“I get angry about things, then go on and work.” -Toni Morrison.
I spent 2024 reading banned books, a couple of them by Toni Morrison. If ever there was a time for white women “to go on and work,” it is now. May these words become the rallying cry we need for this moment we find ourselves in. People of color have been fighting for equality for generations while many of us white women have lazily assumed things were getting better.
This is where I am today. I am angry and I want to”go on and work.” To be honest it has only been recently that I’ve realized “The Equal Rights Amendment” although passing congress in 1972 did not receive ratification of needed 38 states by the deadline in 1982. The ERA movement was started all the way back in 1923 by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman. Just three years after women gained the right to vote. Why did I not know this? Maybe I have learned it and forgotten it. Maybe we all became complacent and just thought things were moving in the right direction. Either way, I am mad.
I just finished reading Beth Allison Barr’s, “The Making of Biblical Womanhood.” I highly recommend reading this book, but be prepared to have your world shaken up, particularly if you grew up in the church. Barr, a medieval church historian and professor at Baylor University, explains how the idea of complementarianism and patriarchy are not how the church distinguishes itself from the world and culture, but rather how it aligns itself with the world. It’s a bold assertion for sure.
Being a historian, she is able to see the last 2000 years with a clarity that is not readily available to me. And do you know what really made me livid as I read this book? It’s that the subjugation of women has been deliberate. It is not just a misunderstanding of scripture, particularly Paul but an outright plan to not only continue patriarchy but also white supremacy. All of this in the name of God.
If you are angry about this you will need to read Barr’s book to be able to more accurately piece together the facts here, but I will do my best to give you an overview.
Early on in the Christian faith women were in leadership positions. In fact, before the Protestant Reformation (1517) virgin women were believed to be holy because they pledged themselves directly to God. These holy women could preach and teach and were respected. The Reformation has been celebrated among Protestant denominations, and it was good in so many ways. It hasn’t turned out to be that good for women though.
For women, it meant moving from being directly under the authority of God to being under the headship of their husband, pastor and other men. Marriage was the way women could find stability in a broader world that was very much patriarchal.
“Women were encouraged to be chaste, modest, obedient and passive, while men were encouraged to be aggressive, domineering, controlling and active…. While it [Protestantism] could have affirmed women’s spiritual equality with men, the Reformation instead ushered in a ‘renewed patriarchalism’ that places married women firmly under the headship of their husband.” (pg. 105)
And this continues today, particularly in Evangelical churches and is certainly a part of project 2025. We as women have seen our rights and our value continue to decline. Maybe you have heard of the SAVE act that just passed this week in the House of Representatives. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, safeguards nothing. Instead, it has the potential to disenfranchise many voters who have been voting for years. It would require, when registering to vote you provide your birth certificate, or a passport along with your ID. And the names must match. So, if you are married and do not have a passport with your married name on it, you will be deemed ineligible, and about 50% of Americans do not have passports. It is already illegal to vote if you are not a citizen and there has never been any proof that non-citizens are voting. This is a way to disenfranchise, women, poor people, transgendered people who have changed their names, military and others who have to move a lot and are registering to vote in each new location. And the one that I didn’t think of is people who have changed their names to protect themselves after some type of violence. Further it restricts voter registration as this act requires registration to be in person taking away the online option. I have called my representative about this and got an email response back from him where he proudly informed me that he co-sponsored the bill (David Taylor.) This bill now moves to the senate, I will be calling my senators to ask them to vote no on the SAVE act.
I am angry not because my candidate for president did not win, that has happened to me over and over in elections, I am angry because it is becoming increasingly likely that she did not win due to her gender.
I am angry because anytime I read that a bill is intended to protect women I understand now that it actually does the opposite. How many women have been attacked in the bathroom by Transgendered women? While it is noted that over 700 women have come forward for suffering abuse at the hand of leaders in the SBC. It would seem that being at church is more dangerous. The bathroom laws are not meant to keep women safe; they simply are a way to keep us worried about the wrong things. While in places like Georgia a woman was arrested after being found bleeding and unconscious outside her apartment after suffering a miscarriage. South Carolina has a similar bill in the works that would actually charge women with murder if they miscarriage (see South Carolina bill 3537). They are couched in prenatal equal protection, although there is not any protection given to the mother. One in five women will have a miscarriage. That is 20 percent of women.
A miscarriage can be devastating without being charged with murder and having to serve time in prison. There is an assault on women taking place in this country and I am angry about it. The thing that makes me the angriest is it the church that is leading the way. White women, it is time “to go and work.”