Final Thoughts on the Monstrous Regiment of Women

A while back, I ranted and raved about various aspects of the documentary The Monstrous Regiment of Women. In this post, I'm going to express some final thoughts on it.

One major issue I have with the whole Quiverfull Movement (which takes its name from a Bible verse that says something about children being like "arrows in a quiver") is that children seem to be viewed as trophies as opposed to human beings. The basic ideology behind the movement is the more children you have, the more godly you are. First of all, the Bible contains a lot of figurative language, and its stories are meant to be interpreted as guidelines for good living, not as inflexible rules to be taken literally. Secondly, how moral is it for a woman to buy into this ideology, only to become resentful of her children later on? Finally, this film ends up coming off more like fundamentalist propaganda as opposed to an expose of feminist teaching.

Speaking of feminist teaching, these gals' main gripe with it is that feminists subscribe to the worldview that humanity is fundamentally good. I'm sorry, but I just don't understand how these women can allow their belief system to dictate their entire lives if it makes them miserable. (Funny, they claim that feminists are unhappy, because they listen to their own inner voices as opposed to God. FYI, God gave us free will and intuition in order to find our pre-ordained purpose in life. It may not always be easy, but we're better off in the long run if we follow our God-given inner voices.) That's no way to live life, imho. In addition, they lambaste pro-equality legislation-- especially the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment)-- and claim that Christians believe in hierarchy, cannot be egalitarians, and can only support certain types of equality. Okay, Jesus was definitely anti-hierarchy, and-- excuse me-- but I thought equality was one of those things that couldn't be compartmentalized. Silly progressive me! (Y'know, I think one of my first orders of business once I make it to Congress will be to kick the passage of the ERA into overdrive. Take that, Phyllis!)

Oh, and then there's the life issue. More specifically, Quiverfullers are first and foremost self-styled anti-abortion activists. Abortion is undoubtedly the proverbial "sacred cow" of this movement. While I am personally pro-life, I feel that there is a big difference between life and mere existence. Existence begins at conception, while a life is what an individual chooses to have. Now, they're entitled to believe what they want, but I hate it when conservative Christians act like they have the patent on anti-abortion/pro-life thinking. Many Buddhists, for example, are ardently pro-life. Of course, most Buddhists and practitioners of other Eastern religions are also anti-war and pro-environmentalism. Narrator Emily Gunn very irresponsibly likens the feminist movement to a Holocaust or a daily 9/11 attack on babies. (For the record, I'm a liberal feminist, love babies, and would like to have a couple in the near future.) Another point I'd like to make is that most of the legislators passing anti-choice legislation are, for all intents and purposes, men. Here's the deal, folks: Until we can resolve issues like homelessness and poverty, women must be given the choice as to what to do with their bodies. In actuality, keeping abortion legal also keeps it a rare occurrence.

Finally, the women featured in this documentary heavily emphasize the P.O.V. that they are really only concerned with the welfare of white children. One commentator, home-schooling advocate Mary Pride-- a blaring behemoth of a woman-- explicitly states her belief in "demographic winter," a term used to describe supposedly dwindling white, Christian European populations. Pride expresses concern that Muslims and immigrant populations are producing prolific families. As far as I'm concerned, this is a blatant appeal to xenophobia (racism) that has become the modus opperandi of the Religious Right in the wake of current events. (Incidentally, Quiverfullers don't much like Catholics, either. The rationale here is that many Catholics now use birth control.) Pride's special features vignette seriously undercuts TMROW's entire pro-life message.

Alright, here's my final word on TMROW: I honestly feel that the views espoused by the movie's commentators represent only a small fringe faction of extremists. Furthermore, the majority of American women, even conservative Christian ones, have too much self-respect (not to mention intelligence and self-esteem!) to fall for this rhetoric. Most importantly, most Texas-bred gals are not Emily Gunn wannabes. A few of us want to be the next Ann Richards and, to paraphrase the late, great Molly Ivins (a fellow Lone Star lady), go out there and leave no sacred cow unbarbecued.