Christian Gender Complementarians and Far Left Woke Progressives and Transactivists – What They Have in Common
There are a few things Christian gender complementarians have in common with the following: the woke; progressives; social justice warriors; anti-Trumpers; exvangelicals (ex evangelicals); transactivists; critical theory advocates; BLM; Antifa, and anti-racists.
I don’t want to get into all the similarities I see among these seemingly- at- first- glance- totally- in- opposition groups, but one or two I did want to mention for now:
Both the Christian complementarians and the Progressives participate in “identity politics.” You’re not allowed to be an individual.
Complementarians divide people into the groups of “men” and “women,” and then ascribe gender stereotypes to both groups. They believe that all women are, or should be, passive, non-confrontational, and docile and enjoy crocheting tea cozies, for example.
If you’re a woman who is not passive, docile, or who does not enjoy knitting tea cozies and has no desire to do so, they either ignore you, or other types of complementarians may insult you or question your fealty to Jesus, the Bible, and the nuclear family.
The progressives, of course, put everybody into groups and then in sub-groups; the progressives will not only divide people up by biological sex, for instance, but if you are a “person of color” AND a woman, you’re now in a sub-group.
The progressives will then try to determine, via “intersectionality,” which group or sub-group is the “most” oppressed, and which ever group is deemed most victimized gets all the cookies (devotion, protection, attention, energy).
Members of these groups, who are declared to be most marginalized, are given carte blanche permission by woke liberals to treat other groups terribly, and to stomp all over other groups’ needs, rights, and concerns (one example of this on my blog).
Women Are Not Allowed to Have Their Own Opinions On Either Side, Christian Complementarian OR Progressive
Christian gender complementarians and woke, far left liberals (including transactivists, BLM supporters, and even a lot of progressive Exvangelical, anti-Trump persons, and some abuse survivor advocates) all have the distasteful, unfortunate habit of pressuring women to think a certain way.
All those groups also tend to guilt trip women or shame them when they won’t cave in to the pressure, and they also advise – more like command and dictate! – women to “let this group do your thinking for you. You are not allowed to question the group or its assumptions or opinions. You are not allowed to have or hold a dissenting view from that of the group.”
Women Who Disagree With Christian Gender Complementarianism
If you’re a woman who doesn’t agree with Christian gender complementarianism (or Christian patriarchy, which is essentially the same thing as complementarianism, but usually more severe),
complementarian men (and some of the women) in those belief sets will accuse you of being a liberal, a feminist, and/or a Democrat and will sometimes also accuse you of hating babies, men, meritocracy, due process, or the nuclear family.
The more crude, overtly sexist ones will also suggest on occasion you are “trying to be like a man,” you are “too old, past your expiration date,” you own 47 pet cats, and you never shave your legs.
Women Who Disagree With Progressives or Any Progressive View or Behavior
If you’re a woman who doesn’t agree with progressives on, well, any of their socio-political views (CRT, pro-choice, BLM, transactivism, etc), they will accuse you of being bigoted, racist, homophobic, transphobic, and/or of possessing “Internalized Misogyny,” and they’re rarely civil in how they express those views.
(This is, laughably and remarkably, after they stress repeatedly, especially in their online communities, how, unlike Trump voters and evangelical Christians, how tolerant and loving they are.)
The trans wing of the progressives will project on to you their own preoccupation with genitals that you “care too much about other people’s genitals / what’s in other people’s pants” if you mention you’ve read worrisome news articles of biological men who identify as women who have raped or sexually harassed biological women in women’s bathrooms, women’s domestic violence shelters, and women’s locker rooms.
Progressives will scream at you, or argue with you, that you need to be more intersectional, and “do better.” They tend to assume you are an uneducated rube with missing front teeth who lives in a trailer resting on cement blocks.
Both Christian Complementarians and Progressives Direct Women to Shut Up Because Women Are Dumb and Need to Be Told What and How To Think
Before I get to how progressives dismiss women, here’s how Christian complementarians (and some secular conservatives) play the game:
The Complementarian Christian Guide to Telling Women to Shut Up
I am an ex-gender complementarian (I wrote about being an ex-complementarian years ago on this blog).
My traditional- values- holding, Christian parents believed in traditional gender roles and brought me up in the SBC (Southern Baptist series of Churches), with the SBC also believing in and advocating for traditional gender roles, or what they call “gender complementarianism,” which goes a little beyond secular traditional roles but includes them.
Under comp (gender complementarianism), while I was a kid and a teen and into my 20s and older, I got the message not just from my parents, but also from mainstream evangelical and Southern Baptist publications and sermons and whatever other material (I grew up as a teen pre-internet), that I am supposedly too ignorant and incompetent to make choices for myself.
I was taught, under Christian gender complementarianism, by well meaning parents and the Southern Baptists (and Protestant Christian teachings and groups) to allow others to do the thinking for me, to refrain from ‘rocking the boat,’ from expressing my opinions, and to refrain from taking agency and control of my life, and from being assertive.
Under comp, I was encouraged to be very deferential to those around me, and to permit them to make choices for me, because others supposedly know what’s better for me than I do, and others know better what positions to advocate for and believe in than I do.
I was encouraged to be deferential to other people’s views (and needs, wants, and feelings) to the point I was, in a way, rather child-like in relational habits, even into my early 40s.
I was encouraged, by and under gender complementarianism, to be like a little girl in some regards, even into middle-age.
The comps set up a false dichotomy, in which I was told growing up – or it was conveyed – that I could either be a Jesus- loving, God- believing, nuclear- family- supporting, loving, good Christian, or, be an atheistic, hate-filled, Democrat- voting, man- hating, abortion- supporting, liberal, feminist.
Nobody ever explained to me as I was growing up, nor was I exposed to the idea for years, that there was a third or fourth option out there – this possibility didn’t occur to me until later in life, when I worked it out for myself.
I didn’t hear any alternative views or ways or living and being as I was growing up that seemed feasible for me (and again, I grew up pre-internet, so I didn’t have as much access as quickly and easily to information and divergent view points or helpful material as I do now).
As far as secular conservatives go (and some Christian ones), they, like liberals and progressives, do not think that I, a partially white woman, should be allowed to vote.
Both conservatives and liberals, and many Republicans AND Democrats, hate white women and resent the fact that white women can vote.
If you’d like to read more about that, I did a blog post about that here:
(Link): White Conservative Men (and some White Conservative Women) Don’t Want White Women to Have the Legal Right to Vote, and
and there’s this post:
I can’t help but notice that MEN do not receive near as much scrutiny for how they vote as women do.
There are Black men who are conservative and vote Republican, and while I have seen the occasional insulting article aimed at such men, they don’t seem as heavily criticized as women do for voting differently from how certain groups think they “ought.”
The men don’t get as much condemnation for how they vote.
Most of the ire is directed at women, even by other women (progressive women especially really hate and despise women who vote Republican, while some white conservative men lament that women have the legal right to vote).
The Progressive Guide to Telling Women to Shut Up
The progressives, the woke liberals – many of whom support groups or causes such as BLM and Trans Rights – are identical to the Christian gender complementarians in that they have also instructed me, a woman (and other women), directly or indirectly in their Tweets, You Tube videos, guest commentaries on cable news shows, books, and articles, to sit down, shut up, and go along with their views and playbook.
Especially in regards to the far left victimhood culture, people who are not in a particular victim group are told simultaneously, by progressives, that “silence is violence,” but then, they’re also told to not speak up and express their opinions about a particular topic.
To put this another way: according to woke liberals and their far left friends, I am supposed to be silent and not silent at the same time – I am not sure how that works.
Further, the woke liberals instruct us that not only should non-victim group persons keep silent while the POC (Person of Color) or transgender person, or whomever it is, gets control of the floor and is speaking, but we are not supposed to speak up and critique what was just stated – not then, and not later.
We’re supposed to just sit there in silence and “Amen!” everything in agreement and keep any doubts or criticisms to ourselves.
Goo-Goo, Ga-Ga
If a person disagrees with any of the left’s views on any of these social or political issues – and if we are a woman who is disagreeing with them! – we will be told, by the progressives, that our disagreement stems from “internalized misogyny,” which is very infantilizing.
Now, there may be certain times or situations where I can see how the concept of “internalized misogyny” may be true or applicable, but I notice that progressives trot this rationale out every time a woman doesn’t agree with a progressive woman’s (or man’s) politics or views, especially if it’s concerning socio-political views.
Do you know another group that infantilizes grown women? Christian gender complementarians, that’s who.
As one example of this:
Christian gender complementarians have an teaching they frequently refer to as the “tie breaker vote” in marriages (some of them may use other terms for the same concept).
The concept comes down to the idea that God supposedly intends for men to “be in charge” in Christian marriages, and that if a husband and wife have a disagreement over any issue, that the woman should always cave in and go along with the man’s choice or preference, because God has allegedly given the husband, in each and every Christian marriage, the “tie breaker vote” power or capability.
In Christian gender complementarianism, women and their input is shuffled aside and considered of no import – they must always give in to what their husband wants, even if the husband is incorrect or abusive.
The wife is supposed to sit down, shut up, and just go along with what the husband (and her male church preacher!) wants, even if she disagrees or knows the husband is factually wrong on some point or another.
In Christian gender complementarianism, grown women – even ones with college degrees and careers – are expected to behave in the manner of little girls, even into their 20s, 30s, and older.
By this, I mean, women are always to be deferential to men in their lives – especially their husbands, if they are married.
In complementarianism, grown, adult women are not regarded as fully adult as are men.
Adult women are supposed to adopt “little- girl-” like ways of behaving and thinking (which would include being passive and being overly deferential to other adults around them, especially to males), and this is passed off as being “biblical” and “godly.”
Some complementarians may believe in certain, peculiar biblical interpretations, such as, all women are easily deceived – they believe this is one other justification for why women should go sit in a corner and not be given a voice in marriage, in life, in the church, or even in American politics.
And by golly, if progressives and woke liberals aren’t guilty of the very same thing!
With the woke liberals, I will be told if I disagree with their positions, that I have internalized misogyny, or that I have white privilege, or white fragility, or that I am still a racist, even though I don’t hate Black people or knowingly treat Black people, as a group, lesser than or as inferior to White people.
In any event, one or more of these progressive beliefs will be brought up to mention why I should sit down, shut up, and not speak up.
Conclusion
As I’ve noted in previous posts on this blog, I am a recovered codependent.
I was driven to codependency for decades due to the parenting I received when younger, in conjunction with gender teachings taught to me by evangelicals and the Southern Baptist Church from the time I was a child into my adulthood.
I was told by my parents and the gender complementarian Christians that my opinions didn’t matter, my needs and feelings did not matter, and I should always cater to what other people want, and I should always prioritize other people’s needs and feelings.
It’s not just the church that wants me to be codependent, to be passive, to stay quiet and keep my opinions to myself and to think my views do not matter, but it’s also woke liberals and progressives.
One group wants me to stay silent in the name of their flawed interpretation of the Bible and in the name of God, and the other wants me to stay silent in service of their neo-Marxist propaganda, identity politics, and goals.
I Define Me and Do My Own Thinking
I broke from from codependency years ago and am still a work in progress.
(This is work I did alone. The Christian faith didn’t point the way out, nor did I consult a therapist or psychologist.)
I absolutely, positively do not have to stay silent or automatically place other people’s needs and feelings above my own,
- I do not have to automatically accept or agree with anyone’s conclusions or views in part or in total
(even if those persons or groups are regarded as “experts” in their field – while I value and will consider the input and findings of “experts,” it remains that sometimes experts are wrong, and sometimes experts get into “civil wars” with each other, where ‘expert A’ disagrees with ‘expert B’ on their field of expertise), - nor do I have to always center another person’s ego, needs, or lived experience – and not even their abuse experience or abuse narrative- above reaching my own conclusions or from voicing my opinions
The end goal with both Christian gender complementarians and Progressives is the same: to control women, and to tell women, especially the ones with doubts, criticisms, and disagreements, to shut up and stay quiet and just uncritically go along with the group’s agenda and platform.
The Christian complementarians and Progressives have different rationales and insults and guilt trips in their bag of tricks, but the end goal is the same – controlling women, and trying to convince women that their individual views don’t matter, so they should not speak up.
I’ve had enough of other people trying to define me, silence me, or tell me how they, their group, their biblical interpretation, or their political cause, think I should vote, think, or feel. I stopped doing that years ago.
Christian Gender Complementarians and Progressives have more in common than they think.
Related:
(Link): Life Lessons After Recovering from Codependency – I Can’t Save You, and I No Longer Want To
(Link): Pathologies of Victimhood by R. Gunderman – The Dangers of Victimhood Mentality
(Link): The Ex Christian, Ex-Exvangelical, Now Atheist Hits the Nail on the Head About Exvangelicals – post mentions SCCL, etc
(Link): Homosexual Couple Charged with Using Their Adopted Children to Make Child Porn
(Link): How the Left Uses ‘Love’ to Silence Debate (Re: Transgender Propaganda)
(Link): Victim Syndrome (‘Are You A Victim of the Victim Syndrome’) – by Insead
(Link): Some Muslims Don’t Know or Care about American Liberal Intersectionalism
(Link): The Left Can Be Just as Bad as the Right – The SCCL Pence Post
(Link): Leftists Harassing, Shaming School Children in their Anti-Racism, CRT and Ethnic Studies Programs
(Link): Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris Meets With Female Activist Who Ranted ‘F*ck The White’ Women
(Link): ‘Family values’ Republican: Men should be allowed to grab breastfeeding women’s nipples in public
(Link): AZ GOP vice-chair calls for sterilizing poor women: If you want a baby, get a job
(Link): Tennessee Republican Kicked Out of State House for Sexually Harassing 22 Women
(Link): Black Clergy Call on Corporations to Distance Themselves From Black Lives Matter
(Link): White Democrat Political Donor Gets Prison Time for Sexual Fetish Deaths of Homosexual Black Men
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