I’m a researcher who studies gender-based violence. So why did it take me so long to recognize it in my own life?
How language is used to obscure violence – and erase our resistance.
When I was a teenager, I crept through the sliding door that led out of my friend’s basement one hot summer night. Why I was allowed to spend the night at someone else’s house, something that rarely happened, I can’t even remember anymore. The moon was bright and things were calm and cool, which happens in a place like Montana when the sun sets. The earth gives off heat from the day, but the air is cold. I crept down a dirt lane and then onto a highway where I went and laid in a ditch by a certain mile marker. I waited.
I’d been sneaking around to meet my boyfriend for a couple years by that point. Of course, I got caught. Not that particular night, but on a handful of other occasions. Getting caught was always an earth-shattering event. I was shamed up and down, told I had psychological problems, and told I was ruining my family. Because I liked a boy.
There was a strict policy in my house: No dating. Period. And anything that involved being in a situation where there were guys was somehow “a date.” This policy, combined with our already weird religious situation, made for an isolating adolescence.
For years now, women have been trying to explain how so-called “purity culture” has impacted our lives. Purity culture is a phrase that comes from post-evangelical circles. It refers to teachings about the body, relationships, and sexuality that tie a woman's worth to her sexual abstinence and modesty.
I wasn’t raised Evangelical so I missed a lot of the purity industry that my ex-vangelical friends talk about, like the now infamous book I Kissed Dating Goodbye (recanted by the author), signing abstinence pledges, and “purity rings.”
Or, if you really want to be creeped out, check out this documentary on “purity balls.”
Even though I managed to avoid Evangelical purity culture, I definitely relate to the tone and tenor. There’s enough overlap with my own experience to recognize that the goals are the same: Controlling women’s bodies. A theme that’s not at all unique to religious communities, as you’ve probably noticed. Patriarchy doesn’t need religion to operate, but it helps.
Still, when religious reasons are given for why you shouldn’t have sex (or whatever it is you’re not supposed to do), normal developmental milestones become weighed down with eternal moral and spiritual consequences. Your first girlfriend/boyfriend, first kiss; going to prom; first sexual encounter or serious relationship - these aren’t just decisions you make based on what you’d like to do – what interests you or heaven forbid, what feels good to your body – but decisions that are often made while holding eternal consequences in the balance.
In other words, non-religious patriarchal assholes will exert control over women because it’s good for them. But religious patriarchal assholes will exert control over women because they claim it’s good for us. For our spiritual, and moral wellbeing.
That’s probably why parents, especially fathers, think they are allowed to do whatever it takes to “protect” their daughters from the consequences of “sexual sins,” in particular.
Like, for example, the case of this young woman whose parents pressured her to release private medical information, threatened to cut her off financially, withdraw her health insurance, and stop funding her education all because she was having sex she wanted with the partner she chose.
I think it’s time we called this kind of behaviour what it is: gender-based violence (GBV), and stopped excusing it because it was done in the name of protecting us.
It’s also time to look at why we missed this kind of GBV in the first place and instead call it things like “bad theology” or “bad parenting.”
Let me introduce you to benevolent sexism.
Benevolent sexism is “favorable in content and yet prejudicial in [its] consequences,” with women portrayed as fragile, pure, and in need of male protection. Women are “cherished” for our roles as obedient daughters, homemakers, and nurturers (even though this leaves us in a vulnerable and unequal position compared to our male partners).
If you want to do a bit of a deep-dive on benevolent sexism, but also read a comic, check out this fantastic piece by French writer, Emma.
Benevolent sexism is GREAT at hiding gender-based violence, especially when it comes to regulating women’s bodies. It does this by wrapping oppression in romantic language, with phrases like “true love waits,” and “purity.”
Because women, and especially women’s bodies, are seen as special, fragile, and lovely, the men who consider themselves responsible for protecting us feel justified in going to any lengths to do so—even if it means removing our own choice and agency.
None of this is unique to religion. Even outside of conservative religious circles, girls and young women, in particular, are treated as though their sexuality is something owned, controlled, and managed by their parents, especially their fathers.
Here’s a list of just a few of the things I’ve see done to women and girls under the guise of protecting them:
Treating relationships and sex as privileges that young women earn, not inherent needs and rights. For example, here’s some common advice that a daughter has to first earn her father’s trust before he grants her the privilege of dating. (This isn’t a religious source, by the way!)
Monitoring and policing the clothes girls wear.
Isolating them from peers and supports by “grounding” them.
Treating their sexual exploration and relationships as acting out behaviours – problems to manage rather than milestones to celebrate.
Preventing or interfering with access to birth control.
Invading privacy by reading texts or listening in on phone calls.
If you need an example of how messed up this can get: One time my dad called the sheriff about a guy I was involved with at my high school. And the sheriff went to his house and told him to stay away from me. Because that is the kind of thing that is seen as OK when your family and your community think that girls are the property of their fathers.
If you ask these parents – the fathers especially – why they do these kinds of things, they will unequivocally say it is out of love and a sense of protection. The language of benevolent sexism is used to obscure the violence of these actions. We romanticize “giving away the bride.” We give girls pretty jewelry in exchange for a vow of chastity. We make jokes about dad waiting at home with a shotgun for his daughter to come home from a date.
Just look at this (now old) but still widely circulated list of “rules for dating my daughter.”
Rule Four: I’m sure you’ve been told that in today’s world, sex without utilizing a ‘barrier method’ of some kind can kill you. Let me elaborate, when it comes to sex, I am the barrier, and I will kill you. Any questions?
Let me say this clearly for the folks in the back: Threatening to kill someone’s partner is not OK. It does not become OK because you are “just making a joke” or because it is printed on a trashy t-shirt.
So why do we miss this as a glaringly obvious form of GBV?
1. We think of gender-based violence almost exclusively as intimate partner violence. It used to be called “wife battering” back in the day.
2. Our minds go immediately to physical violence. We think about a guy hitting a woman. That’s bad – and it happens all the time, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg, and if that’s our only understanding of what GBV is we miss the myriad other ways it happens, include psychological, emotional, and financial abuse.
But no matter how much it is wrapped up in the language of paternal love, it’s still oppression. It’s not a “parenting style.” It’s not endearing.
Masking the violence
I believe the conversation about purity culture is missing something important: all the clever, creative, and meaningful ways women have resisted it.
And that’s what I really want to talk about here.
Let me tell you about something called response-based practice (RBP). Developed by Canadian practitioners and researchers Alan Wade, Nick Todd, and Linda Coates, RBP is a way of thinking about violence that focuses on recognizing and honouring the resistance and agency of those who experience it.
It’s based on some pretty simple principles.
Violence is unilateral.
It’s intentional.
It’s always resisted.
These points are important to remember when we’re talking about GBV in a religious context, where religious and spiritual language is used to dress up oppressive and violent behaviours, especially in the context of parenting.
Example:
Your dad was just trying to protect you. He knows what goes through a man’s minds when he sees you dressed like that. Sure, he’s a bit overprotective, but he can’t help it; you know how men are.
Nope. Violence is unilateral – it moves in one direction, from the perpetrator to the victim. You don’t invite it because of what you’re wearing. Violence is also intentional. It’s not excused because it was done in the name of protecting you, or because your dad was just so overcome with paternal love and concern that he couldn’t help himself.
Erasing our resistance
I will never stop protesting the use of the term “programming” when talking about those of us raised in strict, high-demand, religious groups.
When we’re in faith transition, we often use the words “programming” and “deprogramming.” What we usually mean is that we were intensely socialized into a community with values and beliefs that have harmed us. For many of us in fringe or minority religious groups, these values and beliefs set us apart from the society around us. Sometimes it made us feel “special,” but not always in a good way. They isolated us.
Saying that we’re “deprogramming” from our religious upbringing helps us explain the degree to which we’re deconstructing not just religious beliefs about theological/ philosophical issues, but re-envisioning the foundations of our lives.
So I get why we want to use the word. And I’m not going to stop you if that’s what you want to say.
At the same time, there are two reasons why I don’t use the language of programming: It lets others off the hook, and it erases our resistance.
Example:
Your parents didn’t mean to hurt you. They couldn’t help it; they were victims of a cult and under the coercive control of the group’s programming.
Nope. Like I said before, violence is intentional. You don’t get a pass by saying “my cult made me do it.”
“Programming” also positions women as passive in the face of violence and oppression. Because “programming” is something that happens to objects, not to people.
It tells us that our brains are broken and violated. That we can’t trust our own judgement. That we have not been our “authentic selves” and somehow need to be “deprogrammed” or “healed” or otherwise liberated (almost always by a man who wants to sell you a book).
I’m here to tell you that you were never the passive recipient of violence and religious indoctrination. Because violence is always resisted. As a social service worker I have worked with countless women, sometimes in extreme cases of intimate partner violence. This has been true every single time.
But one of the reasons women’s resistance is so often missed is because we learn really quickly is that feigned obedience is the best form of resistance, whereas outward defiance is the quickest way to get shut down.
In other words, we often pretend to comply to protect ourselves, making our resistance subtle and less visible, because we know that openly defying the rules can lead to harsh, even deadly, consequences. We do this because we’re clever, not because we’re submissive or “programmed.” After all, women are most at risk of harm, including murder, when we leave an abusive situation.
The cherry red thong carried in my pocket and put on once I was at school. Every secret email account I made. Phone calls I managed in the few minutes I was alone. Notes I passed. Every window I snuck out of. Music I hid in my locker. My boyfriend’s shirt I kept in a secret drawer. Every time I found a small way to assert myself and have something that I wanted and cared about.
How could I be programmed and passive if I managed to do all that? (And a heck of a lot more, let me tell you.) And why did it take me so long to see these acts of defiance as my resistance to an oppressive system?
You know what’s “funny” about those funny “rules for dating my daughter”?
Nowhere do they include what the daughter wants. How she feels. What she is hoping for.
And that’s OK. Because we don’t need you to ask us.
We’ve got our lipstick in our pocket, one leg out the window, and a ride waiting down the street.
Jessica Pratezina is one of the co-founders of SisterWild, a community for women in religious transition of all kinds. She is a writer and researcher who studies religion, gender/ gender based violence, and life-writing. She lives in Toronto, Ontario. She can be reached at thesisterwild@gmail.com