• The Psychology of Victim-Blaming by K. Roberts

The Psychology of Victim-Blaming by K. Roberts

In my view, this article (see farther below) is applicable to a lot of the spiritual abuse or domestic violence stories we see on spiritual abuse blogs, and how so many churches mishandle them.

I have a few victim-blamers in my own family, including a sister and a brother – my brother’s victim-blaming tendencies seem to start after he joined Alcoholics Anonymous. 

I’d like to say, though, I don’t know if I agree with the author’s view that asking what a victim could’ve possibly done to prevent their victimization is blaming or not. I think it would depend on the tone, motivation, timing, etc, behind why one is asking.

For example, if someone comes up to you who was just mugged minutes before,  I do think that it is not the time to ask the person, “what could you have done differently to have reduced your chances of having been mugged.”

I personally have never been mugged, but I am very interested in reading articles by law enforcement that would give me tips so as to lessen my chances of being mugged. I don’t view such practical advice as always or necessarily being “victim blaming.” I think the timing and context of such advice matters.

The Psychology of Victim-Blaming (on The Atlantic) by K. Roberts

Excerpts:

October 2016

When people want to believe that the world is just, and that bad things won’t happen to them, empathy can suffer.

…Victim-blaming comes in many forms, and is oftentimes more subtle, and unconscious than Metzger’s tirade. It can apply to cases of rape and sexual assault, but also to more mundane crimes, like a person who gets pickpocketed and is then chided for his decision to carry his wallet in his back pocket.

• Non-Church, Non-Spiritual, or Secular Remedies and Treatments Don’t Always Work

Non-Church, Non-Spiritual, or Secular Remedies and Treatments Don’t Always Work

This is not the post I had planned on writing.

I was briefly discussing in an older post that most American Christians and most churches are utterly terrible at assisting most people who have mental health problems (and I’d also add addiction problems, domestic violence problems, and many other types of problems).

In order to appreciate my position on things, I feel a reader might want to read about my experience with depression and anxiety.

From the age of 11 to the time I was approximately 32 or 33 years old, I saw around four or five different psychiatrists, one psychologist, and one therapist, all for clinical depression and anxiety. (I also saw the therapist to receive grief counseling.)

I know at least one of those several doctors was a Christian, though we never talked about Jesus or faith matters in our sessions.

I have no idea what the religious beliefs were of the other MHPs (Mental Health Professionals) I visited.

From around the age of 15 or 16, up until I was about 33 years old, I was prescribed various anti-depressant medications and about two different anti-anxiety medications.

The medication dosages were modified by the doctors when they didn’t seem to be working for me at their initial dosages.

At some point during my 20s (I do not recall the exact age or for how long, but at least one year), I stopped seeing doctors and stopped taking the pills, because the doctors and the pills were not working.

I also halted medical treatment of my depression and anxiety because I assumed God was refusing to heal me and help me because I was using non-faith means (i.e. medical science) for a solution.

A small part of this view of mine was due to Christian teaching I saw or heard that cast the use of doctors and medications for psychological problems as being sinful or as showing a lack of faith.

• The Shifting Goal Posts of Complementarianism Show How Bankrupt It Is

The Shifting Goal Posts of Complementarianism Show How Bankrupt It Is

It’s telling that when complementarians start losing an argument on one point, they will re-define the argument or invent a new batch.

They will shift the goal posts. This is one indication of how bankrupt their gender theology is.

When complementarians began losing ground, in the last decade or so, to the arguments of non-complementarians, who pointed out that it makes no sense to insist that a woman be perpetually subordinate in role to men based on ontological reasons, they began dragging up the E.S.S. (Eternal Subordination of the Son) controversy, which states Jesus Christ is eternally subordinate to the Father.

You can read a bit more about that here:

Wade Burleson Critiques Eternal Subordination

These following pages contain examples by early church fathers of their views of women, and they’re not flattering or even charitable:

The Origins of Sexism in the Church – Junia Project (Christian site)

20 Vile Quotes Against Women By Religious Leaders From St. Augustine to Pat Robertson – AlertNet

Here are a few examples from the AlertNet page, comments by early Christians and their views of women:

Woman is a temple built over a sewer. –Tertullian, “the father of Latin Christianity” (c160-225)

Woman was merely man’s helpmate, a function which pertains to her alone. She is not the image of God but as far as man is concerned, he is by himself the image of God. –Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo Regius (354-430)

I cannot imagine Jesus of Nazareth saying of any woman, not his mother Mary, not the prostitutes he met,  or any other woman, that they were “temples built over sewers.”

• Yes, Complementarianism Infantilizes Women – and the Complementarian Tie-Breaking Vote Doctrine

Yes, Complementarianism Infantilizes Women – and the Complementarian Tie-Breaking Vote Doctrine

When discussing parenting, this post is assuming the parents in question are raising a physiologically and psychologically healthy child.

I recognize that some children are born with conditions that make them feeble-minded or mentally disabled in some capacities well into their adult years, so they will need adult supervision all the days of their lives.

Yet other people, as adults, get into car accidents causing lasting brain injury, or develop dementia, or other conditions, that leave them “kid-like” and dependent on other adults. I’m not talking about those types of situations, either.

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As I wrote in a much longer post or two, gender complementarianism is codependency with a christianized veneer, and the God of the Bible does not endorse codependency but cautions against it.

Complementarianism encourages women to think like children, act like children, to shirk responsibility for their own lives, and they usually start this conditioning and brain-washing when the women are still children, if they were raised in a complementarian family or church, as I was.

• Housework, Dirty Dishes, Complementarianism and Personal Anecdotes

Housework, Dirty Dishes, Complementarianism and Personal Anecdotes

In most of the relationships and marriages I have personally known, the males are the gold-diggers who sit around all day watching football, going bar-hopping during the day, or playing games on the internet all day, while their wife or girlfriend holds down a full time job, pays all the bills, and also comes home to take care of the house-work because the lazy slobby men won’t clean dishes, fold laundry, or do anything else.

Doing housework is not rooted in gender.

A lot of biblical passages complementarians point to in order to substantiate their claims are not intended to be timeless directives, but were products of their time and meant for their time period or locale only.

There’s nothing in the Bible that teaches that washing dirty dishes or cleaning laundry is “woman’s work” or that says women are better suited for, or designed by God more so than a man, to clean a dirty house ( see “Workers at home” or “keepers at home” in Titus 2:5? and “Busy at Home”: How does Titus 2:4-5 apply today? )

I am a little puzzled, then, by complementarians who keep behaving as though American women in the year 2017 are still living in the same conditions, societal expectations, or value systems as American women of the 1950s, or the ancient Greeks and Romans with whom Paul visited, wrote to, or visited.

• Complementarian Misrepresentations and Misunderstandings of Non-Comps and Feminism

Complementarian Misrepresentations and Misunderstandings of Non-Comps and of Feminism

I was a gender complementarian from the time I was a kid up until around my mid-30s.

As such, I understand exactly how complementarians think, and why they hold to complementarianism, because I was once one of them.

Comps (Complementarians) hold many inaccurate or untrue beliefs and assumptions about people who reject complementarianism, and they – like many right wing or Republican individuals – also have a lot of untrue or inaccurate ideas about feminism and feminists.

First of all, I should clarify from the start I myself am not a feminist. I have never been a feminist.

Secondly, I have never been a liberal or a Democrat. I am currently not a liberal, nor am I a Democrat.

From the time I was a teenager, I have been a conservative, and up until around the year 2015, I was a Republican (I am currently not affiliated with any political party or movement).

It’s quite important to mention both those points from the out-set because most complementarians (and secular conservatives) assume anyone who does not support traditional gender roles is of necessity a left winger, a feminist, or a SJW (social justice warrior).

Comps and secular right wingers further assume that any and all who do not embrace traditional gender roles must also hate the nuclear family, traditional marriage, children, parenting, or traditional values.

I’m going to clear up a few common misunderstandings or faulty assumptions complementarians (and secular conservatives) have of NCs (non-complementarians) and of feminists.

Not everyone who rejects gender complementarianism (traditional gender roles) is a liberal or a feminist.

• Examples of Girls and Women Being Assertive at Work, in Life, Women as Rescuers and Heroines

Examples of Girls and Women Being Assertive at Work, in Life, Women as Rescuers and Heroines

Complementarians such as John Piper do not feel that women should work as police officers. Some complementarians do not believe women should work in combat positions in the military.

So bizarre and unbiblical has contemporary complementarianism become in the last few years (they have a never-ending list of mishnah-like rules they believe women should follow), that even other complementarians started to sit up and take notice, such as in this post: An Accidental Feminist.

The occasional complementarian troll shows up at spiritual abuse blogs to insist all women are weaker or more inept than men and should therefore not be in positions of control, combat, or assertiveness.

These complementarians feel they are basing their beliefs on the Bible, but the Bible does not limit women in the fashion they do, or insist that all women every where for all time, are delicate flowers who cannot be rugged, tough, or assertive.

Deborah and Jael in the Old Testament were warriors – Deborah was a judge who also led Israel’s military, and Jael killed an enemy combatant.

For more on that, please see these off-site posts:

Deborah – Israel’s Only Female Judge Was Both Wise and Courageous

Deborah and the “No Available Men” Argument

Who Was the Judge of Israel, Deborah or Barak?

What About Deborah? 

Searching for Deborah

None of this is to say that men and women are completely identical or to deny that some biological differences do exist between the sexes. Most men have more upper body strength than most women, for example, but it does not follow from this that it is appropriate, fair, or right to prohibit women from working in certain capacities in secular careers or in the church.

As I told one complementarian troll, the world has moved on, no matter how much complementarians wish it were not so – women are permitted by secular society in nations such as the United States to serve in combat positions in the military or to work as police officers, regardless of what he or John Piper or other complementarians think.

I have never understood the complementarian push back regarding women serving in the military: “But are you really prepared to see caskets come back with American flags on them, knowing there is dead female military personnel inside?”

This question implies several sexist and disturbing things, one of them being, that somehow a female life is more valuable than that of a male, so I object to it on that ground, among others. I would not be more alarmed or more weepy seeing a flag-draped coffin knowing there is a female body inside vs. knowing there is a male body inside.

If a woman is qualified and interested in serving in some role (police, military, whatever it may be), she should be permitted to do so and encouraged by friends, family, community, and church to do so. There is no “biblical” reason which states or even implies that women should not work in “assertive” type roles, such as military or police.

What I see from complementarians on this point – their objection to women serving in combat – usually derives from cultural conditioning, their personal convictions, and is, I suspect, due to sheer sentimentality – not due to what the Bible actually says.

This is a post that I may add to in the future. If or when I come across new links pertaining to the topics at hand, I may edit this post to add new links.

The post is divided into these categories:

-WOMEN IN LAW ENFORCEMENT

-WOMEN WARRIORS / WOMEN IN THE MILITARY

-WOMEN PROTECTORS, HEROINES, RESCUERS

-OFF-SITE RESOURCES ADDRESSING THE ISSUES ADDRESSED ON THIS PAGE

–ON YOU TUBE (watch videos of or about some of the women mentioned in this post)