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.
