The Chelsea Handler Childless Woman Upset: Other Conservatives Wrongly Conflating Married Motherhood with Womanhood or Happiness, Meaning, Purpose

The Chelsea Handler Childless Woman Upset: Other Conservatives Wrongly Conflating Married Motherhood with Womanhood or with Happiness, Meaning, or Purpose

After entertainer Chelsea Handler uploaded (Link): a Tweet with a video of herself listing the numerous ways she enjoys life due to being childless – I didn’t see anything in the video mentioning abortion – a lot of other conservatives jumped to shame and scold Handler for being happy about being childless and publicly expressing that happiness.

Others have said that Handler had two or three abortions in the past. The fact that Handler previously had abortions does not change the substance of my problems with conservative reaction to Handler’s video.

I am pro-life, not pro-choice, so I don’t agree with Handler’s actions to terminate her pregnancies.

However, again, I don’t recall Handler’s “happy to be childless” video advocating abortion or mentioning anything about abortion.

I don’t think her video criticized or shamed women for being mothers or for wanting to be mothers.

The only possible, even remotely “anti motherhood” take away one can get from her video is that mothers – assuming they are good, non-abusive mothers – invest a lot of time in child-rearing, but Handler doesn’t frame it in an anti-motherhood way.

It’s Okay For Women to Be Childless at Any Age and to be Happy About Being Childless, Just Like It’s Okay For Mothers to Be Happy About Being Mothers

Handler was just showing ways she has more free time because she doesn’t have to participate in childcare – which is not the same thing as being “anti-motherhood,” or telling other women they are wrong to be mothers.

It’s perfectly fine for a woman to be single and childless and to be happy about it.

Women can and should find meaning and purpose apart from marriage and motherhood. It’s unhealthy for any person to wrap up all their happiness, meaning, or purpose into one identity, station of life, or role.

If you are a married mother, your children will grow up, move out, and seldom visit you once they’re gone. Your husband may develop dementia, abuse you, or cheat on you, so that you will be without emotional support or you will have to divorce him.
In all these situations, you will be left with yourself, by yourself, and god help you if you never forged purpose, identity, happiness, or meaning apart from a spouse and children.

There’s no reason to criticize or shame an adult, man or woman, for being single and childless and for being happy about it and posting about it.

My fellow conservatives often push motherhood (via podcasts, tweets, magazine articles, church sermons, blog posts, etc) to a loopy, creepy, fevered pitch, about how super awesome, fulfilling, and wonderful motherhood supposedly is – but goodness forbid a childless woman lists or publicizes the ways she’s happy with being childless – and do so without criticizing motherhood or mothers. That’s a huge double standard.

I also didn’t agree with Handler’s mockery of single women who choose to remain virgins until marriage or to remain chaste (I blogged about that (Link): here a few years ago).

Unfortunately, in the midst of criticizing Handler, a lot of conservatives today were conflating “womanhood” to married motherhood. 

However, a woman remains a woman regardless if she has a child or is infertile, childless, or childfree, or whether she wants to have children or not.

An Example of Mocking Adult Virginity Via Twitter (Virginity Used As Insult)

An Example of Mocking Adult Virginity Via Twitter (Virginity Used As Insult)

I follow different types of accounts on Twitter (I’m on Twitter (Link): here), some of the accounts I follow are right wing, some left wing, mostly religious based, but I do follow a small number of political accounts.

While scrolling through my feed today, I saw an exchange between a right wing guy, Cloyd Rivers, and a guy who is a socialist, Feel The Bernie.

You can view a screen shot of their tweets (Link): here.

Here is what they tweeted at one another:

Feel the Bernie to Cloyd Rivers:

• I imagine whoever is running this account has never had sex let alone touched a woman

Cloyd Rivers reply to Feel the Bernie:

• I imagine whomever is running a Bernie Sanders account has never had a real job, let alone paid taxes.

I’m not terribly interested in the political wrangling going on there.

I just wanted to note that in the course of debating a political subject, someone out there felt it acceptable to make fun of another guy based on his supposed lack of sexual experience or sexual activity. As though being celibate or a virgin is a shameful, horrible thing.

Stop Assuming Dads With Daughters Must Be Disappointed by R. P. Payne

Stop Assuming Dads With Daughters Must Be Disappointed by R. P. Payne

I’ve never understood men who are obsessed with sons (with having one – with being upset if their wife turns out to be pregnant with a girl rather than a boy). Or mothers who are obsessed with having daughters.

(Link): Stop Assuming Dads With Daughters Must Be Disappointed by R. P. Payne

Excerpts:

• When my mom gets asked about our family, she’ll say she has “four grown children.” She omits the fact that all four of those children are daughters.
• “I’m just tired of it,” she said. “The dismayed facial expressions, the pity for your dad. I’d rather just not go down that path.”

• Fathers of daughters—even one, but especially three, four, or more—know this reaction all too well. Corey Widmer, pastor of Third Church in Richmond, Virginia, is the father to four young girls. He noticed that “90 percent of the time, when I tell people I have four girls, the reaction is negative. If it is positive, it’s usually because they came from a family of all girls.”

• We assume, on some level, that having so many daughters must be a disappointment for dads. Ask nearly any of these fathers, though, and it’s far from the truth.

(( click here to read the rest ))

A Valentine for the Single Christian by K L Bishop

A Valentine for the Single Christian by K L Bishop

She says a lot of things in her post I’ve been saying on my blog for years. So if you appreciate some of the points I’ve been making on my blog, you should probably dig this.

(Link): A Valentine for the Single Christian by K L Bishop

Excerpts:

…. It seems that being single in the church is a difficult situation these days. Many churches have made marriage and family somewhat of an idol. There have probably been millions of sermons delivered on dating, courting, marriage, waiting for marriage, etc.

But it is not often that our pastors preach to the adult singles in the pews, or encourage people to embrace their singleness.

Non-Romantic Nearness, The Billy Graham Rule, and Pope John Paul’s Friendship With a Married Woman

Non-Romantic Nearness, The Billy Graham Rule, and Pope John Paul’s Friendship With a Married Woman

Apparently, Pope John Paul II had a long term, platonic friendship with a married woman named Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka.

First, I will list an assortment of news articles summarizing the former Pope’s relationship with this woman –

And then I will link to (much farther down this page) a really good blog post by a Christian, Dan J. Brennan, who criticizes other Christians who sexualize all male-female relationships or who discourage male-female friendship.
He is against the BGR (Billy Graham Rule), which teaches Christian men to sexually objectify ALL women, even celibate Christian women and keep single women at arm’s length.

(Link):  Pope John Paul II secret letters: Pontiff’s deep affection for Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka revealed

Feb 15, 2016

Letters shown to the BBC by the National Library of Poland have revealed an intense 30-year relationship between former Pope, John Paul II, and philosopher, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. There is no suggestion the late pontiff broke his vow of celibacy with Tymieniecka, a married woman.

Christian Personality David Barton Thinks USA Needs Missionaries To Proselytize Marriage, Equates Adult Singlness to Sins Such as Violent Crime, Promiscuity

Christian Personality David Barton Thinks USA Needs Missionaries To Proselytize Marriage

Please do not get hung up on whether or not Barton is lying about visiting Russia, speaking Russian, or smuggling Bibles, as the story below focuses on, because that is not why I am blogging about this story.

I am blogging about this because Barton apparently thinks being single is a sin, which is in direct contradiction to what the Bible teaches; the Bible nowhere states that being married is preferable or better than being single, or that being single is a sin, or that it is sinful or wrong to not get married until thus- and- so an age.

Check out the excerpts.

(Link): Experts Dispute David Barton’s Claims About Translating for the Russian National Gymnastics Team

Excerpts:

• April 10, 2015
• by Warren Throckmorton
• Earlier this week, (Link): David Barton told his Wallbuilders Live co-host Rick Green that he once was fluent in Russian, was asked to translate for the Russian National Gymnastics Team in 1976 and smuggled Bibles into the Soviet Union “back in the day.”  Here is the audio followed by the transcript:
• Transcript:
  

  Barton: That’s right, and South Korea. South Korea, Nigeria, they’re sending missionaries to America like crazy. And of course, if I looked at the stats on America, yeah we’re number one in the world on violent crimes, yeah and promiscuity, sexuality yeah and out of wedlock births yeah and and lack of marriage yeah we need some missionaries here. We need somebody who can point us to the Bible…

Perhaps I am misunderstanding Barton’s comments, but it sounds to me as though he is equating adult singleness (“lack of marriage”) to being sinful, like violent crime is sinful, or promiscuity is sinful.

Please, David Barton, provide me with a Bible verse or teaching of Christ’s that says adult singleness, whether lifetime or not, is a sin.

You cannot find a single verse or teaching in the Bible where God frowns upon a person staying single, whether due to deliberate choice, or due to circumstance.

As a matter of fact, God moved the apostle Paul to write these words (link to Bible site) -that is,  that Bible Barton thinks people need “pointing to” explains that singleness is actually superior to marriage:

•   Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do.
• …28  But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.

Apostle Paul was apparently single. Are you saying that Paul is just as bad as a violent criminal or a promiscuous fornicator?

Jesus Christ never married, never had sex, and never had children. Were Jesus and Paul in sin for staying single?

No? Then why do you apply another set of standards to other Christians, and insist or imply other Christians are in sin if they stay single? Why are you equating adult singleness to promiscuity and violent crime?

And, by the way, there is no such thing as a “gift of singleness” or a “calling to singleness.”

Such teachings imply that God chooses and foreordains who will marry and who will not, when the New Testament explains marriage or singleness are personal decisions that God leaves up to each person, and God is fine with whatever choice a person goes with in this area.

I am insulted that this Christian writer and speaker dares to equate adult singleness to sexual promiscuity and other sins – God says in the Bible that he respects singleness and is fine with it. Who is Barton to teach otherwise?

Being married does not keep a person immune from sexual sin, nor will higher rates of marriage cut down on sexual sin.

I have many examples on my blog (link to my page of examples) of married people who commit adultery, married people who are into “wife swapping,” married men who are porn addicts, married men who have sex with horses, and married people who rape children – and many of these examples are of church-going, self-professing CHRISTIANS.

There is nothing inherent in being married that keeps a person safe from sexual sin.

The Bible does not say that people need to have missionaries speak to them to encourage them to get married, as though singles are in error for being single and need to be persuaded to “see the light” and convert to “marriage-ism”.

This Barton guy needs to apologize to adult singles everywhere for implying -and perhaps it was unintentional on his part, a poor choice of words – for equating celibate single adults to fornicators and violent criminals.

The Bible does not condemn singleness or celibacy; it celebrates both.

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Related Posts:

(Link): Christian ‘historian’ David Barton: Allowing women to vote ‘hurts the entire culture and society’ and prohibiting the female vote kept the family together

(Link):  Salvation By Marriage Alone – The Over Emphasis Upon Marriage by Conservative Christians Evangelicals Southern Baptists

(Link): Family as “The” Backbone of Society? – It’s Not In The Bible

(Link): The Myth of the Gift – Regarding Christian Teachings on Gift of Singleness and Gift of Celibacy

(Link):  The Holy Spirit Sanctifies a Person Not A Spouse – Weekly Christian Marriage Advice Column Pokes Holes in Christian Stereotype that Marriage Automatically Sanctifies People

(Link): Lies The Church Tells Single Women (by Sue Bohlin)

(Link): Statistics Show Single Adults Now Outnumber Married Adults in the United States (as of 2014)

(Link): The Christian and Non Christian Phenomenon of Virgin Shaming and Celibate Shaming

(Link): The Gift of Singleness – A Mistranslation and a Poorly Used Cliche’

(Link): The Nauseating Push by Evangelicals for Early Marriage

(Link): A Response by Colon to Regnerus Re: Misguided Early Marriage Propaganda

(Link): Gift of Singleness Gift of Celibacy Unbiblical – Those Terms and Teachings Contribute to Fornication / Editorial About Sex Surrogates

(Link): There is No Such Thing as a Gift of Singleness or Gift of Celibacy or A Calling To Either One

(Link): Singleness Is Not A Gift

(Link):  False Christian Teaching: “Only A Few Are Called to Singleness and Celibacy” or (also false): “God’s gifting of singleness is rare” 

(Link): Is Singleness A Sin? by Camerin Courtney

(Link): Misapplication of Biblical Verses About Fertility (also mentions early marriage) – a paper by J. McKeown

(Link): If the Family Is Central, Christ Isn’t

(Link): The Netherworld of Singleness for Some Singles – You Want Marriage But Don’t Want to Be Disrespected or Ignored for Being Single While You’re Single

(Link): Never Married Christians Over Age 35 who are childless Are More Ignored Than Divorced or Infertile People or Single Parents

(Link): Marriage Does Not Make People More Loving Mature Godly Ethical Caring or Responsible (One Stop Thread)

(Link): Why Christians Need to Uphold Lifelong Celibacy as an Option for All Instead of Merely Pressuring All to Marry – vis a vis Sexless Marriages, Counselors Who Tell Marrieds that Having Affairs Can Help their Marriages

(Link):  Singles Shaming at The Vintage church in Raleigh – Singlehood Shaming / Celibate and Virgin Shaming

(Link): P.T.S.D. is Not Biblical Says K. Copeland and Barton

(Link): Famous Evangelical (David Barton) Says Drinking Coffee is Destroying Marriage

(Link): The Irrelevancy To Single or Childless or Childfree Christian Women of Biblical Gender Complementarian Roles / Biblical Womanhood Teachings

(Link): Celibacy is Not Just for Homosexuals or Roman Catholic Priests / and a critique of a post at another blog

(Link): Husband Lying to Wife About Video Game Console Purchase Another Example of How Being Married Does Not Make A Person More Mature or Ethical

(Link): The Netherworld of Singleness for Some Singles – You Want Marriage But Don’t Want to Be Disrespected or Ignored for Being Single While You’re Single

(Link): Study: Couples Without Children Have Happier Marriages / Study: Having Kids Ruins Your Life

(Link):  Perverted Christian Married Couple Wants to “Wife Swap” (For Sex) With Other Christian Couple – Why Christians Need to Uphold Chastity / Celibacy For All People Even Married Couples Not Just Teens

(Link): New ‘Christian Swingers’ Dating Site Offers Faithful Couples Chance to ‘Hookup’

(Link): Sex and Alzheimer’s – Selfish, Perverted Husband Rapes His Alzheimer’s Wife

(Link): According to Pastor – Jimmy Evans – It Takes One Man and Woman Married To Equal A Whole – so where does that leave Christian singles ?

Middle School Bans Teen’s “Virginity Rocks” T-Shirt

Middle School Bans Teen’s “Virginity Rocks” T-Shirt

(Link): Middle School Bans Teen’s “Virginity Rocks” T-Shirt

• An Arkansas middle school is under fire for banning a student’s t-shirt which reads “Virginity Rocks.”
• Although 13-year-old Cloe Rubiano is saving herself for marriage, school officials are unhappy she is sharing that message with students at Ramay Junior High. Rubiano purchased the shirt at a Christian festival to display her pro-life values. The shirt says “Virginity Rocks” on the front, and “I’m loving my husband and I haven’t even met him” on the back.
• However, when she wore the shirt to school, officials banned the shirt and made her wear a school-issued gym shirt instead, saying the shirt might lead to uncomfortable conversations about sex.

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Related posts:

(Link):  I Shouldn’t Need An Excuse To Be A Virgin – (Secular Editorial Defends Virginity – More Rare Than a Unicorn Sighting)

(Link): When Adult Virginity and Adult Celibacy Are Viewed As Inconvenient or As Impediments [by Christians]

(Link): Celibate Shaming from an Anti- Slut Shaming Secular Feminist Site (Hypocrisy) Feminists Do Not Support All Choices

(Link): Marcotte on Anyone Choosing To Be a Virgin Until Marriage: “It’s a Silly Idea” – What Progressive Christians, Conservative Christians, Non Christians, and Salon’s Amanda Marcotte Gets Wrong About Christian Views on Virginity

Male Entitlement and Adult Virginity: Who has it worse, Male Vs. Female? (critique of post at other blog)

Male Entitlement and Adult Virginity: Who has it worse, Male Vs. Female?

The guy, John H. Morgan, behind this blog post I am discussing was eventually blocked from this blog about a year ago (read more about that (Link): here), but I think he still visits this blog regardless (which wouldn’t bother me too much if he’d (Link): give credit to this blog once in a while when and if he uses it to generate ideas for his own blog, because he apparently still visits this blog and uses it as a resource).

This is a rebuttal to a few of the points in this blog post:

(Link): How Does God Define Sex (posted Sept 4, 2014)

Here is excerpt 1:

•  Women who are waiting until marriage are virgins as pure as the driven snow. Men who wait until marriage become crippled with sexual confusion and permanent awkwardness . . . or worse. This double standard has existed for as long as men have walked the earth.

Maybe 50 or 60 years ago that double standard was in place, but no more.

The only places that double standard may still be alive today are certain extremist Christian cults, such as Quivering, Reconstructions, and patriocentric kook Christian groups, but not so much in run of the mill Baptist or evangelical circles.

Male adult virgins do not have life more difficult than adult women virgins.

The stereotypes male virgins endure (which I’ve written about a time or two previously) are not necessarily worse than the ones women adult virgins are subject to.

I would actually argue that adult women virgins, especially in the realm of Christianity, have to deal with harsher, or more prevalent stereotypes, more often than men virgins do. 

While there may be a minority of Baptist or evangelicals who shame men for not marrying and reproducing young, such as disgraced pastor Mark Driscoll and Southern Baptist Al Mohler, who tend to depict single males past 25 as being stuck in adolescence, the vast majority of mainstream evangelicalism shames women far, far more for being virgins past a certain age than it does men.

Why is this so?

Because even in secular culture – this is true for Christians too – men who do not have children are not questioned as much about their childless status. It is assumed that there is something wrong with a woman who does not have children, that she is unloving or horrible for not being “maternal.”

All of this revolves around the topic of sex, since, to become pregnant in a conventional sense, one must have sex, obviously.

Christians often teach that a woman’s greatest, or only godly calling in life, or only acceptable role, is to be a mother (see (Link): this page and (Link): this page)

I have never once heard a mainstream Christian group insist that fatherhood is a man’s most godly calling in life.

The Midlife Church Crisis – how churches marginalize anyone who is not married with young children and middle-agers are leaving church

The Midlife Church Crisis – how churches marginalize anyone who is not married with young children and middle-agers are leaving church

I have linked to her material before. I am over 40, never married, never had any kids and noticed by my mid 30s that churches are far too fixated on “family” and children.

This married woman, Van Loon, didn’t notice until she reached her 40s or so and became an “empty nester” (her children grew up and moved out).

I have been saying on this blog for over a year now that many churches, especially Baptist and evangelical ones, tend to exclude every one, except for children and young married couples.

If you are over 30, still not married, or are married with no kids, or are divorced or widowed, you are not even thought to exist by most churches, or your needs are not ministered to.

Everyone is expected to support the 29 year old married couple who has a baby and a toddler.

I see no place in the Bible that permits such favoritism, the negligence, by churches, of entire groups of people (such as adult singles and widowers) to coddle one other group (young nuclear families), but this happens routinely in U.S. churches.

The thing I find sad or frustrating is that while never married, childless adults such as me spot by our mid 30s, or earlier, that churches are too fixated on married with children couples and how this creates all sorts of problems for adult singles and churches, but it takes such couples into their 40s -or older- and it takes their kids growing up and moving out on their own- for these married couples to begin to notice the same thing.

If you’re a 40- or 50- something woman whose kids have grown and gone, and are now just noticing how churches place the “traditional family” on a pedestal and ignore everyone else, welcome to the club. We older, never married, childless singles have known this for years and years and years.

(Link):  The Midlife Church Crisis – In Christ, there is neither empty nester nor new mom. 

• by Michelle Van Loon
• ….I’ve had one too many conversations with empty-nester peers about what it’s like to go to church once our kids are grown and gone. Our midlife crisis of faith came from questioning not our beliefs, but our role in the body of Christ.

  When the bulletin is filled with announcements for mothers of preschoolers’ gatherings, family camping weekends, and Vacation Bible School, I know I’m welcome to lend a hand by baking muffins or doing crafts. I’ve gotten the message that, now that my own children have grown, my role is to support the real focus of the church: families.

  Decades ago, baby boomers and older Gen Xers pushed to create churches centered on the young, nuclear family. Sadly, this ministry model now excludes many of us. Having outgrown the local church’s core programs, we’re left to usher, teach fourth-grade Sunday school, or attend committee meetings. At times, I can’t help thinking: Been there, done that. Got the Christian T-shirt to prove it.

• ….Anecdotally speaking, it seemed that those over age 40 who discovered meaningful service, worship, and connections reported that their church was committed to intergenerational ministry rather than family-centered, child-focused programming. Though there is some overlap between the two ministry philosophies, the congregations that concentrate on families with children under 18 unintentionally marginalize those who don’t fit the profile.
• … When we church leaders ape our culture’s obsession with all things young and cool—targeting the same desirable demographic groups as do savvy advertisers—we communicate to those who don’t fit those specs that they are less desirable.
• ((click here to read the rest))

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Related:

(Link):  Aged Out of Church by M. Van Loon (For Christians over the Age of 35 – 40 – Churches ignoring middle aged adults)

(Link):  Why Even Middle Aged Married with Children Christians Are Leaving Church – Not Just Unmarried Singles | 40 Somethings Gen X Quitting Leaving Church

(Link):  Mature Christians Need to Stop Allowing the Under 30 Crowd to Direct the Entire State of Christian Affairs

(Link):  Youth Fixation in Churches and how it alienates older Christians

(Link):  Never Married Christians Over Age 35 who are childless Are More Ignored Than Divorced or Infertile People or Single Parents

The Marginalization of the Average Joe and Practice of Selective Compassion by Christian and Secular Americans

The Marginalization of the Average Joe and Practice of Selective Compassion by Christian and Secular Americans

I think conservative writer Ann Coulter’s editorial about Christians who shuffle off to assist ebola patients in Africa – which got her all sorts of vitriol by both left and right wingers, Christians and Non Christians – has been proven right.

I first wrote about that in another post or two:

• (Link): Ann Coulter’s Very Accurate Ebola Post Being Criticized As Being Insensitive – But It’s Not; It’s Accurate

(Link): Ann Coulter’s Article Hits Home — Literally, by S. Harris – And: further thoughts on U.S. Christian Priorities and Reverse Racism

(Link): Strawman Argument: “You’re Creating a False Dichotomy” – No, I’m Not (Re: Coulter editorial and U.S. Christians aiding foreigners)

After American, caucasian movie actor Robin Williams died from suicide a few days ago, on the one hand, there was, yes, a lot of sympathy and sadness expressed for him and his family online in the days that followed, as it should be.

But there were also some very insulting, unsympathetic views published, and at that, based on William’s skin color or his mental health problems, not only by guys like Bill McNorris and Christian Matt Walsh, but by atheist writer P Z Myers.

As far as I can tell, the Bible does not adhere to the concept of “privilege” as believed by liberals. The American progressives harping on “privilege” causes them to refuse to show care and concern for the groups they believe to be in power.

Jesus Christ taught that people’s sins comes from their hearts (from within), not from their environment, and he did not endorse the view that because you or your group has been systematically mistreated or oppressed at the hands of another group, that this excuses your sin, or makes it acceptable for you to hate your oppressor, or for you to refuse to show compassion to that group.

In Jesus’ day, ancient Israel was ruled first and foremost by the ancient Romans, and on a lesser level, by the religious ruling class (the priests and Pharisees).

A lot of American liberals will say it’s impossible for an American woman to be considered sexist, or for female dislike of men to be considered sexist, because men in American society hold all the power. They will say that because whites held all the power in the USA, that one cannot consider a black person’s prejudices against whites a form of racism.

Then we also get into the identity politics and hate crime laws, where liberals believe that someone should receive a harsher, or specific charge of hate, for, say, mugging someone in a certain group that they consider unprivileged.

For example, a crime that is motivated by hatred of skin color, where a white guy punches a black guy in the face, is supposed to be worse than, say, a white guy punching another white guy. A guy murdering someone who happens to be homosexual is supposed to be a hate crime, but the same act is not considered a hate crime if a homosexual or heterosexual murders a heterosexual guy.

I have never understood these positions, because, for one reason of a few, it doesn’t square with the Bible.

Jesus never once taught the Jews of his day that it’s okay for them to hate the Romans, nor did he excuse their dislike of the Romans, on the premise that the Romans held all the “privilege” or “power.”

General Observations Or Concerns About Stuff Christian Culture Likes Group and Blog

This is kind of a follow up to my previous post about SCCL (link at bottom – the group was recently mocking the T. Burpo book).

I found at least one blog post chronicling some of the abusive tendencies within the SCCL group (see link below) – this is so odd.

The SCCL like group members depict themselves as champions of the hurt and abused, but they sometimes bully and abuse other people themselves.

In addition, Drury (who is the owner and maintainer of the SCCL like groups, Twitter account, and blog), who tries to present herself as a feminist, and who also tries to come off as sensitive to homosexuals and more recently, transgendered people and their concerns, has made comments some of them have found offensive on several occasions on Twitter and/or Facebook, but she was reluctant to apologize.

You can read examples here:

(Link): For Surivivors of Christian Fundamentalism seeking refuge in Stuff Christian Culture Likes (group / blog)

A person (Shelly) on that blog left this comment (excerpt from her comment):

Another couple of people [at SCCL] were triggery for me, as they did shit that reminded me of the abuse I received when I was younger, and I no longer felt safe staying there, knowing that

she was perfectly fine to call out the abuse within the church system but wouldn’t call it out within the page that was supposed to be a safe place for the abused.

So I unliked the page, unfollowed her SCCL Twitter (I had unfollowed her personal one after t-gate), and stopped following the blog.

(end excerpts)

I’ve noticed the same thing.

It’s a group that scolds churches or Christian culture for perpetuating certain damaging views, or for allowing or committing abuse, but pretty much allows the regular members to bash the new-comers to the group who may speak up and disagree with whatever topic is under discussion.

I never joined the SCCL Facebook group. I may have left one post at one SCCL blog page once a long time ago (I don’t recall), but something never sat quite right with me about the types of people who post at either the group or blog, so I didn’t join.

The majority of SCCL members can seem kind-hearted and supportive most of the time, but then turn like sharks the next instant on an individual who isn’t keeping with the group think.

• (Speaking of which:
  (Link): The Danger of Groupthink Part 1: Consensus and Power – post on “Blog on the Way” blog)

I once read a blog post about how even blogs / groups intended for survivors (survivors of church abuse or whatever) can turn out to be just as abusive as the church or cult the person has left. (That post may have also been on Blog on the Way, I can’t remember where I saw it).

If you have been hurt by a Christian, a denomination, or a church, be very, very careful which other groups you choose to align yourself with in the aftermath, or for support or healing.

The group you choose to make your “new home” or support system just may turn on you in the future.

I have seen some people post perfectly polite, fine questions or comments on SCCL Facebook page and get rudely ripped to shreds, ganged up on, by several SCCL members at once over it.

It’s not pretty, and some of the SCCL members, at times, act just as horribly as the fundamentalists, evangelicals, sexists and “homophobes” (what a stupid, inaccurate word, by the way) they complain about.

There are also some hard-core atheists who sporadically show up to SCCL to bitterly complain about theism, the Bible and Christians, and they are some of the most condescending, obnoxious jerks I’ve come across. They usually get shouted down by other SCCL members, but they do post there on occasion.

There is a Christian guy, an older gentlemen (his personal profile photo shows a white-haired guy) named “Warren” who participates at SCCL.

I’d say the guy makes good sense about 95% of the time, but he still gets shouted down and treated rudely by the SCCL regulars – because, in knee jerk reaction, they recoil at anything that smacks of Christian or traditional values.

Stop Telling Women Their Most Valuable Asset Is Their Youth (From Time)

Stop Telling Women Their Most Valuable Asset Is Their Youth

This was written in response to G. Rivera’s comments that women should marry young, or not waste their youth married to losers on trial marriages or whatever.

(Link): Stop Telling Women Their Most Valuable Asset Is Their Youth

by J. Bennett

Why, in an era when we are succeeding in so many ways, do we buy into sexist tropes about aging?

…. Appearing on FOX to discuss the piece, Geraldo Rivera noted, to stunned female hosts, that what a woman brings to a marriage “more than anything else” is “her youth.”

Her youth?

Yes, “her youth,” Geraldo continued. Because a woman’s youth, he explained, “is a fragile and diminishing resource.”

Geraldo’s logic went like this: If a woman were to invest two precious years into a beta-marriage, and then, God forbid, have her man reject her (his words, not mine), she’ll have wasted her most valuable asset. The thing that is, obviously, going to determine not just whether a woman will have a family, but whether she’ll have a husband, and live happily ever after, at all.

…But Geraldo’s sin was not simply that what he said was impolitic. It’s that he put bluntly one of the most insidious and persistent smears: that women come with an expiration date.

It’s a concept that is still pounded into us at every turn, from media to pop culture–and not just by septuagenarian TV personalities.

It is there, almost tauntingly, in a recent article in Esquire, which seemed to bask in its own generosity by proclaiming that a woman could still be hot at 42–as if that were a reason to reconsider their value. It’s there in the endless media blitz by Susan Patton, the “Princeton Mom,” who’s managed to create a “mini empire,“as Salon recently put it, from “one crazy op-ed” about how women need to hurry up and find a man.

…The thing is, reality no longer conforms to those old tropes. Women now get the majority of college degrees. We have careers. We are living longer than ever. We can freeze our eggs to buy us biological time.

And yet our conception of what makes a woman desirable and valuable in society hasn’t caught up. From every angle, we continue to hear that we need to “rush.” That we should make it easier and more comfortable for the men around us. That our youth — not necessarily even our fertility — is our most valuable asset.

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