A Twitter hashtag about Christian women has revealed some ugly truths about misogyny in the church.
Christian author Sarah Bessey started the thread Tuesday night with the tag #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear to highlight issues surrounding male privilege in many Christian communities. The conversation, which she said she initiated “on a whim,” quickly amassed hundreds of tweets from women sharing some of the dehumanizing things they’ve heard from others in their Christian communities.
“This hashtag is pulling back the curtain on the everyday lived experiences of women within the Church,” Bessey wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday morning.
Bessey acknowledged she couldn’t vouch that every single tweet reflected things the women have actually heard, verbatim. But she noted, “For my own contributions: each statement was said to me, about me, in front of me.”
As several of the users noted, misogyny is by no means a Christian problem nor a religious one, alone. And the thread didn’t delve extensively into issues of race, class, sexual orientation or other important factors that create imbalances both within Christian communities and in society at large.
But the responses highlighted the high degree of white, male, and Christian privilege that exists in all areas of American society, and which also affect Christian women across the spectrum of backgrounds.
Many of the tweets centered around issues of love, sex and marriage:
Several tweets referred to “The Billy Graham Rule,” which was recently in the news after a 2002 interview with Vice President Mike Pence resurfaced. Pence reportedly told The Hill that “he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side.”
The no-eating-with-another-woman rule was made popular by evangelical pastor Billy Graham in 1948 and plays into the notion that men have uncontrollable sexual urges that women are ultimately responsible for.
Many women also expressed frustration with the double standard they feel they face when it comes to school, work and leadership:
A number of men also chimed in to offer their support:
Women who speak up on social media about controversial topics often face backlash, and the #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear thread was no exception. Several trolls claimed the women were being bad Christians by supposedly stoking anti-church sentiment. Others mocked the women for being religious at all.
One user’s criticism of the thread prompted responses from several of the women:
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
from The Huffington Post | The Full Feed http://ift.tt/2pISSwZ
0 التعليقات:
Post a Comment