The Botkinettes Tell Us How...

[bea]

 

I went poking around looking for what Anna Sofia and Elizabeth have been doing. Not much, it appears. They're quick to mention in their "about" section that they were rilly rilly YOUNG when they wrote Visionary Daughters and they've learned a lot and changed the name of the website (now it sounds like a '40s girl group). But.....there's really not much THERE.

But what is there is an ebook about evil, manipulative and abusive men and how to deal with them and....what? SERIOUSLY, WHAT? The famously single, never courted, never been kissed Paragons of Perfect Purity, telling women who are actively being manipulated and abused. In a Godly way. Because Jesus.

Did I miss this? Totally understandable, if so, Tapatalk hates me. But - I'm confused. Two single women teaching women involved with abusers or manipulators how to handle men? Oh, I forgot, how to handle them in a CHRISTIAN way.

 

[ladyamylynn]

I like how they try to distance themselves from Visionary Daughters because they wrote it as teenagers. And yet daddy dear and the tool, who were promoting the hell out of it, were grown men who should have known better. Plus I don't really think they have any credibility to talk about abuse when they as a family have never denounced the tool or even really acknowledged the scandal. And by scandal I mean that time Doug Phillips molested one of the stars of their movie. Fuck these two prissy bitches.

[Howl]

Well, they do want their reading public to think of them as savvy, sophisticated  women who were too smart to be taken advantage of by roues, cads and vile seducers,  and not as perpetual naif kidults whose cock-block father has controlled every aspect of their lives for the last 30 something years.  

Really, they should just take up tatting and be done with it.  

Unless this is a passive-aggressive stab at Doug Phillips.  Where's the link to the eBook?

 

 

[ladyamylynn]

Read "tatting" as "tattooing;" was intrigued.

[Howl]

OK, just tracked them down and found this: 

Quote

You’re a solid young Christian woman. You’re committed to purity and wholesome relationships. You don’t hang out with “bad” guys. And you suddenly find yourself dealing with a guy who’s trying to play you, manipulate you, use you, entice you, or even abuse you. What do you do?

It’s dangerously naïve to deny that predators, manipulators, abusers, playboys, wolves, stalkers, and creeps haunt every circle – as do good guys simply having a hard time mastering their sin nature. And though we’re never responsible for sins men commit, it’s time to know our own power to resist and rebuke evildoers.

Drawing lessons from how Abigail and Bathsheba each responded to the same godly man when he was off the path, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth clear away legalistic relationship rules and formula-based approaches to “purity,” and focus on how to become a woman with the confidence to put the fear of God into men who are in sin. Hear straight talk on self-defense, dealing with a flirt, how not to be a doormat, a woman’s rights and recourses for resisting, combating manipulation, becoming spiritually strong, and the gospel’s hope for moving on from our own past mistakes.

This really is too much.  

[Jasmar]

I remember this coming out in the aftermath of Tool-o-ween. They won't be honest and come right about to denounce the man himself, and had to get some master level passive-aggressive victim-blaming, ergo, this nonsense.

[DomWackTroll]

Quote

Welcome to our life and thoughts!

Not "our lives"-- as in, separate, autonomous human beings-- "our life."

[bea]

They're old maids. At this point. They are losing the ability to speak authoritatively on all of these subjects, because nobody ever came along and swept them out of Daddy's house. All they can talk about is being single women, living in their father's house. Then after a while, doesn't that get pretty old? There's only so many books you can read about that.

They are writing about the sorts of men to avoid and the various horrible people that might be trying to take advantage of you, what the hell would they know about that? They have been home-schooled, they live at home, they've never had an outside job, never been courted that either of them has ever discussed. Where the hell have either of them gotten any experience with anybody who isn't in awe of breathing the rarefied air if THE BOTKINS?

Someone needs to read this for the team. I'm wavering.

[CyborgKin]

They also did a post-Tool webcast thing covering the same kind of topics.  I think it's the one titled "Good Girls and Problem Guys".  I have a copy.

But they haven't published anything in a little over a year.  I think they've only made two posts after redesigning and relaunching their blog.  Maybe they've been too busy researching for their brothers' adventures, cooking for the hundreds of allegedly important houseguests, and being aunts to write anything.

[bea]

They may have figured out that they either need to totally rebrand or fade gracefully into the background instead charging full steam ahead with all of this advice. Advice on subjects they demonstrably know absolutely nothing about. It just chills me to think of one of those sheltered home-schooled "maidens" running across a guy that their instincts are shrieking "bad news, do not be alone with, run run run!" about and they think they'll be leading this guy to Jesus and they know how to handle him because the Botkins wrote an ebook about it. Then again, is anyone listening to the Botkins any more, or is their proximity to The Tool and All His Evil Works enough to make them persona non grata at the top of that food chain?
It's obvious that these women are desperately trying to remain relevant and not just fade away into being old maids and favorite aunts. I just wish they weren't doing it in a way that's genuinely dangerous to other people. As I recall, Lourdes was featured in Return of the Daughters, right?

[CyborgKin]

@bea right, she was.

[Marian the Librarian]

A rare glimpse! It looks like Dad loosened the leg irons just long enough for A-S and E to attend Kevin Swanson's recent Noah Conference in Cincinnati - this, per brother Isaac's blog (isaacbotkin.com). Along with Isaac, Lucas, and Noah, they expounded on the topic of "What Our Parents Taught Us To Do With Our Lives."

I feel like I've just seen a unicorn!

[bea]

What DID their parents teach them to do with their lives? Leech off Mom and Dad because no one is good enough to marry them?

[alba]

Didn't the Botkinettes try to distance themselves from Visionary Daughters and Doug Phillips a couple of years ago? I'm feeling some serious déjà vù here.

[Howl]

On 8/27/2016 at 8:28 PM, bea said:

They're old maids.

True, but they are both still drop-dead gorgeous women.  I wonder if perhaps, for one or both, there was a true love that was blocked by dad, or they allowed someone to steal a little or big piece of their hearts and are secretly still pining away. 

Or, as many have suggested, the intensity of emotional incest has blocked all avenues for a heterosexual relationship outside the family. 

[seraaa]

It must be awful to have effectively been brainwashed into fearing any connection with unrelated men, lest it be "impure".  It's such a joyless approach.

[MissManners]

I wonder how fundy men see the Botkinettes. They are prettier and better spoken than most of the frumpy girls in fundyland, but I suspect they must also look high maintenance and must be intimidating to the typical fundy guy who wants a "sturdy" workhorse who will cook, clean, and procreate without complaint and without needing things like makeup and pretty clothes. 

[ophelia]

5 hours ago, MissManners said:

I wonder how fundy men see the Botkinettes. They are prettier and better spoken than most of the frumpy girls in fundyland, but I suspect they must also look high maintenance and must be intimidating to the typical fundy guy who wants a "sturdy" workhorse who will cook, clean, and procreate without complaint and without needing things like makeup and pretty clothes. 

I've often asked myself the same thing. They are probably too educated for their circles and simply don't have the whole "brood-mare"/barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen around them.

[Howl]

19 hours ago, Marian the Librarian said:

A rare glimpse! It looks like Dad loosened the leg irons just long enough for A-S and E to attend Kevin Swanson's recent Noah Conference in Cincinnati - this, per brother Isaac's blog (isaacbotkin.com). Along with Isaac, Lucas, and Noah, they expounded on the topic of "What Our Parents Taught Us To Do With Our Lives."

I feel like I've just seen a unicorn!

Interesting to watch the faces.  In picture 1, a brother is speaking and the other brothers are looking at him attentively.  In picture 2, one of the sisters is speaking and the brothers look like they are just barely tolerating it. 

Also, what's with the laptops? 

[Cleopatra7]

Being able to tell when a guy is being manipulative and creepy implies that the woman in question has a degree of street smarts and life experience that SAHDs are discouraged from developing. SAHDs are kept ignorant about the world, supposedly to protect their "purity," which makes them unable to defend themselves when they are in a manipulative situation. Plus, since the fundie sub-culture is more concerned about protecting the reputations of " respectable men" than protecting the vulnerable, how would being able to protect yourself from a creep even help, when the victims are penalized more than the perpetrators?

[Grimalkin]

2 hours ago, Cleopatra7 said:

Being able to tell when a guy is being manipulative and creepy implies that the woman in question has a degree of street smarts and life experience that SAHDs are discouraged from developing. SAHDs are kept ignorant about the world, supposedly to protect their "purity," which makes them unable to defend themselves when they are in a manipulative situation. Plus, since the fundie sub-culture is more concerned about protecting the reputations of " respectable men" than protecting the vulnerable, how would being able to protect yourself from a creep even help, when the victims are penalized more than the perpetrators?

     You and your relentless logic need to stop harassing these poor people with  your common sense and truth!

[GenerationCedarchip]

12 hours ago, ophelia said:

I've often asked myself the same thing. They are probably too educated for their circles and simply don't have the whole "brood-mare"/barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen around them.

Probably depends on the guy. I'm sure CnD would have some insight.  In Calvinist circles, there are actually plenty of educated people and I've encountered more than a few who have admired the Botkins from afar.  Usually from afar, though, because Daddy Botkin intimidates everyone I've ever known who has dealt with him directly. 

Also to keep in mind: For the guys near the top of the pecking order in circles where I came from, a wife who is both fashionable-looking and traditionally devout/godly is seen as an asset because some of these guys are going after careers in government/politics, business, finance, etc... Not every fundie male is looking for Michelle Duggar. There's a lot more variety in fundiedom than I think a lot of folks who've never been on the inside would realize.

[fundiefan]

Given who their father is, I guess they do actually have some experience with manipulative men. Abusers too, but they haven't come out of their bubble in order to understand the abuse their father dishes out.

I find this far funnier than it is, given it's the lives of two human beings who were born and raised to cater to their father and are now left with nothing.

I never, ever, ever should have gone to that web site. I'm very angry today about stupid shit people do and it's festering, then I go and read daddy Botkin's letter to his new Syrian neighbor and I want to throw up. Preferably on him.

They are still ugly, nasty, disgusting, horrible - horrible people. The Botkins, not those they shame.

[Palimpsest]

The Botkinettes were well trained to shave Geoff Botkin and take his shoes off too.  It is a mystery why they haven't married yet.  I'd say it is a combination of not meeting a man who resembles Daddy sufficiently, Daddy turning the unworthy away (see Stevehovah), and perhaps rather enjoying their lives as the beautiful princesses of the movement.  

All they have to do at the moment is pontificate and support their parents and brothers.  Probably marriage looks like a descent into poverty and baby-making.  They've seen plenty of that.

As far as their new oeuvre is concerned, dealing with manipulative men with evil in their hearts, well they were also exposed to DPIAT - a master of manipulation too smart to molest a Botkinette.  He targeted the vulnerable.

They have spent a couple of years chewing this over after the Fall of Doug with Lourdes, their poster SAHD, exposing him.  Do we have a volunteer to plow through this latest garbage and give us a synopsis?

My guess is that they will yap on about purity and modesty being the best defense, lecture victims about never being out of the eyesight of male protectors (only sluts are endangered!), and finish up with an advertisement for T-Rex holsters designed for feminine hand guns.  You too can conceal carry a gun in your boot or strapped to your leg under your modest skirt to defend yourself from manipulation, molestation, and rape.  It is the *Christian* way.

[CyborgKin]

21 hours ago, MissManners said:

I wonder how fundy men see the Botkinettes. They are prettier and better spoken than most of the frumpy girls in fundyland, but I suspect they must also look high maintenance and must be intimidating to the typical fundy guy who wants a "sturdy" workhorse who will cook, clean, and procreate without complaint and without needing things like makeup and pretty clothes. 

 

15 hours ago, ophelia said:

I've often asked myself the same thing. They are probably too educated for their circles and simply don't have the whole "brood-mare"/barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen around them.

Any any man who is looking for someone who is intelligent and educated and not a broodmare workhorse is either too intimidated by Geoff, or not the right sort Geoff would approve of.  For all parties involved in a match to approve, the man would have to be very good at lying to Geoff.