NPR extremes, feminism, oppression, and the middle way
Yesterday I spent some time in the car (on a Saturday afternoon) which meant listening to some talk programs on NPR. I am afraid that I don't remember which ones they were, but they were on in the late afternoon, between 4 and 6 in this area.
There was an interesting juxtaposition in these programs. One of them was an interview with a young woman who has recently written the book The Witness Wore Red. She was in the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints cult growing up and was "married," at a young age to the patriarch Jeffs, the father of Warren Jeffs. Her "husband" was in his late 80s at the time and died not long afterward, and he of course had many other "wives" at this time. She was told by Warren Jeffs that she would have to marry again, since their "theology" demands marriage and childbearing for "salvation." This young woman stood up to Jeffs but he was determined to break her will and spirit, but she managed to escape before the week's deadline she was given before she would be married off again to some other polygamous. She was able to testify against him in court on child rape charges and wore red, a shameful color to that cult, to prove she was stronger than he.
The other story, later, was an interview with a feminist writer who has just made a movie called Afternoon Delights, about a normal, affluent, middle-class wife and mother who gets a lap dance and decides that the sex worker should come home with her. The discussion was adult-rated and I should have turned it off. This writer talked about how much she admired and yet was jealous of Lena Dunham for her work on Girls because Dunham had found her voice. She spoke of how Dunham had two parents who were both artists and so finding and expressing her voice was natural to Dunham, something this writer had struggled with and believed other women were, that women don't feel the freedom to say what they are really thinking and that this movie was her real expression. Some clips were played that were pretty raunchy and tasteless, in my opinion, e.g., rape as funny.
Well, the end: I do understand the second interviewee's struggle about finding her voice as a woman, but I don't think that means our voice will express the deepest and nastiest parts of us. I think it does mean that we have to be bold to see how we have allowed men to dictate our thinking about ourselves, or worse, we have allowed what we think men think to dictate our thinking about ourselves and life. I think I write better fiction when my characters are female. I think, I know, I have been somewhat oppressed by patriarchy, as much as I hate to say those cliched words. Not the patriarchy of the Scriptures, if such a thing exists, but the patriarchy of church polity and my own lack of self-awareness.
But I got this sneaky feeling that NPR was saying: Here are two choices--religion that leads to this massive, horrid, rapacious oppression, or utter freedom that leads to tastelessness and arrogance and throwing off the faith in exchange for a feeling of "I get to say what I want to say." These are not the two choices. While religion can be and often is used for oppression, that is not the faith once delivered to the saints--it is what we have made of that faith through our own desire for power and our own self-addiction. It is hard, but we can find not the middle way but the right way. We need not embrace the world's notion of freedom nor a misplaced sense of submission.
My son told me he saw a couple at his church this morning and spoke to them (we are going to different churches now, which is fine). I said something about how I had heard the young woman sit on her porch and scream foul language in front of the children into a phone. It could have been taken that 1. she had not right to go to church with a potty mouth, 2. God couldn't help her change 3. I was better than she was because I don't do that or 4) his church didn't expect much out of it members -- or all four. I can see now why my son got annoyed with me. I should rejoice she was in church hearing the Word. My self-righteousness astounds me sometimes.
My son also told me about a website that is trying to teach Christians not to send their daughters to college. That is appalling because the underlying message is, if these girls get an education we can't control them, under the guise of "a college education teaches them not to honor home and family, marriage and wifehood." Beyond the absurdity, it's sickening. My son said, "I don't need a wife, I need an equal." I think what he means by that--although he's off a bit--is that he doesn't want a woman in his life who is emotionally dependent and self-oppressed (which today in this country is really the only type of oppression there is), but one with goals and a mind and an education.
There was an interesting juxtaposition in these programs. One of them was an interview with a young woman who has recently written the book The Witness Wore Red. She was in the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints cult growing up and was "married," at a young age to the patriarch Jeffs, the father of Warren Jeffs. Her "husband" was in his late 80s at the time and died not long afterward, and he of course had many other "wives" at this time. She was told by Warren Jeffs that she would have to marry again, since their "theology" demands marriage and childbearing for "salvation." This young woman stood up to Jeffs but he was determined to break her will and spirit, but she managed to escape before the week's deadline she was given before she would be married off again to some other polygamous. She was able to testify against him in court on child rape charges and wore red, a shameful color to that cult, to prove she was stronger than he.
The other story, later, was an interview with a feminist writer who has just made a movie called Afternoon Delights, about a normal, affluent, middle-class wife and mother who gets a lap dance and decides that the sex worker should come home with her. The discussion was adult-rated and I should have turned it off. This writer talked about how much she admired and yet was jealous of Lena Dunham for her work on Girls because Dunham had found her voice. She spoke of how Dunham had two parents who were both artists and so finding and expressing her voice was natural to Dunham, something this writer had struggled with and believed other women were, that women don't feel the freedom to say what they are really thinking and that this movie was her real expression. Some clips were played that were pretty raunchy and tasteless, in my opinion, e.g., rape as funny.
Well, the end: I do understand the second interviewee's struggle about finding her voice as a woman, but I don't think that means our voice will express the deepest and nastiest parts of us. I think it does mean that we have to be bold to see how we have allowed men to dictate our thinking about ourselves, or worse, we have allowed what we think men think to dictate our thinking about ourselves and life. I think I write better fiction when my characters are female. I think, I know, I have been somewhat oppressed by patriarchy, as much as I hate to say those cliched words. Not the patriarchy of the Scriptures, if such a thing exists, but the patriarchy of church polity and my own lack of self-awareness.
But I got this sneaky feeling that NPR was saying: Here are two choices--religion that leads to this massive, horrid, rapacious oppression, or utter freedom that leads to tastelessness and arrogance and throwing off the faith in exchange for a feeling of "I get to say what I want to say." These are not the two choices. While religion can be and often is used for oppression, that is not the faith once delivered to the saints--it is what we have made of that faith through our own desire for power and our own self-addiction. It is hard, but we can find not the middle way but the right way. We need not embrace the world's notion of freedom nor a misplaced sense of submission.
My son told me he saw a couple at his church this morning and spoke to them (we are going to different churches now, which is fine). I said something about how I had heard the young woman sit on her porch and scream foul language in front of the children into a phone. It could have been taken that 1. she had not right to go to church with a potty mouth, 2. God couldn't help her change 3. I was better than she was because I don't do that or 4) his church didn't expect much out of it members -- or all four. I can see now why my son got annoyed with me. I should rejoice she was in church hearing the Word. My self-righteousness astounds me sometimes.
My son also told me about a website that is trying to teach Christians not to send their daughters to college. That is appalling because the underlying message is, if these girls get an education we can't control them, under the guise of "a college education teaches them not to honor home and family, marriage and wifehood." Beyond the absurdity, it's sickening. My son said, "I don't need a wife, I need an equal." I think what he means by that--although he's off a bit--is that he doesn't want a woman in his life who is emotionally dependent and self-oppressed (which today in this country is really the only type of oppression there is), but one with goals and a mind and an education.
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