• The Marginalization of Single Women Via The Billy Graham Rule, Fleeing the Appearance of Evil, and James Dobson

The Marginalization of Single Women Via The Billy Graham Rule, Fleeing the Appearance of Evil, and James Dobson

There is much more I could say about the Billy Graham Rule (sometimes also referred to these days as “The Mike Pence Rule”) than what I am writing about here and now, but for this post, I wanted to narrow it down a little bit.

In the context of the Bill Hybels scandal discussion, news sites and abuse survivor blogs are mentioning how mega-church preacher Bill Hybels told one of his targets that under the advice of Focus On The Family’s James Dobson, he wanted to watch some pornography movies.

So, Hybels  – who was married – asked his target, an unmarried woman staffer at his church, a Pat Baranowski, to run out and buy or rent porn, then he watched it with her while wearing nothing but a bathrobe. Baranowski also lived with Hybels and his wife in their home for approximately two years.

One of the spiritual abuse survivor blogs covering this whole ordeal is The Wartburg Watch in this post, where one of the TWW bloggers, Dee, wrote this:

James Dobson was part of the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography in the latter half of the 1980s. Note how Hybels cleverly used something that was true to give him plausible deniability.

Mr. Hybels told Ms. Baranowski that he had been told to educate himself on the issue by James Dobson, founder of the ministry Focus on the Family, who had been appointed by President Ronald Reagan to an anti-pornography commission.

Calling it research, Mr. Hybels once instructed Ms. Baranowski to go out and rent several pornographic videos, she said, to her great embarrassment. He insisted on watching them with her, she said, while he was dressed in a bathrobe.

I am opposed to the BGR (Billy Graham Rule), for a few reasons, one of which is because it (like a lot of complementarian teachings, though side note: I don’t believe Hybels was complementarian) assumes several obnoxious things and perpetuates sexist stereotypes: it assumes that men, all men, are unable (or maybe unwilling?) to control their libidos, that all single women are sexual temptresses who have loose sexual morals and are willing to have affairs with married men.

Because of these assumptions, some Christians believe that men and women should not be alone together, especially not married men with single women.

• Four Research-Based Solutions Beyond Mike Pence’s ‘Billy Graham Rule.’ by H G Scott

To More Than a Few Good Men: Don’t Give Up on Working with Women

Snippets:

by H G Scott

Four research-based solutions beyond Mike Pence’s ‘Billy Graham Rule.’

……However, because of the Billy Graham Rule, Christian women often report feeling awkward or alienated in the workplace. They also feel diminished to nothing more than a sexual object.

• Women (and the men) Who Argue Against Feminism, Who Claim Men and Masculinity Are Under Attack, Or Who Insist That There is Little, to No, Sexism In The U.S.A.

Women (and the men) Who Argue Against Feminism, Who Claim Men and Masculinity Are Under Attack, Or Who Insist That There is Little, to No, Sexism In The U.S.A.

I am in the process of writing two or three different posts for this blog, and they are in Draft status. This post is an off-shoot of one I’m working on right now.

I may go ahead and publish this post right away, but it’s one I may come back to in order to edit, to add more thoughts or more links.

Most of the content below was originally part of another, separate post I’m working on.

I discuss Sommers quite a bit below. She is an anti-feminist feminist.

Sommers is certainly not the only woman I’ve come across online I’ve seen who criticizes feminism, or who insists masculinity is under attack, or who thinks that boys are treated unfairly in schools, or, perhaps, my biggest pet peeve:

Sommers is not the only woman to make the argument that girls and women in the United States have life just great, sexism is a thing of the past, and…

Because, supposedly, the Sommers-types of the world think, American women generally don’t face as severe a level of sexism as often as their Muslim counterparts in the Middle East, that American women who bring up American sexism are either…

• Whiny cry babies
• Lying about sexism
• Reveling in perpetual Victim-hood Status
• or Manufacturing outrage

Most of the research I was doing in regards to sexism and so on, for another post I was working on, kept turning up results for Sommers, which is why a large portion of this post focuses on her.

At this stage, I don’t really have the energy or time to devote a more thorough investigation and report on this. I may at a later date edit this post to add more examples of women such as Sommers, or in regards to related subjects.

At any rate:

LIVED EXPERIENCE

I am right wing.

I have never been a liberal, nor do I use the label “feminist” to describe myself, because, far too often, the word “feminist” is associated with far left wing causes and views I don’t agree with or support.

I am a conservative. In the past, I’ve always voted Republican.

On these issues of sexism, marriage, sexual harassment, and so on, I take things on a “case by case” or “issue by issue” basis.

I believe both the left and right wings, both the pro and anti feminists, get a lot of things wrong, but both sides also get some issues correct.

I am not fully on one side or the other (depending on the particular topic).

One of the things I can say as a conservative woman, who was brought up in a traditional values, Christian household: sexism and sexual harassment are real, both do do exist, and I’ve been personally subjected to them from the time I was  girl and in my adulthood as well.