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Botkinettes' website has had a facelift!


Marian the Librarian

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Idk, at 12 on my first and only mission trip I was told I was the best sweeper and cleaner, like, ever. Maybe I need to defend my title from these spinsters. How dare they? Didn't they know Jesus likes my Clorox better? [emoji13]

I'll let you keep that title; they may believe Clorox is a tool of the Devil anyway! i'll let you keep that title; they may believe Clorox is a tool of the Devil, anyway

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It's sad. So many girls I know of in the community now remind me of this...

[bBvideo 560,340:2tlkccee]

[/bBvideo]

I hadn't seen that video, but yes, that totally fits. Apparently, at my old fundie church there was talk of splitting the single adults Sunday school group into two parts by age, and there was a uproar because several women who were going to be in the older group didn't want it known they were over 30.

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And once again, I can't help but wonder if the Botkin sisters have intentionally dropped out of the marriage market. Not that they'd ever dare tell anyone, but they do seem to be settled in as spinsters.

And if so, I can't say I blame them.

After all, were they to marry, it would have to be to husbands who would allow them to keep blogging, keep speaking at conferences, keep hosting online seminars. They've been "experts," looked up to by younger women for their entire adult lives; do you really think either of them is capable of giving up that small amount of celebrity?

But even if they were willing to let it all go, becoming some godly man's helpmeet also means they no longer have any say over their own sexuality, their own bodies. They're supposed to submit to sex on demand, accept every pregnancy, welcome every child--no matter how tired they are, how overworked, or how unhappy. But by remaining "spinsters," they can still have a right to some small measure of privacy and bodily autonomy.

The culture they live in claims that marriage and motherhood are a woman's highest callings, and that submitting to men is their ordained place. But you can't tell me they haven't seen married women struggle to keep sweet, smiling and praising the Lord through gritted teeth. Maybe they've even seen it in their own family.

Their parents are a known quantity. The Botkinettes know how to please them, and they've no doubt got a smooth-running domestic order. They may actually have a lot of freedom and latitude for making independent decisions, within that limited system. Their parents are aging, and even if they weren't I think they would have a very hard time keeping up with their home and various businesses without the girls' help--they'd have to downsize, and I doubt Geoff would be willing to do that.

So now their calling is to minister to unmarried women--of whom there are an awful lot in patriarchal fundie/Quiverfull circles. They've still got an audience, and will for a long time to come, because no way are all those SAHDs going to find husbands--not when young men, raised to be "good providers," have the option to go provide for themselves, or for a fundie-lite wife who loves the Lord but is also willing to use birth control and not saddle them with eleventy-dozen kids they can barely afford.

Given the limitations imposed on women in their culture, and the heavy burden of expectations and obligations laid on them, I'd say the Botkin sisters have a really sweet deal. They'd be fools to give it up. And maybe--just maybe--they're smart enough to realize that, and clever enough to make it work for them.

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Their blog may have gotten a facelift, but the internet is forever, and some things deserve to be remembered, like this photo!

CbS5EzC.jpg

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And once again, I can't help but wonder if the Botkin sisters have intentionally dropped out of the marriage market. Not that they'd ever dare tell anyone, but they do seem to be settled in as spinsters.

And if so, I can't say I blame them.

Nor me. In fact, if that's the case, I admire these women for how long they've managed to fend off potential suitors. Even in the secular world, there's always that pressure to partner up with someone and start having kids, so I can't imagine what's like for the Botkins.

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Cripes. I could post this comment on any forum, because it applies to all of them, but don't these people ever get tired of themselves and the constant spewing of repetitive crap?

That's probably it. It's all literally repetitive crap. I've listened to almost all their talks on Western Conservatory, and they have absolutely nothing new to say in any of them. They recycle the same examples from history, the same phrases and turns of speech, even the same jokes. Their talks all boil down to the same thing in the end: "stay home with Mommy and Daddy (except you don't have to because that's not what it's all about, but that's really the best way to do it) and start some fancy home-based economic-powerhouse money-maker plan with your father, and make sure you're always serving his vision and helping your brothers do adventurous things (while you sit at home and watch them.)"There are only so many ways to say that, and they've pretty much covered them all.

They've never come right out and admitted that anything they said was wrong, or even that it could have been taken to a poor extreme. In some of their talks they've mentioned things like "we don't even have this completely figured out yet," and from their "about" page:

Our first glimpses of Scripture’s counter-cultural vision inspired us to write So Much More: The Remarkable Influence of Visionary Daughters on the Kingdom of God in 2005, at the tender ages of 17 and 19 (and our youth and inexperience certainly show)

but still no "we may have been wrong about some things, we're sorry we weren't clearer on certain topics, we understand how this could have been taken the wrong way and blown out of proportion." That's the thing that gets me about the Botkinettes every time. They're never wrong. Heck, even the Catholic church talks about its sex scandals once in a while. Lourdes Torres? Who's she?

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To the best of my knowledge, no Botkin (other than Katie the Sane) has ever publicly acknowledged or opined about the Doug Phillips/Vision Forum events of 2013 and beyond. Nor, sadly, have Anna-Sofia and Elizabeth uttered one public word of support for Lourdes. Christian charity, my ass.

Agree with Columbia 100% re: the repetitive, recycled nature of Botkin-produced pseudo-intellectual crap. The only difference is, A-S and E are now too old to keep passing themselves off as young maidens, seeking lives of exemplary perfection and servitude at home. Thus, the facelifted blog and change of email address. Their contact used to be "damsels@...something something blahblahblah." At least they've woken up to the fact that they really don't qualify for damsel-hood any more.

That harp playing pic? Pure gold! Are those...Confederate flag snoods I see on their harps?? :lol:

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So...does this mean they've denounced their opinions in So Much More? I found my copy of it (someone gave it to me while I was in high school or college), and toyed with reading it just to see how painful it is.

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Oh I doubt it. For one, if they're wrong about staying at home, imagine how that would make their father look. (Because ultimately it's all about him.) Also, if they were wrong about So Much More then the rest of their "ministry" comes crashing down.

In the beginning of their blog/bloviating they were focused on daughters coming home. There are plenty of testimonies on their website about girls who found their book and either left college to come home (this one I thought, is particularly sad; I'd love to know where she is now botkinsisters.com/2009/04/the-return-of-this-daughter) or changed their mind about wanting to leave to go to college, or stopped being frustrated that their parents wanted them to adopt SAHD-hood.

Now that everyone who is going to come home from college has come home and is sitting around bored they need to change their tune (not a lot of yay! Botkin book! testimonies on their blog anymore.) So instead of a lot of "come home! college isn't good for you! (but it's not a sin, guys)" they're trying to encourage a spirit of adventure and entrepreneur-ness in these girls. The talk has now become "you should be creative and find a way to make money, because the Proverbs 31 woman was all about work, but you can only augment your family's income, and you should never be the family provider, and it should all really be done from home, and you should plug into your father's and brothers' visions and help make them successful! See, there's no reason to be bored while you're sitting around at home!" (As soon as my post number is up, and I can start posts again, I have a recap of their "How to Have Adventures" talk that I'm going to post. Spoiler: it's pretty darn depressing.)

TL;DR: They're the Botkins. They're never wrong, especially in public.

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I was mostly being sarcastic, but you make good points. I thought it was interesting that they talk about being "young and inexperienced" when they wrote SMM, but can't bring themselves to just be honest and say, hey, we were wrong about some of this stuff or hey, we've changed our minds on some things. I think you're exactly right on why.

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I am surprised they still even mention Return of the Daughters publicly. Considering that Lourdes is one of the featured daughters and DPIART himeslf is on the special features, bloviating along with the duck biologist about the BIBLICAL FAMILY, it's a wonder they didn't start a secret campaign to have it wiped from the face of the earth. (I still have my copy and have now decided to keep it as evidence, so nyah nyah, Robotkins). :penguin-no:

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I was mostly being sarcastic, but you make good points. I thought it was interesting that they talk about being "young and inexperienced" when they wrote SMM, but can't bring themselves to just be honest and say, hey, we were wrong about some of this stuff or hey, we've changed our minds on some things. I think you're exactly right on why.

I think it's very clever of them. They've mentioned in certain of their talks before that "we're still figuring this out" or "we still don't quite have this together," and it gives them just enough modesty to look not quite perfect, and therefore relatable, to whoever out there is still buying their crap. But they'll never come out and say "this is why we don't have this figured out" or "this is what we're struggling with" because that goes beyond modesty or humility to downright fallibility. The only people I can think of who are more concerned about public image than the Botkins are the leadership of the LDS church.

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Oh I doubt it. For one, if they're wrong about staying at home, imagine how that would make their father look. (Because ultimately it's all about him.) Also, if they were wrong about So Much More then the rest of their "ministry" comes crashing down.

In the beginning of their blog/bloviating they were focused on daughters coming home. There are plenty of testimonies on their website about girls who found their book and either left college to come home (this one I thought, is particularly sad; I'd love to know where she is now botkinsisters.com/2009/04/the-return-of-this-daughter) or changed their mind about wanting to leave to go to college, or stopped being frustrated that their parents wanted them to adopt SAHD-hood.

Now that everyone who is going to come home from college has come home and is sitting around bored they need to change their tune (not a lot of yay! Botkin book! testimonies on their blog anymore.) So instead of a lot of "come home! college isn't good for you! (but it's not a sin, guys)" they're trying to encourage a spirit of adventure and entrepreneur-ness in these girls. The talk has now become "you should be creative and find a way to make money, because the Proverbs 31 woman was all about work, but you can only augment your family's income, and you should never be the family provider, and it should all really be done from home, and you should plug into your father's and brothers' visions and help make them successful! See, there's no reason to be bored while you're sitting around at home!" (As soon as my post number is up, and I can start posts again, I have a recap of their "How to Have Adventures" talk that I'm going to post. Spoiler: it's pretty darn depressing.)

TL;DR: They're the Botkins. They're never wrong, especially in public.

Doe anyone know what the state of the SAHD movement is? While some of the more prominent SAHD like Jasmine Bachman were able to get married, it seems like even more of them are not, although I agree that the Botkins are probably single by choice. Surely the fact that so many SAHD are unable to get married and get to work on that "multigenerational vision" would suggest that staying at home, completely isolated from others may not be the best way to snag a husband.

Also, one thing I've noticed is that because these SAHDs have been taught to literally worship their fathers and their birth families as the best of all possible worlds, there is no motivation to leave the house, much less start your own family. After all, why top perfection? I think a similar dynamic is also at work with the Ardt brothers as well. It seems like they were all waiting for the perfect women to come around, but "realized" that no one could ever be as good as dear old mom, which sounds very Norman Bates. :?

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I've had that same question for a while, Cleopatra7. The whole movement got super quiet after DPIAR and probably doesn't know what to do with itself.

I'm still impressed that Jasmine Baucham got married. She seemed convinced for a while that she wouldn't.

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The Vision Forum scandal was vaguely referenced by the Botkin sisters in early 2014. One of their talks, that was free on the Western Consecratory site, starts off with (to paraphrase): some of you are questioning our message, especially after the events of last year.

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Sobeknofret said:
I suspect that the Botkins still secretly support Doug Phillips and VF.

"If we don't cry out or make any move to resist, Scripturally we could be considered accomplices in the crime."

-Anna-Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin, from "Good Girls and Problem Guys"

Oh yeah, they do.

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“If we don’t cry out or make any move to resist, Scripturally we could be considered accomplices in the crime.â€

-Anna-Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin, from "Good Girls and Problem Guys"

Oh yeah, they do.

So by this logic, a pre-teen or teen girl who is being molested but is frozen in terror/shame to the spot and doesn't move or resist in any way, like I was, is an accomplice to her own molestation. :hand:

Dear Anna-Sofia and Elizabeth Robotkin - ya'll are some cray-cray bitches from hell on this topic and you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

No love,

me

:angry-banghead:

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So by this logic, a pre-teen or teen girl who is being molested but is frozen in terror/shame to the spot and doesn't move or resist in any way, like I was, is an accomplice to her own molestation. :hand:

Dear Anna-Sofia and Elizabeth Robotkin - ya'll are some cray-cray bitches from hell on this topic and you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

No love,

me

:angry-banghead:

They base this on the old testament where if a woman is raped in the city, she may be stoned for not callingout thus proving she was a participant, but if she is raped in the countryside, she probably called out and was not heard....

Deuteronomy 22 23If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; 24Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.

25But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die: 26But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter: 27For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her

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I suspect that the Botkins still secretly support Doug Phillips and VF.

I suspect otherwise. They left town and I wonder if they saw it coming... not specifically, but generally.

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Yeah, don't get me started on Christians who cherry-pick pet verses from the OT to bolster their arguments. But they would never bother keeping kosher or keeping the Sabbath or not wearing mixed-fiber clothing or ANY of the rest of it that would be too much trouble for them. :cray-cray:

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I suspect otherwise. They left town and I wonder if they saw it coming... not specifically, but generally.

*I* wonder if Dougie put the moves on one or both of the Botkin sisters, thus precipitating their decampment to Tennessee. I will always wonder what the Botkins knew, and when they knew it.

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Botkin and the 'nettes probably see nothing wrong with the original message, but want do distance themselves from DPIAT taint.

I think it is odd that the Duck Biologist hasn't denounced Doug as a false prophet. I had the impression that those two were quite competitive.

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