Love, Joy, Feminism

[MerryHappy]

lovejoyfeminism.blogspot.com/p/my-story.html

Found this blog today. Dunno if it has made the rounds here before now.

[Lainey]

Just didn't want the sun to go down on this thread without saying--this is awesome. Thanks for posting it. That poor girl.

[let-them-eat-cake]

I read her blog and love it. Look around at some of her other posts - pure genius!

[tehgoobster]

Her blog is awesome!

[Kitten]

Don't you wish the Duggar and Bates girls could read this ENTIRE blog?

…by the time I was in high school, my wardrobe was almost entirely handmade. Some of it was even stitched by hand, as I felt that that somehow made the clothes somehow better, and showed off my talents to the greater advantage.

How many children would I have, I wondered? More than my mother, I hoped, because I wanted to be the best I could possibly be.

I had a lot of friends growing up, and they definitely all shared my vision. In fact, they were all exactly like me! All of my friends were white, middle class, and homeschooled, and they all shared the same religious beliefs that I did…My friends and I often discussed our beliefs, but because we were in agreement on all the particulars the result was that we simply moved ourselves further and further into Christian Patriarchy. We were all devoted believers, and our discussions made us only more fervent.

First, I was...able to endorse female submission because I myself had never been in a position where what I wanted contradicted what my male authority wanted, and second, when I endorsed female submission I found myself praised and affirmed…I strove to be everything my father wanted me to be, and received nothing but praise in return. I thus had never had any reason to resent the presence of male authority over me and every reason to endorse it and claim it. I was my father’s ideal daughter, and I loved it.

College quickly taught me first that those who did not believe like I did were neither automatically miserable inside nor bad people. In fact, I found that even Catholics, gays, and agnostics could be lovely people. This confused me but it also opened my world and showed me that dividing humanity into “good†and “evil†was too simplistic.

My parents’ mistake, if that is how you want to see it, was teaching me how to think. The simple reality is that teaching women to think will be subversive in any system that demands male authority and female submission.

[raineymott]

LOVE her blog!!!

[Dinorah]

I've discovered it recently too and it's one of the best ex-fundie blogs (does the author post here, by any chance)?

Paradoxically, she's the only person so far who described a fundie family as being happy in a believable way, in her autobiography piece, as opposed to present fundies who are all "look at me!!! I'm so happy!!! Me and my one billion kids are all so loving!!!" and whose lives look pretty dreary.

however Libby's parents probably weren't the fundiest of fundies, since they allowed her to attend college, and a secular one to boot, which actually helped her escape.

[prairiemuffin]

Thanks for posting-this gives me a glimmer of hope for some of these girl ;)

[Little_Eyes]

This blog is awesome! Thanks for the link!

[Wendy]

This blog is on my everyday list.

[prairiemuffin]

I'm reading through her "about me" posts and her stuff about the Vision Forum toys of course made me curious.

I have to say, this is some of the most random shit I've ever seen. Lots of what I expected under the "girls"section (because of course it's divided up) like purity lockets and books on canning and gardening, but then they have crap like a freakin' waffle cone holder. I mean, WTF?

[pimpom]

An amazing blogpost found through her comment section:

http://darcysheartstirrings.blogspot.co ... y-and.html

Well worth a read!

[MerryHappy]

I really liked Libby Ann because she comes right out and says she is a humanist/feminist etc.

I loved that about her. Good stuff.

[LeatherCouch]

An amazing blogpost found through her comment section:

http://darcysheartstirrings.blogspot.co ... y-and.html

Well worth a read!

I appreciate that you want to promote Darcy's blog here, but I'm not sure she would appreciate it, especially since she has been known to refer to FJ as "mean" elsewhere on the web ;)

[Little_Eyes]

I appreciate that you want to promote Darcy's blog here, but I'm not sure she would appreciate it, especially since she has been known to refer to FJ as "mean" elsewhere on the web ;)

I'm nosey, so why are we mean? :whistle: You'd think she'd be glad to have a group of people who are concerned about fundies after she escaped from the lifestyle. Of course, this is based on a quick perusal of her blog, so I may be in error.

[demgirl]

If I had to guess, I'd think she might think we are mean because we kind of can be. I mean, a lot of this board is exposing patriarchy and legalism and discussing the devastating effects it can have on people, especially women and children. But we are also snarky. Some of us draw lines in certain places of things we won't mock, but at least some segment of us is willing to be snarky about all sorts of things that are irrelevant, or at least tertiary, to spiritual abuse and the other more serious aspects of what we discuss, such as making fun of clothing, or the LOLDoug thread, or weight or hairstyle or grammar, or whatever (although I'd argue that part of the grammar snark goes back to our issues with TSOTDRT). I'm not saying this is wrong. If I thought it was wrong, I wouldn't post here (although there are some things that step over the line for me, so I don't post on those threads... usually simple enough. Stress on the usually.)

But if you escaped from this world then the people we mock are your friends and family, or at least people who could basically be stand-ins for them. For some, no matter what they have been through, seeing people mocked relentlessly for characteristics that they see in their friends and families would be hard to take, and I could see why you would think we are mean. Obviously, that doesn't apply to all ex-fundies, or we wouldn't have a good many of our most valued members. But I could see how it would apply to some.

Also, we might seem counter-productive in some ways. Much of what we post is not directed at dissecting the harms caused by patriarchy, legalism, etc. in a manner that would be designed to convince those currently stuck in that lifestyle. Some of what we post is geared toward that, or at least would come off that way to a random fundie who stumbled across us and read what we had to stay, especially if he/she was questioning the belief system. But LOLDoug while hilarious would be more likely to offend than encourage thought and questions.

Again, I don't personally feel this way. I'm just trying to look at her possible perspective.

[Little_Eyes]

Thanks, Demgirl. That's a really thoughtful post. I guess I wasn't thinking of the more emotional aspects of what might be her position. It could be that the bad outweighs the good, as you say, in her case... It's just all the FJ-ians I've interacted with have been so awesome I couldn't figure it out. Must be the sleep deprivation, which makes me a bit thick-headed and snarky.

[Guest Anonymous]

I appreciate that you want to promote Darcy's blog here, but I'm not sure she would appreciate it, especially since she has been known to refer to FJ as "mean" elsewhere on the web ;)

Ehhhh - if you post publicly on the internet, all kinds of people are bound to read what you post, and some of them are bound to talk about it. I totally understand that FJ is not for everyone, but if it's on the world wide web, it's pretty much fair game for discussion. She certainly doesn't have to hang out with us or like us, but I personally don't think talking about any public blog is out of line.

[LeatherCouch]

Ehhhh - if you post publicly on the internet, all kinds of people are bound to read what you post, and some of them are bound to talk about it. I totally understand that FJ is not for everyone, but if it's on the world wide web, it's pretty much fair game for discussion. She certainly doesn't have to hang out with us or like us, but I personally don't think talking about any public blog is out of line.

Yeah, I don't either. I was kidding, hence the wink.

[Guest Anonymous]

Yeah, I don't either. I was kidding, hence the wink.

Sometimes I struggle with picking up tone over the internet, I apologize for misreading you.

[treemom]

We are mean. That doesn't mean there isn't reason to be or that we are cruel. But the truth is, a lot of the stuff we say is mean in the traditional sense of the word even if we aren't intending to be meanies.

(For instance I think the snarky about looks and the maxwell eyebrows defintely falls into it. And I know there are reasons people are comfortable with it even if I am not.)