject to change and is not necessarily confined to one's own personal interests and certainly doesn't arise from one's own choice. My sister was so surprised that she hadn't known this, thinking this woman, who she enjoyed doing projects with, was doing it voluntarily because she wanted to do it and would be staying indefinitely. I told my sister that, yes, it's the bishop who decides what each member will do and they are expected to say yes to whatever they are told their calling is going to be.I don't think members of these more fundamentalist religious groups realize how strange these beliefs are to outsiders who are accustomed to more liberal ideas.

Believing that men should be in charge and that women should submit is certainly discriminatory. Just in terms of the way Mormon callings work, this is obvious. Why should that woman not continue working with the interfaith group in projects she is interested in and enjoys and has a talent for? Instead, she has received a much more minor calling now, one that will not utilize her obvious skills. All at the whim of a male bishop who is told he has the duty and the power to tell women what they will or will not do even in regard to areas he doesn't need to be involved with. Why does he get to fiddle with people's lives like that? I know he does so with male members too but with females the element of subjugation creeps in. A man choosing what a woman will or will not do, without regard to her preferences and choices. Because, supposedly, the "holy" scriptures mandate it.

I haven't even (yet) mentioned to my sister the bishop's intrusion into a female's most private life, in the mandatory meetings and intrusive questions. I can't even begin to describe my shock and disbelief at being asked by a male Mormon (the bishop), as a female adult convert, questions about my sex life. (Again, yes, he does it with males too but, again, add the element of a male being in a dominant power position over a female and the questionable dynamics are obvious). It didn't help me that the bishop was blushing. I likely was too. Sheesh.

I don't know if I will ever tell my sister about this aspect of being Mormon. She was already shaking her head and swearing over this revelation about Mormon callings, especially as she is losing a good addition to her interfaith group. She used to attend the Catholic Church, when her kids (a son and a daughter) were young. She is accustomed to patriarchy. But the dynamics in the Mormon Church in this regard really surprised her.

The big question hangs out there: Why do women put themselves through this? A question I think it's even more difficult for converts to answer. Part of it is the boiled frog phenomenon. Of course, the friendly, kind, can't-help-you-enough missionaries don't say females are lesser than, or the male leaders will intrude into your private life, or you will lose your autonomy, or freedom of choice is not top of mind with Mormon leaders, etc. So you get in and slowly these nets gradually tighten and eventually you may come to feel that you are so committed you are stuck. Same with JWs, in my experience.

Because I had questions - questions - not due to a voluntary disclosure on my part to having any kind of emotional issues - my bishop ended up at some point sending me to see the church psychologist. Of course, I acquiesced - because, well, he's the bishop. (Groan). The psychologist was an overbearing creep, and rude with it, which directly led to me making the sudden decision to Just. Leave. When I told him my "problem" was that "I have questions" (about the church) his conclusion at the end of the first and only session was "we are not working from a position of strength here". I guess he was a great diagnostician. I never attended another Mormon meeting. Way to clarify a situation, doc!

I like Jimmy Carter's conclusion - that in the early Christian church "women are revered as pre-eminent leaders" until male leaders in the fourth century "twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy." "The truth is" says Carter: "...male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. ... It is time we had the courage to challenge these [aforementioned discriminatory] views."

This woman my sister worked with, who enjoyed, and was good at, her "calling" with the interfaith group is now "serving" in a calling that is millions of miles removed from the calling she just had. From what my sister knows of her, she has zero experience and little interest in the area of her new calling. "That's how Mormon callings work" I told my sis. She stared at me for a minute and then just shook her head.

Sometimes words do fail you (although not me, obviously, in this very long post!).

I wish Wendy would get hold of Russ' lighted pen and draw a map to The New World, one where women get to make their own choices. Including whether they want to be the ward piano teacher or the choir master or the sacrament passer or {{gasp}} the mission president. Or whether they want no calling at all.

What a concept.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2020 09:12PM by Nightingale.

Yes. Another question I asked when I was a child (BAC), is why we belonged to a religion that was used to subjugate our enslaved African ancestors? Be a good little slave and you'll get your reward in heaven. Tote that barge. Lift that bale. When you die, you will be rewarded for all of the pain and suffering of this life. Children of Ham, the iniquities of your fathers are yours to bear, and your children's, then their children's.

It was like, "Isn't Original Sin enough punishment for being born? We've got to deal with this Ham guy, too?"

IDK, Nighty. It seemed so counterintuitive. Well, it *is* counterintuitive to willingly continue to carry the mantle of religious abuse that was originally foisted upon you. There's a self-loathing aspect to it.

I have ~25 1st cousins on my father's side of the family. My father's youngest sister died when I was about twelve years old. She had three daughters: Dawn who was 13, April who was 12, and Leslie who was eight years old. Luckily (?), their mother died due to a botched bronchoscopy, and the children were award damages that were kept in a trust. My grandmother moved into their home and raised them, and their house was paid off.

I spent a lot weekends with them, and each Saturday we'd be in the kitchen, and my grandmother would straighten their hair with a hot comb that was heated on one of the stove's gas burners. My cousins would be crying as they were accidentally burned on the tops of their ears and the backs of their necks. I cried because I wanted to have my hair straightened. After all the crying, we'd have a big argument about "good" and "bad" hair.

There was all of this weird colorism in my family, and we were envious of each other because of they type of hair we had or the color of our eyes or the shade of our skin. April was blond with blue eyes. My grandmother's eyes were green and she had "good" hair. We used to think she was white. Our cousin Michelle had blond hair, and our Aunt Evelyn was a ginger with green eyes. Leslie was a little bit browner, but she had the most European features, so she lucked out there. There were unwritten lists. There were Those with The Light Eyes. There were Those with The Pretty Hair. There were Those Light-Brite and Damn Near White kids. Those who were on all three lists hit The Colorism Trifecta!

The thing is, we *learned* this. Generation after generation, our family doled out love, admiration, and praise based on who looked the whitest. My father's oldest brother, Paul, passed for white. That was so very painful to me. I loved him so much, and then he was gone. When I was older, I realized that he thought his prospects would be better if he passed. Passing for white was a survival imperative for people on both sides of my family. Passing is fraught with pain.

When my grandmother was dying, she kept asking for Uncle Paul. We couldn't find him. It turned out that he predeceased her. I'm glad she never knew that he had died before she did. She had already buried three of her nine children. Her husband died when the youngest was a toddler. She studied to become an LPN, and the kids basically looked after each other when she was at work, and those who could worked as well.

Oh, that's a tangent there!

Maybe I can weave it in like this: How we looked was God's will. The difficulty and pain we went through was considered relative to our looks and played out on a daily basis in the family and in school. That was God's will as well. It was someone's predetermined lot in life. Calvinism yesterday; Calvinism today; and Calvinism forever.

But it wasn't God's will. It was just genetics and melanin and the luck of the draw.

I don't know why we do these things to each other. There are plenty of people outside of everyone's family who are more than happy to treat us badly. I don't know why we do it to each other.

Ugh. Rambleramblenotproofreadingnowramblebye



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2020 10:52PM by Beth.

Beth, your 'tangents' are world-class.

If you wrote 100 books I would buy every single one.

I bet your hair is beautiful.

Like you...

Beth is indeed beautiful--in every way.

She also has the combination of brains and personal history and empathy that would make her a superb author, one of those rare people who enables others to feel what for them are otherwise incomprehensible experiences. Maybe when her daughter gets settled and her mortgage paid off, the ducks suitably baked, she will give us what we all want.

I can understand women being supporters of the church patriarchy so that they have someone to play the heavy in case hubby gets out of line. But what about single moms? What do they get out of the deal? I suppose community support, which is a pretty good reason by itself.

Still, it’s the women who enable the church’s treatment of them. Maybe they should be grateful that men are leaving rather than supporting bad policies.

babyloncansuckit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Still, it’s the women who enable the church’s
> treatment of them.

Erp...

Wow

I think there are many men in the lds church who wish they didn't have the priesthood (or whatever it is). My parents never gave any significance to it. My dad saw it more of a pain as he'd get called to go help give blessings (maybe once or twice) and he would NOT be happy about it. I had friends I worked with who had him as their home teacher. The husband was an inactive mormon. The woman was not mormon. They LOVED him as he just came by to chat and they all became friends. They were FURIOUS when they changed their HT to another man.

My brrothers hated passing the sacrament, collecting fast offerings, going HT with older men they didn't know. I was so happy I wasn't them. None of us are very social.

So, to me, I didn't care. My brothers hated bishopric interviews more than I did, but then they didn't realize their sisters also got asked about masturbation. My 2 brothers who weren't disabled left the church in their teens.

Men are also abused in mormonism, not just the women. There are the select men AND WOMEN and the rest of us were just the chattel. So I don't understand the need to have the priesthood.

And, yes, it is the select women who enable the treatment. Oh, believe me, most of them like it the way it is, at least the ones I knew and know. They have a lot of power and THEY USE IT.

As for single moms. Same thing. I still didn't know what I believed, what I should do, but one thing i did know is that MY KIDS were not going to be lower class citizens in mormonism. When I knew my marriage was falling apart, I took them out of the church. I had been a singles ward. I had also seen how single mothers and their children are treated. The men in the church aren't the worst ones to single women--IT IS THE OTHER WOMEN.

Best thing I ever did was to LEAVE mormonism, not just for myself, but for my kids and my brothers. My daughter may have gone back, but my son would have been more of a victim of mormonism than my daughter.

cl2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Men are also abused in mormonism, not just the
> women.

I agree. We can see that from accounts written by our fellow posters.

Sorry, I didn't mean to make this a gender war.

The hierarchical structure can hurt female and male members alike. The claustrophobic conveyor belt existence likewise.

One tiny example of those at the top and then the rest of us that comes to mind is when I visited SLC for GC one year. Thousands of people waiting in long lines in the rain to be admitted to the conference centre. Many disappointed that they couldn't get a seat there (where the apostles were) and had to go instead to the tabernacle (where I ended up).

I had run into a SP who I knew at home and he offered to find me a ticket to get in the back door, so to speak, of the conference centre. I declined, disliking the feel of being given special status. As it turned out, I quite enjoyed being in the Tab - nice building - although I could well have done without the mean-looking bigwig sitting up front who kept glaring at me. For sure I had no idea how I had offended. I played with the idea that maybe he really had discernment and knew I was less than enthused with Mormonism to date.

But then I decided nah. He was just crabby. For reasons unknown.

Probably.

I seriously dislike elitism.

Just thinking about my lovely time in mormonism. I still can't believe I stayed as long as I did. People who knew me when are still shocked and will still ask me, "You really don't believe any longer?" My parents were in shock, although I was much more active mormon than they were, but they also saw my life fall apart. Even with having 2 disabled brothers (one from birth and one from age 42), my one not disabled brother told me that they were more disturbed by what happened to me than anything else that happened in our lives.

Our family was not treated well in mormonism. I have to admit there are some good mormons as I have good mormon friends and my one disabled brother who still goes to church, he has some mormon friends and there are people in his ward who treat him SO WELL. Then there are those who DO NOT. He lives in my parents' home so most people have known him for years.

Mormonism is just set up for many forms of abuse for all people.

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience going to SLC to conference. I did go once as an 18-year-old with the mutual girls in the ward (now young womens or maybe just changed again) and I wasn't really impressed. That was before the conference center and was at the tabernacle. I did go to the conference center with my daughter a few years after she went back to church. She didn't have anyone to go with, so I went along. It was rather shocking to view it all from the outside. My daughter went many times as she is best friends with the previous stake R.S. president (one of her mormon mothers), but my elderly aunt and uncle couldn't get tickets and they are SO MORMON it made me nauseous even when I was a mormon.

As for women becoming Deacons. The King James bible does say Deacons are to be the husband of one wife.

Makes L-d$,inc with 11 year olds becoming deacons a bit of a foolish thing, eh?

Or, maybe One for Deacons, two for Teachers, Three for Priests, for our so for Elders and whole bunch for higher dudes?

Possibly scriptural foreshadowing of same sex marriage - so a woman can be a Deacon and be the "husband of One Wife'?

Lack of equality for women was what drove me away from the Catholic church in my mid-teens. I was spurred on by feminist literature. When you have people (even within the confines of books) telling you that you deserve better, you start to believe it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2020 10:29PM by summer.

I wish Carter would just go away. I think he is a naive buffoon.

I'm conflicted about St. Jimmy.

Dave the Atheist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wish Carter would just go away. I think he is a
> naive buffoon.

When he was president, I had serious quarrels with some of his policies.

In his post-presidential years, he has done a great deal of good, and for that he deserves respect.

He doesn't just talk about potentials and possibilities, he actually gets into the sweaty and dirty DO-ing to make those potentials and possibilities three-dimensional reality.

Certainly post-White House, he has become a mensch.

I'm with y'all.

Carter was a lousy president and did some stupid, ego-inspired things afterwards, like giving Kim Il Sung a way out of the vice that Clinton and Bill Perry had put him in over nuclear weapons. If that hadn't happened, the world would probably be free of the threat Kim Jung-un poses today. And there were other such cases.

But if you can overlook those things--irony intended--and the pretentiousness, he has spent much of the last several decades doing valuable humanitarian work. So he's a mixed bag, difficult to dismiss as a private individual but hard to like as a statesman.

I recall during the George W. Bush administration, when the States was enmired in Iraq, Carter said that Bush was the worst president ever. Bush replied with characteristic eloquence that no, Carter was the worst president ever.

I thought, "they are both right."

Yes, I admire his humanitarian work. And I find this particular essay interesting. Carter approaches his Christian faith in a thoughtful manner.

Jimmy Carter never ordered the attack of a nation that was no threat to the US. Jimmy Carter did not lie to the American Public and UN like W did.

Jimmy Carter actually pounds nails to build homes for Habitat for Humanity. He walks the walk as a humanitarian - not going around getting as much money as possible giving talks.

> Jimmy Carter never ordered the attack of a nation
> that was no threat to the US.

No, but he stabbed Germany in the back, screwed up European deterrence, gave China permission to invade Vietnam, totally blew oil policy and Iran, and befriended dictators right and left.


-------------------
> Jimmy Carter did not
> lie to the American Public and UN like W did.

This is generally true although if you read his memoirs he's quite open about the need for strategy deception in specific cases where he did dissemble--and Helmudt Schmidt certainly felt lied to when Carter persuaded him to back US nuclear strategy and then, without warning, reversed himself in a way that undercut the German government domestically and internationally. Carter's excuse as he himself explained? He decided that the US policy was morally wrong and felt no need to inform US allies.


-----------------
> Jimmy Carter actually pounds nails to build homes
> for Habitat for Humanity. He walks the walk as a
> humanitarian - not going around getting as much
> money as possible giving talks.

Yeah, if you reread my post you'll see that I alluded to that fact.

I hesitated to post his article and name due to the obvious major political connection. But I found his opinion on this topic to be at least worth a mention. Not because it's Jimmy Carter but because of what he says. It is revolutionary compared to my experiences with the fundamentalist-type religion I got involved with. I was clueless as a young teen about the wide array of teachings and interpretations and just happened to fall in with first a JW, then a fundy BAC (then went more mainstream but still BAC) with a stint of Mormonism in the mix.

The idea of interpretation, not to mention history and tradition, was novel to me, having first learned that, apparently, there is only one way. It's difficult to divest oneself of that notion once ingrained. Indeed, the JWs call their faith 'The Truth' and refer to themselves as being "in the Truth". It can be hard to see past that once you're immersed in it. Not to mention that when I got baptized I meant it for life, so I thought, and it was excruciating for me to walk away from that. Same thing with Mormonism - once I was talked into baptism (pressured) and realized my mistake it took time for me to be OK with leaving what was meant at first to be a lifelong commitment. You have to somehow reach the conclusion that things aren't so absolute, that it's OK to change your mind. To some people that's obvious, to others not so much.

Coming to see that equality should be the order of the day, not religious hierarchy that discriminates against half the population, can take time and effort on the part of those who have previously been taught, and accepted, the patriarchy that exists in much of religious tradition.

I note, and agree with cl2 who states that women can be the worst offenders in defending the status quo. If you accept it, does discrimination still exist? Does it matter? I accepted for years that biblical principles declared that I should cover my head, stay quiet in the church, submit to men's unquestioned leadership, subsume my own choices to their oversight, leave my talents (such as they were) unused and stay in my place, not rocking anybody's boat for any reason. That was the only interpretation of the Bible I had ever come across. They can make it seem to somehow make sense that that is the order of things.

It can take thought and effort to make a 180 in circumstances like those. It can be very difficult to go back on commitments. I was fortunate not to have spouse and children - that would have complicated the situation for me and likely limited my free choice. I could have regretted cutting off a serious relationship with a JW guy I had deep feelings for or I could have focused on the relief of not getting so entangled that I wouldn't likely have got out. In time, I came to the relief part. I wouldn't have wanted to wreck his world, or mine, so things worked out for the very best for both of us. Except he's still JW I believe. I would have wished better for him but at least he didn't have to contend with a wayward wife - seen as such a blight in the JW world.

Thank God, literally in my case at the time, that I didn't get involved with a Mormon man. Immediately upon baptism, one of the missionaries said to me that getting married "is your job". I just stared. Never heard of marriage referred to as a job before. It kind of made me laugh. But scared me too. I see, much later, that in Mormonism it's an important part of their theology and it's taught young to BICs. What I call the Mormon treadmill. You're on it from birth (as a BIC) and don't get time to take a breath until you're 25, with a spouse and two kids and a pile of debt. Deeply entangled iow.

It's hard to explain how an idea, an interpretation, a teaching, a doctrine, an expectation, can virtually imprison one until a ray of light breaks through (like the welcome sun just did outside my window after 10 straight days of drenching rain) and you come to see that there is another way of thinking, of being. And that you're unlikely to be heading straight for hell if you change your mind, explore other avenues, listen to different ideas, make your own choices, follow your own drummer, live your own life.

Now I see it's more about what you do, not what you think (as in what you accomplish and/or contribute, not whichever random doctrine you've been taught and think you must follow). Although the two are likely connected. But it's OK to let your own brain cells exercise themselves. Hopefully, they choose freedom. Freedom to think. Freedom to do. Freedom to be. Within the inevitable constraints of civilized society, of course.

But I'll take that.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2020 03:24PM by Nightingale.

Somehow we continue to perpetuate the myth of the powerless women in religion.

Of course, you then have to ask why women like religion more than men. And why we read countless stories of men trying to quit church, and wives threatening divorce.

Women here at RFM are the exception to most women at church.

Most women are attracted to powerful men, and like to support them, as they are a source of money and resources allowing them to raise a family. So women don't mind being subservient, as long as they get the money - same as most men in the workplace, but we can't claim oppression.

The claims of powerless women conveniently omit the greatest power on earth, that belongs to women - control over sex.

And they use the church to shame men to consider their urges to be dirty and lustful, and report porn and other issues to leaders for discipline.

So, yes, if you are a misogynist, claim that women get nothing from church, and are just too stupid and weak to leave.

You really need to get out more. Where I live (the east coast of the U.S.,) I don't know of a young woman who isn't working. Many earn good money -- as good as their husbands or better. I've known a couple who are or were the sole support of their families.

As for religion, either a church accepts female priests/ministers or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then we know where it stands.