The Protestant Rights Crusade against women’s rights

No, this post is not about the more visible aspects of the Religious Right’s attempts to control women’s access to abortion and birth control (Anti contraceptive activity among the Religious Right is really starting to increase) but rather about one of the Religious Right’s more insidious attempts at undermining the rights of women everywhere. A major problem for much of the religious right, especially the Protestant Right is the emergence of feminism. The empowerment of women has meant that the Protestant Right’s dream of imposing their 1950s television show style world on the rest of us has gotten harder, due to women being able to do what they want. The solution? Bringing back the “Biblical Family”. To remove the code words talk, this means that they want to restore families to being under the complete control of the man, with the wife doing all of the dirty work, and the children being seen and not heard. (Or paraded out to do tricks for the neighbors) The Protestant Right quote one of the Epistles of Paul, Ephesians 5, to justify one mens domination over women. Unlike some of the odd Biblical quotes that the Protestant Right twists to justify some of their practices this quote is clear:

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

(I am a man and this still creeps me out. I would never want to be completely in control of another human beings life like that)

The solution that the Protestant Right has developed to bring about Biblical Families is to go after the children. They are doing this by developing outposts of the nineteenth century in the twenty first century. One of the ways that they accomplished this is to create subcultures such as the Quiverfull movement. Other solutions include Vision Forum (a Protestant Right toy company / ministry) and their catalogs of gender specific toys, and books, and the ever popular Purity Balls.

Probably the most well known part of this campaign is the quiverfull movement. The Quiverfull movement bases itself on this biblical passage: (psalm 127 verses 3-5)

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

To condense this, the quiverfull movement is about having as many children as a couple can have. The purpose of this is to out breed the liberal enemy, and to indoctrinate their children into the Protestant Right world view. Part of being quiverfull involves the women submitting to the man as a source of authority. Homeschooling is also a big part of the quiverfull movement. This is part of the Protestant Right’s belief that public schools are indoctrination centers. I find the quiverfull movement disgusting because it uses the woman as little more than a uterus.

Vision Forum offers both toys and books. Among the items offered for boys, is the sling shot, or this crossbow, are among other highly militaristic toys. Books by G. A. Henty glorifying the British empire at its imperial height round out this orgasm of militarism. What better way to teach your quiverfull of boys to fight the terrorists in the eternal (till the oil runs out) occupation of Iraq, and the even more eternal “War on Terror”. (Vision Forum is trying to pass 19th century boys adventure stories off as literature, and or history) For the girls, there is always the beautiful girlhood tea set, (at least this is likely to inspire one to colonize the rest of the world) or as far as books, the adventures of Elsie Dinsmore. (Vision Forum really has a nineteenth century fetish, and seems to think that everything was better then. They really need to watch some Masterpiece Theater…) In addition to the Elsie Dinnsmore Vision Forum also offers a 1850s guide to being a lady, how to be a lady, a book about raising daughters who only know how to do housework, and a book on “biblical femininity”.

Another way the Religious Right tries to keep girls away from feminism, is through purity balls. These parties, generally described as creepy are best described in this video by Bill Maher. The purpose of the ball is for the daughter to pledge her virginity into her father’s care, so it can be given to her husband. This is of course similar to how a women used to move from being her father’s responsibility to her husband’s on her wedding. This makes the women little more than property and is sickening.