White Protestant women have been set up as the standard by which all women are judged in this oppressive society. This standard is fueled by racism and anti-Semitism as well as many other oppressions. White Protestant women have also been instrumental in much of the work to end sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, and other oppressions. We are good hearted and hard working in the face of all the misinformation we have been given about other people in the world. We are eager to discharge the distresses we carry in order to be wholly part of the world.
The following is a report from a workshop in 2019 in the eastern part of the United States:
Diane Balser (International Liberation Reference Person for Women) has pointed out that the dominant Protestant culture has used sexual exploitation and male domination to preserve its existence. Many of us Protestant women have been physically and emotionally dominated in our families, leading us to become silent and complicit with racism, sexism, and classism. Owning-class white Protestant women, often considered privileged, have been held up as the standard by which all women are judged, yet that has come at great cost since that standard is held in place by sexual exploitation and violence toward those women.
When thinking about ourselves, it is also important to remember that we were born to Protestant mothers; they taught us how to be female.
We were in training to be good wives and mothers by their modeling.
The message was “Be neat, be clean, be polite, be pretty.” This was to train us into conformity and obedience. The training to be passive, silent, well behaved, with the appearance of niceness just serves to erase the real person. For myself, there is a constant fight to move out of passivity and silence. Even in my role as a state senator, I had to push myself to assert my thinking in all situations.
We were given the false notion that this was happiness and what we should want. Instead our counselors need to ask us for our real minds, buried under this veneer of “happiness.”
In April of 2019, sixty white Protestant women gathered for a workshop on how sexism had affected our lives as white Protestants and how our oppressor patterns, particularly from the dominant Protestant religion, show up in the counseling Community. For many of us, this was the first time we had put awareness on being from the dominant culture.
Prior to the workshop, I talked with a number of women who were not white or Protestant to get their perspective on our strengths and our hurts. This was very helpful.
In the beginning of the workshop we worked on facing our goodness and what we treasured about our upbringing. Protestant culture often equates goodness with work, especially work for others. So, we worked on our inherent goodness using the basic RC theory that all people are good, intelligent, cooperative, and zestful and discharged on the fact that work, while a good thing in itself, is not necessary to assure our goodness.
Given the individualism inherent in Protestantism, there has been the pull to create our own particular sects that are considered better than others. As a result, there are many individual Protestant sects all thinking they have found a better way. The confusion from being broken up into isolated groups and not knowing we are part of a larger group has been a major piece of our distress. Noticing that we belong with everyone else is an important contradiction to the isolation that was used to control us as young people.
We were born knowing how to treat people. Our inherent humanness was scared out of us. One ally remarked that we had been controlled and disciplined as babies. Harshness was a constant form of control. It came in the form of physical punishment, “shunning,” sending us away from others, and humiliation. One woman remembered being told to have a “pleasant facial expression” even when asleep. The requirement to not show anything was huge. This resulted in us often living with the pretense of happiness and security. Given the harshness that was prevalent in our training, tenderness with ourselves and others is key.
Given the pretense that “all is well” and our false training that says we are superior, Protestants have a tendency when we can’t figure out a solution to turn and walk away. Taking the direction to “stay, stay, stay” has proved invaluable.
Self–sufficiency is prized in Protestant families. We don’t understand that not being self–sufficient is better. Connection and leaning on others are our route out. We need to be connected to others in order to survive and to strive for something meaningful. Being engaged in meaningful efforts requires struggle, and struggle requires connection to a gang. It is a good and human thing. It makes life sweeter.
It has been important to understand that Protestant/Christian theology frames everything in terms of an apocalyptic battle of good and evil (thanks to Barbara Boring for this insight). Given this, we often have the misconception that if we talk about being bad or having had anything bad happen to us, we will be bad forever without any forgiveness or chance of redemption. This makes it hard for us to see any middle ground. We have found that thinking about how “significant” we are is a better contradiction than how “good” we are.
A common Protestant distress is thinking that our way is the only way. We were often trained to think that we have the answers and should tell others the right way to go. The missionary history in Protestantism suggests that we should help the “poor unfortunates.” Not acknowledging the arrogance and hubris in that position has led us to dominate others in a very distressed way.
Some helpful directions have been the following:
“Maybe I’m not the best person available.”
“Maybe I don’t know.” (Try not aspiring for perfection.)
Be humble and wait to see what others are thinking.
Slow down and feel the panic of not jumping in.
Look at all the hurt and don’t do anything.
First discharge, then act.
RCers have often noticed the effects of the pretense that has surrounded many of us Protestants. Being raised with pretense made it difficult to look at reality; and when we did, it looked scary. This has left many of us feeling that we can’t handle reality or truth. We end up feeling “fragile” or vulnerable and unable to show our fears. This inability gets coupled with individualism and leaves us isolated and unable to show our feelings or ask for help.
One good place to begin discharging is to experiment with being visible in public about something. We often fall into being silent, hesitating to get involved. Since we are from the dominant culture, we have the privilege of staying silent or not taking chances, for example, not doing anything about climate change.
Barbara Love (International Liberation Reference Person for African Heritage People) gave me some helpful insights.
She reminded me that it is important for white people to discharge our fear that leads us to retreat rather than fight. She reminded me that we have been studiously and diligently trained not to notice.That means not noticing that we are part of the dominant culture that often ignores that others exist, so we don’t notice how our actions affect them.
A key reflection she shared was that when we as white people are confronted with anything that is not familiar, we tend to discount its validity. Our training as part of the dominant culture here in the United States leads us also to think of ourselves as “helpers” and better than those we are helping.
It is always important for any constituency not to accept the damage done to it but rather to discharge the damage and take its place alongside all other humans. Its also important to remember that white Protestant women have fought for the rights of all women.
I look forward to hearing from others of you about your Protestant lives.
Thank you to all who have shared their insights with me and given me support.