Holy and Unholy Misogyny; I See Them Linked Now (warning: trigger alert)

(a most excellent, disturbing read)

Holy and Unholy Misogyny; I See Them Linked Now
(Religious faith and pornography should never have gotten intertwined in my mind. But something bad that happened last summer has made me consider the unsavory links between patriarchy in its "holy" and egregiously unholy forms.)




. . . .

In previous years they had peered inside and seen Barbie dolls with strange chains around their ankles. The owner is not part of our community. He is middle-aged and divorced and seems like a nice guy who takes good care of his shack and loves boating and fishing. Every year he has a guys' weekend, so we've sort of chuckled and laughed off the Barbie doll tied to the back of his speedboat. You know, "Ha, ha, ha, silly male antics. Boys will be boys."

. . .
All the disgusting images (both animal and human, including the life-sized sex dolls I refer to above) clearly conveyed the same message: Females are inferior filth meant to be dominated like animals. I am not sure which distresses my soul more--the burns on the dolls' faces or the vulgar, debasing words on the wall (whore, slut, bitch, f***ing this and that, and other vile instructions).

. . . . .

But a different and opposing trend is also rampant in many Christian circles, and not just in homeschooling families. Never before have I heard and witnessed such enthusiastic calls for men to "step up" and be quasi-sovereigns in the family, in the church and in society and even to raise boys to be patriarchs. At every turn I encounter exalted metaphors calling for consolidation of power into the hands of fathers and husbands in their families and men in the church and parachurch organizations. In this gaining ideology we see the growing use of the word "patriarch" and an emphasis on training girls to be girls (which means being submissive and pure and honoring her father as the family priest) and boys to be boys to "step up" throughout their childhood and progress into the role of becoming a patriarch. What the heck is going on? How can this be?

Study after study shows that highly patriarchal religious environments, where girls are conditioned little by little to subordinate their own wills to their father or pastor (who represents God), lead to such a loss of human agency, so that they have a hard time even knowing that abuse is wrong, never mind standing up to it.

. . . .

http://womensenews.org/story/religion/141226/holy-and-unholy-misogyny-i-see-them-linked-now