Fear Tactics within the Church

I was looking at my grandmother’s collapsible metal cup she had for years as I was growing up the other day.  I was putting dishes away, and saw it on the top shelve.  I grabbed years ago when I was cleaning out my grandparent’s house, and it reminded me of all the trips we took together.  When my brother or I would WHINE in the backseat, “Mimi!  We are thirsty!” she would take it out and pour us some water.

Mimi was the type that followed her husband’s leadership, and did her best to respect his authority within the home.  I recognize the speeches I hear about the roles within marriages, because she grew up in that type of circle.

I will admit they didn’t call them ‘roles’, and back then they were more in your face about the roles.

I see the same speeches today, but they more ‘nice’ about the definitions.  I have to giggle if those darn feminists made people realize how ugly it truly sounded, and it forced them to change their approach a bit.  Sometimes I wonder if that is why they hate them so much?!  I realize they will say that don’t ‘hate’ them, but how about a STRONG dislike!

The approach may not be the same, but the belief systems haven’t changed too much.  They just found a bit more politically correct way of wording if you will.

My mother grew up in this environment as well, but I know she questioned things.  You soon realize questions are not really answered, nor are they tolerated if they are in anyway seen as threat to that belief system.

It’s like today!  You either follow the program or you are one of those women like God talked about after the fall.  She will want all the authority for herself, and you can’t have it!  MEN were given that part!  There is no middle ground, but an either or circumstance.

If you look at human nature they tend to bow from the pressure of their ‘group’ if that is where your support is coming from.  You tend NOT to discuss things like this if you know you are going to be seen as ‘one of those’.

They still use that approach today.  It’s alive and well!  Its strange how they don’t see it as stifling at times.  It reminds me of cliques in school!

When my grandmother was growing up the extremes they told to keep things ‘as is’ may make people giggle, but they parroted them just as loudly back then!  Some may even sound familiar!

Through the 1890s, "scientific" reports were being released which showed that too much education could seriously hurt the female reproductive system.

In 1905 former president Grover Cleveland wrote in the Ladies' Home Journal that female voting would upset "a natural equilibrium so nicely adjusted to the attributes and limitations of both [men and women] that it cannot be disturbed without social confusion and peril."

Many southerners believed that white supremacy would be threatened if women, with their emotional susceptibility to the unfortunate, were to gain the vote.

From Britain: The leaders of the Anti-Suffrage League claimed that the vast majority of women in Britain were not interested in having the vote and that there was a danger that a small group of organized women would force the government to change the electoral system.

This one has a familiar RING to it: Another spoke of the insane craving of the suffragists to imitate men and of her pathological contempt" for women's work."

What were they really afraid of?  WELL, look at happen to this corrupt official!

By 1917, the campaign to impeach corrupt Governor James E. Ferguson promised a new era of reform in the state. Cunningham argued that women would "clean house" by voting in primary elections. Savvy suffragists used back-door lobbying to keep the old guard out of office by brokering support for reform candidate William P. Hobby, "The Man Whom Good Women Want." This strategy produced a startling incremental victory: women's right to vote in state primaries.

They also didn’t have an issue coming right out, and telling you their motive!

Liquor manufacturers and saloon owners opposed suffrage out of fear that women would vote to ban alcohol sales. The suffrage amendment was not ratified until a year after the country adopted prohibition. Some business interests opposed suffrage out of fear that women would vote against the use of child labor and for limitations on work hours.

Many opponents of suffrage argued that politics would debase, de-feminize, and destroy the family. At an 1894 state convention, Kansas Democrats said the vote for women would "destroy the home and family." In 1918, an Alabama representative predicted:

There will be no more domestic tranquility in this nation. No more "Home Sweet Home," no more lullabies to the baby. Suffrage will destroy the best thing in our lives and leave in our hearts an aching void that the world can never fill.

Some arguments against suffrage reflected simple gender bias. President William Howard Taft said that he opposed suffrage because women were too emotional. "On the whole," he wrote, "it is fair to say that the immediate enfranchisement of women will increase the proportion of the hysterical element of the electorate."

If you look at what they are saying you can clearly see projection.  The men showing their views with their emotional speeches, but using that as an excuse to NOT allow women to have certain rights.

Those in ‘authority’ didn’t wish to have child labor laws, nor did they wish to have limitation on work hours.

The corrupt ‘old boys club’ gets kicked out of office, and things don’t stay ‘as is’.

The one we can’t forget?  WELL they one they still use to day!  When women get involved you either de-feminize them, or you get feminized!  Families starve when no one is there to care for them, and ‘man haters’ are going to rule the world.

It’s amazing isn’t it?  They use the 1960’s feminist as the start of the downfall, but if you look at history?  They parrot the same lame excuses even in the period they claim ‘wasn’t as bad’ or ‘they knew how to do family then’ periods.

I remember my grandmother talking about ‘how it was’ back then.  Some of them were nice memories of course!  If you read the history of that period it was also easier to use scare tactics.  Men did stop their families from leaving the home, so they were not corrupted.  They also believed that you could make your wife submit if she rebelled.

My grandmother would only admit certain things in certain circles.  The fear and need for control doesn’t make people blossom as much as some would have them think.  We are to fear God, and not the cliques or the husband.  There was always fear of something in her circle, and I felt sad about that.  They could never truly enjoyed life outside their church walls, or within the fellowship of others within the same circle.  They feared it too much.  They were scared of a lot of things.

Keep in mind that not all ‘men’ at that time could vote either, which is one of the causes of the suffragist.  They had a host of scare tactics for not allowing ‘all’ men to vote as well.  

It wasn’t uncommon for your representatives for your area (for example in the Southern States) to be high-ranking members of the KKK.

Society and church were more in your face about ‘that’s a family matter’ if domestic violence was happening, or children were being abused.

Once the good old boys had some competition in some ways the law became more humanized.  Women and minorities that were being left out did bring change to the world, but you will always hear from those about HOW it wasn’t a GOOD change.  The white men that were left out of the voting process, and were later included?  They also did things to 'change' the world. You will still hear about how that wasn't good though.

I think some circles use fear, because fear is easy weapon.  Fear works.  You know when I saw my grandmother blossom the most without fear?  When she was healthy physically, but the fear vanished due to Alzheimer’s.  You saw the true her without all ‘rules’ and ‘human made belief systems’, and she truly enjoyed herself.

That should not be.

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