Disrupting Patriarchy: A Guide

Why should the church care about stories of misogynist oppression?

The Church should care about any times or places where humans are suffering, especially if that suffering is caused by other persons. Because Jesus was a devout defender of the “lowly” and is widely known as the ‘Prince of Peace,’ he would seek to comfort those who have had these experiences and would challenge the power dynamics that not only allow those behaviors to occur, but also work to keep them hidden and powerless. Because Jesus cares about these stories, we as Christians must care too. In the liturgy for Holy Baptism, we vow to “respect the dignity of every human being,” and so when that is not happening, we are called to respond.

What can be done in response to the reality we hear/learn in these accounts?

The first and most obvious thing we can do is listen. Not with an agenda or end goal of some kind, but just to listen and hear what people are saying to us. These stories continue to be swallowed, or ignored, or disregarded, so the first thing to do is listen.  As Christians, we pray and we meditate on what scripture teaches us about how we should be treating each other. How the powerful are supposed to interact with the powerless. We seek God’s guidance as we deal with and reflect on really difficult realities in our lives and world.

The next step is to respond. Once we know something is happening, we have to figure out what to do about it. What is an appropriate response? Caring for the victim? Recommending intervention from the criminal justice system? Rooting out and identifying the unspoken, invisible forces of patriarchy that continue to encourage and enable oppression? Yes – all of this. Every situation is going to be different, so as we start to listen with open hearts, common threads may emerge (or not), but each situation has to be taken on its own merit and treated as its own instance.

We definitely don’t blame the victim. We don’t look for ways the victim was wrong or mistakes that may have caused the wounding. No. No one asks to be mistreated or deserves it. Jesus calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and anytime that doesn’t happen, it is wrong. The perpetrator is always the one who is to blame. We also honor the validity of the person’s perspective who is sharing her/his story. One of the most active tools of the patriarchy is to tell someone “you shouldn’t feel that way,” or “you’re overreacting.” Our feelings are internal indicators of something being wrong, and so if one feels a certain way about her/his experience, then we consider that to be valid.