JW attitudes to women

by Frazzled UBM 40 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Miss Fitt

  For many years I worked as an assistant to a high profile company executive. I ran his diary, arranged his meetings, booked flights, hotels, organised managers meetings, organised social events, liaised with other company executives. All the usual stuff a personal assistant would do. It was a highly responsible position.

  My husband and I were regular JWs, going out in field service most Saturdays and Sundays. After we had been out I would note down our hours and placements in my field service notebook, and then at the end of the month tally up all figures and fill in our report slips, then hand them in to our study conductor. I did this for years. One time we had a new study conducter and, after observing me fill in our reports, he commented that it wasn't right for me to be filling in my husband's report. He refused to take my husbands report off me - he said I needed to show it to my husband first so he could check it was correct. I actually laughted because I thought he was joking, then I realised he was deadly serious. This was an elder in his late 40s who had been brought up as a JW so I was completely shocked by his attitude.

  Me and my husband had a real laugh about it on the way home. He remarked that if the then United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and her husband became JWs, who was going to tell he she couldn't be trusted to fill in her husband's report?

  At the end of every month when I was due to fill in the reports, I would whisper to my husband during the meeting, "just call me Condoleeza," and we would stifle our laughter. I'm glad we were able to find the funny side of it, otherwise I might have just punched the elder.
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  ambersun

  I am laughing so much at Miss Fitt's post as I wonder how that pompous elder would react if he only knew how many wives actually write their husbands' talks for them!

  When I was a JW I witnessed this happening, so I am sure it must still go on
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  Mum

  My sperm donor hated women, and I grew up in a backward area of the country, so I internalized the attitude of inferiority. One of my high school friends wrote in my yearbook, "[Name}, you're a nice girl. Lose that inferiority complex." I was very withdrawn and had little confidence.

  I became a "publisher" for the JW's at age 15, the only one in my family to do so. They loved me. I overheard some of them talking about how "good" I was when they took me to an assembly without my family.

  I married an elder, and he told me I had a "good attitude."

  Then I started hearing women on television and in print media talking as if they were just as good as anyone else. I was fearful of such talk, and resisted believing it. But living with an arrogant, autocratic JW elder can start a gal thinking.

  Some ridiculous things happened. For example, I was told what brand of bread to buy. I switched to another kind without permission, and was told to go back to the other brand. I did. THEN, a month or two later, my husband had a conversation with the "sister" who he thought was "pretty" and she recommended the kind of bread I had switched to. He told me to switch, per his conversation with her. That was it! I actually raised my voice to him, and told him I had already switched and he vetoed it, and that maybe the reason he wanted the kind of bread I did was because it was recommended by a sister who was "pretty!" He backed down. Soon after that, he told me that this sister "needed to be put in her place." No, she didn't. HE DID!

  Another sister in my congregation was told what brand of cooking oil to buy. She told me that she asked permission to buy the brand that was on sale, and permission was granted. How ridiculous.

  Once I was watching Eric Clapton (I think that's who it was) on television and was told it was inappropriate. A few days later I saw Bess Meyerson (I just dated myself!) asking a man about which TV programs he let his family watch. He began his statement with, "First I want to say that I would never tell an adult woman what she could watch on TV." Bingo! I was starting to wake up!

  Once my elder ex was going to conduct the Watchtower study. During the public talk he whispered to me that he wanted me to write down the names of everyone in the Kingdom Hall who he did not know. I did it. I could practically read his mind. I did a lot of clerical things for him. I also tutored him so he could take the GED. I'm pretty sure he failed it anyway, as no certificate was forthcoming.

  Loving my freedom,

  Regards,

  Mum
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  Frazzled UBM

  Thanks to all who have contributed. My wife certainly has a Watchtower Society -induced inferiority complex. I have had disciplinary issues with my son because she cannot control him and he is 7 (she had this problem from the time he was 2). She struggles t make the most basic decision such as what to order at a restaurant. I try to compliment her on stuff to give her confidence and ask her opinion to encourage her to think for herself but as a born-in she really struggles. It is painful to watcha nd it really makes me mad to think of the psychological conditioning that has made her like that but then she doesn't understand my steadfast refusal to expose my son to the same crap. She is certainly intelligent and capable if she could just believe in herself. She woerks as a cleaner but could do much more if she studied.
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  finally awake

  When I began my association with the Borg, I was a professional woman accustomed to telling men (and women) what to do. It never really occurred to me that my gender alone would disqualify me from using my skills to benefit the congregation. However, I was tired and overstretched due to a busy career, a pregnancy, and then a new baby. A second pregnancy and new baby soon followed and I had no interest in taking on a single additional task. The idea that women weren't required to do anything beyond show up to meetings and go out in service seemed like a good deal at the time. Just Ron and I shared decision making at home, and that never changed. He never developed the attitude that I was less competent based on my gender. Eventually, the anti-female attitudes at the hall started to grate on me though.
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  Julia Orwell

  I can write, draw, teach, paint, manage, administrate and so many other things, and it's so easy for my never-JW mum and psychiatrist to tell me to seize the day and become anything from an artist to a writer to a specialist teacher (I just do high school fill-ins) and so many other things. Yet I just have no confidence. After years in the WT I'm not the 20 year old who thought she could do anything, and went and did it. Now I'm scared of success...stupid WT. Trying to explain to my psychiatrist why I'm like this, that the JW religion encourages you to aim low, the lower, the better.
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  poopsiecakes

  Bumping this topic - mostly because it's an excellent subject with some outstanding points made, but also to show that yes, religion's attitudes towards women affect society in general.

  Some who have felt this from inside a religion like the JW's can appreciate first hand how it feels to be looked at as a second class citizen - even when it's couched in words like 'respect' and 'freedom'. So maybe Frazzled UBM can explain why it's clearly the religion that's the problem when it comes to how JW women are viewed and treated, but that Islam is not the problem when it comes to how Muslim women are viewed and treated?
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  rebel8

  The misogyny in the cult is extremely sick. I've posted so much about it in this forum I'm afraid the other old timers have had enough of me on the soapbox about this. lol.

  Google "pregnant as the result of even one sex interview, watchtower jehovah".

  The misogyny is not just mean, it's dangerous. For me, not being allowed to have blood products meant many close calls. The odds were waaaaay against me surviving until adulthood. But I could have been greatly helped by a single, cheap little pill each day. I was not allowed to have that because taking birth control pills would make me sex crazy like cows (refer to the article I mentioned in the paragraph above). Yes, because apparently jw girls are one tiny pill away from a starring role on Girls Gone Wild.

  The way they treated rape and rape victims was beyond reprehensible as well.
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  HeyThere

  I was appalled when I first picked up on the whole women = subjective, mindless, submissive sheep thing. I have worked hard in the corporate world to be treated as an equal, and here I go during a "good ol boy" crisis at work and hear the ignorance spewed from the pulpit. "Brothers, you may now be seated." So was I supposed to stay standing? No? Then why did he only say brothers could be seated? My husband would shake his head and later say it wasn't meant like that. Mmmmm kaaaaaay.

  Then the sisters I studied with, even if my husband wasn't home they would cover their heads. So weird. In field service, there were times my husband was the only male. I realized they expected him to decide the next territory or plans to work it. I didn't care. I wonder what they thought of my telling my husband how I thought it would be best to work it. They never said anything but stood quietly waiting. So weird.
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  Frazzled UBM

  "So maybe Frazzled UBM can explain why it's clearly the religion that's the problem when it comes to how JW women are viewed and treated, but that Islam is not the problem when it comes to how Muslim women are viewed and treated?" Attitudes to women in the Muslim world are appalling - I agree whole heartedly. As I have pointed out a million times on this forum - tolerance of Muslims and Islam as a religion does not mean acceptance and absence of challenge of appalling things done in the name of Islam and Muslims living in the West must respect Western values of tolerance if they themselves expect tolerance - so they cannot fall back on religion as an excuse for engaging in discriminatory behaviour. I am an opponent of the use of veils. I applaud laws criminalizing FGM and forced marriage. Tolerance of intolerant religions raises some difficult issues but it is only in an environment of tolerance and respect that these issues can be addressed.

  I would argue that by emphasizing those elements in Islam and discrediting those Quranic and other passages that are relied on to reinforce patriarchial social structures in the Muslim world are key. Attitudes to women - re education, political power, role etc. vary enormously across the Muslim world. Education and exposure to liberal thinking will help change attitudes but it is a long and difficult road. Trying to ban Islam or attacking Islam will be counterproductive. Every support possible must be given to intelligent liberal Muslim leaders. Isalm is a broad and diverse religion like Christianity - this is an important distinction with the WBTS - which is not a religion in my view but a tightly controlled cult in which a single governing body control every aspect of doctrine in a deliberate strategy. I see that my approach to these issues is difficult for you black and white thinkers on JWN to appreciate.

  I am not a defender of Islam - I am simply an opponent of those who try to say IS represents Islam and that Islam is inherently violent because this ignores the reality of Islam as a diverse religion representing 1.6 billion people the overwhelming majority of whom are not violent. The proponents of this view have created a one dimenional strawman Islam based on limited or selective understanding, that they are busily burning to the ground. The muslim convert responsible for the Oklahoma beheading had more in common with the recent school shooter than with mainstream Islam. Some respected clerics have now issued a fatwa condemining IS and its tactics and calling the beheadings what they are - murder. Unfortunately this will have little impact as IS will pay about as much attention to mainstream Islam as the WBTS woudl pay attention ot mainstream Christianity.