Why Do Men Need To Silence Women?

Commentary

by

Christy Thomas

Two news items caught my eye today. First, Al Mohler, a fire-breathing Southern Baptist leader, once more seeks to ensure that women have less and less voice in Baptist leadership and decision-making roles. You can read more about that one here.

And then there is the good ‘ol boy Douglas Wilson, pastor to the classic alpha male Pete Hegseth, whose ultimate goal is to repeal the 19th Amendment, thus removing from women the right to vote or have a say in public affairs. Feel free to read more here.

I’ve recently been rereading some of the things I have written privately in the past about my own deep dive into, and eventual exit from, the world of conservative Evangelical theology.

All I wanted to do was become the best possible Christian woman and have the best possible Christian marriage ever seen.

Below is a snapshot of what life became for me during that time, when silence eventually came to mean survival, but survival without meaning.

How does a couple build a distinctively Christian marriage? This was our answer: find a church whose theology we agreed with and attend regularly, study and read the Bible and pray together, surround ourselves with Christian friends who will also seek distinctively Christian marriages, make sure the husband is the spiritual, financial, physical, social, emotional and volitional head of the household and then celebrate how happy everyone is.

Now, in retrospect, as I write this, I see a few big gaps: a lack of humility about our own theological knowledge, the significant denigration of the personhood of one partner in the marriage covenant, a lack of definition of what happiness actually consisted of, and an unreasonable sureness that such undefined happiness was ours for the taking, as long as we did exactly what God asked. But of course, the only one who could be sure of hearing God’s voice was the resident priest of the household, i.e., the husband.

I may have to repeat this many times here, but I will say it as clearly as I can now. Husband was/is not a bad person. Like the rest of the world, he had strengths and weaknesses, confidences and fears, securities and insecurities, talents and lack of talents. We were in a theological world that was ideally suited for him to develop a buffer against his fears and a way to prop up his insecurities in ways that, again in retrospect, were possibly the least healthy way.

It was no different for me. I was so unsure of my own identity, so completely used to being defined by the men in my life, and utterly grateful that someone would take the responsibility of me being me off my shoulders, because I had always found it so difficult to just be me. Whoever that person may have been.

So we sailed forth, confident that we could do this better than anyone else because clearly, God was speaking directly into my husband’s ear. And so we entered into marriage, each of us merrily projecting upon the other what the ideal husband/wife would be like.

Naturally, both of us experienced significant disappointment. Soon, the pattern emerged. While we might both express those disappointments early, the only voice that really mattered was the one that was filtered through Adam’s apple. It was my job to bend, shape, twist, morph into what would work for him. I was to become the ultimate shape-shifter.

This was not particularly difficult, by the way. Like many women, especially those who have never explored the core of our identities and have no real knowledge of our own shapes, I had already mastered the chameleon’s method of dealing with life.

Change to match the environment and work on becoming as invisible as possible. It’s the best possible way to stay safe in a dangerous world. And I was indeed in a dangerous world.

While I’m sure our memories of this differ radically—memories always do—there is one thing I know Husband and I could agree on: When he wanted his way and I was resisting, all he had to do was shout at me.

I was perfectly trained here. Some of my earliest and most definitive childhood memories were of my father raising his voice in anger against my mother, or more rarely against a sibling or me, and my immediate retreat to my hiding place under the bed.

I just never quit hiding under the bed, even when I got too big to get under it. Pretty pathetic, really. We disagree, I don’t immediately change my mind, he shouts, I cower, try to become invisible, and then beg for his mercy so I can come slinking back into his good graces again.

Many years later, I read one theologian’s take on the challenge of relationships between men and women. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was something like this: “Men will sacrifice a relationship for the sake of power, and women will sacrifice power for the sake of a relationship.” Now, that is just too pat to be true across the board, but it sure was true of me. I’d do anything to stay in relationship, including compromising the core of my soul—which I didn’t even know I had.

Here’s one way it played out for us. The Bible clearly states in Ephesians 4 that we should never let the sun go down on our anger. As careful biblical literalists, who were not averse to stretching things a little to make them more comfortable for us, we interpreted that to mean we should never go to sleep with any anger or frustration with one another.

Since any disagreement on my part with the way he thought or the decisions he made would prompt an angry response, we spent a lot of time working things out before we could go to sleep at night.

Unfortunately, I’m one of those people who need a lot of sleep. Always have, always will. I really, really do need a solid eight hours at night. That’s my body, and I’ve learned by now to honor it. So many nights were spent with him working to convince me that my opinions, thoughts, and decisions were wrong—some might call this brow-beating—until, in absolute exhaustion and driving need for sleep, I would simply agree.

You see? Clearly, I was willing to compromise my soul for the sake of relationship. Besides, he could always outlast me—his superior physical strength would never let him down.

My ultimate solution: a descent into silence. I simply became more and more an echo of Husband’s thoughts, pushing, hiding, shoving everything else away. It was a wonderful way to keep peace in the household.

For me, a successful day was one in which Husband got everything he wanted, so he had no reason to raise his voice at me. My life centered around catering to his needs. Pretty neat system—and I do need neatness, after all.

I also became physically ill. All that stuffing and hiding always produces consequences. Overfilled closets eventually spill out, and overfilled mental and spiritual and volitional hiding places have a way of making their presence known.

Devastating headaches, unexplained physical weakness, debilitating fatigue—these became a part of my life. Nothing really diagnosable, just general misery. Nice escape, on occasion, from the never-ending demands of his needs. In truth, he had a bad bargain with me.

Would that we had been able to be fully honest with each other! So much of this is my problem. I so little understood myself, and what little I did understand, I was willing to leave behind so that someone, particularly Husband, would treat me well and not threaten to leave me.

The possibility of his leaving was an early and oft-repeated theme in our “discussions.” He had early developed a powerful pattern of complete cut-off when relationships didn’t go his way. This was a real threat to me, and I knew it. It’s a very, very shaky foundation for marriage unless. . . it is also quite well undergirded by the theological world that informed it.

Frankly, our theology supported my lack of self. The quieter, more hidden I became, the more I was celebrated as the submissive wife. Brilliant, beautiful, and quiet. Very, very quiet.

This time of my life has long passed. And I am forever grateful to have eventually found my soul, my self, my wholeness as a woman, a human being, and as one who absolutely refuses to be silenced once more.

But the push remains: way, way too many men still want women to be silenced. And we must not give in to them, no matter the cost. Never again.

Author and columnist, the Rev. Dr. Christy Thomas is a retired clergy member of the former North Texas Annual Conference (now Horizon Texas) of The United Methodist Church. This post is republished from her Substack blog, "Quiet Resistance for a Noisy Age."