Today's post is from Kathryn Joyce, author of Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement. Joyce is a journalist whose writing has appeared in The Nation, Mother Jones, Newsweek, and other publications. She has received support from The MacDowell Colony and The Nation Institute and is former managing editor of The Revealer, a daily review of religion and the media published by NYU's Center for Religion and Media, a Pew Charitable Trusts "Center of Excellence."
I'd like to thank Doug Phillips and Vision Forum Ministries for awarding me and Beacon Press their "2009 Vulgaria Child Catcher of the Year Award" for the publication of my recent book, Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, a journalistic investigation of a growing fundamentalist lifestyle that opposes all contraception and women's careers, proudly affirms biblical patriarchy, commands wives' and daughters' submission to husbands and fathers, and teaches homeschooling followers that feminism and gender equality-- even women's suffrage-- is the root of all modern social ills.
As Phillips movingly writes, nothing captures the image of this feminist bogeywoman better than the Vulgarian Child Catcher, the bloodthirsty enforcer of the "self-indulgent" child-free state documented in the historical work, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This Child Catcher, who seems possibly on loan from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, "with his net, hook, crooked black hat, odd funeral clothing, and protruding snozzola," sniffed out offending children and killed them. According to Phillips, I've done the same in my book (a "little book," he writes), which has been called by numerous critics (including evangelical flagship, Christianity Today) an empathetic and respectful entry into a lifestyle that would be easy to mock. Apparently, it takes someone with Phillips' "vision" to see that most of those reviewers are also "feminist leaders and 'child catchers' of many stripes," and that even Christianity Today has aligned itself with anti-family forces on a mission "to destroy biblical patriarchy and the Christian family."
Vision Forum, as a homeschooling publisher that has released numerous books that inform its self-proclaimed patriarchy movement-- such as Be Fruitful and Multiply, Passionate Housewives Desperate for God, So Much More: The Remarkable Influence of Visionary Daughters on the Kingdom of God, Manly Men Write Manly Letters, and the succinct Manliness-- is among the subjects of Quiverfull. And I've read dozens of their titles, as well as listened to many hours of Phillips's sermons and recorded messages promoting submission and prolific motherhood to girls as young as five, and heard a number of his speeches in person in reporting this book. So it's quite an honor indeed to have beat out Barbara Walters (an also-ran nominated for scowling at the prolific Duggar clan), Speaker Nancy Pelosi (for proposing contraception coverage be included in the economic stimulus package), and even President Barack Obama (for easing stem cell restrictions). Nice tries all, but it takes a progressive press, publishing "titles too vile to name," and a feminist reporter-- preferably one "trained to become a cultural revolutionary by one of the most significant radical feminists of the 20th century, Ellen Willis"-- to fulfill the antifeminist stereotypes of Vision Forum and "[prepare] the liberal media elite to target for widespread censure and persecution those men, women, and ministries committed to historical Christian notions of male leadership, biblical femininity, and the importance that parents 'be fruitful and multiply.'"
Part of me feels undeserving of the award. After all, as several reviewers and interviewers have pointed out, much space in the book is devoted to letting Phillips and his followers speak their piece. That so much of what Phillips and his fellow travelers have said about the roles they promote for women-- that they should call their husbands "Lord," that they should view prolific motherhood to broods of ten and more children as a non-optional highest calling in life, that it's more important that their daughters are taught to serve than to read, that women shouldn't speak in church, and that those who fail in these roles are rebellious Jezebels who warrant church sanction-- struck readers as appalling and nightmarish really seems like his doing, not mine. I hate to take the credit for merely documenting the work that Phillips and co. have done, but I'm loath to turn down an award. So thank you Vision Forum. An award like this from an institution like yours is cause for pride indeed.
Congratulations!!! Quite an honor. Sometimes one's enemies turn out to be more perceptive than polite reviewers. The fringe often grasp more clearly what exposing them to the light of day might do.
When the Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD) came after a moderately feminist church-women conference called "Re-imagining" in 1993, we created an honor roll of women they smeared and trashed. I will suggest you be added!
Look forward to reading your book.
Posted by: Rita Brock | May 13, 2009 at 05:32 PM