It is so easy to be righteously upset against abuse over women in far away places and yet when it comes to the oppression of women in our home town religions; very few will rise against it.
I don't know what to do with this.
Why do we fail to see what is right under our noses, and perhaps where we can affect the most change, and look instead to far horizons?
Why is the plight of women in other countries where our indignations go...as well as money even?
The rampant abuse and its generational legacy within the strict religions are left alone.
Why?
What would it cost to enter into the arena and demand rights for women to own their own bodies?
At what cost to eradicate child abuse or even to support children who stand against families of abuse?
I know how easy it is to hit "like" in support against women's rights.
But how are you, as an individual, standing up for women in your circles of influence?
How are women gaining control over their bodies here in the churches where I come from?
What will it take to make women here turn their attention to the silent cries of themselves and the generation beneath them?
Can a women who comes from oppression or believes in a Faith where women have very little rights, free women in other countries?
I just don't understand how the women within the religions are not seen as victims of the religion and suffer abuse on so many levels...and yet are not worthy, if you will, of outrage.
Is it the shield of religion that protects them from protests?
Does the very religion that oppresses them, keep others silent as well?
I get the plight of women in stress and anguish in so many far places. But, I also understand that there are women right in this small town who can use your influence and focus.
Most folks who I have shared my story with...want to automatically defend religion and family. Yet both of those places abused me.
A foreign country and strange men abusing women is easy to rise against. You have no dogs in the fight. You have nothing to lose...and stand to gain an image of standing against abuse.
But, what if while you are helping women in another country; women in your own religion are suffering the same plight?
Are we then to 'hope' women from another country will come in and help those in our area?
The simplest route is very tough and will require blood, sweat and tears from you. It will require you to question not only your religion and family; but self.
Who am I to look beyond my own fence...
When in my circles are women and children suffering generations of abuse under the cloak of religion/family.
It is to me to the least effort to go as far from home as possible to look at the oppression of women.
The toughest most impacting change that can happen IS to change the legacy within your family tree.
To end the effects of abuse to the generation below you.
Most look at the abuse as the act itself and fail to see the side effects of the way the family and church responds.
It isn't the act of being raped by my father that sent me into denial...but the reaction to it.
My mother's failure to exit her marriage to protect her child.
My mother's failure to exit her religion when it 'forgave the sin'.
My image of what a woman's options are, were set in place by how my mother walked.
How she controlled her body or allowed the church to.
How she held her faith higher than the safety of her children.
What good would it do for me to 'save' a woman in another country; while I continued to walk as my mother did?
Would my children and their children be affected as I sought to help a woman....but, couldn't save myself? Would staying in a religion whose legacy is to control women and their bodies help my daughters be empowered?
The insanity of 'trying' to help others while still oppressed...baffles me.
I cannot see how a woman who is powerless against her own religion can proclaim to empower anyone or save them or inspire them.
What am I missing?
Is it possible to overlook your own side effects from being raised in a strict religion...and free someone else?
It is to be sitting in prison and telling someone else how to be free.
I feel like I am banging my head on the bars....
The greatest thing a woman can teach her daughters is by being totally free and empowered herself.
If you are being controlled by church and family...you can't stay there and be free.
I don't even believe that most know they are being controlled.
Being in denial of the consequences of the churches oppression of women allows many to not know they are oppressed.
But, a hint is....or a few are;
If you can't use birth control...
If you can't alter your hair, nails, face etc.
If you are told what to do and what not to do....it is control.
It comes back to....can you know freedom IF you never had it?
And, can you free someone from being oppressed and abused...without first freeing you?
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."
