My Life As a Daughter in the Christian Patriarchy Movement

Deep within America, beyond your typical evangelicals and run-of-the-mill fundamentalists, nurtured within the homeschool movement and growing by the day, are the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements. This is where I grew up.

I learned that women are to be homemakers while men are to be protectors and providers. I was taught that a woman should not have a career, but should rather keep the home and raise the children and submit to her husband, who is her god-given head and authority. I learned that homeschooling is the only godly way to raise children, because to send them to public school is to turn a child over to the government and the secular humanists. I was taught that children must be trained up in the way they should go every minute of every day. I learned that a woman is always under male authority, first her father, then her husband, and perhaps, someday, her son. I was told that children are always a blessing, and that it was imperative to raise up quivers full of warriors for Christ, equipped to take back the culture and restore it to its Christian foundations.


Christian Patriarchy involves the patriarchal gender roles and hierarchical family structure, while Quiverfull refers to the belief that children are always a blessing and that big families are mandatory for those following God’s will (some eschew birth control altogether). While these two belief sets are generally held in common, they can technically exist separately. Now, not everyone who holds these beliefs actually claims the term “Christian Patriarchy” or “Quiverfull.” My parents certainly didn’t. In fact, I never heard those terms growing up. What matters is not the name that is claimed, but the beliefs outlined above.

The Sexist Attacks On Women For Saying The Same Thing As Men

Source: Media Matters

State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki and her deputy, Marie Harf, have spent the week being attacked by right-wing media. They have been TARGETS of particularly harsh, personal attacks, using language that demeans both women and is almost never used to describe men in similar high-profile positions, regardless of what they say.

On February 19, the Daily Caller equated Psaki to a game where players take turns kicking a bead-filled ball around, when it was announced she has been tapped by President Obama to be the White House Communications Director: "Hacky Psaki: Obama Spokeslady Kicked Back To WH After Stint At State Dept."

The National Review's Ian Tuttle called the two women an incapable "hapless duo" with a "Lucy and Ethel routine" (Harf is blonde, Psaki a red head) who were trying to create a version of the comedy film Legally Blonde at the US Department of State. In a separate piece, the conservative journal of record's Kevin Williamson called Harf "cretinous" and a "misfit who plays Messy Marvin to Jen Psaki's feckless Pippi Longstocking."

It's one thing to disagree with and criticize a strategy or policy, it's another to belittle and undermine a person's intelligence and legitimacy by resorting to misogynist attacks.

Read more: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/02/22/the-sexist-attacks-on-women-for-saying-the-same/202609


(Reposted per OKNancy's instructions.)

I have actively opposed sexism and misogyny since the early seventies. Not much has changed, and far too many cry "misandry!" when feminists attempt to address this blight on our species. Misogyny--and myriad other forms of abuse--damages our entire species.

The Sexist Attacks On Women For Saying The Same Thing As Men

Source: Media Matters

State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki and her deputy, Marie Harf, have spent the week being attacked by right-wing media. They have been TARGETS of particularly harsh, personal attacks, using language that demeans both women and is almost never used to describe men in similar high-profile positions, regardless of what they say.

On February 19, the Daily Caller equated Psaki to a game where players take turns kicking a bead-filled ball around, when it was announced she has been tapped by President Obama to be the White House Communications Director: "Hacky Psaki: Obama Spokeslady Kicked Back To WH After Stint At State Dept."

The National Review's Ian Tuttle called the two women an incapable "hapless duo" with a "Lucy and Ethel routine" (Harf is blonde, Psaki a red head) who were trying to create a version of the comedy film Legally Blonde at the US Department of State. In a separate piece, the conservative journal of record's Kevin Williamson called Harf "cretinous" and a "misfit who plays Messy Marvin to Jen Psaki's feckless Pippi Longstocking."

It's one thing to disagree with and criticize a strategy or policy, it's another to belittle and undermine a person's intelligence and legitimacy by resorting to misogynist attacks.

Read more: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/02/22/the-sexist-attacks-on-women-for-saying-the-same/202609

Hearts, hearts, hearts!!

To each "secret admirer" who has given me (will give me) hearts for Valentine's Day, I extend a hearty thanks!!!


(Please do not groan at my pun... )

I am beginning to feel like a member of this forum!