Imagine with me, if you will, a world in which men rule supreme.

Women are property, from the cradle to the grave, and the only thing scarier than the iron fist with which a father rules is the outside world.

Imagine baby girls born into families where they are intentionally stunted, pushed to the back, shoved to the side, chided for anything other than demure sweetness and a good work ethic.

Imagine little girls forced to cover their bodies, and even their heads, no matter the occasion, the temperature, or the activity. Imagine young women encouraged to focus more on their homemaking skills than their algebra lessons because they won’t be going to college anyway, they’ll be kept home, to “help their fathers,” serve their mothers, and care for their siblings instead of being encouraged to ask themselves what path life might have for them as individuals.

Imagine a world in which women, almost twenty years old, are not yet allowed to choose their own clothing, a nineteen fifties style dress is deemed immodest, and yellow is a colour outlawed because it “draws too much attention.”

Imagine grown women who have never, ever, been in public unsupervised. Ever. Not to the park, not to the grocery store, nowhere. Ever.

Imagine a world in which these same grown girls, too old for high school, kept from college, bored to tears, are not allowed to get a part time job within walking distance of their homes. Their primary documents are kept from them, they don’t know their Social Security Numbers, they have no idea where their birth certificates are, and their bank accounts are always joint accounts with father.

Imagine a world where, when a girl does screw up the courage to go to her father with a job possibility, something as “safe” and “feminine” as being a nanny, she is turned down flat. She should help her father, not another family. She is derided. Told she can’t possibly work outside the home. If she pushes, she is laughed at, and set up with “counseling” sessions with the other men in her community, who tearfully implore her not to “dishonor her father and her family name.” They remind her that to do so will ensure god’s condemnation and wrath.

Imagine Raising a Girl to Fear All Men…

To believe that every man is a threat to her body, and yet to believe that how she dresses, how she acts, whether she meets their eyes, are all contributing factors to their eventual mistreatment of her.

Imagine teaching a baby girl to believe that how men look at her is her fault. And that her role is to serve the men in her family to ensure her protection from all of the other men out there. Imagine a world in which girl’s bodies are so feared that they never learn to swim, because that would require a bathing suit.

Imagine a world in which bathing suits that came to the wrists and knees were specially manufactured and marketed just to be sure no man lost his self control over the soft inner thigh of a 16 year old girl, exposed while she splashed and played in the public pool.

Imagine a World in Which Girls Are Property

…and are told, from birth, that they “belong” to their fathers until such time as those fathers choose a husband for them and “give them” in marriage to that man. At which point they become the property of a husband, like a car, or a cow, or a house sold in a legal transaction (only more fun in the bedroom).

Imagine a world in which the grown women, the mothers and the grandmothers, the aunts and the sisters, stand by and let this happen.

They watch their daughters weep. They encourage them to “obey and honor.” They themselves, beaten, often literally, into submission to men who believe, with their whole hearts, in their divine right to rule. Theirs is a god given mandate to control their families, and they see themselves as the mouthpiece of the holy eternal within their homes. Even sons dare not cross them for fear of retribution. Imagine asking your mother for help and having her say no, pointing to the will of your father, even though she might disagree. Imagine asking your grandmother for help, only to have her fear of crossing her son keep her from coming to your defense.

Sounds Like the Taliban, Doesn’t it? Or ISIS?

Or some extreme group of crazy men, laughing maniacally through our TV screens. It sounds like something that happened in the dark ages, not in 2016. Or in some “backward” country, “over there,” not in white-bred-middle America. Something that might happen in Terhan, but not Atlanta, Georgia, or Columbus, Ohio. America is the Land of the Free, a land of Equal Opportunity, a land of Egalitarian Ideals.

And yet, there is an American Taliban at work, one that subjugates its women in the very ways we rail against in the Islamic world. The violent, abusive sect of religious extremists is hidden carefully behind white picket fences, cut glass church windows and the slick marketing of the Quiverfull movement.

Endorsed by “educational” institutions like Bill Gothard’s ATI and Bob Jones University, women are systematically stripped of their basic human rights through fear, manipulation, and straight up criminal behavior.

Make no mistake, this is a form of human trafficking, only it’s glossed over in happy Christmas card photos and the carefully crafted image of the perfect American family. It’s so easy to point a finger at the extremists of another religion and rail against the way “their women” are treated, but as a nation, we are failing thousands of girls right here at home.

This is my girl

My Girl… & Other Girls Like Her

I have a beautiful daughter. She is nineteen years old and a fireball of potential; a total bad ass in her own right. She’s attending university while working a career that she’s developed alongside her studies. She wears what she wants. She speaks her mind. She has always run with the boys, and a good portion of the time she’s kicked their butts.

She went through a phase of wearing prairie dresses and bonnets with bloomers underneath. She was usually found at the top of a tree in them. She can cook, she can sew, she’s an expert in all things home care and domestic life (as are my sons, incidentally).

She started traveling alone at 14. She taught herself to staff fight, and win. She speaks two languages and isn’t afraid to travel anywhere on her own. She lives alone. She fiddles like a wild woman and sings like a bird in a tree. She knows how to figure out what she wants, and she knows how to get it.

I can’t imagine a world in which we’d stuffed her raging wildfire of a soul into a sack, tied it shut and insisted that she live in there quietly. She knows her worth, she believes that she is strong and capable, because she is, and god help the man who tries to tell her otherwise. The thought of stifling her in any way makes me want to weep.

But there are girls… there are other girls… who’ve had their lights hidden under a bushel basket. Girls who have had their lone, flickering candle flame very nearly snuffed out. Girls who maybe don’t even know that there is another way, a better way. Girls who stand at the edge of my field of vision, hands on the bars of their cages, begging with their eyes to be free as my daughter dances around the bonfire of her life while her brothers beat their drums to encourage her.

Ruth & me at the Grand Canyon, summer, 2014

Meet My Cousin, Ruth

My cousin Ruth and I talk about this a lot. She was one of those girls; among the lucky few who managed to escape a marriage to an odious older man that her parents were entertaining in spite of her distaste for him. Five years on the other side of the veil of the American Taliban, she’s building a life and beginning to soar. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever fully heal from the deep wounding of her clipped-wing girlhood. That she suffered, right under my nose, without anyone knowing, without being able to help her, will always haunt me. Here’s what she has to say about life on the inside and the freedom of escape:

“I didn’t fully realize just the extent of how toxic my environment at home was until I got out. I felt trapped and isolated with no way out, I was taught to not trust the outside world but at the same time I feared the world I lived in within those walls more than the unknown in the outside world. So many nights I remember crying myself to sleep not understanding why my own parents couldn’t at least try to understand me better, why there were so many conditions placed on our actions, and why the one thing the religion we were taught is supposed to be based on (love) was rarely showed. It wasn’t until I got to know people in the outside world that I found out what true love was/is, people that genuinely cared about me, wanted to see me succeed in life and be happy. They didn’t criticize me for who I was (although I was very judgmental of them and their lifestyles at the time) they just loved me unconditionally. They showed empathy and were the ones that were there for me when I needed it most, who were kind enough to help me along when I was trying to find my feet. For the first time in my life I found people who showed me kindness and loved me for me. I didn’t have to change for them or fit into their box to be accepted. I have since made some connections with old acquaintances and church friends and have come to the realization that the way we were raised has had lasting scars and effects on our overall development. So many of my friends wound up in abusive, controlling relationships because that’s all we knew at the time. We had our parents making all the decisions for us, controlling our every move, showing disappointment when we didn’t live up to their standards, even harsh abusive discipline when not compliant, that was all considered “normal” in our world. I know some parents may never see that what they did is damaging and wrong only because they weren’t on the receiving end of it getting the brunt treatment, they were the ones controlling and manipulating everything. I have tried very hard over the past couple of years to weed toxic people out of my life who have a negative impact and are not supportive of me or my life and the way I choose to live it. The farther and farther I’ve gotten away the more I’ve realized just how miserable and broken I was. I may never heal completely because the wounds are deep and the years of programming and indoctrination are hard to erase. But with time and some distance maybe I will one day be whole again.”

Let Them Marry

And then, this week, the news of Vaughn Ohlman’s crazy Let Them Marry retreat hits the airwaves and the spotlight is shined, once again, on what’s happening behind more closed doors than we care to think about. If you follow that link now you’ll find a sanitized one page website and an admission that overnight they took down about 90% of their content. Why? Because it was incriminating, that’s why. I was up until two in the morning reading and becoming progressively more sick at my stomach as I carefully fact checked Raw Story’s links and quotes. The link to the Duggars seems to be a bit of a sensationalist one, I can’t find evidence that they know each other, but they are, in fact, ideologically in the same field. However the rest of the quotes in the Raw Story pieces (follow their links to other articles) were verbatim and not taken out of context in the least.

Here’s part of what was removed from their site:

“We do not endorse marriage at ages as young as twelve. Our position is that, for a woman: 1 The ‘youth’ ready for marriage has breasts. A woman who is to be married is one who has breasts; breasts which signal her readiness for marriage, and breasts who promise enjoyment for her husband. (We believe that ‘breasts’ here stand as a symbol for all forms of full secondary sexual characteristics.) 2 The ‘youth’ ready for marriage is ready to bear children. Unlike modern society Scripture sees the woman as a bearer, nurser, and raiser of children. The ‘young woman’ is the woman whose body is physically ready for these things, physically mature enough to handle them without damage. 3 The ‘youth’ ready for marriage is one who is ready for sexual intercourse sexually and emotionally. Her desire is for her husband, and she is ready to rejoice in him physically.”

So, they DO endorse marriage for thirteen year olds in some cases, apparently, which is illegal in all fifty states. This is happening in America, people. Right under our noses. These are our girls. Objectified, sold, essentially, for the pleasure of a man in order to have babies. Oh yes, sold is the right word:

“Bride price: What is it, and why is it important? Wouldn’t a bride price be like selling your daughter? A “bride price” is anything paid or given by the man or his representative at the time of his betrothal or receiving his bride. The bride price plays a significant function: It shows the woman’s value, and the point isn’t that the father gets the money but that he keeps it for his daughter, if her husband should ever abandon her.”

Here’s a thought: why not give the money to the girls? Then they can take care of themselves in whatever way they see fit. But no, that doesn’t make sense does it? They might use that money to buy a plane ticket and a new life.

Do the girls get a say in this? Or do the young men, for that matter? Read on:

“Scripture speaks of the father of the son “taking a wife” for his son, and the father of the bride “giving” her to her husband…. It gives example after example of young women being given to young men, without the young woman even being consulted, and often, in some of the most Godly marriages in Scripture, the young man is not consulted…. Some use the idea of “consent” to deny the very relevance of the action of their authorities to bind them in covenant, as if a covenant was of no effect whatsoever and all that matters is what the person themselves decide. Others consider a covenant to be something substantial but that it is not really binding until the person themselves “consents”. In contrast, our study of Scripture has shown that the Word of God considers a covenant made by an authority to be meaningful and binding upon the those under his or her authority. Biblical consent is not the “consent” of dating or courtship. It is not a “veto” power. It does not presume to cast judgment over their father’s actions. And so, a lack of consent of the individual concerned is a choice of disobedience, a breach of a vow and of a relationship. God has designed the marriage relationship (in particular that of the virgin daughter marrying the virgin son) to be a relationship initiated by the parents, in particular the fathers, of the young couple.”

So, let me get this straight: The Patriarch has the right to make binding contracts for those under his authority and the idea of a young person (regardless of gender) having “veto” power is construed as commentary on the father’s judgement moreso than the suitability of the proposed spouse? I guess in a world where Daddy is god’s mouthpiece he can never be wrong. (Insert expletives here… a really long, virulent stream of them, if you please.) This is a world in which the control is so tightly wound that whether the young people consent is of no consequence whatsoever.

But Wait, There’s More…

There was so much more. A straight up declaration that it’s unnecessary for the young man to be able to provide for his child bride, for starters. Selling girls into sexual slavery and poverty too? Makes perfect sense.

Taking it one step further, they laid out, in no uncertain terms, that the fathers retain complete authority over the young married couple, the man as well as the woman. The young people, apparently, are expected to continue to honor and obey the every word and whim of the Patriarch indefinitely.

Remind me again what the definition of human trafficking is? How exactly does one define a control freak? What about manipulation? Or narcissism?

I’m not a psychologist, but something about the idea of answering to Daddy in every aspect of my adult life until the old codger takes his dying breath seems a bit… off… to me. But then again, I’m a heretic, so what do I know?

This is Legal?

Sure, the Salvation Army, whose camp the group was planning to rent, (rightly) shut them down by denying them a location to hold the event, but they’ll just reschedule it, or host it privately, quietly, and the horror will continue, Ohleman’s daughter in law has said as much in her Kansas City Star interview. Technically, they aren’t breaking any laws, so long as they don’t facilitate a marriage for a girl under 15 in Kansas.

Of course the way this group gets around the technicality of marriage and those laws is by creating betrothal agreements between families, drawn up by the fathers of course, which equate to common law marriages in which the kidos live together and start having babies ASAP. And then, when they finally get past the statutory rape threshold, legal marriage licenses are applied for. Sick, isn’t it? True story.

Bounded Choice

“But what if the young people really are on board with this,” some of my more conservative friends are asking. “What if the children are choosing these marriages.”

Choice is a funny thing. Anyone who’s spent any time with a toddler will understand this analogy:

It’s time to have a snack. If you ask the toddler, “Would you like milk, or water?” The kid will pick milk.

If you ask, “Would you like the red cup, or the yellow cup?” The kid will pick yellow.

Milk is served, in a yellow cup, the child is happy, the adult is happy. Everyone wins. Sort of.

But is milk in a yellow cup really what the child would most liked for his life in that moment?

If you were to take the same child to Target and give her the choice of any cup in the entire store, she’d have come out with the Frozen themed, sparkly, light up cup that sings and has a curly straw. If you were then to take the child to the drink aisle and give her any choice of what to put into the cup? Well, we all know it wouldn’t be milk, would it? This, my friends, is how the concept of “bounded choice” breaks down.

Of course that example falls far short of the reality in that a cup and beverage choice are amoral, short term and have no bearing on the eventual course of a life. The bounded choice in the case of extreme patriarchy intentionally cripples a young person’s view of the world and their ability to make a well considered choice for themselves. Even the choices they are given within those bounds are laced with manipulation, judgement, and coercion, sometimes even extortion.

True Choice is an Impossibility

The point is that no person raised in an environment of extreme control, physically, emotionally, and academically, not to mention socially, has the capacity for true choice. How can they, when they have been presented with only a fraction of the options and those options are heavily filtered through a religious worldview that is designed to hobble them? Make no mistake, these young people are not choosing this life, it is being chosen for them, at a point in their lives when they are vulnerable and in no position to resist.

These kids are told that if they disobey their fathers they will be out from under god’s blessing. Their lives will fall into ruin with the horrible consequences of their rebellion and they will burn in hell. They are rejected, cut off, and turned out of the only communities they have ever known unless they are willing to “repent,” and submit themselves to the discipline of their fathers and return to live beneath the umbrella of his authority. To save themselves, many of these girls (and some boys) have to give up everything they’ve ever known. Does that seem to reflect the central message of the love of Christ to you? Yeah, me either.

What Can We Do?

My cousin Ruth and I talk about this a lot. The plight of these girls (and many of their brothers too) eats at our souls. It keeps us up at night. We are sickened. And we are triggered, time after time, by what is happening as it relates to what’s happening within our own family.

The two of us, together, are dedicated to defeating this mindset and freeing these girls, and we’re working on that. But, it’s not simple. There is so much evil, and so much darkness, and it seems like an impossible task. And yet, we must.

There are girls who want to pursue educations, marry men of their own choosing, marry no one at all, have careers in fields that inspire them, think their own thoughts, get their ears pierced and wear yellow dresses to dances filled with happy music and laughing peers. There are girls who are trapped in domestic slavery. Passed, like chattel, from one man to another. These girls are among us. They are in our towns, down the street from us, they are daughters of friends, and even within our own families, and they are suffering.

I don’t have the answers here, friends. I guess I’m looking for the whole world to help Ruth and me brainstorm. How can we save our girls? How can we defeat this ideology within the borders of America first?

Are there resources you’re aware of?

Were you this girl (or boy)?

How did you get out?

Are you connected to groups or services who could help on a grander scale?

Are you willing to share your stories?

Ruth and I have a deep personal commitment to defeating the American Taliban, one girl at a time. We’re crowd sourcing ideas. Can you help us?

Photo Credit: Patrick