(Crossposted from OurWord.org)
It is hard for me to comprehend that in 2005, women’s basic rights to full autonomy and control over their own bodies and lives are once again being threatened by far right wing religious fanatics who have gained a solid political foothold in this administration. It is alarming beyond words for me to see that so many of today’s liberal women and men seem willing to compromise and move toward the center on what I hear referred to as “special interest issues,” meaning of course, issues that primarily affect women’s lives.
I also know that if one has always enjoyed the basic freedoms to create lives of their own choosing, it is very difficult to imagine a life where one’s freedom and choices are fully dictated by others. Yet that is the kind of life many of us who are older now, were born into, and shaped by.
My small town ultra conservative, strictly religious world was designed by and ruled by the same kind of far right radical religious extremists who are again striving to take control of women’s lives. They know if they can succeed, once again they will gain the power to set the rules and roles for all of us, according to their own religious ideologies and values. It was these kinds of “religious” teachings, drummed into me from my earliest memory, that led me to this experience.
Circa 1950’s.
I was thirteen when I finally got desperate enough to seek help after six years of sexual and physical abuse from two men living in my very religious and proper home. It took me a long time to work up the courage to break the Big Rule ( about keeping what happens at home private) but I finally I turned to my minister, the only hope I could see.
It was raining that day when I walked back home, after learning from this trusted man of God that it was probably my own fault, for acting seductively in from of those men. He had asked me lots of questions about how I dressed and acted around these two men. Yes, sometimes I did wear my nightie around the house in the evenings. Yes, sometimes I did sit on their laps. (But only when they asked me to!) Didn’t I know I was way too big a girl to do that? He prayed with me for my forgiveness, and for guidance to help me remain chaste in mind and heart.
On the way home, I wished the rain was like some kind of acid that could just make me disappear.
How does a very intelligent, strong willed thirteen-year-old girl come to actually believe she is fully responsible for inviting the sexual and physical abuse that makes her life a living hell?
Start with putting her into a fundamentalist pseudo-Christian environment and feed her a steady diet of sin, guilt, shame and blame from day one. Teach her she was born sinful; that she was an afterthought in creation, made only to keep Adam from being too lonely: that she was made from one of his extra ribs, as if not worthy of God wasting any original material.
From day one in Sunday school, if she dares to ask question any of this, you slap her down hard, so she learns that questioning the word of God is a sin, and then you keep slapping her down and ostracizing her every time she does from then on.
You teach her that it was a woman who was responsible for Adam becoming sinful, and that because she was so bad, all women forever more would be punished by bleeding every month and suffering greatly when she had babies.
You make sure that she is taught what God-given roles are intended for her, in life as a woman. You teach her that the only way to get to heaven is to fulfill them all graciously, willingly, with fervent gratitude for have been granted this opportunity to serve Christ. You give her a simple God-directed blueprint for becoming a Good Christian Woman: she is to love, honor, and obey men, in the home, the church, and the community, while caring well for her children and loved one’s who need her, always without a single, selfish thought of her own needs.
You start very early telling her what the consequences will be if she fails to meet the expectations of God and her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who died for her sins. That would be, of course, to burn in everlasting hell for all eternity. A hell described graphically described every single Sunday, so she would fully understand and never forget.
You also make sure she is fully aware that a harsh and judgmental God actually can see every single thing she does, know every single thought she has, and that He has the power and the right to strike her dead at any given moment. (I used to think I was safe under the big grand piano.)
You put her in a home in a small town, full of adults who were also taught all these same religious truths, and make sure she remains protected and isolated from the “sinful outside world,” so the only reality she has ever known is this one.
You put her in a world where the only information available for her to use in the vital years of personality formation and self identification, comes from two single sources: the harsh religious ideologies of an extreme fundamentalist religion, and the living examples of it in the actions of every adult around her. You give her a mother who is used to being treated like a sexual plaything and punching bag, as a role model. You give her (very religious) men who assume the right to use a child’s body for their own sexual pleasure. You give her a religious leader who sends her back home for more of the same, along with the added burden of validated guilt, because now she knows for a fact it is her fault because Almighty God, through his Holy Man, has just told her so.
So that’s how it happened that an intelligent, powerful 13 year-old girl came to be walking home from her church, wishing the rain was acid, so she could disappear, as she deserved to.
( and so she didn’t have to walk through that deadly door at home ever again.)
Now, a half century later, I’m finally free of all of these lies about my lack of worth as a human being and I certainly no longer believe I am a second class citizen because I am a female. It cost me many years of my life to undo the serious damage caused by this extremist religion, and the so called “Men of God” who ruled my world.
Now, I see them beginning to rise back into powerful positions that I ever dreamed they’d ever have in America. Today’s far-right extreme fundamentalists, like those before them, have perverted the faith to serve their own needs for power and control. Only now, they have learned how to be more much more subtle and “civilized” in their approach.
Yet they are even more bold in their intention not only to be masters in their own homes, but to dominate the homes and wombs of women by denying them the right to preside over their own bodies. They will continue to insert their far right ideologies into every level of government and social institution they can. They have adopted every single effective high level propaganda technique there is, and have absolutely mastered art of sleazy, unethical behind the scenes purchase, acquisition and accumulation of the political power they need. Power they wish to use not only against women, but anyone else who is not just like themselves.
I often hear that I am “over reacting.” That the danger I see is some kind of post traumatic reaction on my part, and not likely to happen today. I will be forever grateful of this is the case, but I don’t believe it is. There is too much evidence surfacing every day, that what I am seeing is flat out reality.
It is important to me that you know I do not share this tale to condemn Christianity as a religion. I know far too many good and loving people who are Christians, including my own children.
I share it only to condemn and to stand against those extremists within Christianity who subvert and twist it to serve their own sinful need for power and control over others, no matter whose lives they destroy in the process, and who claim to be doing it “in the name of God.”
What an absolute abomination.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I still walk in the rain sometimes.
Only now, I think if it did turn to acid, it should fall on them, not me.
