As you know, I’ve written many times about purity balls, and how decidedly creepy they are. There’s just something horribly wrong about asking your daughter to pledge her virginity to you until she marries someone. It’s creepy, and incestuous, and completely destructive to the idea that women are actual people with actual feelings about the world.
Purity balls are creepy, but most liberal defenders of them usually ask, “But what’s the real problem? I mean, you’re just asking your daughter to not have sex. What’s wrong with that?”
Well, what’s wrong with that is what not having sex leads to. No, not not having babies — although that’s a perfectly good reason for a woman to choose not to have sex, if that’s what she wants. No, the purity ball, pledge-yourself-to-daddy movement has as its ultimate goal that women should pledge themselves to daddy. Period.
That’s the report from Bitch‘s Gina McGalliard, who digs into the “stay-at-home daughters movement,” a movement that sees purity balls’ creep factor and then goes all-in, saying that it’s not enough for a daughter merely to forgo sex; she also must give up all trappings of an independent life. From birth to marriage, she is her father’s; from marriage to death she is her husband’s. Anything else is an affront to God.
No, really:
“Daughters aren’t to be independent. They’re not to act outside the scope of their father. As long as they’re under the authority of their fathers, fathers have the ability to nullify or not the oaths and the vows. Daughters can’t just go out independently and say, ‘I’m going to marry whoever I want.’ No. The father has the ability to say, ‘No, I’m sorry, that has to be approved by me.’”
There’s a lot of talk in American mainstream media lately about the diminishing role of men — fathers, in particular. Have feminism and reproductive technology made them obsolete? Are breadwinning wives and career-oriented mothers emasculating them?
No such uncertainty exists in the mind of Doug Phillips, the man quoted above. The San Antonio minister is the founder of Vision Forum, a beachhead for what’s known as the Christian Patriarchy Movement, a branch of evangelical Christianity that takes beliefs about men as leaders and women as homemakers to anachronistic extremes. Vision Forum Ministries is, according to its Statements of Doctrine, “committed to affirming the historic faith of Biblical Christianity,” with special attention to the historical faith found in the book of Genesis, when God created Eve as a “helper” to Adam. According to Christian Patriarchy, marriage bonds man (the symbol of Christ) to woman (the symbol of the Church). It’s a model that situates husbands and fathers in a position of absolute power: If a woman disobeys her “master,” whether father or husband, she’s defying God. Thus, women in the Christian Patriarchy Movement aren’t just stay-at-home mothers — they’re stay-at-home daughters as well. And many of them wouldn’t have it any other way.
Of course, if they would have it any other way, they’d have to shut up about it. After all, in the stay-at-home daughters movement, there is no other way. There is daddy’s way, or there is Satan’s way.
Integral to Vision Forum’s belief about female submission is making sure women are not independent at any point in their lives, regardless of age; hence the organization’s enthusiasm for stay-at-home daughterhood. The most visible proponents of this belief are Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin, sisters and authors of the book So Much More: The Remarkable Influence of Visionary Daughters on the Kingdom of God (published by Vision Forum), and creators of the documentary film Return of the Daughters, which follows several young women staying home until marriage, and details how they spend their time serving their fathers. One woman, Melissa Keen, 25, helps put on Vision Forum’s annual Father-Daughter Retreat, an event that’s described on Vision Forum’s website in terms that are, in a word, discomfiting. (“He leads her, woos her, and wins her with a tenderness and affection unique to the bonds of father and daughter.”) Another, 23-year-old Katie Valenti, enthuses that her father “is the greatest man in my life. I believe that helping my father in his business is a better use of my youth and is helping prepare me to be a better helpmeet for my future husband, rather than indulging in selfishness and pursuing my own success and selfish ambitions.” (A video of Valenti’s 2009 wedding to Phillip Bradrick shows her father announcing into a microphone that he is “transferring my authority to you, Phillip.”)
You see, women have to be protected from the outside world. If they’re allowed to go off to college, they might, you know, learn that there’s a possibility for women to have their own goals, their own desires, and their own lives.
The number of these blogs and their followers may be surprising to mainstream women, who would likely find the tenets the bloggers live by disturbingly retrograde, if not just plain disturbing. For instance, stay-at-home daughterhood means, among other things, subsuming one’s own identity into the family unit. The Botkin sisters write in So Much More that loving your parents means agreeing with all their opinions. “When your parents have your heart you will truly ‘delight in their ways,’” write the sisters in one blog post. “You will love what they love, hate what they hate, and desire their approval and company and even ‘think thoughts after them.’”
The Botkin sisters aim to validate living a life of confinement with staunch, if unfounded, opinions and beliefs regarding college. “College campuses have become dangerous places of anxiety, wasted years, mental defilement and moral derangement,” they write. Although neither of the sisters has attended college, they also claim universities are hotbeds of Marxism that forbid a free exchange of ideas and seek to indoctrinate students in leftist thinking. Elsewhere, they quote a document from the pro-patriarchy website Fathers for Life that states that the “prime purposes of feminism are to establish a lesbian-socialist republic and to dismantle the family unit,” echoing Pat Robertson’s notorious statement that feminism is a “socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.”
The read the whole thing quotient on this article is high, and indeed, it’s important that you do so. The sad fact is that the stay-at-home daughters movement is, in its own bizarre way, truly about recreating a vision of femininity that dominated the west for most of its history, and dominates far too many places on Earth yet today. It is, quite simply, a vision of women as chattel, as objects, as things that belong to their fathers, until they’re dealt to someone who can breed them for boys, and for more chattel to be sold. What these women want is as irrelevant as what a toaster wants; their role is to serve the men who they belong to, full stop. And their own desires matter not a whit.
This is why the purity balls have always discomfited me. Because when you say your sexuality belongs to your father, until it belongs to your husband — well, then it never belongs to you. If a stay-at-home daughter marries a man who wants sex constantly from her, she must submit to him. If she dislikes it, she is defying God Himself. There is no such thing as marital rape in a purity ball world; just women submitting meekly to their husbands, and to nobody else, lest they destroy their resale value.
That is the vision of the world that the truly retrograde embrace, and the vision of the world that those who pine for the “good old days” are pining for. That it is horrific to all by the fringe right — for now — is one of the great gifts of feminism. Thank goodness my daughter will grow up to think her own thoughts, make her own decisions, go off to college and come back telling me how I’m wrong about everything. Indeed, she already tells me I’m wrong not to be a vegetarian, as she is; I disagree with her, but I support her in her ability to disagree with me. And I love that she’s willing to do so at eight years old.
Her ability to live a life that is her own is a far greater gift to me than her loving what I love and hating what I hate. She isn’t a pale echo of me. She’s her own person. And thank God for that.
Delurking to say: I am an American woman who is currently a resident in one of the more liberal Middle Eastern countries, and this attitude is almost 100% taken for granted here. Interestingly, however, I am accorded a good deal of latitude as a foreigner, although it’s still wise to say that I want to get married and have kids one day and all that (or, as many many of my foreigner friends do, to simply fake an engagement and/or marriage). Also, surprisingly to many in the West, many if not most women here don’t marry until they’re 25 or 26 or so (meaning, at 25, I have a few more years until I become truly undesirable, as several people have hastened to assure me), since marrying while they still are in or might go to university would mean that their husband was responsible for its costs, besides which men need a good deal of money to marry, and that’s often just not possible here with high youth unemployment rates.
Anyway, as a woman whose father *always* encouraged her to have her own opinions and find her own path – while still offering unconditional love and support – it’s been eye-opening to be in a place where it’s just assumed that “stay-at-home-daughterhood” is the natural (not to mention moral) way of things, and all the problems of “the West” are a result of our not following this formula. I sometimes feel some dissonance with my life at home – not just normal culture shock, but almost as if I’m a fraud and selling myself as something I’m not when I pretend to at least somewhat agree with this ideology in order to be culturally sensitive and not offend. But part of what I was raised to do was see the nuance in situations and realize that my way’s not the only way? or, failing that, that there is a reason some things are only temporary, like my stay here.
It makes me a cultural relativist I guess, but it’s another fundamental belief that I’m not here to “save” the natives or anything of that sort. At the same time, however, if I were more culturally or religiously conservative (not to mention heterosexual, but that’s another can of worms), I know that many of the things that I like and even love about this culture could lead me to want to forge a longer-term existence here (at present I am set to stay for 7 more months), particularly with many of the modernizing trends and latitude I am given as a foreigner that makes me have relatively more “freedom” than I otherwise would.
At home in the US, of course, this type of extreme patriarchy is another thing… particularly when it infiltrates public institutions and culture, as in the abstinence-only sex education I received in my public high school which also very much emphasized this ideology, if in somewhat muted form (Jesus couldn’t be mentioned by name, for instance, although it was obvious where he would have gone). I remember writing a paper on how I wasn’t sure if I was going to get married, and if I did, I doubted if my husband would care if I wasn’t a virgin, and getting docked serious points.
No. No, it didn’t. It’s very much associated with changes that go along with late medieval and early modern Christianity and worldview. (I am speaking solely in a Euro-American context here, sorry). Yes, most societies, over time, have consistently viewed women as inferior, and I can give you tons of example of sex-based oppression in pre-Reformation times. But this quasi-monastic, annihilate-your-will-in-favor-of-an-earthly-father’s, very much springs out of changes in the early modern West’s deployment of misogyny.
Aeaea: I don’t think that makes you a cultural relativist, or at least not a strict one. Not inherently. I hear more “my role in this time and place is not activism.” I’d say, perhaps, “my role as part of a colonial culture is never activism”–but by a pure seat-of-the-pants guess, I’d imagine you wouldn’t have a problem with, for instance, giving your resources to a local activist group. “The results seem to be better when cultural imperialism is not active, or at least not heavy-handed” =/= cultural relativism, and neither IMO is “I am willing to mentally suspend my beliefs in certain circumstances in order to try to see things from within another perspective as much as I am capable.”
I’m confused. If daughters are supposed to be stay-at-home, what are the Botkin sisters doing having jobs talking about how they should be staying at home and serving their father/husband with all their time/energy/etc? This is what always confused me about Dr. Laura, et al — if you aren’t a SAH mom, you’re a horrible person, but she’s allowed to have a job???
I guess I shouldn’t expect actual logic from these people, even when it comes to adhering to their proclaimed beliefs.
So, how exactly is raising a daughter in this sort of environment not child abuse?
Dawkins was right – in some cases, indoctrinating a kid with a particular religious viewpoint and making them live by it is abuse in the same way as beating them. Child Services should save the girls in these households – freedom of religion doesn’t include the freedom to abuse others and trample their rights.
aeaea:
Without at all denying the truth of everything this statement says and implies about the conditions of women in countries like the one you are now living in, I think it’s important to point out that the women in cultures like this are not automatons mindlessly following the will of their fathers. Not that you implied anything remotely resembling such an assertion, but what you wrote brought back to me of a lot of the reaction I got when I introduced my wife, who is from Iran, to not a few of my colleagues, who fancied themselves quite radical lefties/feminists/etc. One response in particular stands out: When this one colleague found out where my then-fiancee was from, she said to me in an obviously present-company-accepted tone, “It’s such a shame, don’t you think, that so many American men feel the need, because they can’t handle strong American women, to marry women from especially Middle Eastern countries where the women are so submissive?” She also made similar comments in front of wife.
I have no doubt she thought she was making, to me, a wry–and, to my wife, perhaps, a cautionary–statement about American men, but her comment betrayed such a profound ignorance of the women from the countries to which she was referring that it left me speechless. I really did not know how to respond.
Women’s lives in such cultures are, of course, horribly, violently, fatally circumscribed by the norms that make stay-at-home-daughterhood natural and normal, but it is, in my experience anyway, rarely if ever the case they are merely, simply, “so submissive,” in the way that my colleague was implying. They find all kinds of ways, both subtle and overt, to resist, subvert and undermine the male authority that is so determined to keep them hemmed in. Some succeed more than others; many, too many, fail; but it’s not as if that power struggle is not going on all the time.
Again, I am not trying argue. I just think it’s important that we distinguish between the male desire for “stay-at-home-daughter/mother-hood” to be “natural and normal” and the reality of the lives of the women who live under such conditions.
Hi RJN: Certainly, and I didn’t mean to imply (or lead others to infer) that the women native to the culture in which I find myself are in any ways automatons. I work in an field that is 90-95% women in this country (in terms of who does the ground work at least – administration is more of a mixed bag) and while tradition has strongly suggested (if not dictated) that women who wish to work outside the home do so in this field (or a very few others), every day I experience the reality that the women with whom I work – most of whom are quite religiously observant – are first and foremost individuals, with their own reasons for being involved in this profession. (Incidentally, they also have their own reasons for being in turns suspicious, interested, or indifferent – or anywhere in between – with respect to the work I do, but that’s another topic.)
This is of course also true of other women in other occupations whom I meet here, but my work is perhaps the place when I am reminded of it most, as many in “the West” like to point out that their work is perhaps less significant in terms of “female empowerment,” since it’s in such a thoroughly (and prescriptively) female field. In my experience, this is applying an entirely different set of standards in a questionable way, besides which, it just doesn’t appear to be true (and even if it were, I question whether it would be at all my place as an outsider to try to “change” it, and I thank Mandolin for better articulating some of what I was trying to say above).
There is a revealing and provocative new documentary that unmasks the true agenda of these programs like the Purity Balls and Purity Rings. Apparently the young female filmmaker grew up within the Christian fundamental circle and saw firsthand the disastrous results of this kind of message. There are quite a few articles out on her and the film.
One review I read said Daddy I Do is a “crash course in the shortcomings of Abstinence-Only Sex Education and the current Christian purity culture”. It would be fun to see this filmmaker Cassie Jaye take on Bristol Palin.
Check out the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X4BO56waGg
The part about nullifying a daughter’s vows is a misreading of Biblical law.
According to Jewish law, this stops applying 6 months after a girl’s bat mitzvah – 12.5 years old.
The whole idea about a father nullifying a daughter’s wedding vows is clearly against most Christian doctrines, not to mention the law. You can’t undo somebody else’s vows.
I also agree that “purity balls” almost smack of incest. If men or women want their sons or daughters to live by a certain moral code, they should teach it to them rationally and not come up with absurdities of that kind.
The responsibility for any genuine virtue must rest with the individual, or else it’s just imposed behavior.
No surprise here, but the Botkin Sisters and Vision Forum are deeply involved in the Quiverfull movement.
The problem there is that some conservative reasoning is that:
-People tend to evil naturally and need fear and a “stick” rather than “carrot” approach to doing the right thing.
(I’ve also seen it applied to male-male sex in the Middle-East, by guys who seemed to truly believe it – ie their wives were for making babies, but het sex isn’t fun, gay sex is fun…but you can’t romantically love the men you have gay sex with or you’re immoral).
-Without being forced to do stuff, people will not do anything. They “naturally tend” towards doing nothing or just doing fun things.
This sounds more reasonable, because it’s true people will party more and work less if not watched or monitored, in general (especially when young). But when applied to morality it becomes pretty awkward. According to them, murder would be rampant if it wasn’t condemned by religious law. People don’t have empathy. And being gay isn’t due to attraction, but only a choice to enjoy sin. Like when people rebel.
Ever heard the term God-fearing being praised as making people better?
Apparently conservative Christians are morally good solely because they fear going in Hell. Not at all because it’s the right thing to do. And hating sinners is morally good…even if hating at all is morally bad. Bible contradictions and all that…
Purity balls?? Ewwwwww. As a future priest in the Episcopal Church all I gotta say is that if anyone in a congregation I’m connected to is anyway involved in this bat-shit insane very creepy idea they’d better expect to get a sermon on a Sunday condemning their stupidity (with lots of ball puns as well).
Also, why the hell haven’t I been blogging on here lately??? I’ll be back, soon enough.
That’s great news, Jack! A nice present for the New Year.