Spiritual Self-Defense: Fight This Fight

I hate this post with a deep and abiding passion.  The very first paragraph is the only part of the whole damn thing that I find funny (and let me be honest - I often find the Botkin Sisters writings to be unintentionally rip-roaringly funny):

As we all arm ourselves to walk through our still-very-present culture of harassment and exploitation, there are countless things we’ll need to study outside the scope of what this series has touched on: practical issues like how to recognize a predator’s tactics, or how to build our own self-defense strategies and arsenals; legal issues like how and when and to whom to report; spiritual issues regarding things like recovery, true forgiveness, and identity; ecclesiastical issues like what to do when your church won’t help.

Pssst!  I've got a tip, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth!  "I need more time to study" is a plausible argument for why you two didn't understand the legal issues surrounding sexual assault and harassment when you were teenagers.  You could even stretch that argument into the first year or two of your twenties but no later.  See, lots of freshly minted college graduates of age 21-23 enroll in law school and learn  the intricacies of sexual assault and harassment laws in their state.  By the time a person is in their early to mid-thirties, they should be able to explain the laws of sexual assault in their state even if they've never gone to college.

The kicker is that the same argument applies for all of the other "topics beyond our scope" that the Botkin Sisters never bother to follow-up on.   Therapists are great at identifying predatory tactics; they are also fully minted after a Masters or Doctorate degree at a lower age of 26-30.  Spiritual issues are handled by clergy of all stripes who are often fully fledged between 24-30 depending on denomination.  Ecclesiastical issues is a hoot; in my church, that's implying that someone should consult a canonical lawyer - but even those people are as young as 30-35.   In CP/QF land, there's a bias against secular and theological training so pretty much any man who is married and has produced a kid can pronounce his beliefs on the issues around a church.

My very favorite, though, is the refusal to take on a serious discussion of self-defense and which guns to buy.  Believe me, plenty of teenagers have very, very detailed and well-thought out ideas about how to defend themselves in a pinch and what to use. 

Next, the Sisters give a longish rant about why abusers, feminists, Good Christians(TM), and the legal system tell victims not to report abuse.  I've pulled out the sections on feminists and Christians:

On the other side, feminist voices tell us: If you feel that what he did was not consensual, then it was wrong, and if you feel that it would be more empowering to you to resist or report, then go ahead… but it really all comes down to what you personally want right now, and no one should expect you as a woman to have to do something you don’t want to do. This is only worth fighting if you feel like it.

Too many Christian voices tell us: You just need to forgive and turn the other cheek; bringing consequences for sin isn’t loving and isn’t forgiveness; it will really damage the reputation of Christ to have things like this brought to light in the Christian community; you’re a sinner too, so you have no right to point a finger at him. It’s not Christian to fight back.

I think the strawman feminist created by the Botkin Sisters comes from two places.  First, the Botkin Sisters cannot handle the cognitive dissonance that would come from admitting that feminism's push to bring sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexual abuse into the light of day is an exceptionally moral action.  I'm afraid they would die from shock if they agreed right now. 

The second issue is that the Botkin Sisters lack the mental habit of running through all the possible permutations of a situation.   Not all inappropriate sexual behaviors are criminal.  Not all criminal actions are prosecutable.  Not all people can handle one more stressor at a given time.  The Botkin Sisters' impassioned defense of what women are supposed to do reminds me of a quiz I read that discussed the level of Natural Family Planning (NFP) privilege a person enjoyed.  One end of the spectrum was "I can't wait to practice NFP someday when I eventually get married."  The Botkin Sisters sound like that end of privilege "I'd totally report a sexual assault or harassment if I was abused or harassed!".  Good on you - let me know how you feel once you have actually experienced life.    The opposite end of the NFP spectrum was "Even your NFP instructor thinks using NFP is a horrible idea for you!"   And you know what?  That happens with sexual assault or abuse or harassment, too.   What if the abuser is dead?  What if there is no overarching authority available to intervene?  What if you can't identify your assailant? The emphasis that feminism places on doing what feels acceptable to the victim is because often there is no straightforward or simple choice - and feminism focuses on helping the victim heal regardless of if the perpetrator is adequately punished.

I've heard of the "don't damage the reputation of the Church" line of logic for dismissing abuse victims.  The Catholic Church tried it - and that course of action makes everything worse.  The Church is complicit in child abuse and there is no positive way to "spin" that.  The victims are hurt worse while the criminal is protected and allowed to continue attacking people.   The best course of action is whatever protects the innocent and provides consequences to the attacker within the scope of justice.  That line of action creates a church that is reflective of the love of God.

As for the other justifications - you're fucking kidding me, right?  Turning the other cheek occurs within the idea of handling religious persecution - not rape, not molestation, not sexual harassment and not sexual abuse.  The entire Bible - the whole thing - is about how God is one day going to bring a whole lot of hurt down on unrepentant sinners.  That's a whole lot of consequence for sin - so why pretend that sending someone to jail for rape is unchristian?  And let's be honest - I don't believe for a second that the people who want to sweep sexual assault under a rug take the same line when someone breaks into their house, steals their car or sucker-punches them during a dispute.  If these Christians really bought into the belief that 1) consequences are wrong and 2) no sinner can judge anyone else, they would have to be as willing to forgo any interactions with the justice system as the Amish are. (In fairness to the Amish and other non-resistance groups, none of  their beliefs are based in either of these toxic reasonings.)   Since CP/QF groups are all about legal remedies for perceived slights, their sudden expectation of humble piety from sexual assault victims is sick.

Moving on.  The Botkin Sisters manage to mangle retelling Rachel Denhollander's brave action to move forward against Larry Nassar.  The most charitable way I can explain the mauling of  Rachel Denhollander's brave story by the Botkin Sisters is that Anna Sofia and Elizabeth either didn't bother to read the materials they linked in their fourth post or that their reading comprehension is so poor that they are genuinely confused.   If they did competently read Rachel Denhollander's victim impact statement and her op-ed to the NY Times, the Botkin Sisters are guilty of erasing Ms. Denhollander to pursue their own agenda - and that's abusive, too.  To keep myself from throwing my laptop, I'm just going to shoot down the untruths sequentially.

It would be hard to be in a much more vulnerable and powerless position than 15-year-old Rachel during the year that her physician, Larry Nassar, repeatedly sexually abused her on the therapy table, and when people she trusted to help her hushed her instead. But later, as an adult, she was convinced that “a swift and intentional pursuit of God’s justice” was worth attempting again. “I made this choice knowing full well what it was going to cost to get here,” she said, “and with very little hope of ever succeeding. I did it because it was right.” What Rachel did not know is that hundreds of other Nassar victims were waiting, silently, for someone else to go first.

1) No one shushed Rachel Denhollander until she came forward in 2016.  Like many victims of sexual abuse in a medical setting, she thought what he was doing must be wrong on a gut level - but assumed that since he did this a lot and hadn't been stopped she as a 15-year old girl must have been misunderstanding something.   Thankfully, the people she disclosed the abuse to in 2004 were willing to support her when she came forward in 2016.   The tricky bit is that if she had disclosed in 2002 (at age 17) the medical professional she disclosed to would be legally required to report the abuse.  Once she turned 18, medical professionals generally follow the lead of the victim if there is not an open-and-shut case for physical violence.  Rachel Denhollander did nothing wrong by not telling anyone; I only bring that up to explain why there wasn't an report filed by the medical professional she disclosed to.

2) Prior to Nassar's assault of Denhollander in 2000, there had been four separate accusations of sexual misconduct against him by gymnasts or female athletes at MSU.  

3) Allegations of sexual misconduct during therapy sessions continued to be reported to MSU and the US Gymnastics Association between 1998-2016.

Plenty of girls, teenagers and women trying to get someone - anyone - to stop Larry Nassar from raping patients.  For any of the women attacked in Michigan, forced digital penetration is first-degree rape - but MSU and USAG ignored, belittled or patronized the victims and protected Nassar.

My two-cents: Teach your kids about medical consent in an age-appropriate way.  The rough rules of thumb are that kids under the age of 7 need to rely on their parents' decision for medical treatment.  I love my toddler - but he'd be dead if we needed to get assent for medical treatment because he is far too young to understand the importance of medical treatment compared to his dislike of people messing with him.  I do let him express his anger, frustration and rage as loudly as he wants and I acknowledge his feelings when they happen.   Ages 7-13 need to have procedures explained in an age appropriate way and a good faith effort made to secure the kid's assent to the procedure - but parental consent still can override the child, especially at the lower end of the age range. (Like if you are a 12 year old who is refusing to get an MMR...in spite of knowing people who suffered severe disabilities from measles and congenital rubella because you abhor shots.  Thanks, Mom. I love you!)  Age 14 and up has the mental maturity to decide if a treatment is appropriate.   Rachel Denhollander had the legal right to say "Stop" or "I don't want to have this treatment done" when Nassar was assaulting her - but she didn't know that.

Rachel’s courage, conviction, and thoroughly-prepared legal case was enough to break the previously-impenetrable dam;

Why did Ms. Denhollander succeed when so many women and girls had failed before?  It's not because she is a conservative Christian.  It's certainly not because she followed the Botkin Plan for dealing with sexual abuse.  No, Ms. Denhollander succeeded because she is a lawyer.  She attended college and graduated from law school.  Ms. Denhollander knew what materials she could collect to make a strong legal case against Nassar for assaulting her.  Ms. Denhollander walked into the Michigan State Police Department with an entire file of evidence including statements from people who were willing to testify that she disclosed the abuse between 2000-2004, proof of real pelvic floor physical therapy techniques from journals, expert witnesses willing to testify that what Nassar did was NOT therapeutic, and statements from two other women abused by Nassar.   She collected and handed the police department everything they needed to start a criminal case against Nassar - and that lead to contacting MSU and USAG who had multiple "resolved" cases that added new victims to Nassar's crimes. 

Plenty of courageous women, teens and girls had attempted to stop Nassar before; the Botkins' dismissal of those heroes is sick and a sign of the Botkin Sisters' dismissal of unpleasant realities.  Ms. Denhollander brought a brilliant mind, a stellar education, and a mountain of evidence for her case to support the courage and bravery of so many other women.  Those women together took down a monster - and they deserve our recognition of their individual and collective acts of bravery.

Shame on you, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin.  Shame on you.

Spiritual Self-Defense: Master Your Greatest Enemy - Part Four

We survived the first half of Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin's exposition on how various vices can lead to sexual sin in their blog series "Spiritual Self-Defense".  Personally, I found their logic underwhelming and their childish dismissal of abuse victims disturbing.   Thankfully, there are only four vices left.  Amusingly, the Botkin Sisters invented one vice I've never heard of before - and I'm clueless how that vice is different from another vice they listed.

Fear – the fear of loss, of retribution, of shame, of the unknown; of making a scene, of taking a risk; of rational things, of irrational things. It doesn’t make a difference what it is: Once we fix our fear on something other than God, we are bound and gagged. 

Oh, Anna Sofia and/or Elizabeth - your innocence surrounding fear is sweetly touching.  Believe you me; the world is full of scary, scary situations for people who fear God.   When the very young resident OB told me I had HELLP syndrome, I was absolutely terrified.  Not because my faith faltered; no, I was retroactively fucking terrified that if I hadn't had some random abdominal pains, my husband would have come home from work to find me dead on the couch when I laid down for a nap just before I had a stroke or heart attack.  Or perhaps he would had found me comatose in the time between seizures from eclampsia with a dying or dead baby.  I was well aware that I could bleed to death during the C-section in spite of the best efforts of my amazing care team.  I was even more petrified that my son could die before we got to know him and before he got to live. 

I don't believe God wants us to know fear or pain or suffering or death.  I believe that the people doing God's work that day were the multitude of medical professionals who kept me and my son alive.   I know that my faith helped me survive - if only because praying was something I could do while laying in a hospital bed attached to IVs and deep breathing.   But I was scared - very, very scared - and I don't believe that fear is a sign of a lack of faith.

We’ll need to practice keeping these truths at the forefront of our minds when we’re around other people, and we’ll need to practice speaking up and taking a stand for these truths when it’s scary and makes us unpopular. The more we do this, the more the focus of our fear will be shifted from people to God, and we’ll develop a reputation for being the kind of girl that would get an abuser in deep trouble.

Mmm-k.  This is sadly ironic coming from two women who have been told repeatedly since childhood or infancy that women are incapable of detecting deceit or malice in a potential suitor.  According to the Botkin Family line, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth have been completely sheltered from any bad influences their entire lives.  Who knows if that is true - but I hope for their sake it isn't.  As women in their thirties, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth should be experienced at comparing the actions of people with their words and alleged values.    Anna Sofia and Elizabeth were among the monied royalty of Vision Forum.  That's all good fun - but what does it say about the values of Vision Forum that there was a clear separation between the families with money and the far more common families that struggled to make ends meet?  The Sisters have never spoken out in any way shape or form about economic inequality in CP/QF.  My guess is that the Sisters have never thought about economic fairness at all - but they really should.  After all, that would give them plenty of practice taking a stand for a basic Christian belief that will evoke strong feelings from other monied former Vision Forum folks.  That would probably be quite scary for Anna Sofia or Elizabeth - but they are old hats at this, right?

Selfish ambition – wanting the perks (you name it – favorite-status, admiration, promotion, money, fame, popularity) that would come with being on this person’s good side. There is a kind of covetousness and ambition that women are very prone to when it comes to men, especially when it involves competing with other women.

*blinks*

I've never met a woman who had consensual sex with a guy for the sole purpose of competing with other women.  Like....never. 

I've never met a woman who abused or raped a man for the sole purpose of competing with other women.  Never ever.

And honestly, I've never seen women get particularly competitive with each other around dating.  I think this is because for women outside of CP/QF lifestyles, we have many other options for satisfying our competitive spirit.  There's a plethora of competitive sports for adult women.  Women can compete for employment or academic accomplishment.  The entire blot on Western society known as "Mommy Wars" comes from women (and men) treating child-rearing as a form of competition.  Dating as competition feels rather dull compared to joining a softball team, earning an advanced degree or landing a great job.

That's why I completely believe that Anna Sofia and Elizabeth's target audience IS tempted to look at romantic relationships as a competition.  They've got damned few legitimate avenues to compete with other women so courting a highly attractive suitor may well be counted as a win.

The suggested solutions for being ambitious are off-the-wall....as well as in sentence fragments.

For instance, to start thinking of the other girls as being more important than we are (which would even include seeing their relational lives or marital prospects as more important than ours). To stop seeing ourselves as the main character in the story, and all the other girls as supporting characters (or villains). To consider the souls of the young men around us (including their focus and their purity) more important than the ego boost we could get from them.

Yup.  Imagine living a life where a young woman is more involved in the marital prospects of church acquaintances because she knows she's not the main character in her own life and doesn't want to erode the focus of a young man by showing her interest in him.    That sounds like the beginning of a CP/QF version of "Single White Female" rather than a solid life choice.

Ladies, you are allowed to be the main character in your own life.  Full stop.  Other people do not need you to elevate them to the main character position of your life because they are the main characters in their life.  It's a win-win-win-win for all people to take center stage in their own lives.  If you don't, you risk becoming a passive-aggressive martyr who expects to control other people's lives as repayment for never living their own life.  Hint: passive-aggressive martyr is not an attractive character to play.

The next vice is the mostly made-up idea of "instability of soul".  Every time I read that section, I have a mental image of Geordi LaForge discussing how the Enterprise's engine is becoming unstable - and then an explosion of soul-goo.....

Instability of soul – 2 Pet. 2:14 says that men who have “eyes full of adultery” “entice unstable souls.” The word “unstable” means “unfixed,” “vacillating,” “unsteady.” An unstable girl is one who is not solidly, unshakeably rooted in what God says – she can be drawn or persuaded or manipulated by some other voice telling her “I’m only doing this because I love you so much…” “Did God say it’s a sin to do X? Don’t be such a legalist!” “It’s actually your fault I did Y, because you tempted me…” “If you tell anyone, my life will be ruined, and you’ll have to live with that!”

Man, that whole "CP/QF homeschoolers are smarter than the brainwashed masses"  idea keeps taking a beating every time Anna Sofia or Elizabeth defines a word that native English speakers over the age of 12 should already know. 

Apparently "instability of soul" is also a synonym for "not bright" or "very gullible".  The first three arguments given by "other voices" are easily proven false.

•  "You love me?  Then stop doing _____ because I don't like it."  Problem solved.
• "Don't insult me for holding a boundary with you.  I expect an apology."  Problem solved.
• "Bullshit. You made a choice;  you need to own your actions." Problem solved.

The fourth one is a little more complicated - but only because people often feel guilty when doing a morally right action sets morally right consequences in action against someone they love.  Here are some options to try mentally:

• "If it was ok for you to do ______, it's ok for me to tell people about it."
• If _______ couldn't deal with the consequences of their action being known publicly, they shouldn't have done it in the first place.
• "I can live with that.  I won't let ______'s dislike of consequences dictate my actions"
• "Why do I have to keep a secret to protect _____ from the consequences of their actions?  That's unfair."

To be clear, you may not feel safe saying these things to the other person.  You don't have to; you do not need their permission or blessing to discuss actions that have affected your life.  

Spiritual laxness – when we identify as the Lord’s servants, and yet are not actively seeking out our Master’s will and striving to understand what He wants us to do.

By this definition, everyone is spiritually lax multiple times a day.  I don't have the skill set to seek out God's will while mowing my lawn or shopping for groceries.   I figure God wants me to exercise to keep my body healthy - but does God prefer when I go for a walk, mow the lawn, do water aerobics or swim laps?   What is the correct ratio of "play with the toddler" compared to "complete household chores"?  Before anyone quotes the story of Mary and Martha, remember that there was not a toddler in that story covering his glasses in barbeque sauce while crawling after an unguarded electrical cord.... 😜

But too often, we have adopted a brand of personal faith that expects God (and other people) to do all the work of seeking, buffeting, and striving for us. We may call this “letting go and letting God” – God calls this being wicked and lazy servants.

What is the last example of the Botkin Sisters dealing with any buffeting?  When have either of them strove for anything?  In their free podcasts, the Sisters claim that the second-generation of CP/QF homeschoolers have entire areas of theology to reconquer; remember their argument that they would personally need to look at every example of femininity ever to come up with an comprehensive new Christian form of femininity?  That's time consuming for sure - but they've dropped off producing anything new.  So....how does that fit in striving to change the world?

Good news: We've finished this post.  Bad news: there's still one post left.

Spiritual Self-Defense: Part One - Commentary Two

It's rare - but so satisfying for me - when I find a CP/QF quote that encapsulates the major flaws within the mindset.   Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin served one up on a platter for me in their blog series "Spiritual Self-Defense".   The very first paragraph  of the series serves up several in a row:

We’ve all experienced that moment of panic, that sense of paralysis, after a man just said something or did something to us that crossed the line. We’ve all faced the crisis of, “Was what he just did OK?” …followed by the next crisis of “What should I do? Should I be smooth and pretend this didn’t happen, or should I do something that will feel very awkward, hard, rude, and uncomfortable for everyone? Should I roll with this, or fight it? Do I have a responsibility to do something? Didn’t Jesus turn the other cheek? What would God want me to do?” And probably the most terrifying moment of all: When we realize the strength we need and thought we had simply isn’t there.

Notice how the woman in this thought experiment has no volition in this situation.  The two things that matter are what the man did and a list of acceptable actions for men to do to women.  The woman's feelings, thoughts, and beliefs are overlooked entirely.   I suppose this will mark me as a raging out-of-control feminist, but the important question for me would be "Am I comfortable with what just happened?"  The rest of the paragraph is a mess - but most of the mess arises from the woman's failure to decide how she feels about what happened.   The paragraph pairs extremely divergent choices, skips the most common intermediate course of action, ignores any complications and devolves into a theological mess before encouraging self-blame.

Let's hit the theology first.  The "turn the other cheek" doctrine is generally applied to persecution due to religious beliefs.   Sexual harassment and assault does not fit in that category.  I think that God gave us brains and the power to use them - so we do what God wants when we respond in the way we feel is appropriate.

Let me sketch this out in real life. 

When I was a cashier at a busy grocery store, I was doing my job at a lane when someone goosed me.

The first - nearly instant - decision I made was that I DID NOT LIKE THAT.   I didn't need to think about whether what the person did was right or wrong; I just needed to be clear that I - myself - did not like it at all.

The second decision was knowing my options for response.  Here's a list of possible options:

1. No response.  This would be most acceptable for me if I felt that any resistant response on my part would place me or someone else in danger.  I rejected this response because I was a well-liked worker in a busy grocery store and was certain that a resistant response on my part would bring more help/support from co-workers and shoppers.
2. Verbal reprimand.  Lots of options available here ranging from "Knock it off" through a profanity laced dressing-down.    This was going to be my response if I felt physically threatened because a torrent of profanity would bring scads of attention my way.
3. Physical attack.  I keep this in reserve for times when I am physically at risk and cannot get help otherwise.  On the other hand, this was the end of a long shift; I was hot, tired, hungry and getting goosed shoved me into the enraged category.  When I swung around to confront the person who goosed me, I was mentally ready and had my arm drawn back to deliver a left-handed uppercut to the jaw.
4. De-escalation.  There was the possibility that I'd turn around and realize that the person who goosed me was holding a weapon - or was very drunk and aggressive - or set off my "dangerous person" alarm in some way.  In that case, I'd do whatever I needed to do to get them the hell away from me.  I'd smile, flirt or seem pleased in someway - because this is NOT a hill for me to die on.

From the options, I whipped around in my lane ready to give the person who goosed me a tongue-lashing they'd never forget and possibly deck them. 

Much to my surprise, there was no one there.  There was a woman unloading her cart too far away to have goosed me and no one else I could see anywhere around. 

I was confused as all get out.  Then, I felt a tug on my pocket and a little voice cried out "birdy!"  I looked down at a little snippet of a kid who was hanging onto my pocket.

I had been goosed by a 3 year old who had tried to grab the stuffed bird I kept on my keyring...and missed.

I busted out laughing and explained to the cashier behind me and the guest in my lane that I had just been goosed by a future bird watcher...maybe even a goose researcher!

The Botkin Sisters make it seem like the two available options are to respond positively to the breech of a boundary or be ready to fight to the death and involve the police.   "Rolling with it" or "being smooth" are not good choices if a person wants the behavior to stop.  On the other hand, there's a far wider range of responses for minor issues - which have been far more common in my life.  Looking back on various moments when I was in situations where something untoward happened, my standard reactions ran a much smaller continuum from a neutral response to glaring at the person to saying firmly "Don't do that!"

Here are some examples:

A boss (who is pretty bad at his job all around) tells a story involving a jargon term for vagina.  My response was to look at him as if he were nuts, then disengage from the conversation.  I add this to my detailed list of "issues with boss" - but it's never repeated again so I don't go any further in terms of seeking union representation or reporting him to HR.

Some co-workers are telling some pretty raunchy stories in the break room when I came in for break.  I change the topic of conversation by asking what they think of the new scheduling system; they hate it and tell me why in great detail.

A older man crashes into me outside of a historical exhibit making contact mostly with my breasts.  I'm about to say something sharp when I realize he's pale and shaking while wearing a "Korean War" hat.  The fort nearby had just fired a cannon - and he's having a fight-or-flight reaction.  I talk to him quietly about what a nice summer day in Mackinac it is and encourage him to have a seat on a nearby bench.  In a few minutes, he's extremely apologetic - and I tell him that he's got nothing to apologize for at all.

I'm waiting for a city bus when a guy I've never seen before starts complimenting me on how pretty I am.  I'm a little skeeved out - but there's no people around for backup and I need to get on this bus to make an appointment.   I say, "Thank you, but I'm engaged" and proceed to create an entire imaginary fiance.  The guy backs off when I explain how much I like ImaginaryBoy and how excited I am about our wedding.

I'm making out with a boyfriend.  He moves a hand to a part of my body where I don't want it.  I gently move his hand to a location I am ok with.  Problem_solved.

What concerns me is that the Botkin sisters don't seem to realize that there's a huge range of boundary violations - and an equally huge range of responses.   I think this happened because they have such limited life experiences.  My experiences involve three separate jobs, one vacation with a female friend, taking public transportation alone and romantic relationships - experiences the Botkin sisters have never, ever had.  The truly toxic issue is that the Botkin Sisters have been taught they should expect boundary violations and that the only way to deal is to never go anywhere without a male chaperone.  That is a terrible message to teach young women!  My parents taught us that we had the right to speak up if we didn't like something someone else did - and that as we got older we would get better and better at responding to the situations.   The advantage of my parents' teachings is that we were prepared for both strangers or acquaintances to transgress boundaries  - but we also knew we could respond if the person was a boss, teacher, relative or religious leader.

Here's one last point/theme.  The Botkin Sisters provide lots of condemnation about evil outsiders by name (like Larry Nassar) - but they stay strangely silent about Doug Phillips.  He was the leader of their cult who was accused of molesting his kids' nanny.  The entire Botkin Family was good buddies with Phillips.  It was a win-win situation.  The Botkin Sisters gave him a set of attractive role models for young women along with profit from their first book; in return, they received income from speaking fees and went on vacations with the Phillips clan. 

Remember that the Botkin Sisters have remained completely silent about Phillips' misdeeds - and the benefits their family has received from association with Phillips as we move through the blog series.

Dominion Orientated Femininity: Part Three

This post covers all of the second point in Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin's podcast "Dominion-Orientated Femininity".   The Botkin Sisters are solid public speakers, but would greatly benefit from one or two classes in public speaking.  The lecture/conference breakout session/podcast covers the ten most important points about dominion-orientated femininity - but the discussion of two of the points take up half of the time.  Since the introduction to the topic took 25% of the podcast's running time, this left seven topics to be covered in about 6 minutes. 

Somewhere in the melee, point three got lost all together.

I'm really curious - but will likely never know - if the error occurred at the original conference and no one noticed in post-production....or if point three was lost during post.   I find it depressing that a family that prides themselves on starting an alternative media empire missed a mistake as obvious as this one.  Was it too much effort for one of the brothers to listen through the entire 37 minute podcast and pay attention?

Well, here we go:

Point number two is: a dominion woman understands what the difference is between real femininity and false femininity. This is important.

There are a lot of theories of femininity going around that we need to examine Biblically. For example, some people say, "Femininity is the opposite of masculinity". Well, certainly, we are supposed to be different from men, but that doesn't necessarily mean opposite.

Another one is some people think femininity is whatever the feminists have rejected. Well, that's bad hermeneutics. "Cause we have to be careful that we don't build our philosophy of womanhood or of anything else on a knee-jerk reaction to something bad as though the thing that's bad is what actually determines our morality. The Bible is our only standard and it should be our motivation to do right.

Some people say that Biblical femininity is any picture of womanhood that was around before the Woman's Suffrage Movement. Well, the thing is feminism has been around since the garden of Eden and it's had advocates in every single century.

This is entirely personal preference on my part - but do not give counter-examples before giving me the working definition. 

I agree that morals and principles should be defined positively instead of in reaction to negative things.

I've been thinking really hard about Genesis 1 +2 and I have no idea why Eve's decision to eat the apple counts as a feminist act.  No idea at all.   Adam ate the apple, too, then attempted to shift blame to Eve.  Does that mean failure to own and accept responsibility for one's actions is a masculine trait?  (You know, in CP/QF land, the answer to that question might be "yes" - and that scares me even more.)

So the actual meaning of femininity is really extremely simple and we see it in the first couple of chapters of the Bible. So here in Genesis 2 God reveals to us the essence of femininity when he shows us how Eve was meant to correlate to Adam. He said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him." So, here we see the woman was made for the man like it says in 1 Corinthians 11:9. We see she's a different creature. She's made for a different purpose and her role is different which we see in Genesis 3. She is supposed to look different as we see in Deuteronomy 22:5. And we should rejoice in that difference because that is the difference that makes us complimentary to the man. And the purpose of this difference which we call femininity is to help masculinity and to suit masculinity. To compliment it and complete it. And the two of them together will be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it. We could sum up by saying, "True femininity is about helping men fulfill their calling. "

Who's up for a round of Bible Bingo?

Anna Sofia/Elizabeth Botkin starts out by quoting Genesis 2:18 - which is a strange choice out of all the options in that chapter.  The next action that follows God's statement isn't the creation of Eve, but the creation of animals meant to be partners for Adam.  None of the animals are suitable partners for Adam so God created Eve from his rib.   When Adam awakes, he doesn't proclaim "I've got a helper!".  No, he recognizes and rejoices that he has another person who is made of the same flesh and bone as him.    The major moral I've always heard from that story is that males and females are partners in doing God's will since God commanded Adam to care for the garden - and created Eve because humans need friends.

No discussion of female submission is complete without 1 Corinthians 11:9 "Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man."  Oddly enough, people who pull the previous verse generally miss 1 Corinthians 11:11-12 "Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman.  For just as the woman came from man, man comes through woman; but all things come from God."  Equally important, verses 2-16 are discussing which genders should keep their heads covered during prayer.   The full argument follows that God created Adam in God's image, but Eve was created in Adam's image only so men who are the image of God should keep their heads uncovered during prayer while women who are images of humans should cover their heads.     Since Genesis 1:27 explicitly states that God created male and females in the image of God, we can safely disregard the questionable logic within 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 about female submission.

I'm very worried about what I'm going to find in Genesis 3 because I think Anna Sofia/Elizabeth has confused the gendered curses for eating the forbidden fruit with God's purpose in creating humans. 

*drums fingers nervously while waiting for a page to load*

Yup.  Yup.  Anna Sofia/Elizabeth has confused women's curse of the pain and danger associated with pregnancy and childbirth and men's curse of physically crushing subsistence agriculture with God's purpose for creating men and women.   I'm blushing on behalf of Anna Sofia/Elizabeth right now; I would have gotten marked down SO badly if I screwed that interpretation up in a high school essay.  I can't even imagine the level of embarrassment if I did that in my one college level religion class. 

OT: English needs a word for the emotion of embarrassment felt on behalf of another person who is completely oblivious to the fact that their action was awkward or inappropriate.  Do we have that word? 

And, yes, Deuteronomy 22:5 does state that men and women should wear different clothing.  That's the same chapter that states that it's immoral to plow with a donkey and an ox yoked together, immoral to plant a second crop in a vineyard and that linen-wool blend clothing is also immoral.  So...yeah.  Some Biblical precepts are not as universal as others.

The definition of "femininity" is "helping men do stuff".   How does that work in day-to-day life -even CP/QF life?  When a guy helps his friend do a project, is the first guy behaving femininely?  Is every man who works for wages feminine? 

I don't think the Botkin Sisters have really thought this definition out very well. 

Any departure from this is a departure from Biblical femininity. Throughout the Bible and throughout history we actually only see two kinds of womanhood. The kind that devotes its identity to helping men fulfill their calling and the kind that wants power over men. The first one lives a life of self-sacrifice; the later wants to have its own way. The later is what we call feminism.

 A lot of us think of feminism as being ugly and androgynous, but feminism appears in many guises throughout history. Sometimes it's trying to subdue masculinity with its womanly wiles and charms. Sometimes feminism is vain and narcissistic and self-absorbed. It's ornamental. It's useless. And it's not interested in helping men take dominion. It's interested in itself. And sometimes, it's trying to compete with masculinity and out man it. But there's one thing that consistent in all of these manifestations. Feminism is always independent and always self-seeking and its desire is to weaken and dominate men.

The Botkin definition of feminism is "women who want their own way in a self-important method for the aim of weakening and dominating men."   (That's the best working definition I can cobble together from the word salad in the last section of the podcast.)  In Botkin-land that definition makes some sense because they treat all rights as being a zero-sum game.  If women gain the right to vote, men lose.  When women work outside the home, men lose.  Clearly, that's not how the world works.  When women became voters, men had more potential voters to motivate to support ideas that were important to the men.  Having women in the workforce benefits male employers through the largest possible pool of qualified candidates and benefits male workers who are married by having a second income in the family economy. 

The argument that feminism is never self-sacrificial makes it clear that the Botkin Sisters have never cracked a history book open.   Issues that everyone agrees are feminism issues like voting rights, property rights and economic rights for women moved forward because groups of women were willing to sacrifice their time, energy and talents for the greater good of the movement. 

Of course, in writing the last two paragraphs, I've put more thought into the subject than the speaker ever has.  My rationale for that is that Anna Sofia/Elizabeth claims that CP/QF women believe that feminism was "ugly and androgynous."  That is a shallow and trite description even if feminism was horrifying evil that stretched over millenia that the Botkin sisters attempt to make it. 

On the other hand, perhaps the lack of depth in the description reflects cursory education of the speakers.  That might be more disturbing.

I generally listen to the podcast straight through at least twice while walking before trying to transcribe it.   I remember very clearly listening to this part and thinking, "Is she going to make a reference to Delilah?  She's not walking into that trap, right?"

Understanding this is extremely helpful when it comes to sorting through all the images around us. And there are two in particular that we believe are leading girls away from Biblical femininity. One is floozy femininity which uses its beauty to show off and try to gain power over men. It's what the world call femininity, but we cannot let it confuse us. It's distinct from masculinity, but it's not gentle and quiet. It's not modest and discreet. We should ask ourselves, "Is this an asset to mankind or is it a liability? Is it like Mary the Mother of God or is it like Delilah?" If we ask these questions and judge by these standards, it becomes clear that this kind of femininity is not Biblical femininity.

And then in the opposite camp, we've known girls who have turned away from femininity because they learned from Barbie dolls that femininity is for bimbos. And so they become bitter about their God-given femininity. They become ashamed of it. They try to hide it under men's clothes. Sometimes they become bitter towards men as well. And they're not complimenting men and filling that which is lacking.

Femininity is the process of getting things done for men (as defined before) - so why does gentleness, quietness, modesty and behaving discreetly have anything to do with femininity?  Sometimes a problem needs someone who can be loud and assertive.

Putting Mary the Mother of God as an opposite to Delilah is a hoot.  To her neighbors, Mary was an engaged woman who got pregnant by someone who was not her betrothed.  Later in life, Mary ordered Jesus to turn water into wine at a wedding after he had specifically said it was not time for him to reveal himself yet in John 2:3-5 and brought his siblings along to meet with him once he was preaching in Mark 3:31-35.   That's hardly the quiet, docile woman idolized by the Botkin Sisters  Delilah, on the other hand, was completing the job given to her by the leaders of her people the Philistines; she was finding out how to defeat the best warrior of her enemies according to Judges 16:4-6.   As near as I can tell, this means Delilah was a dominion-oriented woman since she helped men achieve their goals and Mary was a raging feminist because she placed her goals ahead of Jesus.

So this is the challenge of trying to rediscover Biblical femininity, trying to sort through all the images and stereotypes from the past. Looking for good examples. There are many great legacies for us in history if we can find them. We have to remember no era and no image is perfect.

We have an amazing opportunity before us right now to build a new culture of femininity. Something completely new and different on the foundation of the Bible alone. Now, Reverend William Einwechter who's one of our favorite theologians, he explains, "The Hebrew word for help - as in helpmeet - ezer- comes from two roots. The first meaning "to rescue or save" and the second meaning "to be strong". It indicates one who is able and who has what it takes to come to the aid of someone who is in need. Thus God created the woman so that she would be able to come to the aid of the man and be his support and help". She's only going to figure out her purpose if she realizes his. "And thus it is absolutely keeping with Biblical womanhood, imperative even, for a woman to understand and appreciate men and their world."

One request to the universe: I never, ever want to read another CP/QF book that includes a discussion of the root basis of the Hebrew word for "help meet".   Those kind of discussions can be fascinating when there is some disagreement over the basis of the word or when there isn't a great English equivalent for the word.  When the words "help meet" is pretty darn close to "ezer", the author is simply wasting time and increasing the word count. 

And so people have often asked us, "Is it feminine for girls to be inspired by the masculinity of their brothers and their fathers and to enjoy the things that their brothers are doing?" I would say the answer is yes. I think it's feministic for girls to grow up having a contempt for those things. And girls who are trying to understand their position as women need to eschew the false notion that women live in different worlds. We were created to be different, but we live in the same world we have the same goal. And in our pursuit of being women, we need to make sure we don't abandon our men and one thing we need remember is that brave adventurous men need women who can come alongside them in the rigors of their lives. And sometimes that means going outside and helping your brother build a tree fort. Sometimes it means when you're married helping your husband build his house. Femininity is not all about staying inside the house and feeding upon sugar and cream and and cross-stitching. That's another thing that Elizabeth and I had to figure out along the way.

Anna Sofia has painted herself into a corner again.  The Botkin definition of femininity is "helping men do dominion-oriented tasks" so presumably the definition of masculinity is "initiating and doing dominion-oriented tasks."   Female humans of all ages are supposed to feel inspired by men who do dominion-oriented tasks and should lend a hand.   I can follow the logic - such as it is - up to this point.  But why shouldn't women also initiate and complete dominion-oriented tasks?   According to Anna Sofia, women do not have a unique set of skills like being sheltered and cross-stitching that needs to be preserved.  If that's the case, why shouldn't a girl build a tree fort even if her brothers aren't into that? 

I think Anna Sofia and Elizabeth have only worked out part of the puzzle and I hope they figure out the rest this side of heaven. 

Dominion Orientated Femininity - Part One

Well, I've misplaced my copy of Maidens of Virtue again.  I misplace most of the books I review on this blog at one point or another - but there is something about the Maidens of Virtue book that seems to make it disappear more.  I think it's because the copy I have is a hardcover book with a smooth cover so when I get frustrated and toss it across the room the book slides into weird locations.

I'm sure I'll find it.  Our house is not large and there are only so many places it can be.  Until I find it, I'm going to substitute a commentary on one of the Botkin Family podcasts available for free on their website at the Western Conservatory for the Arts and Sciences.   I picked "Dominion-Oriented Femininity" to transcribe in its entirety first because the topic sounded slightly more interesting than the other podcasts and because at 38 minutes it's about half as long as the other podcasts.

Transcriptions of speeches bring a few difficulties to the table.  Anna Sofia and Elizabeth are solid, if unremarkable, public speakers so I can usually figure out what they are saying.  I have not been able to determine which passages are given by which speaker because the two women's voices are very similar - a problem common among family members.   When converting speeches into written form, sentence fragments appear in the written form that were not glaringly obvious when spoken.  In other words, the flow of the transcripts is more clunky and less polished than the podcast itself.   In a similar vein, the choices of punctuation are mine.

The podcast itself is taken from a lecture given at a conference by the Botkin Family.  The lecture predates Anna Sofia and Elizabeth's second book as well as the collapse of Vision Forum (based on the glowing praise heaped on Doug Phillips in other podcasts).  The audience at the lecture is "family-integrated" or multi-aged because small children can be heard in the background occasionally.

Anna Sofia and Elizabeth are introduced by their father Geoffrey Botkins:

The following message is brought to you by the Western Conservatory of the Arts and Sciences.

 GB: I wanna introduce to you now two young ladies who have been giving some very serious thought to how they can even when they are in a family and even when they are under the jurisdiction of their father they can be leaders of society and culture. Not by lording it over men, not by teaching men but in the way that they carry themselves and the way that they speak. The way that they redefine things that have been grossly perverted in our day. Femininity. So now, ladies and gentlemen. Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Botkin on dominion oriented femininity.

I'm bummed.  I will never receive an introduction as overblown, fulsome and smarmy as that introduction.   Geoffrey Botkin announced that his daughters are societal leaders and cultural arbitrators because of their posture and clothing choices!  The irony is killing me. The Botkin Family holds themselves up as the pinnacle of homeschool education and neo-Calvinist theological reform - but immediately falls back on the idea that outer appearance is the most important characteristic for women.

Geoffrey has never read -or failed to comprehend - the basic ideas in George Eliot's works.  The beauty of a woman may cause men to attribute positive character traits to her that are not present.  I'd hate to think that Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin are like Hetty Sorrel or Rosamond (Vincy) Lygate or even Mary Crawford from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.

The rest of the transcript for today the speech of either Anna Sofia or Elizabeth Botkin.

One of the themes I'm sure you've noticed is that we need to be prepared to face hard times ahead. America is scheduled for judgement. This is something that my father talked about. We don't know how severe. We don't know what it's going to look like. We don't know what it it will consist of. The future is very very uncertain for us. This is a subject that the men have been talking a lot about but you young ladies in the audience you need to be thinking about this too. Because even though it sounds like manly subjects judgement, war, the economy, all of those things are going to affect us too. We live in the same world that our fathers live in. And when we're married we are going to live in the same world that our husbands live in and the hardships that they face we're going to face them too so these are topics that we are not too young to be thinking about. We're not too girly to be thinking about. We really need to be focusing on these things too.

Most CP/QF families can live within modern society, gently disdaining the rest of us, but not waiting with bated breath for the destruction of the United States of America.  Heck, sometimes I think mildly judgemental tolerance of others is a national characteristic. No, the Botkin clan and their ilk hopes for the day that the US society is thrown down so that these ambitious members of a very small religious minority will receive the recognition and adoration that they so deeply crave.

The Botkin Family must know on some level that they are woefully unready to become leaders in the society in which they live now.  Their theological qualifications are so weak that I can poke holes in their theological rationales - and I'm a theological bantamweight.   Their education is so flimsy that they would struggle in a basic college level course.  To the best of my knowledge, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth have never earned income at a job of any sort.   I suspect that the entire family is being supported between the income from T. Rex Arms - the younger brothers' CNC accessories for guns business - the residuals from the sisters' books and whatever freelance work the oldest three boys can cobble together.     That sounds grim - but I suspect many CP/QF families lives are quite grim financially.

The repeated statement that that women live in the same world as men jarred me at the beginning of the podcast - and it didn't get less jarring over time.   I am completely aware that I live in the same world as my father, brother, brothers-in-law and son do, thank you.  It's a world that I live in and am quite capable of navigating as well.

One of the things that concerns me most about America's future is the fact that most women - but not all - do not know how to be strong any more. And they are not ready to deal with hard times. And they are not ready to deal with hardships the way they used to be. When you look at pictures of the Pilgrim mothers and of the woman that settled the Wild West and the woman that settled Plymouth you see strength and you see virtue, something that women don't have today. Women just don't have the moral stamina to face the trials and the hardships that they faced two hundred years ago. We've lost the strong moral character and the sturdiness that American women used to be known for.

Whoo-boy!  Let me get this straight.  In terms of strength and moral stamina, the Pilgrims come first, the Botkin girls et al. come second, and I come in last.

Nope.  Not even close, ladies.

I am hard-pressed to come up with two young women with less practical strength or moral stamina than the Botkin sisters.  Neither Anna Sofia nor Elizabeth has ever had to stand up for their beliefs in in the secular world.  See, they pride themselves on standing aloof from a society that reviles and hates them - but that's giving far too much importance to their views.  Let's say that both young ladies are forced to earn a living starting tomorrow.  They could get a job at the local grocery store as cashiers.  I'm sure they would breathlessly explain how important it is for both of them to dress modestly in long skirts - but how would they respond to the normal response of "Yeah, that's fine as long as it's khaki or black"?  I'm sure they would enjoy explaining the minutia of their beliefs about emotional purity to the coworkers at break time - but what happens when the coworkers say, "Oh, that's nice" and move on to a more interesting topic.    I'm sure they would eagerly await positive feedback from coworkers when their coworkers recognized them as the authors of two ground-shaking books.    They expect adoration or hatred - but can they deal with boredom, apathy and mild pity?

Strength and stamina aren't built when two young women are the unquestioned princesses of a religious movement; those are built when hard times are faced and overcome.

Let me talk about the Pilgrim women for a minute because the fact that we even have an America to talk about it's a testimony to the dominion oriented femininity of the Pilgrim women who sacrificed their lives for other people that they would never see. And they were willing to go through hardships that we cannot even imagine we selfish spoiled women in the 21st century cannot even imagine the hardship that they went through. They cared more about people they would never know than they did about their own comfort. That's something that cannot be said about women of today. They were willing to make their lives harder for the eternal good of those who would be coming later. And if you go to Plymouth, there's a monument to the Pilgrim mothers which is inscribed with these words right here, "They brought up their families in sturdy virtue and the living faith in God without which nations perish"

Two centuries later when Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville came to the United States in the 1830s he was struck by the superior strength and character of the American women and this is what he said about them, " If I were asked now that I am drawing to the close of this work in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans to what singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly be attributed I would reply, ' To the superiority of their women"."

Perhaps we could imagine the hardships better if Anna Sofia or Elizabeth told us about the hardships.  Oh, wait.  That never happens.   Learning about those hardships would require reading a book or two or looking at an encyclopedia before writing this speech - and Lord knows they don't do that.

Surprisingly enough, I do know about the hardships that the Pilgrims faced - and why they left the Netherlands in the first place.  The Pilgrims were not as worried about mythical future generations as they were worried about their children who were growing up to be more Dutch than English.  The Pilgrims faced the perennial concerns of immigrant parents who worry about children growing up in a culture that is foreign.  Unlike most immigrant parents, the Pilgrims decided risking their families' lives in a new settlement was worth it because they would have more control over the upbringing of their kids.  (Not quite as noble and sexy when it's laid out like that, is it?)

The Pilgrims faced a lot of problems - and a good portion of them were of their own making. They landed in the US in the fall and didn't have enough food for the winter.   The Pilgrims were not farmers, but they were dependent on their own farming efforts for food. (This is a point that the pastoralist-idealizing CP/QF families should think long and hard about.)  Disease and deaths in childbirth were always a risk prior to the advent of modern medicine, but malnutrition and famine worsen the death toll.  The Pilgrims were strangely slow to realize that Native Americans were going to be vital allies in a colony where help from Europe was over a year away.  (And let's be honest.  If the population of Native Americans west of the Mississippi hadn't already been decimated by European diseases brought by previous European expeditions, Europeans never would have landed a foothold on the Western Hemisphere.)  Even without those problems, life as a colonist was physically crushing.  Everything required manual labor and there was rarely enough food to offset the sheer amount of physical labor done.

I adore how the Botkin Family cannot keep to their own reconstructionist history.  The Botkin Family history of Calvinism goes as follows.  Calvin good.  Europe lost Calvinism which was kept by the Pilgrims.  Pilgrims good.  The second generation of Pilgrims were losers who destroyed US Calvinism. Boo. US becomes the heathen birthplace of all that is wrong with the world.  Fast forward to Geoffrey and Victoria Botkin who independently rediscovered Calvinism. 

Throwing a quote from de Tocqueville in the 1830's messes up the whole story.  How horrible could the US be if he thought the women were amazing?    What exactly intervened in the US between 1830 and now that destroyed everything?

What does that say about the women of today? When we think about the state of America now if you were to ask me now to what I would attribute the growing apostasy and weakness of America I might say, "To the selfish and pettiness of their women." And the products of feminism 21 century women - that's us - we're not just lesser or weaker in so many ways we are the opposite of these women. We are weak in all the ways that they used to be strong. When these women used to make sacrifices, daily sacrifices for their children, women of today sacrifice their children killing them in the womb as a sacrifice to their own selfishness and it's just it's really sad. We need to understand how much we've lost.

Excuse me a moment.  *hands baby to her husband and ties her hair back into a ponytail* 

You want to question my mothering ability? Come at me if you're hard enough.   I'm dead serious.

You know nothing of sacrifice. 

To keep my son alive, I left him at a hospital for 107 times.  I'd recite "Good night, NICU!" to him, tell him I loved him, made sure he was all snuggled up in his bed, give him one last pat (when he was in the isolette) or a kiss, and didn't cry until I was in the hallway out of sight and hearing.

When my son was having a bad day, I spent hours sitting with my hands cradling my son inside the isolette while staring blankly at the dinosaur pattern on the fabric cover of the isolette.  He became agitated whenever we lifted the cover to look at him so I sat hunched over with my nose an inch away from a blue brontosaurus. 

When my son was having a good day, I'd do skin-to-skin for as long as he tolerated it which was generally 3-4 hours.  Since he was still on a ventilator, I had to keep his head in alignment with his ET tube.  To do that, I had to sit perfectly still.  I eventually learned how to shift the position of my legs a bit, but my torso needed to stay in the same spot.  Since I was breastfeeding him via pumping, by the end my breasts would be overly full, aching, and dripping.  Hearing his alarms go off - and Jack loved to set alarms off - and not being able to move sent my anxiety creeping upward. 

For three months after Jack came home, my life revolved around him.  Oh, some of it was the normal demands of a newborn - but most of it was making sure he had 24-7 coverage of an adult in the same room who was infant CPR trained.   I slept.  I got a daily walk without him.  The rest of the time I was "on" because if Jack had one of his choking attacks I needed to get him breathing again. 

What have you sacrificed?  Nothing except becoming an adult woman.  You live comfortably without the work of earning a living.  You hide behind "emotional purity" and "courtship" to prevent potential heartbreak in falling in love.  You receive accolades for self-publishing two books and wearing pretty clothing. 

Grow up before trying to give advice to real adults.

And most of us in this room would probably like to say that we've rejected feminism but I've I bet we all wrestle with the weakness and myopia that we've inherited from that legacy. It's hard for us to think 200 years ahead. It's hard for most of us to want to even think about living the way that Pilgrim women lived. To think about the sacrifices that they made the hardships that they went through. And when it comes right down to it, we're still confused about the most basic principles of family relations, gender roles. And even the very meaning of womanhood. God has put us into a very unique time in history. We are living in a generation that has no concept of what it means to be a woman. This is singular. I've never seen this in any other generation. Even the word "femininity" means nothing any more.

Pfft. 

It's a piece of cake to think about 200 years in the future; that's fantasy. Your father created an entirely fantastical Excel document where he plotted out the estimated dates of the births and marriages of his future descendents.  Since he's at least 10 years out, how accurate was his fantasy world?   

It's a piece of cake to dream of living like the Pilgrim women; their greatest fears of death by illness or starvation have been conquered in the US.

Anna Sofia/Elizabeth's assertion that we're living in a singular time is a great example of how trifling their education has been.  Women have gone through several cycles of greater freedom and participation in the economic world and times of reduced freedom in the twentieth century alone.  These cycles happened during the 19th, 18th, and 17th centuries as well.    This isn't a big secret.  The Botkin sisters would have figured this out if they embarked on an in-depth study of US history.  For most people, finding time to read college texts and all of the scholarly publications written for mainstream audiences before diving into primary sources would be an issue.  The Botkin Sisters, though, should have several hours free a day to pursue academic research - even if they are helping out at the family business, keeping the family home up or caring for their nephews or niece.

This next bit is priceless especially when I was transcribing it at half the speed of the original MP3; the reduced speed made the speaker sound drunk.

I can remember when Elizabeth and I were working on our book and we kept putting the word "femininity", "Biblical femininity" just all through the book and Mom came and said to us, "I don't even know if I like the word femininity. What does it mean anyway? And it has such bad connotations. What does it mean? And Elizabeth and I thought, "Ummm, uh, I don't know." It's an interesting thing.

Really, that paragraph is less unsettling if the speaker was drunk. 

One of the Botkin Sisters just admitted that they were dropping the jargon "Biblical femininity" all over "So Much More" while having no idea what it meant.   That's disturbing on a whole number of levels - but not surprising if you've read their books.

The next post in this series begins the process of unraveling what "Biblical femininity" means....kind of.

CP/QF Crazy: Civil War Conspiracy Theory Writ Large

Oh, boy.  It's pretty rare that a portion of a CP/QF screed causes me to stop dead in my tracks, but this one did it:

During the War for Southern Independence 140 years ago, many black Confederates fought for the freedom to be stewards of their own land and that of their masters, refusing to be subjected to the tyranny of a coercive, centralized Unitarian State in the name of emancipation. In the same way, let us, as married women, contend for our God-given right to be full-time housewives to our husbands and servants to other members of the Body of Christ, forsaking the world's current administration of centralized government, socialism, and statism.

This is part of Antonia Cunningham's 2003 work "Against the Proletarianization of Women" which I accessed at Blessed Homemaking and was originally posted at Ladies Against Feminism.  The entire essay is reminiscent of any revisionist history spouted by Geoffrey Botkin or his daughters beginning with the assertion that the US was founded as a Calvinistic utopia that was overrun by Unitarians and spiralling into pride-protecting fantasies about the causes of the Civil War. 

I'm not descended from Northern abolitionists.  My ancestors who were in the US during the Civil War period were all located in the Upper South mostly in Appalachia.  In so far as we can tell, my ancestors never owned slaves - but I also assume that the lack of slaves was due more to their poverty than it was due to an understanding of the evils of slavery. 

The first sentence in the quote is baffling in its oversimplification.

 There is a world of difference between the choices available to a free black person living in the South compared to an enslaved person living in the South.  Enslaved African-Americans made up 93.8% of the population of African-Americans in the South at the beginning of the Civil War  By definition, an enslaved person is a person who does not have the freedom to choose whether or not to obey their master - and pretending otherwise is disingenuous at best and absolutely sick at worst. 

In terms of options available to black men in the South during the Civil War, being an armed combatant for the Confederacy was not available until three weeks before the end of the War.  The Confederacy paid some pensions to African-American men who had documented service as laborers during the Civil War; no pensions were ever paid for African-American men who served as soldiers in the Confederacy.  If the main cause of the Civil War was about "states' rights"  or "freedom from centralized government", why didn't the Confederacy allow units of free black men?  Why not offer freedom to slaves in return for fighting against the North? 

The answer is pretty clear: the Civil War was about slavery, not about states' rights.   The US Constitution gives states all rights that are not expressly reserved for the Federal government.  Let's see which of the rights reserved to the Federal government the South wanted to revert to state-level prior to the Civil War:

• Did the South want states to coin money?  No.
• Did the South want states to regulate foreign commerce including import duties and taxes? No.
• Did the South want states to regulate interstate commerce? No.
• Did the South want states to establish post offices? No.
• Did the South want states to punish crimes on the high seas? No..
• Did the South want states to fix standard weights and measures? No.
• Did the South want states to raise and maintain armed forces including militias against insurrections? No.
• Did the South want states to enter treaties with foreign states and declare war and peace? No.

The largest argument against the "states' rights" theory is that the states that succeeded from the Union didn't operate as 11 independent state-nations; no, the Confederate States' Constitution states that the purpose is to form a permanent federal government.  The Confederate States did pick up a few rights that were reserved to the federal government - but I've never seen a states' right essay that mentioned the importance of impeaching federal judges who live in a state,  taxing ships that enter ports, issuing bills of credit, and creating inter-state treaties involving shared waterways.    Of course, that same document made sure that slavery was legal throughout the Confederate States.

Really, it's not that complicated.  The Civil War was about the future of slavery in the US - not about states' rights.

Babblin' Botkins: "Good Girls and Problem Guys" The Four Types of Guys -Part Two

The first post in this series covered the first two "groups" of "problem guys".  From an outsider's perspective, the only problem with these men is that they showed romantic/sexual interest in an adult woman and responded in a way that was appropriate within the larger American society.

The next two groups include more problematic behaviors - but also demonstrate CP/QF Christianity complete disregard for consent as the main determination of if an event is moral or immoral.

Group Three according to Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Botkin in their podcast "Good Girls and Problem Guys: Taking the Moral High Ground with Men Who Are In Sin

[00:40:53] Ok. We're getting worse and worse as we go. [laughs] The kind of guys we're talking about.

Ok, so next would be dealing with the creep, the seducer, or the molester. And some of us may tend to think that we will never, ever come up against a predator or a pervert because we're really nice girls and we don't move in those kinds of circles. But the fact is guys like that pop up in every circle and the odds are that the most of the girls in this room will have to deal with that at least once at one point in your life. And a lot of us are not prepared for it.

And I think that the main thing that we're not prepared for is where the threat is likely to be coming from. It's true that there are plenty of creeps in the grocery store, on the street, and in the parking lot. And hopefully, [laughs] we're already alert to be watching out for those, but according to some of the research that I've done, the majority of sexual attacks are not perpetrated by strangers out on the street. They are perpetrated by friends, friends of the young lady and happen in her home or apartment.

[00:41:49] And the thing that I think that we can learn from this is that the biggest danger to us isn't streets. It's dangerous relationships. It's not who you already know not to trust, but it's who you do trust. Who you have already let into your trust. It's in who you let your guard down around. And it's more likely to be someone who is very dear and close to you that you don't want to hurt and that you don't want to cut off, but bad things can happen when a girl is not willing to do that.

Let's start with the obvious: "creep", "seducer" and "molester" are three massively different categories.

• Seduction is based on mutual consent. There is no sexual assault in seduction.
• Depending on how "creep" is used, a guy could be acting in a way that is potentially threatening - or it could mean he's homeless - or it could mean that the guy is acting in the boundary of US standards of behavior but outside of CP/QF norms. It's not a useful descriptor.
• A molester is a criminal - pure and simple.

Words matter greatly. The Botkin Sisters are trying to explain that violent, stranger rape is rare compared to sexual assaults by acquaintances. That's an important point to make - especially since the Botkins Sisters believe that the young women in the audience are more concerned about being attacked by a stranger.

 The problem is that by choosing to describe the attacker as "friends", she's leaving out sexual assault or abuse by parents, relatives, people in authority and parents of friends. That's the situation that Ms. Torres found herself with Doug Phillips - and that's a particularly hard situation to handle without the added baggage of being trained as a girl to be gentle, non-confrontational, subservient to men and obsessed with physical purity. CP/QF has raised up a generation of young women who are particularly at-risk for assault - and we see the fruits of this in the victims of Josh Duggar, Toby Willis, Doug Phillips, Bill Gothard....the list goes on and on.

The last paragraph sounds good - but it assumes that unmarried daughters have way more control over the people allowed into their lives than they do. 

Cutting off a peer is mainstream American society is painful and awkward at times - but most people have some separation between family, church, school and recreation.  That's an impossible dream in CP/QF land; family is recreation, school and often church.  If a family is serious about protecting their daughter and maintaining that every interaction is based around whole families, then there must be a separation of the two families - no matter how that affects the other members of the family.  In that context, young women will be hard-pressed to minimize the effects that unwanted attention from a young man in the family has on her.

Imagine how much harder that situation is when the unwanted attention is coming from the father of the family.  In a worldview that blames the victim and represses any mention of sexuality, a young woman is facing intense scrutiny over what she did to attract his attention - rather than having her family stand up to the person who is preying on young women.

The situation becomes nearly impossible if the young woman is separated from her family.

[00:42:18] Ok, so let's... let's take a look at how do you... how do you recognize one of these? And it can be tricky. Some of these guys will seem really weird and off-balance, but some will be incredibly polished and well-mannered and respectable. Without becoming suspicious of every guy that comes around, here's just a few definite red flags we can watch out for and that we need to be careful for. I'm going to just list some. Um.

Number one: If he's trying to erode your boundaries.  If he's trying to create sneaky opportunities for physical contact that goes beyond what he knows you're comfortable with with young men.

Another one would be if he acts differently around you than your parents when your parents are not around or if he tries to go behind your parents' back or belittle their authority. If he seems to have a lot more interest in your looks and your charm than your character. These are all things you should watch out for.

This advice is only marginally helpful for interactions with predatory men and nearly useless against well-intentioned young men.

Let's look at the easy group of well-intentioned young men first.

Unless two people have sat down and discussed exactly what their boundaries are, one person is going to accidently "erode" the other person's boundaries because they are not exactly identical.   Even a dictate as clear as "no physical contact" has ragged edges - what about if one of you loses their balance?  Is the instinct to steady the person before they fall "eroding" a boundary?  A lab mate at a company I worked at had a female coworker accidentally pull over a phenol tower onto herself.  The other workers were all men - but everyone rushed to help her remove all her clothes and get into a chemical shower as quickly as possible since the imperative to protect someone's from severe chemical burns over 90% of her body trumped concerns about modesty.

Young people act differently around their parents than they do their peers.  Now, CP/QF types will immediately jump to the conclusion that this is because young people are being corrupted by other immature sin-natures.  That's not generally true - and it's not what I'm talking about.  Young people act more informally and ways that reflect their chosen personality around peers.  This is true about every aged adults as well;  I am more restrained in my language choice and topic choice around people who are substantially younger or older than I am than I am around peers.

Mix in the nervousness people have around impressing their potential love interest's parents with a giant heaping helping of normal sexual attraction and now every young man is going to have the red flags of "acts different by your parents" and "seems more interested in your looks than your character."

For men who are grooming a potential victim, the only useful bit of advice is the part about "creating sneaky opportunities for contact" because those opportunities are often very brief and sudden.  Women and men may not be able to respond to the first time that happened; but if it happens again, being assertive enough to state "Stop.  Don't do that!" can scare off some predators.

The rest is useless; Doug Phillips and Bill Gothard respected the authority of their victims' parents.  They were busy grooming the parents as well as the daughters.

[00:43:11] If you're starting to sense he's a danger or if he's not someone that ... or if you're starting to realize what his intentions are [laughs] then you need to take quick and decisive action. And this would include telling someone like your parents who are in a position to help not just your girlfriends or something. Maybe rebuking him openly. But definitely getting totally away from him.

[00:43:33] You remember when Joseph was being stalked and propositioned by Potiphar's wife, he verbally refused the first time then he just ran away and would not [laughs] not come near her again. But he didn't keep having that conversation over and over.

My feeling is that Anna Sophia or Elizabeth unconsciously realizes how impossible this advice is for the young women in the audience to follow. 

This is a society that values emotional and physical purity in women above everything else.  To tell her parents, a girl would have to admit that she was in a situation that may end up lessening her value because her emotional/physical purity was "damaged".

This is a society that values submission to male elders - even to the point of reassigning "protecting purity" from the traditional domain of mothers and other older women to men.  Reporting against a male peer's behavior is awkward enough; accusing a married man or  a spiritual leader is a gross violation of those expectations.

The Botkin Sisters know that this action will rebound badly against the young woman; why else would they have chosen the story of Joseph and Potiphar's Wife?   Joseph does the right thing in that he restricts their contact to talking and runs away when she physically accosts him..  The outcome is that Potiphar's Wife accuses him of attempted rape and Joseph is jailed..   The Botkin Sisters are saying "Do the right thing - but don't ask us how bad the consequences will be for you, please."

The last quote makes reasonable sense when discussing consensual relationships where neither person wants to transgress the sexual mores in their society.  When dealing with a predator....not so much.

[00:43:50] And then finally be aware that even the most scandalous interactions don't usually start off on a scandalous foot. They start out with one little tiny boundary crossing at time and you need to be firm and uncompromising in the very first moments at the very beginning. Don't go along with a conversation that you shouldn't be having. Don't let people talk to you into things that you know you shouldn't do. Don't let people sway you or wear you down. Resisting evil is something we probably need to be doing every day not just like one time in our lives. [laughs]

I believe that all people - men, women, and children - need to learn the skills to recognize and stop sexual abusers.  The problem is that the Botkin Sisters are not teaching any of the actual skills while putting far too much burden on the victims to stop their abusers.

Babblin' Botkins: "Good Girls and Problem Guys" The Four Types of Guys -Part One

At long last, I've finally had enough free time to start transcribing the free podcasts on the Botkin Sisters website.  I'm starting with Good Girls and Problem Guys: Taking the Moral High Road with Men who are in sin.

Because this is a transcribed talk, I had to make some decisions about where to place punctuation and divide topics into paragraphs.  (IOW, blame me for errors in that department.)  I've chosen to include filler word like "um" and "like" as well as times that the speaker laughed because I believe unplanned verbal reactions like those can be telling of the speaker's emotional state.  I've included time-stamps in case anyone finds errors in the transcription - and please let me know if you do!

After trying a variety of tricks, I've realized that I cannot reliably differentiate Anna Sophia's voice from Elizabeth's voice.  The audio recording of the talk is good - but they are sisters who have very similar vocal characteristics. Plus, there's no reason Anna or Elizabeth to identify themselves in the talk because the talk is being given at some sort of conference in front of a multi-age audience.  Their audience could tell very clearly who was talking by looking up at the speaker in front of them.

I'm not certain when or where this conference occurred - but I suspect it occurred within 6 months of Vision Founder leader Doug Phillips being accused of grooming and assaulting his children's nanny.  The Botkin Sisters reference a disturbing or shocking revelation that happened recently that they expect other members of Vision Forum to be aware of.

Needless to say, the Botkin Sisters spend most of the talk rehashing the book "It's (Not) That Complicated" but deviate from the text to add more victim-blaming.  If you are triggered by dumb-ass Biblical interpretation being used to victim-blame, please stop reading and go do something pleasant.  It's not worth the stress; let the rest of us handle these ding-bats.

At 37(ish) minutes into a 50-odd minute talk, Elizabeth gets around to explaining the "Four Types" of guys that girls need to be prepared for.

Type One - by the Botkin Sisters:
"

[00:37:30] "Anna and I are going to quickly give you some practical thoughts on preparing to deal with four different kinds of guy. These thoughts are not Scripture, not canon. It's not ex cathedra. This is just some big sisterly advice based on some things we've learned from our experiences of the last ten years. So, the first type of boy, and probably the one we all deal with the most is the nice boy who just doesn't have very good boundaries or maybe is just not very emotionally self-controlled and tends to be a little too emotionally intense in his relationships.

It's Not That Complicated: Chapter 12-Part Three

Oh, Botkin Sisters. I haven't missed you at all. But we do have to finish this book before I ceremonially burn my copy, so here we go.

Most CP/QF female bloggers stick to a healthy dose of slut-shaming to justify picking on the looks of other women.   For Anna Sofia and Elizabeth, however, that's too one-dimensional.

Join me as we venture into their shallow and petty logic.

"We were still in our hooded sweatshirt and baggy-jeans days when we first discovered this facet of biblical femininity, and it was (as you can imagine) revolutionary to us. We were clothing ourselves to communicate what we wanted to be (invisible, and totally above thinking about clothes). We didn't realize that a woman's appearance, countenance, speech, and attitude don't just communicate who she is - it says something to the world about who her husband or father is. Whether intentionally or not, we don't just communicate our identity - we communicate theirs too." (pg. 220)

It's Not That Complicated: Chapter 12-Part 2

I love this section!  There are two themes running through the middle of this chapter.

 Theme one: A pair of highly sheltered very young women have determine what ALL men need in a wife. This theme is a hoot because any person who has been in a satisfying long-term relationship can shoot massive holes in this theme (and believe me, you will be seeing me take aim.)

Theme two: Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin are the most eligible women ever since they have all of the skills a man needs! This theme is rather depressing because it shows that neither of the Botkin Sisters - or their "editors" - can recognize a massive personal bias.

For every girl we know asking why so few young men are "ready," we know a young man asking where the ready and eligible girls are. Our brothers and their friends have told us that many of the qualities girls have cultivated to make themselves "eligible" are things that won't come up on young men's radar screens, and the qualities that young men are most looking for have been neglected. [...]
The first step in understanding how we can become "helper suitable" is to understand what exactly a man is supposed to be doing that he would need help with. A man who is taking Dominion (Genesis 1: 28), discipling the nations (Matthew 28: 19), and feeding Christ's sheep (John 21: 15 - 17) is going to require more of his wife then the ability to iron a shirt, cook a meal, and look good on his arm. We may not be able to predict whether our husbands will have a use for stenography skills over musical proficiency or business acumen, but what every good man we'll need from his wife (no matter what he does) will be a willingness to get her hands dirty, be stretched, learn new things, work hard, and die to herself. (pg. 215)

• Ninety percent of my graduate program is learning how to read technical papers and how to check for mistakes in the procedure.  
• Tip One: Make sure that the reference group or sample group is representative of the population as a whole.
• The reference group for this "case study" is the Botkin Bros - two of which would have been teenagers when this book was written - and the friends of said brothers.
• Implications: The reference group is highly sheltered and members of the same closed system of beliefs.  At the same time, many of the members have been raised by the same people and are more similar in beliefs than an average random sample from a closed system.
• Outcome: This "case study" may be of value if you are a) a Botkin Brother, or  b) a friend of the Botkin Brothers, but is of limited value for the rest of humanity.
• I don't mean to be wry, but being a good cook IS a way of feeding Christ's sheep.  See most ministries involving homeless people.  
• I'll be willing to bet that business acumen - as indicated by the ability to hold a job, grow a career, or build a business - will be much more in demand than either stenography skills or musical proficiency in the absence of business skills.
• In the real world, relatively few available men are in business for themselves.  Most people work for other people.  As such, most men (and most women) don't need specific skills from their spouse to grow their career.  My husband gave me a few new ideas for labs to do with my students and a listening ear when I needed to blow off steam.  That's honestly about as much as most spouses do directly for the other spouse's career.

Godly men need women who have intrepidity, courage, and sturdy virtue to come alongside of them in the rigors of  their lives. They also need wives who have a good grasp of such things as current affairs, worldview, and politics, and who care about the things their husbands are interested in and involved in. They need helpers who recognized that loving their men means loving the mission and the work their men are called to do (pg. 215-216).

• OMG!  All men totes need the three things that the Botkin Family likes to pretend they are good at - current affairs, "worldview" and politics!   You should totes marry us!
• Any bets on how much the Botkin Sisters understand about:
• Educating politicians about the benefits and drawbacks of using Generally Accepted Agricultural Management Practices (GAAMP) as guidelines for nuisance suits involving farms?  
• The potential benefits and problems with implementation of Common Core standards with the legal testing requirements in Michigan? 
• Common issues with the standardized testing options available for determining how well secondary and post-secondary students understand the nature of science?
• And yet, I know single men who work in each of these areas - and really don't want to hear about "worldview" or - God forbid - Geoffrey Botkin's thoughts on Brexit.
• The best irony - the Botkin Sisters know women who were poorly prepared for what their husband actually needed from them in terms of career skills!  To be fair, this example was published after the book, but the Botkin Sisters have never retracted their views on this point.  I've linked the blog post about Genevieve (Smith) de Deugd's experiences of her first four months of marriage.  I've also pulled some choice sections: 

"We knew that working together on projects and in Pete’s sawmilling/woodworking business would add another dimension to our relationship, strengthen our marriage, grow our friendship and be a whole lot of fun!"

• I'll give the de Deugds' credit: working in a spouse's business can either be great for a marriage or destroy a marriage in short time.  
• For our marriage, we've decided it's healthiest for me to stay outside of the farm in terms of a career.  Family businesses can bring a lot of family baggage and I'm a better resource for my husband as a person outside of the system.  

 "Being a daughter in my father’s home and helping him was predominantly an intellectual and sedentary lifestyle. Being a wife in my husband’s home and helping him involves a lot of manual work and is a very active lifestyle. I’ve had a lot to learn."

• I am intrigued by the fact that Genevieve thinks her dad's ministry that promotes homeschooling was more intellectual than doing sawmilling and woodworking.  I'm guessing that that dichotomy is mainly due to the fact that she's still learning about running a sawmill and woodworking.  The more advanced woodworking and sawmilling skills require some pretty solid mathematics skills.  
• Is having Genevieve learn how to do some really basic work on the machinery really the best use of her talents?  Presumably, she learned a bit about marketing and website design in her work with her dad.  Rather than have her duplicate what her husband is doing, wouldn't the family have been better served by having her work to increase business?  (Or - gasp- bring in independent income through a job/career of her own?)
• When I was first dating my husband, I thought that I would be learning how to milk cows and do other basic labor around the farm.  When we got more serious, my husband was very clear that he wanted to marry a wife who would be a partner in his life - not a substitute milker.  Plus, I could bring in more income and benefits by having an outside career.  When I moved out to the farm, I realized that my main benefit to the farm was understanding more about human resource management to give my husband support as the amount of time he spent managing workers increased.   I've still never milked a cow or driven a tractor; it's just not a good use of my time or skills.
• I hope that she learned that wearing skirts around a shop and in junkyards is not a safe idea.  I've given up wearing shorts on the farm when I'm working in the shop or up in the haymow because my legs get cut up but good.  

Back to the Botkin Sisters....

A girl recently asked us what is the number one thing that most girls fail to learn in order to be ready for marriage. For years, we've been advocates for girls amassing a rigorous education, vast inter-disciplinary knowledge, boatloads of practical skills, and the like. But since watching two of our brothers choose their companions for life, we've had a slight shift in our understanding of what men really need. "The capacity for deep relationships," we replied. A wife and mother's job will call out many different strengths and abilities and each of us, we explained her, but the most important of all will be our ability to develop real relationships. If we get married, the biggest impact of our lives will come from our relationships with our husbands and our relationships with our children. If we never marry, the biggest contributions of our lives should still be our fruit for relationships with those around us (pg. 218).

• Again, the Botkin Sisters begin with a vision of wifehood in which the wife is mainly a tool.  Actually, they never move off of the idea that women are supposed to be handy tools for men.  Their view of marriage isn't two people joined and growing within a marriage and raising up kids to be healthy adults; instead, women are a tool to develop relationships between people.
• I do appreciate the Botkin Sisters' understanding that our main legacy is from our relationships with others; that's a worldview I can support.  I am disappointed, however, that the Sisters can't make the next connection that our relationships outside of our families can be as vital, as fulfilling and as live-changing as being a daughter, sister, wife and/or mother.

There is one post left in this series!  One post.  Wow.  There is an entire chapter on contentment, but there's no meat to it so I'm not going to waste time going over it.  I've got my next book picked out - a short one for a break from the Botkin Sisters for a month or two.   Last post: The Botkin sisters make a list of things that they are allowed to judge people on.  Plenty of fat-shaming, too.  May as well go out on a "high" point.