Religious Ramblings and Aligning for Feminism

[Written for Marx and Marxism.]

Heidi Hartmann brought up a rather interesting question in “The Unhappy Marriage of Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union”: Can we align ourselves (women) with men in our struggles? This question created an interesting discussion in class, but after stewing on it and her work, I’ve found that I have more to say on the topic. There are concerns, valid concerns, that to not include men in our fight against feminism is not productive, and I would agree. How are we supposed to dismantle something without the help from those perpetuating it and benefiting from it the most? However, I also have other concerns in getting to a place in which we can align ourselves with men. For starters, it is getting increasingly more difficult to align ourselves with ourselves! The rise of Religious MAGA is reflected even in online trends with the rise of Trad Wife content, as well as the cultural division in those who can even understand the religious mentality has created a massive line in those who you can align yourself with and those you cannot, and in some instances, it may even be dangerous for some people to attempt to align themselves. 

First, let me provide a new marriage to consider, in contrast to Hartmann’s marriage between the patriarchy and capitalism: the marriage between patriarchy and religion. This marriage is one that I think causes the divide I mentioned previously when not being able to align with other women on our issues. It’s something I look at through a personal lens growing up in a Southern Baptist Church. I have witnessed a lot of strife in the church but today, I will focus on the teachings and mentality. It's my opinion that the religious mentality and ideology creates a kind of indoctrination in individuals, and for women, it subordinates them on a level that keeps them from thinking for themselves in order to maintain their oppression without even seeing it as oppression. This starts in the house, in the family. The church favors a nuclear family, with a mother and a father, both of which perpetuate the patriarchy on a small scale. The father is given the title of head of household and expected to make decisions for the family, maintain power and control over his family, but also provide for his family. These duties include bringing your family to church and teaching them “the Word,” but it also boils down to every single thing. Honor thy mother and father, but the mother is also supposed to honor thy husband. He is the overseer of his family and to not obey him is to blaspheme God. With these teachings beginning at birth and so strongly in the home, it is priming individuals for the patriarchal real world. Boys grow up to be men who go out and oppress and benefit, while girls grow up to be women and go out and be oppressed and reap no benefit. Women might be able to be paid for their work outside the house now, in comparison to when they were merely used for domestic work; however, it’s still at a lesser value than their male counterparts, ergo, they’re still being oppressed and told to be lucky because it’s not as bad as it used to be. It almost feels like an extreme to say it is so similar to indoctrination, however, through first hand experience, I feel justified in referring to it as such. Thanks to Merriam-Webster, we can see that the definition of indoctrination is “to imbue with a usually partisan or sectarian opinion, point of view, or principle.” Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “the process of repeating an idea or belief to someone until they accept it without criticism or question.” These are exactly what is happening in (my) church. The same stories are being told, the same sermons are being preached, but better yet, the same mental/ social script is being shared among the congregation. It’s like watching Fox News all of the time and just hearing the same phrases, the same talking points over and over again -- and, that's exactly where they get most of their talking points as well! But, it goes farther than that. I’ve written many essays in the past about my time in the church and the way they operate in order to maintain their control over people, and my least favorite thing is their dismissal of questions simply because it pushes their religious boundaries. For instance, if you were to ask questions to a leader in a church they would either, refer you to scripture, offer to pray over it, or dismiss your curiosity by stating ‘God doesn’t want us to know everything,’ and it’s all to keep you in line with their rhetoric and ideals. This is what patriarchy does as well. Especially with the help of the sex/gender divisions. These decisions are taught to us to keep everyone in one of two boxes: man or woman. These boxes will dictate your life in ways you may never realize, and I’ve also written and talked ad nauseam about these differences; however, for the sake of brevity, we will simply talk about a few general distinctions patriarchy upholds that the church reflects. In the church, every person in power or authority is a man. I have listened to sermons on why women cannot be preachers and cannot be called by God to share his word -- in the world patriarchy, men are often in places of power and authority, where as women (most often, while it is changing still) are in places subordinating to those men or in positions that reflect their housley-duties… like maids, waitresses, teachers, etc. In the church, as mentioned, the nuclear family is favored; however, as we know, that isn’t the reality for most families in our country anymore. What was once a husband breadwinner, stay at home wife/ mother, and a couple children to boot is now divided, or two husbands or wives, maybe a non-binary partner. People adopt children or opt to not have children, and polyamory also exists, too. But most popularly in the States, is divorced and blended families. This goes directly against the church. I have heard the church villainize my aunt for divorcing her cheating husband and I have been told verbatim, “your mother is going to hell,” because she divorced her cheating husband and worked on most Sundays to support her children on her own -- therefore she missed church. In the world, these are things that can translate to the suppression of women outside the house, which I can admit isn’t a very likely story anymore, but the church and MAGA are always so reminiscent of “the good days” when America was “great,” and I can’t help but wonder which time they are referring to… I’m going to summarize it rather explicitly: they want their slaves back.* Moving along, it doesn’t seem to be a coincidence at all that the rise of Trump and MAGA, and also religious extremists, coincide with the rise of Traditional Wife content online. To put it simply, these are wives who dress in a classic, conservative way that is reminiscent of the 50s at times, and stay at home with the kids. There is a rise of homeschooling among them in addition to homemade everything -- bread, toothpaste, laundry detergent. They are going back to ‘traditional’ roots, and after the recent election, people online were shocked to discover their favorite TradWife creator in fact voted for Donald Trump… again.* However, I will say that this TradWife content could be an argument for women’s house-work pay. You see, the beauty of the internet is that everything can be monetized in some way. So, for these tradwife creators, they are creating content and amassing hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of followers and with that, you make ad revenue and obtain sponsorships, which really pays well. Therefore, it could seem like women have managed a way to turn a profit in being a wife and a mother, and if it were widespread across all wives and mothers, and if it didn’t involve a ‘Traditional’ outlook on family life, I might be able to root for it. But I cannot. 

Finally, I want to quickly discuss the frustration I continually have with people who were not raised in the church or not religious, or simply of a different culture, and they cannot seem to understand these situations at all. When I took the Feminist Theory class a few years back, we got around to discussing the 2020 election and the amount of women who voted for Trump despite his words, actions, and policies. The women in this class could not understand that southern women might not vote using their own critical thinking. They insisted that the only way for a woman to vote the way her husband tells her to is if she is being abused in her home. While this is a situation for many people in the world, this is not the sole reason. As I’ve discussed, the church keeps people from thinking, especially their women. Thinking critically goes against their teaching wholly and if you spend a millisecond critically thinking about what they are teaching you, the entire religion comes crumbling down around you; therefore, they tell you to stop thinking to maintain their control. It’s in this way that women cannot even consider voting for their best interest because they don’t even know what that means. Despite what some in class might say, this problem must still persist in certain cultures and belts of the country because the presidential campaigns in 2024 released advertisements regarding the issue. While I find it irritating that people cannot grasp what is happening among the religious groups, I do understand why they can’t. If I hadn’t grown up in it, spent holidays with religious family, and seen it first hand, I wouldn’t believe it to the degree in which I’ve described either. It is incredibly hard for people to be able to grasp what is going on when it seems so outlandish and retro; however, that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. 

In conclusion, I still don’t know what the answer to the question is -- if we can align ourselves with men on our issues; however, I don’t know how we can get around it if we want to stop patriarchy. We must come together as women and as human beings in order to end oppression of all people, not just women but also of other races and religions and more. The issue I have is getting others to understand the magnitude of how hard that can be when people have spent their whole lives dedicated to churches and beliefs that completely contradict what we are trying to do.

*1: Slaves as in black people as well as women. They want to profit off of individuals while having their homes and selves cared for by a silent woman who does as she is told. This hypothesis is also backed by sermons I sat through in which the preacher discussed that Slavery is in the Bible and A-Okay! This sermon was when I was in high school, so less than 10 years ago

*2: The Tradwife content is a little difficult to describe. Imagine The Stepford Wives but if they weren’t turned into actual robots and just mental robots instead: the perfect wife, perfect mom, perfect woman