Trigger Warning for Modesty Culture B.S. and Benevolent Sexism. Also, I used more swear words than usually because I just can’t even. When I read the piece on Christianity Today’s women’s blog entitled “Why I Tell My Daughters to Dress Modestly,” my first response was “Because of benevolent sexism?” I’ve been talking about benevolent vs. hostile sexism on my blog a lot lately, and how often, people who adhere to benevolent sexist mindsets don’t think of themselves as sexists. They... Read more
This post was originally published on December 7, 2012 Many churches get super excited about building projects. These projects are supposed to represent big changes to the church, new ideas, progress, and relevance. Even the fundamentalist churches I’ve attended got excited about building projects, though these usually involved new gymnasiums where we could play the A.W.A.N.A “run around the circle and then go in for the beanbag” games rather than stadium seats or new stages for the worship band. Still, the... Read more
The blog Defeating the Dragons (by fellow ex-fundamentalist, Samantha) is running a series of guest posts on “the words many of us didn’t have in fundamentalism or overly conservative evangelicalism– and how we got them back.” Today, I’m participating in that series, talking about the word “justice.” How fundamentalists view the word “justice” and how feminist and liberation theologians view the word “justice” are two VERY different things: The justice of God, to fundamentalists, has absolutely nothing to do with... Read more
Trigger Warning: Racism, dehumanization, discussion of racial violence and the George Zimmerman case I’ve spent a few blog posts recently talking about the way that the patriarchal mindsets in some popular Christian dating books dehumanize both men and women in specific ways. They dehumanize men to absolve men of responsibility, or to use “bad” men as a threat to women who refuse to submit to the “loving, godly leadership” of “good” men. They dehumanize women in order to keep women... Read more
This post is part of a series called“You Are Not Your Own,” focusing on rape and sexual assault in Christian relationship/dating books Trigger Warning for rape, sexual assault, victim blaming, sexism Note: this research mainly focused on female rape. Though it is not the focus of my project, male rape is a huge problem as well–1 out of every 10 rape victims is male. I wanted to make it clear that, despite the focus of my study, it is not only women... Read more
This post is part of a series called“You Are Not Your Own,” focusing on rape and sexual assault in Christian relationship/dating books Trigger Warning for rape, sexual assault, victim blaming, sexism Note: this research mainly focused on female rape. Though it is not the focus of my project, male rape is a huge problem as well–1 out of every 10 rape victims is male. I wanted to make it clear that, despite the focus of my study, it is not only women... Read more
I don’t know what to say about the past few weeks. The gutting of the Voting Rights Act. Awful, almost unbelievable successful attempts to restrict reproductive health in Ohio, North Carolina, and Texas. Then the verdict of the George Zimmerman trial last night. Some of these issues affect me very directly (I am moving to Ohio soon, and I have a uterus and wanted to have children in the next few years, so losing access to certain types of reproductive... Read more
This post is part of a series called“You Are Not Your Own,” focusing on rape and sexual assault in Christian relationship/dating books Trigger Warning for rape, sexual assault, victim blaming, sexism Note: this research mainly focused on female rape, so I am not sure if the same trends toward rape myth acceptance would apply in cases of male rape. If anyone wants to see if research has been done on that subject and report back, feel free. Though it is not... Read more
Imagine you’re standing there, minding your own business, and all of a sudden someone steps on your foot. You don’t know if they’re doing it on accident or on purpose–all you know is, it hurts. So, you tell the person standing on your foot, “Oww! Get off my foot!” The person standing on your foot responds by stomping down even harder, saying, “I didn’t mean to stand on your foot. Why do you have to yell at me?” As they... Read more
This post was originally published on February 13, 2013 Many people think we shouldn’t talk about privilege. Usually, those people who say we shouldn’t talk about privilege have quite a lot of it. But (speaking even as a relatively privileged person), speaking about privilege is important, and I think the concept of privilege is often misunderstood. So, I want to share an illustration that helped me understand the concept a little better. I’ve based this illustration off of an example... Read more
Sarah Over the Moon
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