The Vagina Clown Car Movement. Real and Dangerous
Offline The Vagina Clown Car Movement is apparently picking up steam. It's certainly getting a lot of mainstream coverage. This article in Newsweek says a lot of the things that should alert us to the real dangers of this very politically motivated movement. Forgive me for doing a lot of quoting, but I think there's a lot here that you need to know, and I can't really hope to improve on the words straight from the horse's mouth.
At the heart of this reality-show depiction of "extreme motherhood" is a growing conservative Christian emphasis on the importance of women submitting to their husbands and fathers, an antifeminist backlash that holds that gender equality is contrary to God's law and that women's highest calling is as wives and "prolific" mothers.
There you have it, folks. At the heart of the vagina clown car movement is a blatantly sexist agenda. This is about men, not women. Should we be surprised that people who are trying to return to the roots of a misogynist Bronze Age mythology should rediscover the idea that the best way to keep women quiet is to keep them barefoot and pregnant?
Mary Pride, an early homeschooling leader whose 1985 book "The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality" is a founding text of Quiverfull, convinced many readers that regulating one's fertility is a slippery slope. "Family planning is the mother of abortion," she writes. "A generation had to be indoctrinated in the ideal of planning children around personal convenience before abortion could be popular." Instead, Pride and her peers argue, Christians should leave family planning in God's hands, and become "maternal missionaries": birthing as many children as He gives them as both a demonstration of radical faith and obedience, as well as a plan to effect Christian revival in the culture through demographic means—that is, by having more children than their political opponents.
Honestly, you couldn't ask for more. The woman who wrote the book on the subject admits -- nay, brags -- that this is about controlling politics. We should not take this too lightly. Maybe it's a fringe element now, but we should never discount the power of large groups of delusional zealots.
Often, children of the movement are also called "arrows." Quiverfull takes its name from Psalm 127: "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate." A wealth of military metaphors follows from this namesake, as Pride and her fellow advocates urge women toward militant fecundity in the service of religious rebirth: creating what they bluntly refer to as an army of devout children to wage spiritual battle against God's enemies. As Quiverfull author Rachel Scott writes in her 2004 movement book, "Birthing God's Mighty Warriors," "Children are our ammunition in the spiritual realm to whip the enemy! These special arrows were handcrafted by the warrior himself and were carefully fashioned to achieve the purpose of annihilating the enemy."
I'm actually finding it hard to think of anything to say about this. If you don't read this and feel a twinge of fear, something is wrong with you. These people are ambitious, zealous, delusional, and growing in power.
Quiverfull advocates Rick and Jan Hess, authors of 1990's "A Full Quiver: Family Planning and the Lordship of Christ," envision the worldly gains such a method could bring, if more Christians began producing "full quivers" of "arrows for the war": control of both houses of Congress, the "reclamation" of sinful cities like San Francisco and massive boycotts of companies that do not comply with conservative Christian mores. "If the body of Christ had been reproducing as we were designed to do," the Hesses write, "we would not be in the mess we are today." Nancy Campbell, author of another movement book from 2003 called "Be Fruitful and Multiply," exhorts Christian women to do just that with promises of spiritual glory. "Oh what a vision," she writes, "to invade the earth with mighty sons and daughters who have been trained and prepared for God's divine purposes."
I mean, hell's bells, folks! These people think they're building an army for Jesus! And somebody thinks this is ok? We're ok with people having seventeen kids and training them all to believe that women are subservient to men, and then getting them to take over Congress? Really? This is ok?
Quiverfull doesn't follow from any particular church's teachings but rather is a conviction shared by evangelical and fundamentalist Christians across denominational lines, often spread through the burgeoning conservative homeschooling community, which the U.S. Department of Education estimates has more than 1 million school-age children, and which homeschooling groups say easily has twice that number.
Two million! I wasn't kidding when I said this movement is dangerous, and that it's growing. You think eight years of Bushie-Jesus was bad? Wait until Congress is filled with these nut-jobs and they get a president who sees things their way.
Quiverfull's pronatalist emphasis is linked to a companion doctrine of strident antifeminism among conservative Christians who see the women's liberation movement as the origin of a host of social ills, from abortion to divorce, women working and teen sex.
If I was a woman, I'm pretty sure I would be absolutely outraged. No more divorce? No working women? And tell me, please, how feminism leads to teen sex. That's just baffling.
At the forefront of evangelical opposition to feminism is a group of self-described "patriarchy" advocates, who have reclaimed the term from women's studies curricula to advocate a strict "complementarian" theology of wives and daughters being submissive to their husbands and fathers.
You see? I'm not making this shit up, and I'm not exaggerating.
This resurgent emphasis on women's submissiveness takes many forms, from the statement by the 16 million member Southern Baptist Convention that wives must "graciously submit" to their husband's "loving headship" and the theological works being written by the SBC-affiliated Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, to far more severe interpretations that claim women's absolute obedience to their husbands is the first, necessary step toward Christians reclaiming the culture.
Sixteen million. Yeah, I know, the Southern Baptists aren't the same as the Quiverfulls, but I can tell you from my own upbringing that anti-feminism and patriarchy are very near the surface in a lot of Baptist churches. I've been to a lot of churches, and it's not hard to spot the sentiment. Trust me. These two groups are allies in the making, and we should not underestimate the power of the SBC in politics.
Some of the next generation of daughters is responding. Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin, two young women in the Quiverfull movement who authored a book encouraging daughters to follow in their mothers' footsteps, "So Much More: The Remarkable Influence of Visionary Daughters on the Kingdom of God," instruct their young peers to view motherhood to as women's "final secret weapon in the battle for progressive dominion."
Gentle readers, please do not let yourself be lulled into complacency by the reassurance that this is a fringe group, or that they are just a nutty group of extremists who could never hold sway over a whole country. They have two very powerful weapons -- religion and motherhood -- both of which elicit vitriolic gut level reactions when they are publicly criticized in any way. The people leading this movement know very well what they are doing. They are literally trying to outbreed dissenters and take over the country. It doesn't take much math to realize that what they're doing is not only possible, but relatively easy, given a few generations.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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The only defense against this is to directly attack the culture that supports this. We cannot counter-attack by having more children ourselves. That would just lead to worse over-population. We must instead generate more *cultural* offspring than they do. The thing about genetics is it takes about 15-20 years to pass on to the next generation. When culture is passed on down through this familial relationship, it therefore takes about 15-20 years to pass on. However, culture is not restricted to so-called 'vertical' transmission of ideas. It is also capable of 'horizontal' transmission, from peer-to-peer, rather than parent-to-child.
In fact, this Vagina Clown Car movement (great name, BTW, Hamby) is primarily spreading through horizontal transmission at this moment in time. They are writing books and selling them, using homeschooling networks to spread the idea from one family to the next, etc. The idea is spreading much faster this way than it is spreading through actual children.
So, the right counter-attack is to directly attack the idea, and start a counter-movement. I suggest ridicule, spreading the counter-movement to existing feminist groups, coming up with counter-movement memes to spread in homeschooling networks, more ridicule, lots and lots of ridicule, and more ridicule.
And other ideas, which I'm sure we'll come up with, of course.
I agree with Hamby that 'motherhood' will be one of those topics that people will defend religiously. But isn't that what RRS does best? Confront strongly held stupid ideas? We will not just face the VCC movement themselves, we'll also face their equivalent of the enabling moderates. Those who are not directly part of the movement, but are 'offended' that we would 'attack' motherhood.
So be it. We will just point out the stupidity of this moderate position. It has worked already with atheism, I don't think motherhood is an unassailable concept either.
The counter-movement will be about the rights of the children, not to be indoctrinated by stupid religious ideas; the shame of the mothers, call them 'bad mothers', and they will be shamed, trust me; the irrationality of the religion itself (we're doing pretty well here so far); the unintended consequences of poverty and inadequate education; etc.
I actually see this as an easier fight than our current fight against religion itself. We already have large numbers of people on our side who believe in proper planning of parenthood, and the rights of children to be born into good environments. It's really nothing new. Now, eliminating irrational religious belief? That's relatively new in terms of people seriously taking up the cause.
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Thanks, Natural. Well spoken on all counts.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
What a name. Brilliant. Automatically brings about feelings of condescension and superiority in opponents.
I'm not particularly concerned though. We must simply step up advertising and outreach to youth to ensure they receive the message despite attempts to defeat it. And also step up attempts to defeat the home schooling lies being done by christians and other theists. Best way to do that is to institute a required curriculum, if one does not already exist, which focusses on logic and science. Ensure that without an accreditted education, one cannot get a job. Tie it in to whatever the American equivalent of Social Insurance is. That way the grads of theist home schooling will be incapable of surviving in the real world, ensuring their non-existence within a few generations via natural selection.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Just one small point.... Increased population means increased Agriculture, Increase Agriculture means increased dependance on fossil fuels (read up on the green revolution if you are confused) Increased reliance of fossil fuels means more war (if you are first world, if not first world then just extreme povety/ still death), more war equals more death. Hence these people are pro death. But in all serious although that may very well be true (I really wouldn't know) it is undoubtedly a quick and easy way to help your country in to the loving hands of povety. Double your population in one or two generations (if everyone followed that rubbish it's possible) just watch where your country ends up.
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
Oh yeah. This movement is deeply offensive to almost everything I hold dear. It is environmentally disastrous, it is anti-woman, it is anti-child, it is anti-education, anti-reason...
It's like everything I despise in one movement.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
A spat of stories recently, from the VCC movement (great name, Hamby) to the brutality of Lord Ram's Army (Hindu extremists) the acid-attacks in Afghanistan (Taliban)*, has made me really depressed. People really, really suck. Especially those afflicted with the religious disease. Ridicule is insufficiently strong. Pure, unadulterated contempt is the only thing I can look at these people with now.
*On a completely unrelated note, I've never understood why people use acid to attack and burn other people. The process of acid burning is one of exothermic dissolution of the acid in aqueous conditions. That's why acid "burns", not because of a chemical attack by the protonating species on the molecules on your skin. If you really want to hurt someone, you're supposed to use a strong alkali, because biological polymers like lipids will hyrolyze in alkaline conditions. This is extremely dangerous. Bearing this in mind, why do people use acid?
Also, stories like this make me deeply, deeply thankful (to my parents, I suppose) that I was born into a family which had been involved in science and mathematics for four generations, placed a very, very high emphasis on intellectualism, and looked at religion with contempt. I am so happy I am not one of those people described above.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Yeah ... I'm kind of stunned that people would actually say these things, so ... holy shit, people.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Agreed. With that in mind, here's my proposal. (This should be easy, fun, and should get the ball rolling, I think.)
We start a Vagina Clown Car Challenge. We make a video presenting our points, as you've done in the OP. We lay out what the issue is, and what is the right solution. Then, we say to people: If you agree the Vagina Clown Car Movement is dangerous, make a video response to this explaining your reasons why, and include the phrase, "Hey lady, your vagina is not a clown car!"
We can toss in ideas like the 'bad mother' meme, clips from the octo-baby lady story, or what have you. Perhaps we should start a thread in the VIP forum about it if you think it's a worthy project.
I think if we planned it out a bit, pulled in the best arguments and ideas about it, and put it up on the RRS video channel, it would likely cause a big response. Might even get RRS on the news again. Who knows? Maybe we could tie it in to some form of charity, such as sex-ed or condoms-for-students, or something. Maybe even put in a plug for RRS donations? Lots of possibilities.
It's a brilliant name. We should milk it. (Sorry for the semi-pun there....)
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"Loving Headship"? Are you fucking kidding me?
That phrase would make a great band name, though.
In all headship - I mean, seriousness - what developed countries need is a reproduction tax. If you either father or give birth to more than two kids, you pay extra tax per child. Make sterilization services free nationwide for anyone who wants them, whether they have kids or not. If you father or give birth to a third child and you can't afford the tax, that's fine. You don't have to pay it, but you have to have mandatory sterilization. That gives anyone with two brain cells to rub together the option of capping off the plumbing after two kids.
Take the proceeds from the tax and use them to pay for the sterilization services, and whatever is left over can be put in a fund that invests in carbon offsets.
Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.
Why Believe?
Natural, I absolutely love the "bad mother" approach. I honestly think that's the best gem in your whole scheme. (The whole scheme sounds pretty good... that's just the best point.) I'm going to start wrapping my brain around this. Maybe we can go viral.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
We need our own country...
Signature ? How ?
Y'know, stuff like this scares the crap out of me. As well it should, obviously. But it hits close to home, because I've got two friends (I'm not that close to them, physically- they're about 400 miles away from me- or emotionally) who are home-schooling their kids. One of them went all bat-shit religious on me back in '03 or so. She was going that direction, but another year or so later, I hear her and her husband are running some weird splinter-group, sort of like a Quaker meeting, but just talking about the fucking Bible... for hours... It all sounded really frightening. It doesn't seem like time's done much to calm things down; I believe she's on her fourth kid in as many years. Yay for not using birth control, eh? Wooooo!
The second friend is a lot more level-headed. She's still quite the religious nut, but she's counter-balanced by at least half her family and some of her friends (could be me, if I wasn't so generally bad at staying in touch.) Now, the first, I know she's home-schooling her kids because of freaky religious reasons (they're *those* Christians, you know.... have a ton of bumper stickers about how abortion is baby-killing and how great Jesus is); the second one explained to me that she wants to home-school her kids because she personally had bad experiences socially at school. Again, I'm not that much in contact with her, but we did talk about that a bit... I wonder what her decision will be, and hope it will be to send her kids to public school, but I don't know for sure.
Anyway, the real point of this rant is to say: I have no idea how to feel about all this personal stuff. Meaning: How is it my problem? Will my action or inaction, now, or in the immediate future, have consequences for my friends' home-schooled (or potentially home-schooled) kids? Is home-schooling itself the problem? What can I do? Should I do anything?
Personally, I do have to say: I really don't like the idea of home-schooling. Well- unless you're living in a really education-poor environment (like, say, a rural area, or in the really bad parts of the inner city), can afford the time and effort, and will somehow manage to get your kids socialized (which, IMO, is the *real* point of school anyway; well, that and getting used to dealing with nonsense like the various laws of fecal gravity we all come to know and love in our various jobs). I'd say, go for it then. But this collection of circumstances are so rare as to be almost impossible to find.
To me, homeschooling is like the 'question' of charter schools. We need more schools; all children must go to school by law; we don't have enough schools for the kids (haven't since, in some places, the late 60s) BUT, giving more or less carte blanche to publicly-funded organizations to fix the problems they see with whatever educational theory they may believe in (as well-intentioned as many may be) is not the way to go about it. Similarly, disasociating with other people in order 'properly' inclucate your children is just wrong-headed. We are social creatures; we need socialization. Home-schooling is not the way to go about it.
Rant over.
You know how theists labels us to be angry. Well that's true, I'm seriously pissed now. Those fucktards are making me ashamed to be human.
That's it, they are threatening me and many more people, and believe me I see it as a real threat and I will defend myself to the death. Seriously, that's fucked up, they are openly planning a genocide and no one is doing anything.
P.S. Homeschooling should be banned. I wouldn't trust parents to teach children properly.
I'm making a list.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Atheist members of this forum excluded from the previous statement.
=
From what I understand, anyway, it is often true that movements, particularly religious ones, get to be the most radical when they are on the defensive, and know that they are losing.
That's what I'm crossing my fingers for, anyway.
Conor
This thread made me think of a home schooled 'clown' (in reality a good friend) I knew from my high school days. I decided to look him up on myspace, and his profile says he's an Atheist! I was kind of shocked. I was around to see a lot of his indoctrination, and kinda thought it would have stuck. That kind of made my day. Probably gonna send him a friend request and say what's up later just on a personal level (nothing to do with this subject.)
He personally told me that his parents believed the quiverful stuff, though he didn't use that word. He told me more than once that he couldn't go to public school, because he thought his parents were trying to shield him from outside views to keep his faith strong! I remember thinking this was an evil thing back then, even though I still believed in gawd at the time. They were expecting child number 6 of many when they moved away if I remember right. I watched a few fundy propaganda videos at their house, and went to youth group with them. This was back in 91-93 or so.
I guess I should leave it at that so as not to be like talking crap about him behind his back, cause it's not like that. Just relating a personal story to the OP.
I have to say though the VCC movement is extremely scary. If you think this is merely a fringe thing, and they have no power, think about Mike Huckabee's rise in the primaries. He was bolstered in Iowa by a grassroots effort by fundy homeschoolers!
"They always say the same thing; 'But evolution is only a theory!!' Which is true, I guess, and it's good they say that I think, it gives you hope that they feel the same about the theory of Gravity and they might just float the f**k away."
Works for me. They're just embarrassing themselves.
I watch 17 Kids and Counting on TLC whilst in the grips of absolute horror. Dread overtakes me nightly. Why do I partake of such intellectual molestation?
Because you are a wicked, wicked sinner and must be punished.
How about we take over Mars?
Fascination. Curiousity. That's why they get exploited, because people are so WTF.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
I'm just glad Octomom got out of the news cycle. Know why?
Her PR person quit- said she was crazy. Yup. You know you've got problems when the person you pay to make you look good says, basically, "I can't do anything with this. See ya!"