We realize the importance of our voice when we are silenced. -Malala link
Today, we are going to highlight an amazing young Muslim teen. We will look closely at her accomplishments. We also will demonstrate that there are some similarities in the view of women as expressed by members of the Taliban and the view of women as asserted some fundamentalist Christian groups. We want to assure our readers that we are not saying that any of these Christian groups are like the Taliban who use violence to get their way. None of these Christian groups have ever resorted to terrorism in order to meet their goals.
We have no interest (in the context of this post) in discussing the politics surrounding Muslim-American relations and we certainly know that Muslims and Christians have significant differences in their faiths. We feature Malala because her words transcend the boundaries of religion, politics and gender. She boldly speaks out even though she was shot in the head and almost killed. She speaks out even though there is a fatwa on her life. And she is mesmerizing.
If you have little time to read this post, please scroll to the bottom and watch the first 5 minutes of the video. I promise that you will be moved.
Fundamentalist Christians: College (and Public School) are Unbiblical, Especially for Women.
TWW, along with Julie Anne Smith of Spiritual Sounding Board, have documented a number of instances in which some extreme Christian groups have expressed their disapproval of women, and sometimes men, who wish to receive a college education. Most of these groups also advocate homeschooling, disapproving of any other form of education. To round out the problem, there are some pastors who denounce colleges and universities which do not fit into their exacting standards for "Christian" education and values.
However, there are some groups which particularly target the "evils" of college education for women. I received a phone call from a man in a Family Integrated Church who said that college aged women should stay home and learn to be "wives" instead of going to college. I retorted that he would be "blessed" if he got my daughter as a nurse if he was ever severely hurt in a car accident. He said that he believes that men should be trained to do all of those jobs and that women have taken those jobs from men. He said that women should never, ever be alone in a room with a man since they needed to be protected. He truly believes that early marriage is a form of "protection" for women.
I was shocked. He was well spoken and even kind. I begged him to write a post for TWW but he declined.
If you Google "Should Christian women go to college" you will find page after page of fringe groups advocating "stay at home" daughters.Let's look at a few comments from these groups.
From Balaam's Ass (I know, I thought the same thing) link
You mothers will run your daughters out the door into the world to work or to go to college far from home; and then will be horrified, shocked and dismayed when she gets into fornication or is raped. WAKE UP! She belongs at home with you! Nobody loves that girl like you do! They are not going to watch out for her best interests like you and, even more so, your husband will! Oh, there may be rules by the ton at the college and there may be consideration in miles at the work place she's in, but when you trot her out where Shechem can see her and get close to her, you are inviting this trouble upon yourself, your daughter, your sons, and your husband! And remember, there are many "good, godly" Shechems running around the campuses of the very best and narrowest colleges. Ask any God-fearing young lady that has had to dodge them! We have heard about them.
Then there is the Stay At Home Daughters' movement advocated by Vision Forum and, in particular, the Botkin family which we wrote about here.
Have you ever heard of the “Stay-at-Home Daughters Movement”? It’s a relatively new movement that appears to be promoted by Vision Forum (Doug Phillips) and his cohorts. Young girls and single women are encouraged (perhaps coerced?) to be “keepers at home” until they marry. They are forbidden to attend college or seek employment outside the home (that is, their parents’ home). These maidens spend all of their time honing their “advanced homemaking skills”, which include cooking, sewing, cleaning, knitting, etc. A stay-at-home daughter is under her father’s “covering” until he transfers control to her husband.
This group even encourages daughters to shave their father and learn to groom his hair which is creepy beyond all get out link.
What does the Taliban believe about women and education?
Compare the thinking of some of these groups to the Taliban. The US State Department produced a document called The Taliban's War Against Women link. The following are some quotes from the manuscript.
Islam has a tradition of protecting the rights of women and children. In fact, Islam has specific provisions which define the rights of women in areas such as marriage, divorce, and property rights. The Taliban's version of Islam is not supported by the world's Muslims. Although the Taliban claimed that it was acting in the best interests of women, the truth is that the Taliban regime cruelly reduced women and girls to poverty, worsened their health, and deprived them of their right to an education, and many times the right to practice their religion.
The Taliban ended, for all practical purposes, education for girls. Since 1998, girls over the age of eight have been prohibited from attending school. Home schooling, while sometimes tolerated, was more often repressed. Last year, the Taliban jailed and then deported a female foreign aid worker who had promoted home-based work for women and home schools for girls. The Taliban prohibited women from studying at Kabul University.
"The Taliban has clamped down on knowledge and ignorance is ruling instead."
— Sadriqa, a 22-year-old woman in KabulAs a result of these measures, the Taliban was ensuring that women would continue to sink deeper into poverty and deprivation, thereby guaranteeing that tomorrow's women would have none of the skills needed to function in a modern society.
The Taliban also required that windows of houses be painted over to prevent outsiders from possibly seeing women inside homes, further isolating women who once led productive lives and contributing to a rise in mental health problems. Physicians for Human Rights reports high rates of depression and suicide among Afghan women. One European physician reported many cases of burns in the esophagus as the result of women swallowing battery acid or household cleaners–a cheap, if painful, method of suicide.
Women are to stay at home, protected, with blacked out windows. Education is unnecessary since they are obviously cooking, cleaning and having children. Hmmm….
Malala Yousafzai: 16 year old outspoken advocate for education for Muslim women in the face of assassination attempts (and fellow blogger.)
Malala is one of the most poised and brave young women that I have ever observed. At the age of 11, she began to speak out against the Taliban which was intent on closing schools which educated Pakistani school girls. She did so via a blog. (Yay bloggers!). Her blog became famous and she began to win all sorts of media attention and awards for her work. A NY Times documentary on her life received critical acclaim. This angered the Taliban. They made good on their threats and shot her in the head as she rode home on a school bus. She was in a coma for a number of days and thankfully survived. The Taliban has since issues a fatwa against her yet she bravely continues to speak out. Here is an overview of her life.
Malala Yousafzai (Pashto: ملاله یوسفزۍ [mə ˈlaː lə . ju səf ˈzəj];[1] Urdu: ملالہ یوسف زئی Malālah Yūsafzay, born 12 July 1997)[2] is a Pakistani school pupil and education activist from the town of Mingora in the Swat District of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She is known for her activism for rights to education and for women, especially in the Swat Valley, where the Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. In early 2009, at the age of 11–12, Yousafzai wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC detailing her life under Taliban rule, their attempts to take control of the valley, and her views on promoting education for girls. The following summer, a New York Times documentary was filmed about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region, culminating in the Second Battle of Swat. Yousafzai rose in prominence, giving interviews in print and on television, and she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize by South African activist Desmond Tutu.
On 9 October 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus. In the days immediately following the attack, she remained unconscious and in critical condition, but later her condition improved enough for her to be sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England for intensive rehabilitation. On 12 October, a group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan issued a fatwā against those who tried to kill her, but the Taliban reiterated its intent to kill Yousafzai and her father.
Malala is the youngest person ever to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She did not get it. After reading about her life, I say, "She was robbed!" In an incredible interview, Malala leaves John Stewart speechless as she speaks about her commitment to nonviolent resistance. The first 6 minutes is of the video offers the most insight into her views on violence and education. However, I have included the entire segment in case you, like me, want to hear more from her.
Lydia's Corner: Job 8:1-11:20 1 Corinthians 15:1-28 Psalm 38:1-22 Proverbs 21:28-29
My daughter is her age and we have been following her. I want her to know how blessed she is to receive an education and there are girls her age out there who want what she already has and not to take it for granted. We pray for her.
I’m still waiting for Mullah Piper….uh…John Piper to issue an edict calling for girls 12 and under to be circumcized. This would follow his fatwa against Greg Boyd! :-P.
And I would expect the next Desiring God conference to take place in the Pakistani Tribal areas on the Afghan border…..
He CALLED you? How on earth did he get your number?!
Dee, did you read my post on Saturday? We’re thinking the same thoughts and writing almost the same articles. 😉
I cry every time I hear her speak. I miss the people of that region.
I noticed Julie Anne’s post received a lot of “likes” on Facebook. I hope TWW’s post also gains a wide audience. This issue is dear to my heart. I came from a church that not only denied the young people access to college (by fear of shunning), but also didn’t even home educate them to a high school equivalency. This applied to both boys and girls. The damage is heart-rending.
And look at Malala! Her education and her exposure to the larger world has not robbed her of her religion, culture, or her beautiful spirit. Contrary to what many “Christians” believe, this is not an issue of religious rights but an issue of abuse.
Hester wrote:
We have a Google phone number for this blog. You should see the number of phone calls we get!
@ Hester:
I read your article, and I’m so glad you are exposing this. These teachings seem to be what’s “trending” in many homeschool conferences. I speculate that the interest in home schooling is growing due to budget cuts and corresponding issues in the public schools. (The online program we use has grown, and this year includes high school grades.) Many people will unwittingly stumble into these teachings if they are not aware of what to avoid.
Sometimes Christian women never marry, even the ones who want to, such as myself.
There are simply not enough single Christian men for all the Christian women, at least not in my age group, so we either have to stay single over our life times, or marry a non-believer, or marry a divorced Christian guy.
It’s a reality that some percentage of Christian women will never marry, or they will marry much later in life, either by choice or due to circumstances beyond their control.
American women usually out-live their spouses by five or more years. What are the married ones supposed to do if the husband dies early, or even when he’s 65, and she’s 60 and won’t die until she’s 80?
quote
Where does the Bible teach that the Holy Spirit gives talents and gifts based on gender? It does not.
If God gives a woman a gift at computers, medicine, whatever, He obviously wants her to work as a programmer, dentist, nurse, doctor, lawyer, or whatever area he’s gifted her in.
Where does the Bible say that a woman’s only giftings or callings are at motherhood/ parenting?
And again, where do such teachings leave ladies like me, the spinster, Old Maid, childless ladies, or the infertile married women?
quote
I know I sound like a broken record, and I do apologize, but this gets into stuff I’ve discussed before here and I think at Julie Anne’s blog a time or two.
There are a lot of weird or unfounded assumptions by some branches of Christians, that think that single women are all sex pots on the prowl for married men, that all men (married and single) lack sexual self control, etc.
The Bible says that Christians are capable of self-control (I would also argue that Non Christian are as well), which means they do not have to act on sexual impulses.
Christians that keep teaching a man and woman cannot be alone together, or cannot be friends, or that single women should not befriend married guys, because it will always or necessarily entail some winky-wink fun time, are in error.
This teaching also leads to single women in particular being shunned, ignored, without companionship, because married women do not want to invite any single women over to their homes, say, for a meal.
But the Bible talks about the necessity of fellowship. Single women are left to fend for themselves, and it gets harder the older you get when your family starts dying off.
It also leads to a deficit of Christian dating and marriages, because this teaching stunts one’s dating life Christian men and women are taught to treat each other with suspicion, so you never go on dates with guys. Which means you stay single.
By the way, I think these anti college for women types are off the mark: some of them are overly preoccupied with a young woman becoming sexually active should she go to college – why don’t they show this concern over young men?
Regarding the Balaam’s site, views like those are taking responsibility and choice away from the young woman.
I went to college, even living at dorms on campus for about two years. I did not have wild sex all over the place because I was determined years prior to leaving for college that sex was for marriage only.
I have arrived at my 40s still a virgin. Quite obviously, attending college does not necessarily turn a woman into a sexual minx. It depends on that woman’s values, not where she is living.
If you raise a young lady correct from the start, it does not matter if she stays at home or goes off to school, she will likely stay true to what she learned in childhood.
One of my family members never went to college. She became very, very sexually active during her teen years while still in high school and living at home.
Sometimes women get raped in their own homes or apartments. Gavin DeBecker wrote about that in his book “The Gift of Fear.”
There was a horrible story out of Tennessee a few years ago where a young woman got raped and killed despite being with her boyfriend (they sexually assaulted and killed her boyfriend too). They were in a parkinglot by a friend’s apartment complex, in daylight, if I am recalling correctly, when they were both kidnapped.
Eeew!
😯 I am wary of reading sexuality into stuff that is not sexual, but that is crossing a border a bit, IMHO.
About the only time I can think it not creepy for a daughter of any age to shave her dad of any age: if he is too sick to do it for himself, or too old, and the wife (her mom) is dead or needs a rest from care taking stuff.
I can’t think of any other scenario where daughter shaving dad would not have certain overtones to it, if you know what I mean.
quote
Yeah, while not quite as extreme, the conservative Christian disdain or suspicion of single women as little minxes, so single women are never invited out or over by married ladies has the same (or somewhat similar) impact.
I’m not against single women befriending other singles, but if you go to churches, there are more married couples than there are singles. So if you want friendship, you’re pretty much limited to only married couples – who don’t want anything to do with you.
I agree with the general point of the original post, which is, some schools of American Christianity are very similar to the Taliban, in their treatment and views concerning gender.
I just saw an interesting news article about women in leadership. I am pretty sure I bookmarked it. I would like to share it here if I can find it.
In the meantime, here is a related page (related to the roles of women, should they only be home makers), from CBE:
Busy at Home?
I found it:
Men dither while women lead in the world
I also mentioned this in an older thread:
Onna-bugeisha(women Japanese warriors)
These “stay at home daughters” see women as property to be passed from father to husband.
Thankfully my father didn’t raise me to be that way. He raised me to be a woman who could take care of herself with or without a man. Because even if you do get married, you don’t know if some calamity or tragedy or even a divorce is going to remove him from your life. One must be prepared.
My dad has Alzheimer’s now and while he still knows family members, he doesn’t know from moment to moment that he’s in his home and that my brother lives with him to take care of him. Dad raised all of us kids so that we could be independent, productive people. I can’t imagine being in a situation where the patriarch has Alzheimer’s and the family doesn’t know what to do because they’ve never made decisions, the decisions were made for them.
And I love Malala. I’ve hardly ever seen Jon Stewart totally gobsmacked, that was something to see.
I teach in a private Christian school. We have been talking about this very issue in relation to our studies of the Middle East. I keep telling all of them – especially the girls – to GET YOUR EDUCATION. I remind them often that if you empower the women in oppressed countries, you will raise up the whole society because women are especially concerned for the well being of their families.
This last point is one that Sheryl Wu Dunn makes in her excellent book Half the Sky. I loved hearing her speak about two years ago.
@ Eagle:
He is busy making retirement promo videos in Geneva.
I’ve just read a story of spiritual abuse today by a friend I’ve met on Twitter. I had no idea she was going through this. I sent her story to Julie Anne. Here’s Jenny’s post on being “ex-communicated” and publicly shunned by her church, not Catholic. Here’s her post: http://www.jennyerikson.com/2013/10/14/i-am-as-a-gentile-tax-collector-aka-i-was-ex-communicated-today/
I shared my post on “willful blindness” with her (the SBC has this condition in a bad way, including those who want to only point the finger at Mahaney and SGM/SBC connections, while refusing to see and acknowledge the many victims of abuse within SBC churches that have covered up this abuse. Apparently, doesn’t fit their [his] narrative. Jenny’s reply:
@JennyErikson: @watchkeep Spiritual abuse is insidious. And once you’re out … all you can think is “What the hell just happened??” #WillfulBlindness
Daisy wrote:
Don’t forget the Single Christian Men who have been frozen out by or otherwise learned to distrust Single Christian Women. “Married to Jesus” or Forbidden Fruit, the result is the same.
BTW, I was once one of those home school mommies who told my girls they didn’t need to go to college. However, we loosened up and they all dual enrolled in high school. Two graduated (magna and summa cum laude), one quit to work full time and go on extended mission trips, and two are still in, with one in an exchange program in Australia. I hope the younger five kids follow their examples.
Anon 1 wrote:
Geneva specifically to establish himself as the True Heir of Mullah Calvin.
Shia vs Sunni Inheritance Feud, anybody?
Daisy wrote:
I think it crosses the border more than “just a bit”, Daisy.
Every time I hear it, I hear Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax” in my head. You see, I used to tune in to the banned video compilations on USA’s Night Flight…
I assume this is above and beyond the normal “Marrieds associate only with other Marrieds. Marrieds and Singles do NOT hang out together.”
Amy Smith wrote:
Soooooo true.
Then I would reply myself: that Malala take a shoe and hit him, but then I said – then I said:
she said,
“If you hit a Talib with your shoe then there would be no difference between you and the Talib, you must not treat others that much with cruelty and that much harshly, you must fight others but through peace, and through dialogue and through education.
Then I said: I’ll tell him how important education is and that I even want education for your children as well and I will tell him that’s what I want to tell you. Now do what you want.”
–took my breath away. I felt like lead in my chair on the floor being pulled down down down by the gravity of her words.
I felt that I & “my tribe” (oh, good grief) are frivolous morons.
it was a good lucid moment.
@ Amy Smith:
It feels like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlG28B-R8Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Except, with the passage of time, you realize that you left the Twilight Zone.
he said,
“what gave you the courage?”
she said,
“…why should I wait for someone else?….Why don’t I raise my voice?”
–took my breath away again.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Yes, it’s a little beyond the idea that single people make an unwanted odd number at a table, or married people think they have nothing in common with singles to believing single women have looser sexual morals, and married women are terrified that the Single Woman will sleep with her spouse or steal him.
Which is quite funny considering that married people seek each other out for affairs (and perhaps with singles, but it’s for marrieds instigating it) on Ashley Madison web site.
Sadly I have a cousin with similar beliefs (I have a huge family so we run the gamut from ultra liberal to ultra conservative). This particular cousin also doesn’t believe women should vote and his own wife never finished her homeschool degree. The husband hasn’t finished college because he is too arrogant and gets mad that there are “mandatory” classes that he refuses to take.
Study after study after study has shown that women are the stabilizing influence in every single culture. In the American West, women are the ones who calmed down the wild menmof legends. Even in my liberal arts classes in college, it was common knowledge that poverty eradication is lasting when it is aimed at providing resources for women. Some men are just too arrogant to see it.
On a more positive note, I saw a beautiful double rainbow today. The color delineation was so clear and you could see the entire rainbow with mountains as the backdrop. Just stunning and a much needed reminder for me.
What’s with the shaving thing? And yes it is creepy. Wasn’t it Voddie Baucham who started that one?
I had never heard of daughters shaving or grooming their fathers before now, just as I had never heard of fathers serving communion to their wives and children before I heard of FIC. Are these guys just making these practices up as they go, and even trying to “out-do” each other?
It’s been argued that Vision Forum/FIC and their proponents are advocating “emotional incest” between fathers and daughters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_incest
I found this interesting critique of an obscure series of nineteenth century novels that is being promoted by Vision Forum: http://rethinkingvisionforum.org/2011/08/31/vision-forum-elsie-dinsmore-critique/
@ BeenThereDoneThat:
Yes! I’m just coming out of it, the SBC twilight zone…freedom.
And a thousand times yes to Malala…why wait for someone else? You ARE someone else.
Sad to say I found myself drifting towards these views while part of a bible church. It took the intervention of some of my family members to remind me of the inclusive attitude Jesus himself took towards women.
Southwestern Discomfort wrote:
What a wonderful tribute to your father.
Virginia Knowles wrote:
Awesome! Teachers make such impacts on the lives of their kids.
Anon 1 wrote:
🙂
elastigirl wrote:
Yeah, me, too. That line is what prompted me to feature her story. There are many Christians who could take a clue from her.
Muff Potter wrote:
There is something else they do which I saw a video on years back. They put blindfolds on the daughters at these events and the daughter have to listen for the dads voice (in a group of other dads
doing the same thing) and follow their instructions. (This is a sort of dad as the Holy Spirit thing) The video was from Vision Forum and also showed them shaving their dads as part of this retreat. It is sicko.
I had no idea these groups existed until the internet. But as I watched I saw guys like Voddie Baucham be promoted by what I then thought was the mainstream such as SBTS guys. As time went on, I saw they were becoming more and more fringe. And I was right as Doug Wilson (Pasha of Moscow) was thought to be total fringe with his happy slaves, league of the South view just a few years back. Now Piper has him speaking at DG and Jared Wilson singing his praises!
Creepy Voddie:
“A lot of men are leaving their wives for younger women because they yearn for attention from younger women. And God gave them a daughter who can give them that.”
http://rethinkingvisionforum.org/2011/08/14/voddie-baucham-on-fathers-and-daughters/
Aha. So THAT is what “daughter’s” are for~! Giving daddy the attention he craves from a younger woman. Objectifying daughters. Incestual thinking. He tried to explain it away but let’s face it, you only come up with such things when your thinking is already about your own needs. Not your daughters.
@ elastigirl: And, remember, she started this at 11 and was shot a couple of years later. If you watch her, you can see some right sided facial weakness for being shot in the head. Yet she continues. Incredible.
Mandy wrote:
I fear that many men, focused on the pedestal of their “authority” cannot see thins.
Nicholas wrote:
I have seen this thought bandied about the internet when it comes to some of these practices. One reader wrote me and said he observed a “stay at home daughters” advocate accompany his adult daughters to the rest room and stand guard outside while they did their business. Totally weird…
Nicholas wrote:
Thank you for posting this link. I have written to the editors of that blog, asking for permission to reprint the article. Racism and the treatment of slaves is another one of my hot button issues. I cannot believe that VF promotes these books.
@ Nicholas & Dee:
You should try reading Elsie Dinsmore sometime, but make sure you have a big bottle of Vicodin with you when you do because it’s paaaaaaainful. Full text is available from Project Gutenberg. Also Elsie ends up marrying her dad’s adult friend whom she first met in the first book when she was six. They are affectionate with each other from the first. When she’s 6 and he’s like, 30. The series also goes on interminably into 20+ books following Elsie through her marriage, childbearing years, and I think also when she’s a grandmother. Talk about neverending unnecessary sequels!
@ Dee:
Emotional or “covert” incest is actually a real psychological thing, related to enmeshment:
http://botkinsyndrome.blogspot.com/p/enmeshment-and-botkin-syndrome.html
dee wrote:
Remember the Man-o-Gawd up in Moscow Idaho? You know, the one with all those books and speaking engagements about how the Godless North destroyed the only Godly America, i.e. the CSA with its God-Ordained Peculiar Institution regarding Animate Property?
Anon 1 wrote:
Including shaving Daddy and grooming his hair —
And “other things”?
INCEST IS BEST! WOMAN, SUBMIT!
dee wrote:
Surprised he didn’t accompany her in and pee for her, but that would probably be beneath his Biblical Gospelly Manly Dignity.
Or he couldn’t afford a pre-castrated harem guard.
@ Hester:
No thanks. We will stick with Little Women and Uncle Toms Cabin for that era. I went and read up on that series and yes, it was painful to read the synopses. Teaching little girls to grow up and marry daddy’s friends? And that daddy’s friends might view them as a potential wife? I am completely creeped out. We are talking a very short walk to Islamic arranged marriages.
That’s not the only weirdness involving restrooms:
http://www.examiner.com/article/complementarian-men-symbolically-urinate-on-women
At a Baucham led men’s conference the men urinated all over the women’s restroom in response to his misogynist ranting.
Anon 1 wrote:
It’s already happened. I have a friend who just divorced her husband from an arranged marriage. We’re there.
elastigirl wrote:
I think that is what Jon Stewart was thinking as well. It’s VERY hard to make Stewart speechless.
Daisy, I really wish you could visit my church. Since most people do marry statistically, there are more married couples attending than single people.
But the singles are disproportionately highly part of the church board. Those wonderful people are so willing to donate time that family rearing men and women may not have and we surely appreciate them!
As to friendship, I would say all of the women in our church hang out as friends. I’m more friends with “lady A” and my pew mate with “lady B”, but no one is left out.
And singles are not pariahs. I’m a married lady. My four best friends at church? Two are married and two are single ladies.
We do hang out and do things together. The only validity there I see to the idea that couples avoid singles would be that come Valentine’s Day, if any of the couples want to “double date” the singles would have to have a date. Mind you, it isn’t anything arranged by or through the church. But if my hubby and I want to double with someone to go out for dinner, either it will be another married couple or it will be two singles. We aren’t likely to invite either a stag male or single female out to dinner with us when we are on a date night. There are other times we do hang with single friends without them having a date.
You seem on TWW to be a nice lady. But even so, not at all thinking of you as a woman on the make for married men, my hubby would not be taking you alone to dinner. I just might, however, if he had a guy thing to attend.
Would you find those actions I’ve described offensive? I’m sorry you have been so hurt and felt so left out. I’m afraid I’m bereft of solutions if it isn’t enough for the married women in a church to befriend the single women or vice versa.
As to the gist of the original post, we support educating women and men in all ways we can, equally. But we don’t support all education equally. We are not fundamentalists and don’t support their indoctrination in the party line, nor are we liberals and don’t support their indoctrination either. Rather, we try to support education that builds people in knowledge and good character and don’t contribute where it is solely aimed at bringing down “the powers that be.”
Joan wrote:
That doesn’t even happen in grade school. Even eight-year-old boys have more sense than that.
BeenThereDoneThat wrote:
On one of these comment threads, there’s an account of a girl who refused an arranged marriage (and probably ran away). Her arranged husband (her father’s age) threw a fit, as he had already paid $20,000 bride-price to her father/patriarch. Two hundred benjamins, cash up front.
At that going price, if I cleaned out my savings and intermediate-range investments I could buy myself a small harem of wives.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
I’m not convinced you’d actually want a harem of us. Unless, of course, we were all of the submissive brand and you were the patriarch type. 😉
Bridget wrote:
Never underestimate the desperation factor in an isolated fifty-something late bloomer whose entire experience with females since puberty has been rejection. It’s left me with a deep distrust of women. I wonder if this is one of the appeals of “PENETRATE! COLONIZE! CONQUER! PLANT” in a patrio arrangement where she has NO way to refuse, only SUBMIT. If she has NO way to refuse, she can’t reject you, can she?
Instead of joining Vision Forum et al, I do something very unmanly. I download pictures of Fluttershy, Rarity, and Twilight Sparkle (from My Little Pony: Friensdship is Magic) and wish they were real. Flutts because she’s so gentle, Rarity because she’s so classy, and Twi because she’s an isolated borderline-Aspie nerd like me. And I want the openness and companionship I see those ponies have. Something you can’t have when male/female interaction becomes dominance/submittion power struggle.
I wonder if anyone’s explored the idea of a male in a male-supremacist/patrio society who genuinely wants “cuddly companionship” with an equal, but from peer pressure (from the entire patrio society) must keep his boot on her neck instead. Sounds like an opportunity for true tragedy — here his deepest desire is to just be with her and enjoy her presence, but feels he HAS to Penetrate! Colonize! Conquer! Plant! etc.
dee wrote:
Here’s where the review was originally posted: http://visiondistorting.blogspot.com/2010/12/elsie-dinsmore.html
Voddie Baucham was a frequent guest preacher at Houston’s First Baptist before he started his church Grace Family Baptist. We know a couple that joined his church and they described it as focused on homeschooling. They said on Sundays after the worship service, the women would dismiss to prepare the community lunch while the men set up the tables. I think now there seems to also be a focus on college homeschool from what we’ve heard.
http://www.collegeplus.org/blog/stop-making-them-rich
CollegePlus
Here’s something I often wonder about: if there doesn’t seem to be any difference between men and women in Heaven/eternity, than why do we make such a big deal of it in this temporary journey? Jesus said there won’t be marriage in Heaven, and that people would be “like the angels”. That doesn’t really give much clarity to me, because it seems like angels are described as “he”. Also, there are all kinds of possible explanations about the Nephilim! I don’t know how exactly gender is even understood in eternity, but it certainly is not as dogmatic as it is taught here on Earth. I’d like to start practicing now what I will be doing forever and ever. Galatians 3:28 seems to say that humans are all the same in Christ. Does it really have to be more complicated than this?
The “don’t educate women” movement absolutely relies on nonsensical logic, circular arguments, and straw men to defend itself, because it is literally indefensible to the rational mind.
Did any of you see that article about 6 reasons (plus two) not to send girls to college, by the ultra-conservative group Fix the Family (http://www.fixthefamily.com/blog/6-reasons-to-not-send-your-daughter-to-college)? In it, the article writer stated that mothers have no need for work skills to support their children, because should their husband die or become disabled, insurance will fully provide for them (apparently for the rest of their lives, regardless of any medical bills or how many children there are. Um.) They also argued that going to college might prevent a woman from following the call that God had on her life, because God might call her to be a lay minister but she might have gone to a ministry school which would tempt her to shoot for official ordination, which churches should not give.
I’m not making this up. This ^^^ is the level of logic that these groups use to back up their thinking.
I would also like to state, for the record, that these groups are contributing to rape culture. By saying that women can only be protected by hiding away, they are reinforcing the belief that society doesn’t need to teach men proper conduct. It’s assumed that men can’t control themselves, and that the ACTUAL problem is women being AVAILABLE to naturally-rapey men.
sad observer wrote:
Fix the Family surfaced a month or two ago either here or at Spiritual Sounding Board. They’re Vision Forum with Rosaries (and Tridentine Latin Mass).
sad observer wrote:
EXACTLY the same rationale Extreme Islam uses to justify the burqa and the locked harem.
Al’lah’u Akbar…
OK, so I googled Elsie Dinsmore and then went to Wikipedia which then sent me to Life of Faith books, and it turns out that Elsie and her adaptation (in 1999) and her various book series and the book series (plural) that are spin-offs seem to be rather big business. I think one of the articles mentioned a Bible study and some dolls to go with it all. I saw the name Zondervan/something-or-other mentioned in one of the articles. Who knew?
Erik wrote:
You are going to like this one, Erik. Did you not know that the groups that your former church hangs around with believe that women will be subordinate to men through eternity. This little gem of doctrine was invented at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. here is one assessment to get you going.
“I am suspicious that the real energy behind this new ESS doctrine is really a thinly veiled attempt to elevate complementarianism to de fide orthodoxy, so that complementarian gender relations are set forth as the only acceptable model for Christians and that egalitarianism is heresy equivalent to denying the Trinity.”
http://www.wadeburleson.org/2008/10/semi-arianism-masquerading-as-othodoxy.html
@ Amy Smith:
I’d have to do some digging about who exactly started CollegePlus, but from where I sit it looks like a ploy to allow patriocentrists to let girls go to college while staying in their “jurisdiction” or “sphere,” i.e. the home. I suspect it wouldn’t have gotten started if patriocentrists didn’t need an out when faced with accusations of not educating their girls. CYA, folks, CYA.
In other words, if CollegePlus were not closely linked to all this crap, would they still be trumpeting Voddie’s endorsement? Would Voddie have endorsed it in the first place? And if they’re a secular organization, then they’re kissing these guys’ feet to make $$$ and let’s just say it’s hard for me to respect that.
@ Erik:
Also puts a new spin on “Thy will be done on earth as it is heaven.” If these super-strict gender roles don’t exist in heaven, why are we obsessing over them now? Unless these folks really are just Mormons in disguise.
Erik wrote:
You’re not supposed to be asking questions like that. It can lead to doubt of absolute and cherished doctrines.
What happened to their neither marrying nor being given in marriage in the Resurrection, but being as the angels in Heaven?
@ Nicholas:
The thing is, we don’t how how it is with the angels in heaven. I think somebody mentioned about Peter Kreeft having an article on this, so I looked it up. Oh, my. You ought to read it. I don’t know what to think about what he said. But he definitely thinks that there is not only gender but also sex in heaven, though he does not exactly seem to know what he means by sex. Interesting idea.
Hahahaha “Balaam’s Ass?” Seriously? Oh man. The irony of that blog name is priceless.
I was wondering how long it would take you all to make this parallel. I’m glad you did. It IS sadly similar, isn’t it?
I engaged one of these extreme fundamentalist types before over what they thought of the women in Proverbs 31. She worked as an entrepreneur WHILE managing a household (shout out to all the working moms in the world). Of course, there was some blather about how her working was actually considered “housework” and not the same as having a “job” job. I guess male merchants who sold cloth and owned vineyards didn’t have jobs either, if neither one of those are “job” jobs.
Also something about her work did not require her to “compete as an equal in a dominating field” and some nonsense about how the Proverbs woman was still under the “headship” of her husband instead of the “headship” of another man as her boss.
I gave up, at that point. Headship of a boss? Give me a break.
@ Nancy:
The Resurrection isn’t the same as heaven. Heaven is only the temporary place for saved, departed souls before the bodily resurrection.
@ Nancy & Nicholas:
Jesus seems pretty clear that there is no marriage in heaven…i.e. no sex in heaven. The only way I can see to overturn that is to debate whether fornication is a sin. So not sure how Kreeft can defend that idea. He hasn’t been reading Mormon material, has he? 😉
I can see how there might be gender, if you make certain assumptions (mostly sans Biblical evidence). But after that it gets really bizarro, and not necessarily in ways that help out patriocentrists either – i.e., if there are female angels, how can they be “higher” than male humans if females are always subordinate to males?
Thus why my usual answer is, don’t go there. Angelology and demonology are just too weird for me. And actually Kreeft’s whole idea here is reminding me much too much of His Dark Materials, which featured pretty flagrant homoeroticism between male angels so…yeah.
Also, Dee, I love that my latest comment with the word “homoeroticism” was not moderated but an earlier one with the word “crap” in it was. 😉
@ Joan:
What the??? I read the article, and while I certainly can’t surmise that this was deliberate, it was disgusting. I mean seriously, not only is your aim poor, but you can’t clean up after yourself? Pathetic.
@ Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist: I called the pastor of the church and he refused to comment.
Hester wrote:
Philip Pullman wrote Frank Peretti slashfic?
Hester wrote:
Well, somebody was speculating how long before the Godly comp/patrios re-introduce “plural marriage” as it was in the days of the Biblical Patriarchs…
Amy Smith wrote:
Isn’t Voddie Baucham the guy who preached on whuppin’ the kid for being shy?
Beating Fluttershy until she turns into Rainbow Dash or something?
Just saw this good news. Malala is now officially a fellow Canuck!!
Malala Yousafzai to be named honorary Canadian citizen in throne speech
Tuesday, October 15th 2013, 8:01 pm
the canadian press
OTTAWA – Malala Yousafzai (YOO-suhf-zeye), an advocate for girls’ education and the target of a Taliban assassination attempt, will be made an honorary Canadian citizen.
A senior government source confirms that Wednesday’s throne speech will confer the honour on the 16-year-old international figure.
Yousafzai was shot in the head in her native Pakistan by the Taliban in October, 2012 while she was on a bus going home from school.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with Yousafzai in New York on Sept. 26 where she discussed her efforts to promote education for women and girls.
Harper also invited her to visit Canada.
Yousafzai, who now lives in England with her family, was the youngest ever nominee last week for the Nobel Peace Prize, which was won by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Her memoir, ”I am Malala” was published last week.
@ Hester: I’m not sure that Pullmen meant quite what you think he meant, but it’s been a while since I read the books.
a lot of the ideas about heaven/angels/god in the books come from Gnostic thought. the deity is not actually God, but a demiurge.
@ Numo:
Well, I was only 13 at the time. I should probably reread them now seeing as I never finished them. Ten extra years’ maturity would probably help quite a bit. Interesting that they’re based in Gnosticism and that the “god in a box” is a demiurge, given that Pullman connected “god” explicitly to the Church. I’d heard he was out to write an “anti-Narnia” but I’d need to go reconfirm that.
@ HUG:
No, it wasn’t quite that explicit (at least not at the point I stopped)…but thank you for making me laugh. 😉
Hester wrote:
Not any more.
@ GuyBehindtheCurtain: I do think it is funny when there are a gazillion words on al list and some obvious one is not. I mentioned the 3 letter word beginning with a t and ending with a t this weekend. I am considering adding ESS to the list. 🙂
As a Bible believing woman, I don’t want to dishonor God by dishonoring my husband and working outside my home. He and God will take care of me. It is so sad to see websites like this that promote FemiNazi’s and teach young girls to go to college and get pregnant out of wedlock. I am sick and tired of apologizing for obeying God! “Miss Wartburg”…maybe you need to get off the computer and get in the kitchen or you will find yourself divorced again! This is offensive to us Christ-Centered women and we are standing up for righteousness and for our blessed husbands. This blog is from Hell.
Make sure it is a whole word search, since ess is in guess, less, mess, etc., and everything could end up in moderation!!!!!
BTW, everyone, Arce has two syllables!!!!
Arce wrote:
I’m very glad you’ve established that, because Arce with one syllable (and a softened “c” as in “force”) is rather rude in UK English.
This video astounded me. I could figure out why middle-aged men watch Braveheart every few years (God bless them for recognizing the brave and noble warrior inside them); this video coupled with an excellent blog post by Tamara Rice (linked on TWW) have pushed me toward the feminine counterpart. In fact, I’m almost at the jumping off point. .. Thanks for another well-written article.
Sharon Long wrote:
I am really hoping this a parody. if not, you are the reason we write.
Neither of us is divorced (you said divorced again). But, if we had been divorced due to abuse or violence, your comment could be taken poorly. I have been married to my husband for 30 years which should say something to you.
As for the kitchen, let me challenge you to a bake-off. I am well known for my prowess in the kitchen. My blueberry pie has a national following.
How do you define Christ centered? We think we are and so do our husbands
Good night, woman! Where did we promote women to get pregnant out of wedlock?
FemiNazi? You have descended to mediocrity in your communication. Up your game and return. I would love to have a real conversation with you. (Please, oh please tell me this was a parody.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches In other words, Godwin said that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably makes a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
I’m sorry. It will take me awhile to cleanse my brain on this matter! 🙂
@ Janet Varin: Blessings to you for encouraging us.
Sharon Long,
Are you married to Bill Rogers? If so, he visited recently as well.
So, what do you think of Malala then? The article is actually about her and her bravery. Is she nothing but a FemiNazi leading women astray?
Bridget wrote:
Thank you for a good laugh this morning.
@ Sharon Long:
With this comment we all glimpse the “gentle and quiet spirits” that reside in the women of this lifestyle. Thanks for elucidating it for us.
@ dee: Really, really praying its a parody but I am not sure.
dee wrote:
Oh, please, someone fess up and say this is really a parody! If it isn’t, then there is a woman out there who has left the kitchen and is surfing the web reading hellish sites which talk about the freedom we have in Christ. What is life going to be like for her when her blessed husband finds out she has been communicating with these previously divorced (?!!!) feminazis? The disheartening thought is that if it is a parody then I can’t tell, since I have known this woman by a different name and she has clones. But seriously, maybe Sharon will discover something while she is out there reading on the Internet. Many of us have and are incredibly thankful for it.
BeenThereDoneThat wrote:
Thank you for using this word! I love it. I’m going to start using it on a regular basis. This blog has such a rich diversity of perspective, with perfect blends of sadness and sarcasm. It can make a heart merry and melancholy in one visit. 🙂
I assume that if I had written Mrs Long’s comment (I didn’t, just in case anyone thinks I have a pseudonym, or am called “Sharon” at weekends), you’d all know it was a parody, right?
FWIW, my guess is that “Sharon Long” is a man in his late 20’s with a goatee beard, like the one I plan on having as soon as I can be bothered to clear the rest of my designer stubble.
I’ve just thought of a new game, incidentally: what’s the rudest post I can write without being deleterated?
I’m leaning toward parody but who knows, maybe not. The Bayly blog does exist, after all, despite the lamentations of those who long for it to be an elaborate, years-long hoax/piece of satirical performance art.
And for the record, I’m a single female in my early 20s, living under my parents’ roof, and I do all the cooking for my family…and I STILL disagree with Sharon.
I may second Dee’s request for a bake-off as, funnily enough, the daughters of most families I know personally who shoot their mouth off about gender roles, can’t cook. 😉
Heather wrote:
You can probably scratch Mark Driscoll’s wife off the list, since I think he monitors her internet usage 🙄
I don’t know what’s worse, a husband who treats his wife as though she’s five years old and has to watch everything she does online, or the husband who would bite his wife’s head off after the fact, for her online perusals.
I am going to guess the person was doing a parody or was trolling.
Sharon LongThis is offensive to us Christ-Centered women and we are standing up for righteousness and for our blessed husbands. This blog is from Hell.
Bible believing? Blessed husbands? Then I assume you’re not a Neo-Calvinist, because Pastor Mark told me the following:
“Religion says that the world is filled with good people and bad people. The gospel says that the world is filled with bad people who are either repentant or unrepentant.”
He also says the Bible is about Jesus and bad people like that hussy Esther, so I’m afraid your “blessed” husband is just a degenerate sack of poo like the rest of us.
Have a blessed day!
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
It’s not just that the single Christian women are in greater number than Christian single men, meaning some Christian women will never, ever find a compatible Christian single man to marry (I’ve already opted to marry a Non-Believer myself, after waiting into my 40s to God to send me a Christian guy), but I have had my eyes opened to the fact that a lot of men who claim to be Christian act like no such thing.
There are many, many reports of “Christian” men on domestic abuse sites of having abused their wives, news sites reporting about preachers who get sent off to jail for murder, rape, child molesting, and other sins/crimes.
Of course, growing up, I had heard of famous Christian guys such as Jim Bakker and his affairs, but I really started to notice that Christian guys are no better than some Non Christian ones when I joined dating sites, and the “Christian” men could be just as crude, crass, and sex obsessed in their profiles as the Non Christian men.
It’s so strange that Christians limit who they think a Christian woman can marry based on one or two tiny Bible verses that merely say “be not yoked to an unbeliever” and the like.
Then I think there’s one verse about “if your spouse is an unbeliever, let him go if he wishes.”
It’s seriously mind boggling that an entire theology of “who should Christians marry?” gets based on those one or two very small verses, and the first one does not even mention marriage in particular. People just assume it’s about marriage.
The Bible is actually pretty quiet about when, how, and where a Christian these days is to marry.
But it is still a problem for single Christian women, too, that there are not many Christian single men in existence to pair up with all the single ladies.
If you are a woman who desires marriage, you have to consider marrying a Non Christian.
I refuse to stay single until the day I day, for what, allegiance over one small verse about “being unequally yoked”? 🙄 Puh-leeze.
@ Erik:
Thanks, Erik. 🙂 It just popped into my head. Lately, I’ve noticed my vocabulary increasing a bit. I suspect it’s a combination of reading blog posts and comments, educating my kids, and finding my voice again. (I used to live in Sharon Long’s world.)
I learned another new word while watching an episode of “Monk” last night — sardonic. I hope that one comes back to me at just the right time.
@ Sharon Long:
This has to be a parody. Right? Please?
It is too fundy Islamic not to be a parody. Seriously.
Erik wrote, “blends of sadness and sarcasm”
As I cleaned up my kitchen after leaving my earlier comment, I was pondering… If Sharon is real, and she is still reading, I hope that my sarcasm does not turn her away from continuing to read here or other places on the internet which talk about grace and freedom and discuss complementarianism and patriarchy and theology and doctrine and logic and love and Jesus and what the Bible says…
I was trying to recall those first days almost 20 years ago when I started my journey from the land of “As Long As It Is Christian It is Fine” to the land reality: But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them –bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. (2 Peter 2:1-2)
It was the gracious comments and thought-provoking writing on the ParentsPlace Ezzo forums, of all places, which started me on the road to where I am now. That journey has been long and exceedingly painful, but one I do not regret.
So for all the Sharons who may be reading here, please don’t let my sarcasm, my tendency to question everything, override your enquiring mind. Even if you came here just to give us a piece of your righteousness, reading the articles and erudite comments here and at other blogs might be the start of a journey you will not regret either.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Does he live in his mom’s basement?
Just to let people know, I have one post in moderation. It is right below Joan’s post, and right above BeenThereDoneThat’s post.
@ linda:
linda said,
Joan wrote:
You forgot to add Have a “gospel” day as well.
dee wrote:
A few links to pie recipes would have been a nice touch, too. 🙂
Rachel Held Evans posted something related recently.
There are some Christian gender complementarians who would think it perfectly fine for a woman to receive a college education, while others say, no, it’s terrible, the only education they need is in home-making!
That is one aspect about gender comp’ism RHE talks about here:
Will the real complementarian please stand up?
That is one reason I abandoned gender compism myself (I was raised to be one).
I began noticing in my Bible reading as a teenager, and this only grew the older I got, that not only are there examples in the Bible of women (who with God’s approval) fought in wars, killed people, led and taught men (as well as women),
but that gender comps themselves are not consistent in defining “biblical womanhood,” nor do all gender comps agree in what roles women may or may not participate.
Another red flag for me:
Some of the more fringe, way-out there comps try to stretch gender compism to cover a woman’s life outside marriage and outside church, when even the Bible does not even go there.
The one thing gender complementarians more or less agree on, though, which I found very eyebrow raising (and suspicious), is that males must always be in control and power over females (and/or females must always be limited in some fashion).
They try to water this down by saying it’s a benevolent control, for a woman’s own good type of control.
Their gender views are not about the genders complementing each other, it’s about men being in control over women and/or limiting women.
But even then, some of the male (and even female) “soft gender complementarians” either admit to living in functionally egalitarian marriages, or, they openly say on Christian blogs they do not agree with all the views of hard line gender comps.
Another red flag / turn off for me:
the complementarian view that “women are equal in value to men and are “equally saved,” but they are still lesser/subordinate in role” sounds an awful lot to me like the 1950s/1960s lines in civil rights debates (about black Americans) being said to be “equal but separate.”
@ Bridget:
A feminazi in a head covering? :o)
dee wrote:
Could go either way. He either has a demanding job and writes spoof blog comments to let off steam, or he does live in his mum’s (or mom’s, if you prefer) basement and has little in the way of purpose in life.
If the former, I’d probably like him.
Joan wrote:
Which gospel says that?
John’s gospel says that [Jesus] came to his own; and his own didn’t receive him. But to as many as did receive him, he gave the right to become sons of God.
By all means replace “sons” with “heirs” if you’d rather it be gender-neutral (while we’re at it, the church is the spouse of Christ). But the point is: John doesn’t say Jesus gave us the right to become bad people who are repentant.
I’ve not come across the above quote in the Seattle-based pastormark’s output. But I’ve heard a lot of his output, and it’s the sort of thing he’d say. He understands neither spiritual sonship/heirship nor the gospel.
Just while I’m on, what is a Pastor Mark? Is it like a kite mark, a bench mark or a birth mark? Or the Bismarck?
P.S. Joan – If I understand your comment correctly, you were parodying Park Fiscal, and I wasn’t attributing his gospel to you!
For the curious, this is where the quote came from:
http://marshill.com/the-gospel
If I recall correctly, the “Jesus and the bad people” line comes from his Esther sermons.
Have a gospel day! 🙂
Nick
She mispelled it. It is Mach 1.
Joan
Glad you got the “gospel” in there. It makes your comme officially more “biblical” than Nick’s comments. Please pray for him as if you were his “mum.” 🙂
Bridget wrote:
@ Anon 1:
@ Bridget:
Sharon brought up the term in her comment and I was wondering if that is what she thought of Malala. It seems if you want to be treated with human dignity you are considered an evil person.
dee wrote:
The actual word “FemiNazi” was coined by Rush Limbaugh. Nuff Said.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
Just to be fair to Limbaugh, he coined it to term in reference to hardcore pro-abortion feminists (as opposed to run-of-the-mill pro-choicers) the kind who push abortion, no limits of any sort (like partial birth, etc).
Others (like Vision Forum etc), have taken the term and applied it to women who believe they should have the right to vote, drive, have a day job, go to college, only have two or less children, and other renegade stuff like that.
Not defending Rush, here. But I am clarifying why he coined the term and how others have misused it.
Sharon Long is misusing the term and knows not what she speaks.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Baucham always struck me as a sort of kinder & gentler Idi Amin with a Bible.
Nancy wrote:
Some folks have to have absolute certainty. Gotta have it…Gotta have it…too scary without it… It’s so emancipating to be free of all that and take responsibility for my own choices on what I believe or disbelieve.
@ Hester: Pullman definitely *is* critiquing xtianity in the books, but the “church” (and the god that they worship) in Lyra’s world are not the same as their (more or less) equivalents here.
As for being “anti-Narnia,” one of Pullman’s objections to Lewis’ books is the way he handled (or mishandled!) the whole issue of emotional and sexual maturity in his characters. In this, I do agree with Pullman – and I’ve run across *far* too many American evangelicals who talk about Susan as if she was some kind of wicked harlot, running after parties, boys and nylon stockings. (Two of which were not much in evidence – if at all – in the UK during WWII.)
Pullman wanted to do a better job, and I think that Lyra and Will are credible adolescent characters… also that Lyra (who is, I’d guess, Lucy’s evil twin in some respects) changes quite a bit over the course of the trilogy.
The thing I found laughable – really, truly, hilariously so – was the big “temptation” scene he sets up in the final book, because I lived with nuns for a while during college and am as sure as sure can be that the women I knew had a pretty good idea of what they were giving up when they took their final vows. It’s not as if they’re not human beings, who never had bfs or never wanting kids. Someone who is about to make their final profession ( = taking their final vows) would *know* their own mind on the whole celibacy thing – and if they fell in love prior to taking their final vows and it looked like the relationship was going somewhere, there wouldn’t be any shame in choosing to leave. (Not that a lot of men and women didn’t leave religious orders after Vatican II – quite the contrary! – but the awful judgmental attitude about the breaking of solemn vows that existed prior to Vatican II was no longer in force…)
anyway – apologies for the rambling rant; I trust you’ll know the part of The Amber Spyglass that I’m referring to, and the character, too.
@ Numo:
Thanks for the info. It makes me want to re-read the series now that I’m not 13 and completely immature. I read the first two books but didn’t actually get very far into The Amber Spyglass because I got weirded out by the introduction of the angels. Like I said above, 13 and completely immature. 🙁
@ Mara: you are absolutely right. Limbaugh can’t be blamed for someone re-defining “femi-nazi” as “a woman who believes she has more rights than I think she should have.” Limbaugh was always very clear that he was using this term to describe women who were willing to sacrifice others rights for their own personal power, specifically advocates on abortion at any time and for any reason with no limits whatsoever.