Healthy Communication? Or insubordinate women?

 

In this post, Sheila Wray Gregoire of To Love, Honor and Vacuum, points out that

" ... direct communication is of Jesus, because Jesus is TRUTH. Being passive aggressive is not of Jesus."

So many women in the evangelical church have been taught, as John Piper does, that

 " ... if a man asks them for directions to the freeway, they must be sure not to be "direct and personal" or they would undermine her femininity and his masculinity."

Well! A lively discussion ensued.

And I contributed:

" ... When I was a missionary in Hong Kong, I met American Christian men who were flabbergasted and insulted that women like me existed. I spoke to them exactly the same as I spoke to my peers growing up in New Zealand, to my nursing colleagues, and to all the boys and men I'd ever interacted with up til that point. I spoke clearly, confidently and respectfully. I asserted my opinion quietly and backed my views up with evidence when required. I confidently supplied directions sufficient to provide any listener with the information they needed to get the job done. I gave orders, commands and instructions. I spoke the way my capable mother had educated and equipped me to communicate. If I knew, I said I knew. If I didn't, I said I don't know. I looked them in the eye. I spoke up.

They hated it.

"TOO DIRECTIVE"

I gave one guy a guided tour around a Chinese city and showed him how to use a map with no English and landmarks to orient himself, and tips on how to avoid getting arrested while carrying Bibles.

He reported me and complained that I had been "too directive" and thus, insulted him. I was so confused! I had tried hard to give him a really good orientation.

A female American colleague tried to explain to me how I was going to have to learn to talk to men in a "special" way. She seemed quite gleeful that she had this special knowledge about how to handle men, that set her at an advantage over non-Americans like me who hadn't been taught and trained properly in "godliness", like her compatriots. The Americans did tend to have this superiority, that they really knew the proper way to 'Christian', and were there to provide an example to the rest of us.

There was nothing wrong with my orientation. I came to realise that American men, brought up in this church culture, cannot stand to be TOLD by a woman.

I watched in amazement while a woman would tentatively say or suggest something, and the men would interrupt, scoff and dismiss her. Then a person with a male voice would say literally the very same thing, and they would praise the idea. I would say, "That's literally what she just said." And they'd look confused and offended.

As well as being unable to accept the testimony of a woman as valid about anything, I also noticed that they were unable to hear what a woman was saying. They only heard what she wasn't saying. There was a pattern of deliberately misconstruing anything their wives said, and then alleging that she said something quite different to what she'd actually said. It was crazy-making.

She might say, " I'd really rather not ..." and the man would say, "See? She doesn't mind!"

And the woman would look confused and upset, but if she opened her mouth to protest, the guy would just talk louder and faster, and her objection would just be quelled.

I would say, "No. That won't work." Blunt, specific disagreement. Not suggesting. Stating.

They HATED it!

The problem was, I acted and spoke as if I was their equal. Which I was.

They HATED it.

I have always, and will always, communicate directly. I grew up in New Zealand, then on the mission field, met American evangelicals ... who, suffused with this kind of teaching, then shamed me for communicating directly and protesting openly. I was then "excommunicated" for being "a bad influence on the wives" ... most of whom later ended up divorced (which is really sad, I am really grieved over the trauma in these stories) ... but I am still "communicating directly" - and demanding that my husband do likewise.

The long story here if anyone is curious.

"THAT'S YOUR JOB!"

Another time, my husband was pushing a big flat trolley along the concrete paths of the village. (No one had cars, we did everything on foot and public transport). On the trolley he had all kinds of boxes and luggage filled with vegetables and groceries. We bumped into one of the missionary couples. In response to their queries, my husband explained that he would haul Bibles into China in those suitcases in the morning, then visit a local wet market where food prices were much cheaper than supermarkets in Hong Kong, load up his suitcases and haul the veges home. Between the train station and our village was paved, so he could use his flat trolley to make the hauling easier.

The wife got a thoughtful expression on her face, and opened her mouth to say something.

The husband cut her off and yelled, "No! No! We are NOT doing that! I'm not carrying groceries for you! That's YOUR job".

Apparently, the fact that my husband hauled home groceries and helped me carry the babies when we were out and about (he would often be sporting a baby or toddler in a front or back pack - like me) was "proof" that I was an over-bearing and domineering (read: un-submissive) woman not elevating my husband the way I should.

They were sensitive to wives not being "helped" too much. Things had to be HARD for the wives, so they would "keep their place".

This type of mentality came straight from books like Larry Christensen's "The Christian Family" which taught that men must never change babies nappies or bath/feed babies, because if the wife didn't do all the care-work herself, or if she asked for help, she would be "REDUCING her husband to the role of nursemaid."

My husband and I tag-teamed through all ministry work, housework and parenting. We got varying degrees of censure from the proponents of these doctrines, first because my husband helped with all domestic and parenting work, and also because I was equally involved in all ministry work and leadership decisions. We just did what worked for us, but our failure to observe prescribed gender roles was not well approved of.

I had another friend there in Hong Kong who just happened to be from Melbourne Australia, like me.

We were young Australian girls with a heart for missions. We spent years doing the very heavy work of physically hauling Bibles to the underground church in China and other Communist countries. We needed to be brave and strong-minded to "smuggle" the Bibles past scanners and Customs Guards and to avoid being arrested and detained by the Chinese police. We also spent time in remote outback regions of China. We both got married in China, both to American men.

We came from church communities where women served as equals right alongside men as worthy compatriots. We actually used to joke that the "Aussie grannies" were the toughest Bible couriers of all. Older women who had put in the hard yards, had mental toughness, had raised a family and were no-nonsense. We used to tell our teams of volunteers. "When you see an Aussie granny coming, do not patronisingly ask if she can manage her heavy trolley of Bibles OK. Instead, SALUTE! and say SIR!!"

Honestly? Nobody whined about the hardships and created more "my ego needs more stroking" drama than the American men. We finally had to have a question in our application form: "Do you have any problem with being instructed by, told what to do or given commands by a woman leader?" - because we had so many tanties-in-his-panties from American men.

Renee and I operated from an assumption of equality, who presumed and expected equal inclusion, opportunity and respect, and who knew we were as tough and fearless as any of the men. It really seemed like the fundamentalist men wished we didn't exist, because we interfered with the programming their wives were under. 

We weren't submissive, obsequious and ingratiating like their wives were required to be. We didn't flutter and stammer and "suggest". We stated. 

We didn't flip our hair and flutter our eye-lashes and lower our gaze. We made direct eye contact and didn't look away. 

We didn't swish our skirts in a "feminine way". We stuck our hands in our pockets (don't get me started on POCKETS, there should be a feminist tome just on POCKETS) and just stood there. 

Being. Occupying space. Unapologetically. Not seeking permission. Just because.

"TOO MANY WOMEN AND GIRLS!"

One day, one of the missionary wives came up to me, as I rode around town on my bike with my shopping in the front basket and my toddler in the bike seat behind me. She said, "You're amazing, Julie - you ... you still have some LIFE left in you!"

I felt so sad. What a horrible indictment of what being married to a godly missionary man was supposed to be about.

Walking with her children one day, that woman's eldest son burst out with: "MY DAD SAYS THE WORLD IS OVERPOPULATED WITH WOMEN AND GIRLS!" - right in front of his younger sisters. This teenage boy was aghast, because in his role as self-appointed policeman of female subordination, he "reported" by daughter to me for constantly walking ahead and failing to allow him to lead the way. I abjectly ignored him. I refused to correct my daughter. He was astounded, and annoyed.

We saw women who were afraid to spend more than a few seconds greeting us in the street before scuttling away. 

We saw women who had complete mental breakdowns. 

We saw women who physically attacked their children with excessive corporal punishment because of the horrible stress they were under. 

We saw women whose health would collapse whenever their husband dragged them back into China, because that's the only way they could get their husbands to HEAR them. 

One woman whose husband locked her outside all night when she was 7 months pregnant because she questioned his missions trip travel plans. 

"DOES HE LET YOU OUT MUCH?"

Another who tentatively asked Renee, "Does he (Renee's husband) let you out much??" because she needed the permission of her husband to be able to leave the small, concrete, walk-up apartment an outback town in China, where she home-schooled her many bio and adoptive children.

"DO YOU SUBMIT?"

Another whose husband took complete control of the family's meagre finances to gamble on a high-risk investment. She was a highly educated Chinese woman with degrees in business. She pleaded with him over he phone - he cut her off, repeatedly demanding, "Do you submit? Do you submit?" ... and left her struggling in abject poverty, with 5 children who were "home-schooled", with inadequate clothing and food, and not enough to placate the irate landlord ... while he went on constant "ministry trips". 

Another wife who stood in church to testify that her husband was "such a gentleman". Because he held the automatic train door open for her. How nice. Except that he let it go just at the last minute so that it slammed shut on her and broke her arm. And we knew. We knew.  

Another prominent American man used his control over the supply of Bibles to build his personal empire. And complained about the pastor, and ultimately got the pastor chucked out of the church ... because that pastor (Australian) wanted the American missionary's wife to lead a Bible study. This was a sensible choice, because the wife had theological degrees and was a natural Bible teacher and group leader, and the husband was busy and often away doing his Bible work. This American insisted that ONLY the man in a marriage could lead a home Bible study, and that is was disrespectful and degrading for a man to have his wife in such a leadership role.

"THE KIDS STAY WITH YOU!"

When I visited a family in an even more remote town than the one we were in, the husband decided to take us around to show us the town and take us to a restaurant. The wife put her head out the window and called to her husband. Before she could say a word, the husband shouted, "NO! No kids. Keep them all with you! They're not coming with me." I was newly married and childless then. Now, I understand her desperation. If I could go back in time, I would yell, "You sexist, insensitive jerk!" and my husband and I would have gone straight to her apartment to fellowship with HER instead of her Big Man Mission Leader husband, and given her a hand with her 8 kids.

So yeah. Renee and I, and other liberated women like us, kinda interfered with the fundamentalist doctrinal programming, just a tad.

Note: all the above examples were American.

It is amazing to think that I said this stuff back in the1990s in Hong Kong, and now, finally, more people are publicly speaking up about these issues:

"I looked at my pastor's wife directly and said, “I am not against these people. I care about them very much and I am sad that they are hurting. But I want to stand in my generation and state for the record that I am AGAINST this doctrine, with its cut-and-paste theology and “Emperor’s New Clothes-style manipulation. I believe it is deception and that it leads people who mean well into bondage. They think they are on a road that is sign-posted “Holiness” but the road only leads to a religious counterfeit of it. It makes people strive harder at being righteous instead of leading them to the cross. It covers up abuse and sin. It actually instructs husbands and wives in how to be co-dependent and dysfunctional. It emphasizes rules and rigid roles instead of relationships and intimacy – with God, and with each other – which is the purpose for which we were created.

The chain-of-command, male-headship, unilateral submission doctrine is not from God and its fruits are rotten. If God allowed all this to happen just so that I would finally come to my senses and accept the extreme submission doctrine, then I have to say, His advertising stinks! Why on earth would I want to sign up for what I see happening to my friends?

But maybe God has allowed this to happen so that seeing this happen to my friends would prompt me to raise the alarm and, at the risk of being branded a heretic, speak out against this false doctrine and speak up for mutual submission and team marriage – and the authentic submission and surrender of both marriage partners being led by the Spirit.”

The only time I ever had a man actually try to hit on me was the one time I was in USA *without* my husband (I went there to support a missionary colleague during her birth, as her doula). It was a church service. He was smooging up to me and then tried to snake an arm around me. He stopped when he saw the look on his face. I was astounded that due to my lack of a male "protector" he saw me as fair game.

I never even think about such things in Australia. I have many male friends and never think about the "Billy Graham rule". Same for my huz, he has loads of platonic extended interactions with friends who are women. It never gives me a moments pause. I'd be really sad if my life were not enriched by the male friends I have, because of these weird ideas about "biblical" manhood & womanhood.