 Photo by Chang Duong on Unsplash *See original article on CBE International's blog HERE*
The Western sexual revolution brought renewed emphasis on consent, body affirmation/confidence, female pleasure, and women’s equal (and enthusiastic!) sexual participation in marriage. We should celebrate those gains. But it also brought a slew of toxic, oppressive ideas about female sexuality. When we consider God’s holistic vision for human sexuality, we see that some of the things women are told will be “liberating” are actually exploitative. God calls women (and men) to see through the bluster to a corrupt system that only wants to use us. Ironically, the world tells women that we will find our power in men’s desire for and sexual use of us. Some people even claim that women are empowered by the Fifty Shades phenomenon, hook-up culture, and porn. And the sex trade is the only industry in which women consistently earn more money than men. Yet these are not examples of women’s sexual power. They’re symptoms of women’s social disempowerment. Men still feel entitled to rent women’s bodies and women live in a society that demands their submission to men. Never forget: the demand creates and sustains the supply. Some women appear to participate in their own sexual objectification, claiming to derive power from different strains of the Western "sexual revolution." But instead of shaming women for making choices we don’t understand, Christians should be asking how a sexist, hypersexualized culture restricts and shapes women’s choices, and what we can do to correct that. In a culture built on male power and dominance and in an economic system where women are poorer and have less opportunity, why might women participate in men's sexual objectification of us? Of course, many women have no choice at all because they are trafficked or have no other economic options. Women who are ethnically, racially, or economically marginalized comprise the overwhelming majority of women who are sold for sex. So, in a culture that further oppresses women of color, women with disabilities, women in poverty, and women with sexual trauma, women's options are limited. Is it possible that some women feel compelled to cooperate with the very system that oppresses them in order to survive? Stockholm syndrome is a coping mechanism that manifests when a victim feels they cannot escape a horrific situation. A victim may see no other option but to cooperate with an abuser to live through it. They believe that submission will protect them or potentially decrease the violence. Dee Graham coined the term: “Societal Stockholm Syndrome.” Because patriarchy is a system, Graham argued that all women have internalized survival strategies and adaptations. She believes that women may seem more submissive, agreeable, timid, and dependent than men because they have adapted to their social context. But these supposedly feminine traits some women exhibit are, Graham argues, just a byproduct of women’s collective fear of men’s violence and powerlessness in a patriarchal system.[1] Interestingly, many male survivors of abuse display these same behavioral adaptations. Stockholm syndrome is strengthened by a temporary “reward system” which incentivizes victims to conform their behavior to the will of their abuser/oppressor. Abusers may offer affirmation, affection, and kindness; spend large sums of money; make them feel special, empowered, and loved. But the purposes of this build-up and break-down is control. These rewards are relative to the larger pattern of abuse and exploitation. I once counseled a woman who believed her abuser truly cared about her because he put a gun to her head and decided not to pull the trigger. The sex industry is an institution where men bribe women to sexually abuse them. In exchange for their compliance, women receive the supposed rewards of money, desirability, security, protection, and the illusion of power. Women are deemed more likeable; receive male approval; hold the male gaze; and even acquire brownies points for being “fun,” “chill,” and not uptight. We may even be exalted as “one of the guys” and praised for not being like “most women.” Clearly, women who are not physically forced into the sex trade or into self-objectification are still shaped by a society that actively limits their options in life and rewards them for conforming to patriarchy. Anti-porn activist Gail Dines argues that because young women are trapped in this hypersexualized culture, women/girls are either “fuckable or invisible.”[2] Dines argues that no one wants to feel invisible and too often, the only path to being “seen” in our culture is to allow ourselves to be sexualized. If women are socialized to see themselves as objects for men’s consumption, what happens when women aren’t used? Well, we become useless. Invisible. Nothing. Women should not have to choose between objectification and invisibility. We must fight for a third view: God’s original vision for men and women, before sin was systematized in patriarchy. Sex is meant to be an intimate, egalitarian, humanizing, safe, passionate, and mutually-pleasurable expression of authentic, selfless love and commitment. Not a weapon. Not a commodity. Not a tool to use, degrade, and dominate others. Not a performance for voyeuristic eyes. Rather than rebranding a patriarchal system determined to exploit women, we should acknowledge that the world is determined to use women, and women themselves are affected by that objectification. Rather than shaming women for making choices we don't understand, we should deconstruct the patriarchal system that seeks to control female sexuality through degradation, objectification, and intimidation. We need to challenge the system that makes exploitation the path of least resistance, because that’s not what God wants for women. Jesus turned hierarchal systems and Greco-Roman sexual politics upside-down. With Jesus, women felt truly seen; never leered at. Listened to; never ignored. Validated; never brushed off. Touched; never invaded. Invited; never avoided or excluded. Jesus didn’t patronize women. He never stifled women’s gifts. He didn’t tell them they were “too much.” He certainly wasn’t intimidated by strong women. Jesus didn’t bat an eye when women stepped outside what was culturally acceptable. He welcomed women as ministry partners and students of theology. He spent time alone with women and didn’t see them as a “temptation” to be avoided. He didn’t tell women to dress differently to avoid “provoking” men’s lust. In fact, he told men it was better to gouge their own eyes out than to sin (including the sin of objectifying women)! He didn’t see women as either romantic interests or sexual temptresses. Women were neither to Jesus. Women were simply human. Women were partners in Jesus’ ministry, his disciples, his allies, and his friends. This new gospel ethic was radical in Jesus’ culture, and sadly, it’s still countercultural today. We need to start seeing women like Jesus did, as human beings created in the image of God. Now that is a sexual revolution worth fighting for. Notes [1] Graham, Dee. Loving to Survive: Sexual Terror, Men’s Violence and Women’s Live (New York: New York University Press, 1994). [2] Dines, Gail. Pornland: how porn has hijacked our sexuality (Boston: Beacon Press, 2010).
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As an activist, speaker, writer, counselor, and consultant, my mission is in advocating gender, relationship, and cultural revolution for a world without abuse. I have counseled many individuals who have experienced some of the deepest, darkest, most horrific levels of violence imaginable. This has changed me. The victim/survivors I have worked with have made me the activist I am today. I believe in social transformation and moving people for justice. I believe in the beauty of vulnerability and the healing power of healthy relationships. I believe that women have a right to humanity, dignity, safety, autonomy, and respect that is real. I believe in men and their capacity to resist a culture of toxic messaging that says they cannot amount to anything more than rapists, batterers, traffickers, and johns. I believe we can create a world where men's violence is no longer normalized as if "this is just the way things are." Fundamentally, I believe this is not the way things have to be. That is why I do what I do. I believe we must take responsibility and raise the bar. As Andrea Dworkin said, feminism is a "movement against human suffering... the ultimate goal of feminism is to make feminism unnecessary." If you would like to contact me or donate, please click HERE. Thank you for supporting my work. I hope you will join me in the fight for our lives! -Rebecca  *See original article on CBE International's blog HERE*
I have never been raped or physically assaulted. That can change at any moment. We’ve all heard the stories. We’ve read the statistics. We know the pain and fear of men’s violence against women. All women live with some level of primary (first-person) and/or secondary (vicarious) trauma due to men’s violence, abuse, and sexism. Experiences of abuse and sexism are not isolated. They happen daily for so many women, sometimes multiple times in a day. That’s a painful reality. I recently did a presentation on rape culture to a church group and diverted from my usual script. I spontaneously spoke about my experience working with victims of sexual violence. I shared how that work has exposed me to the deepest level of pain I’ve ever known. I found myself choking up on the stage in front of a large group of strangers. In the hundreds and hundreds of presentations I have given, I have never done that before. I was unprepared for the grief I felt in that moment. Afterward, I was a little embarrassed about my “lack for professionalism” as I called it at the time. But then I realized how difficult it is to be truly vulnerable and honest—with others and even myself—about how truly painful this work is. As advocates and counselors, we carry the stories of others. We also have our own experiences to add to that burden. The weight is heavy. We can literally feel it in our aching shoulders. Our culture is tremendously terrified of confronting pain, and of facing anger. We medicate, distract, distance, and deny to effectively detach ourselves from our personal grief or to avoid sitting with others in theirs. As women, the inescapable and constant threat of men’s violence can be paralyzing. If we thought about it all the time, too long or too deeply, we would live in constant fear. But we are also trained to push aside that pain and minimize the abuse done to us, saying: “Oh, this happens to women all the time. It’s not a big deal. Boys will be boys. This is normal male behavior. You know men...” “All of us are doing what women have always done: We're trying to keep our heads above water, just trying to get through it, trying to pretend like this doesn't really bother us maybe because we think that admitting how much it hurts makes us as women look weak. Maybe we're afraid to be that vulnerable. Maybe we've grown accustomed to swallowing these emotions and staying quiet, because we've seen that people often won't take our word over his. Or maybe we don't want to believe that there are still people out there who think so little of us as women.” These were a few of the many powerful words from a recent speech by Michelle Obama. Her voice shook and she was clearly on the verge of tears as she delivered them. Yes. It hurts. It hurts deeply to be treated as subhuman. To be reduced to a punching bag or piece of meat. To be told we are unfit for leadership or ministry because of our sex. To have our callings, missions, vocations, and ability to hear from God invalidated. My challenge for 2017: I invite women to press towards honesty, start acknowledging this pain, and cease to push it away or minimize it. To not shy away from speaking the raw, unfiltered truth about our experiences of sexism, abuse, and violence. Let’s not sanitize, sugar-coat, or coddle the feelings of the audience. Men need to hear from us. And if men aren’t going to ask us about our experiences, then we need to tell them anyway. There is nothing more powerful than a woman who uses her voice and uses it well. What if all women (not just a few activists) did this? Our voices would be impossible to muffle. When we speak loudly about our experiences, we make it extremely difficult for supporters of patriarchy to continually deny its consequences for women. Complementarians believe that it is possible to have non-hierarchical, non-abusive patriarchy. This opinion is only conceivable when women do not share with men (and even other women) what we go through on a daily basis. But if we tell our stories loudly and insistently, we will be impossible to ignore. Rise, warriors—let’s not allow oppression the last word. We must allow this grief, pain, and anger to incite a righteous battle for freedom and liberation. Anger towards injustice is not wrong. It is very, very right. God places this fire in us—not to consume us, but as a driving force for good. The work of justice requires a long-standing purpose, rooted in truth. Our work will collapse when it’s only about us as individuals or if we withdraw when it gets tough or uncomfortable. Results are never immediate. We may not see the fruit of our fight in this lifetime. We have to be okay with that. We have been commissioned to deny ourselves and carry our crosses daily. It will cost us. But labor births new life. We will certainly grow tired and weary, but Jesus said, “Come to me, I will give you rest.” Second-wave feminist Andrea Dworkin gave an impassioned speech to 500 men at a conference in Minnesota thirty or so years ago. She ended in a plea: “I want one day off, one day in which no new bodies are piled up, one day in which no new agony is added to the old, and I am asking you to give it to me... I want a twenty-four-hour truce during which there is no rape.” We will put our faith in our liberator, Jesus, and we will keep fighting until that day of truce comes. It may not come until this life passes away, but an eternal “truce” has been promised to us in Revelation 21:4, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” We were entrusted with the caretaking of this earth and all those in it. I want to leave this life with the full knowledge that I gave all I had to care for my sisters and the broken-hearted who God so passionately loves. *See original on CBE International's blog HERE*
In the last few years, it has become popular for people (especially celebrities) to identify as “feminists” on the secular stage. While this may sound like a positive trend, it has effectively rendered the term “feminist” meaningless. Anyone can join the club. You can be a pornographer or hold deeply sexist attitudes toward women while simultaneously self-identifying as a “gender equality advocate” because you supposedly “love women.” But this version of equality doesn’t threaten the status quo, it reinforces it. Defining feminism as an ambiguous ideology of “equality” may destigmatize the movement and get more people on the bandwagon, but doing so also neutralizes its power. Patriarchy, power, and privilege will certainly go unchallenged. If feminism were just about equality, many could (and do) argue that women and men are already “equal” under the law (hence the growing “I don’t need feminism” movement). However, this supposed “equality” has not stopped men from discriminating against, battering, raping, selling, buying, harassing, and murdering women en masse with impunity. General “equality movements” appeal more to privileged groups because the specific systemic oppression that privileges those very groups is not critiqued. Instead, root causes are ignored and only surface-level issues are addressed. Dismantling the entire social order of our culture is no small task. And it can’t be done when we don’t name the system that inflicts these injustices. That system is patriarchy. And feminists aren’t afraid to name it. Women have been overlooked all our lives. Our achievements, ideas, and accomplishments have been historically attributed to men. So, women need to be seen, women need to be heard, and women need to be named. The importance of naming the women’s movement as “feminism” is similar to the importance of naming the “Black Lives Matter” movement. The purpose of using the name “Black Lives Matter” is not to say that black lives are moreimportant than other lives or that they are the only lives that matter. The purpose of the name “Black Lives Matter” is to point out that if black lives truly mattered as much as white lives, there would be no need for the movement in the first place. The same can be said of feminism. Feminism centralizes the female reality. This centrality is a necessary rebellion in a world that constantly overlooks women. It is a challenge to a culture that prioritizes the narratives of men and white people. When we say “all lives matter” instead of “black lives matter” or “equality” instead of “feminism,” we erase the experiences of the oppressed group and we assuage the conscience of the privileged group—for the sole purpose of palatability. This problem is evident in how we talk about men’s violence against women. In calling it “violence against women,” we fail to name the perpetrator. And in not naming the perpetrator, we also fail to hold men accountable. We make men’s violence appear as if it is an isolated, random event that “just happens” to women. Properly naming men’s violence as men’s violence against women is critical. Men’s violence against women is political, calculated, and functional. Because patriarchy requires control, patriarchy also requires violence. Violence is the ultimate weapon that keeps women in fear, codependency, and in submission to men. Ending men’s violence and abuse is the most basic, foundational goal of feminism. Justice for women will never be achieved as long as patriarchy is the way of the world. So let’s be clear: feminism is a threat to patriarchy. This was, and should continue to be, the entire purpose of the women’s movement. Although patriarchy negatively affects both women and men, it places women in mortal danger of bodily harm and even death. As Margaret Atwood once said, “'Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” Indeed, at least a third of female homicide victims in the US are murdered by their male partners. In a patriarchal society, men are not permitted to express the full range of their humanity. They are discouraged from showing vulnerability, emotion, and empathy. They are restricted from seeking intimacy with others. On the other hand, women are not considered human at all. Globally, women are denied their most basic freedoms, agency, safety, and in the most severe cases, their very lives. However, rather than hating males and seeking revenge, feminists have historically been one of the few groups that genuinely believe in men. A patriarchal/complementarian church will tell men that they are naturally aggressive, controlling, lustful, unempathetic, violent, and animalistic. A feminist will tell men the opposite—that none of the above traits are natural. A feminist will tell men that they are not born as batterers, rapists, traffickers, or exploiters. A feminist does not think so little of men. A feminist knows that patriarchal values are taught and men are socialized in an oppressive system. They are not a product of an intrinsically violent male nature. A Christian feminist knows that God designed men with all of the humanity, compassion, integrity, strength, and tenderness that he designed women with. Christian feminists reject the low bar society sets for men. Feminists believe men have the full capacity to make choices that oppose patriarchy—choices that are not centered in a hunger for control or in abusing women to maintain that control. Just as Jesus did, we call men to more. A feminist doesn’t lower the bar—a feminist raises it. We don’t excuse toxic, life-destroying behavior from men. We don’t say “boys will be boys,” as if that’s all men can amount to. When others say, “this is just the way things are,” feminists say, “this is not the way things have to be.” We believe in men. We believe another world is possible. We believe we have the power to create that world. Jesus called us out of our comfort zone and away from the path of least resistance. In fact, Jesus believed in our capacity to change, to make progress towards justice, and to enact the will of God on earth, so much so that he proclaimed in John 14:12, “Truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these.” Let us live as change-agent Christians who love and live radically in Jesus’ name! May we be courageous opponents of patriarchy. May we follow the example of the trailblazers who paved the way before us in the women’s movement. May we be unafraid to name ourselves feminists!  Photo by Cosmic Timetraveler on Unsplash *See original article on CBE International's blog HERE*
Our character as human beings is determined by what we do when no one is watching. When no one is watching, many in the church are watching porn. Pornography has been declared a “public health crisis” by political officials. At least a third of US men self-identify as being addicted to it.[1] In April, Time magazine featured a front-page article exposing the harmful impact of porn on society. Despite this, two-thirds of practicing Christians feel no guilt about their porn use.[2] What does this extreme level of consumption (and lack of guilt about it) say about the condition of the church as a whole? For readers unfamiliar with the state of modern porn—it looks less like sex and more like sexual assault. Unlike yesterday’s softcore porn industry, mainstream porn today is definitively hardcore—exploitative videos saturated with physical violence, bondage, verbal abuse, sadism, brutality, humiliation, and degradation. Women’s pain is the cornerstone of porn, and the industry derives both pleasure and profit from it. Porn delivers an endless assortment of cruelty, divided into categories based on the (mostly male) viewer’s fetish. Regardless of its diversity, porn has a common theme: women are objects. In one genre of porn, these objects ask nothing, say nothing, and offer nothing but exist to meet the demands of men. They always smile, always obey, and always eagerly embrace their subordinate status. The other popular genre of porn eroticizes women’s agony and makes no attempt to conceal its fascination with female suffering. Instead, the pornographer zooms in. Some sites even boast about their original content of “real sexual abuse scenes.” Just to illustrate, last week, I typed in “rape porn” on Google. There were 122,000,000 search results. That number increases daily. Let that number sink in. One hundred and twenty-two million search results, many of them real rape videos. As I speak with churches, I find they are overwhelmed by the effects of porn on their congregations: sexualization of children, widespread addiction, abusive sexual practices, infidelity, broken marriages, intimacy problems, sexual violence, domestic violence, and trafficking. In the struggle to address pornography and other forms of men’s violence against women, the church is either missing the glaringly obvious cause, or intentionally ignoring it. I am often asked by the church, “How could this be happening?” My question in return is always, “How could this not be happening?” Pornography and all forms of sexist violence will continue to prevail until the church purges itself of deeply patriarchal values and practices. In identifying the root cause (patriarchy), we also find the solution. If the harm of patriarchy is acknowledged, the damage reconciled, and the system dismantled, the church can begin to heal. There is no other way. Whether in the church, the world, or the porn industry, women are constantly reminded of their supposed “place.” The messaging of objectification is more subtle in the church, and it’s often wrapped neatly in spiritual language. But women don’t need to be naked and videotaped to be objectified. Youth group sermons on purity tell a woman the greatest gift she can give to her husband is her untainted sexuality—a gift she is told will be the pinnacle of her existence, second only to having children. Her small group options include crafting or a Captivating study on using femininity to “entice” a husband. She is told she is beautiful, certainly, but she is told little else. At the same time, she learns that her body is dangerous and will tempt men to sin. She hears the pastor gush at the pulpit about how “hot” his wife is, but he doesn’t mention how brilliant, talented, strong, insightful, or passionate his spouse is. A woman's voice is often only validated in relation to, or in the presence of men. She is encouraged to enthusiastically celebrate her supposed “equal dignity and value” won through Christ, yet is constantly excluded from using her gifts of leadership, pastoring, and preaching. The examples could go on and on. She represents all of us who were/are subject to patriarchal/complementarian theology. The idea of “equality” between women and men in the church is illusory and empty when women hold no real power. If women’s purpose in the church is to support the men who are doing the “important things” women aren’t allowed to do, all claims of equality are rendered meaningless. Many women don’t feel like human beings in the body of Christ. Many feel like objects. Some even feel like slaves, kept in chains by patriarchy. Sociologist Robert Jensen describes pornography as “a mirror” that reflects our patriarchal culture.[3] Porn imitates the patriarchal values we often find in the church. There is a striking overlap between pornography and patriarchy if we take a closer look in that mirror. Both pornography and patriarchy tell us that men naturally dominate and women naturally submit. Pornography and patriarchy silence the voices of women. Pornography and patriarchy extinguish women’s gifts. Pornography and patriarchy exalt power, inequality, and control. And both pornography and patriarchy ultimately deny the humanity of both women and men. From the start, God revealed a different narrative—the unshakeable dignity and equality of women in Genesis. It was sin that corrupted, sin that created patriarchy. Fast forward to the New Testament. The gospel exposes the consequences of propping up worldly desires of power, control, lust, greed, and violence. Jesus’ deliberate rebellion against these patriarchal values is evident throughout his ministry. Jesus reminds us that patriarchal, power-centric values have no place in his kingdom. His radical, counter-cultural response should be of no surprise to Christ-followers. Jesus gives us infinitely more than what the world has to offer: love instead of lust, liberation instead of enslavement, bravery instead of fear, justice instead of oppression. The church has a responsibility to do the same: to re-reveal the humanity of women and demonstrate their value. The church must move beyond equality in theory to equality in practice. Only then will the church be released from the bondage of pornography, addiction, and global enslavement. Only then will people lift open hands to God instead of clinging tightly to power and hierarchy. Only then will the body of Christ truly reflect the beauty of Jesus’ mission. We must recognize, once and for all, that there is a cost to benching half the church. There is a cost to consuming porn. There is a cost to marginalizing women. There is a cost to the betraying silence of the church. And ultimately, the cost is women’s lives. Combatting patriarchy within the church is not optional—it is an emergency. Notes [1] Gary Wilson, Your Brain On Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction (UK: Commonweath Press, 2014), 73. [2] Josh McDowell, “Porn in the Digital Age: New Research Reveals 10 Trends” Barna, April 6, 2016. Accessed July 25, 2016. https://www.barna.org/research/culture-media/research-release/porn-in-the-digital-age-new-research-reveals-10-trends#.V5uEzfmAOko [3] Robert Jensen, Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (Brooklyn: South End Press, 2007), 16. |
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