How to Help Your Brothers Have Adventures by the Botkinettes

[Columbia]

I spent some time (and six bucks) listening to the Botkinette's how-to guide on having adventures for SAHDs (this was released at the same time as You're All Doing it Wrong Again [it's Not About Staying at Home] and It's Lourdes' Fault [Good Girls and Problem Guys.]) Out of all their talks I've listened to, this one was by far the most depressing:

A-S opens the talk by explaining how she and E have been invited to talk on various aspects of femininity: modest femininity, feminine femininity (redundant redundancy), beautiful femininity, but this time they’re giving a talk on the adventurous side of femininity (“one facet that often gets neglected.â€) The side that is interested in “quests, dragon-slaying, archaeology, swashbuckling… general feats of daring.†The hope to address the questions: “Where did these hankerings come from? Are they okay for a girl? How can she live them out in a Biblical way? Does a girl have any part in the adventurous life, or does she have to extinguish every spark of spunk she has in order to become a real lady?†A-S says these questions are ones that she and E have had and now she’s going to tell us about an adventure the two of them had that helped them figure out the place for these desires.

They play the trailer for their brother Isaac’s documentary on Egypt: vimeo.com/30507410

A-S asks if the trailer gave anyone goosebumps, and admits that probably watching that “Indiana Jones style adventure†gave everyone a thrill. She explains the background of the series, how her brother put it together, and what he talked about in the documentary. A-S then points out that she and E weren’t in the pictures. They were part of the adventure “in a way that might not seem quite so exciting to some of you.†Instead she says they spent the time reading, writing and researching. “The adventure for us was in adopting Isaac’s huge vision and doing whatever we could to make it a reality.†She says it was “no less exhilarating†than what Isaac’s team was doing in Egypt, and they got more sleep. (Side note: researching my trip to Italy was not nearly half so exhilarating as, you know, actually being in Italy.)

A-S says they were having an adventure doing things they had never done before “managing a live video broadcast and creating a study guide.†They had to write on topics that were way out of their comfort zone (“hydraulic societies, the Quran, how to read hieroglyphicsâ€) and as they did their minds were stretched and expanded. One big lessons they learned is “that there are many different kinds of adventure.†Some people will get to experience adventure in the field, and others will get to experience it at home (no points for guessing who experiences it where) but we don’t have to miss out just because we won’t see the Eiffel tower or climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

We're only a few minutes into the talk, and where they started with discussing whether it's okay for a girl to be interested in “quests, dragon-slaying, archaeology, swashbuckling… general feats of daring,†they've already started tamping it down with "adventures at home! yay!"

Up next: so is it okay for girls to be adventurous?

[Columbia]

Continued...

A spirit of adventure is very important for a girl, and that was the biggest thing they came away with. Being inspired with heroic deeds doesn’t have to go against the spirit of femininity. E (I think) talks about how when she was little she wanted to be a princess and a commando at the same time. She says that if Vision Forum had been around then “producing the kind of catalogues they produce†she would have wanted everything in the boys and girls section. She loved dressing up and playing house, and she loved building secret forts with her brothers. She says she loved girlhood and was inspired by boyhood and the only way she knew to express this was by wanting to be a girl and a boy at the same time. She says she’s talked with a lot of young ladies who feel this way and wonder if they’re being rebellious.

A-S thinks a lot of girls felt confused growing up about what may or may not be feminine. They’ve had girls write them to ask if they could read Henty books, shoot guns, climb trees, and want to have adventures. A-S says this question has an answer in the Bible if we look back to why woman was created in the first place.

“Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.†(Genesis 2) Femininity was made to be fit for and help masculinity. But this doesn’t have to look like one thing or have one function; it’s all about doing whatever the men in your life need you to do, and this might include baking cookies, or writing a study guide or working in the field or keeping the books. You can’t say that one of those activities is more feminine than the others.

After God created man and woman He told them to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth (cultivate crops, tame animals, mine precious resources, study plants for nutritional and medicinal values) A-S says this is a picture of what adventure looks like. It is good for men to have a passion for these things, and since women are their helpers and co-laborers it’s also good for women to have a passion for these things, but it’s probably going to look a little different.

A man cannot express his “natural urge for dominion through power-hunger or bloodlust or unjust war.†Women cannot express their natural innate desire for adventure by blazing off on their own pursuits, or selfish thrill rides. “As a woman we can see our lives in terms of helping men with these adventures.†We should be out in the woods building tree forts with our brothers. It’s better for girls than being cloistered off in a girls-only world surrounded by pink, and Barbie dolls, and romance novels. We need to avoid pursuing a type of femininity that is more obsessed with being girly than it is about getting its hands dirty with “real dominion work.†When Isaac asked A-S and E to help him with his documentary it would have been feministic, not feminine if they had said girls can’t study the Muslim Brotherhood because it’s not a feminine topic. There’s more to feminism than a desire to do man’s work; it’s a desire to be out from under the authority of men. If a girl is more interested in making muffins than helping her father in more important matters she has the same motive as a feminist.

As dangerous as feminism is the idea men and women’s worlds are completely different and separate. The differences between men and women are good, but men and women should be working together to achieve the same goals. “Women should not live in a woman’s world, but in the common world of mankind, not as a man, but as a man’s helper, not stepping outside of her role, but coming alongside him in his.â€

All this talk about being a man's helper. Who's supposed to help the women? Who's supposed to come alongside her in her role? I've never heard that from the Botkinettes.

[Columbia]

The women who founded America best understood this difference between men’s and women’s roles. A-S starts talking about Abigail Adams and why she admires her. Abigail Adams understood that her husband’s adventure was her adventure and her husband’s work was her work. Abigail was as invested in the events that led to America’s independence as her husband was, but in a different way. She knew that as a woman she was prohibited from being in battle, but she knew the details of every battle. She knew she was not prohibited to be in civil authority, but she was passionate about political issues and was her husband’s best political advisor.

E introduces Eliza Lucas Pinckney. This is the second of her talks that I’ve listened to in which she devotes time to Eliza. She even uses the same jokes and turns of speech in both talks. For the sake of time, I’m going to copy and paste the section on Eliza Lucas Pinckney from their previous talk (the one about a home economy) because it’s essentially the same thing.

Eliza was born in Antigua, her father was the governor. Her father took her, her sister, and their mother to their plantations in Carolina to keep them safe during war with Spain. He was called back to Antigua and left all his affairs and the three plantations in Eliza’s care. Eliza started experimenting with seeds and plants to see what crops would do well in the New World. She had a great deal of success with indigo, and it eventually became a huge money producer in Carolina.

E says Eliza is her role model because of how hard she was trying to be a Biblical daughter. E has read Eliza’s letters and says that her entire motivation was to serve the Lord, and her father, and all the people around her. “She was never being a little rouge, autonomous, feministic, little maverick. She was the agent of her father, and that’s what she saw herself as. She was representing his interests.â€

She wanted to live in her father’s world and be part of what he was doing. She wanted to live a life of adventure from her “proper province†(Eliza’s phrase.)

She was trying to be a Proverbs 31 woman who saw family and home as her focus, but she saw it as including business, scientific experimentation, study, and keeping up with world events. She realized how broad her “proper province†could be and how much potential she had serving within her family from home.

E likes that Eliza’s life was so invested in her men. Her letters encourage her father and brothers to be Godly Christian men and fight hard. She tries to breathe words of life and encouragement into her men. She understood that as a woman she couldn’t be on the battlefield, but she could encourage her men instead.

Most of us have never heard of Eliza because feminist historians don’t know what to do with her because her writings are anti-feminist and there’s no way the feminists can redeem her. Eliza doesn’t fit into the feminist mold and probably doesn’t fit into most of our molds, but she does fit into the Biblical mold because the Biblical mold requires a lot.

Some people think the Biblical mold requires too much and they turn to easier visions instead: Jane Austen/Victorian femininity. Books and pictures we like can paint a much smaller version of femininity than Proverbs 31 does. The Victorian Era was not a time that required a lot of women (â€at least not the women in the upper classâ€) For some reason, they never tell us just what the women in the lower class were doing. Most of the women whiled away their time with dainty hobbies until they caught a husband. E thinks that is one of the reasons why this time frame appeals to girls; it’s more romanticized, and they can have hobbies and pretty clothes and suitors. E asks how many of us are being modern day versions of that.

The difference between Eliza Lucas and the girls in Jane Austen books is not their money or clothes or circumstances, but in them, their outlooks, approach to life and womanhood and daughterhood.

[Columbia]

E goes to the Parable of the Talents. (Matthew 25: 14-30) While E reads out the parable she makes a little mistake that seems to encompass almost everything you need to know about the Botkinettes: “‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ His *father* said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.†Correct reading should be "his master said to him."

E tells us that Eliza Lucas could play the first man in the parable. She took the talents that she was given by God through her father (plantations) and made much more and was able to give it back to him (it’s not evident if “him†is her father, or God, but is there really much of a difference?) Imagine if Eliza had instead hidden all those seeds in the cupboard and given them back to her father when he came home. Would Eliza have done what she should have done?

We’ve all been given abilities and connections and tools by God, and our fathers have given them to us as well. It’s not enough to sit on those talents and keep them same, we have to do something with them, and that’s where our adventure starts. Your potential for an adventurous life is partly in your circumstances, but even more within you and how you respond to those circumstances.

A-S speaking: What is holding us back from having a life of adventure and dominion? Modern historians tell us women used to be imprisoned in this terrible place called the home, and held back by oppressive social conventions like submission and she was not allowed to get an education or do anything important “because men were mean and they wanted to have all the fun and all the adventure for themselves.†But we know this isn’t strictly true because the true historical record that E brought up contradicts it, and because there are a lot of liberated 21st century girls out there who are not at home bound hand and foot by submission, and they are not Eliza Lucas or Abigail Adams. A-S does see a lot of girls who have a desire to do big things but don’t know how to express that desire aside from day-dreaming, reading novels, watching movies about women doing adventurous things, or making costumes that look like the things these adventurous women would wear and pretending to be them.

Ahem: botkinsisters.com/2009/07/resurrecting-two-great-queens

To continue. A-S thinks we’re held back by the one thing that has held back men and women for centuries, and the thing that made the wicked and lazy servant in the parable wicked and lazy. The servant was afraid, and hid his master’s money in the ground, and before that tried to shift the blame on the master “you are a hard man, reaping where you do not sew and gathering where you scatter no seed.†According to a commentator the phrase denotes a master who requires work to be done but doesn’t give tools to work with, and we know that isn’t the truth in that situation.

How many of us have said God is a hard god because he gives me all the commandments in the Bible but not the right circumstances to live them out? Or my father is a hard man. He wants me to be the perfect daughter but doesn’t give me the opportunity. We need to admit to ourselves that we’re afraid of hard work, doing what we don’t enjoy, having to face challenges we’re not prepared for, having to do things that take us beyond our comfort zone, and what people think of us. We need to be honest that fear like this is unacceptable. Timidity, frailty, and shyness are not feminine (“God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind.â€) We can’t pretend that fear is okay because we’ve equated it with modesty and a gentle and quiet spirit. We can never allow our decision to stay at home and work with our families to be driven by a fear of doing hard things. Bravery and courage are a fundamental part of womanhood but they can often be misunderstood and neglected.

I wonder if they would call Lourdes going to the police "brave" or "courageous." Or if that would be a misunderstanding of the definitions.

The Bible often calls women virtuous, but the Hebrew word is closer to "valor" or "strength" and is associated with the might of soldiers. This is the kind of virtue we need.

How can we overcome our fear? We have to fear something else more than people. Fear isn’t just an emotion, it’s a decision we make based on what is truly important to us and what we’re afraid of losing. Fear of God means our actions are driven by a desire to please him and dread of the thought of his disapproval.

A-S says she was “a painfully shy, apathetic, and shrinking person†until she decided to fear God more than she feared people or hardship. The only reason she can stand in front of that crowd and give her talk is because she fears God more than she fears us.

In other talks she's mentioned this aspect of her character before, and how her father pointed this out to her and helped her overcome it. I was an incredibly shy person growing up, and I can only imagine how miserable this must have been for her.

E speaking. What is my own adventure going to look like? Probably not like Eliza Lucas or Abigail Adams. It will look different for every girl but there will be common themes for every girl who is trying to live out her “natural dominion desire in a Biblical way.†E shows dozens of family photos to show the listeners what their adventures look like day to day, and explains that it usually looks different year-to-year, and doesn’t usually look like them doing public speaking (she says they almost never do it. For people who almost never do public speaking they seem to have plenty of talks on the Western Conservatory page.) The pictures include: butchering chickens, bottle feeding calves, shopping, cutting firewood, having guests over, managing a webinar for their father, mountain climbing, doing research for family projects. A lot of these might look little and mundane, but they’re all vital parts of a bigger picture: “serving the Lord and advancing His kingdom in the context of our family.†Everyone has a different family and father so everyone’s adventure is going to look different.

Girls sometimes say to them that they don’t have any adventure or opportunities or challenges or that they have a hard master, but an attitude like this usually means there are some things we need to change: heart, mindset, attitude, approach. If you’re alive God has given you opportunities and figuring out your place and role is part of your adventure. If E could tell everyone exactly what they ought to do that would take the fun away (besides, didn’t they write a book about that?)

[gustava]

WOW!!! Thank you and :martini:

[Columbia]

Three common denominators in girls like Eliza Lucas or Abigail Adams:

1) Plug yourself into your family’s adventure. A woman is supposed to be a supported, completer, and enabler for the men in her life and to help them take dominion. You need to find out what your father wants your family’s adventure to be. You need to not have selfish expectations and demands for your father. “Is he supposed to follow your vision, or are you supposed to follow his?†Don’t compare your fathers with other girl’s fathers. Your comparisons are probably wrong, and God is the one who gave you the father and family and situation you have, so complaining about it is really complaining about God and calling Him into question. Your job is to take what God gave you and do something with it. Don’t despise the day of small beginnings because that’s how you learn to handle things. God will be pleased with you if you use your talent well. Sometimes the things that seem small will be big later, like investing in your brothers. The little brother you’re building a model rocket with today might want to take you to space with him tomorrow. The little siblings you’re making home movies with might be the next Steven Spielberg.

Can we pause for a minute and imagine the Botkin clan trying to set up for a trip to the ISS?

2) Be willing to do things that are hard and scary. E references one of the rulers of Jerusalem helping to rebuild the walls of the city with his daughters, Jael, Ruth, Sarah. Adventure includes an element of risk and uncertainty and these women had adventurous lives because they were willing to step out into dangerous and adventurous lives. Adventures won’t happen if you run away from them. If you want to slay dragons and sail the high seas here are some questions to ask yourself:

a. Are you pushing yourself to do the things that are hard for you?

b. Are you looking for ways to do as little as possible or as much as possible?

c. Are you focusing on your own adventure instead of coveting someone else’s?

d. Are you ready to do things you don’t feel ready to do?

e. How will this happen if all your adventures are dependent on what your father and brothers want you to do?

The world is full of needs and there is plenty that girls can do. E believes God requires more of girls than most of us realize, and that girls are capable of more than most of us realize.

3) Give yourself wholly to Christ. Be willing to serve God with everything you have. Real adventure involves risk, and the big thing you need to be willing to risk is yourself. You need to be willing to give your own wants and plans so you’ll be ready for what God has in store. The way to have an adventurous life is to lose your life in Christ to find it.

And that's a wrap. Adventures 101.

[Columbia]

WOW!!! Thank you and :martini:

Cheers. You may need some yourself to get through this.

[Howl]

Columbia, You are so awesome for, once again, taking one for the team!

Oh, for f**k's sake. I slaked my desire for archaeological adventure by becoming an archaeologist. To be clear, this is NOT a glam occupation.

(side note: huge amounts of manual labor and you have to take a LOT of notes. You dig ditches but may not be paid better than a regular ditch digger who does not take notes).

Anywhoo, of course I bring up the Botkinette's much lauded (on this forum) cousin, Katie Botkin, who does all the amazing things that the Botkinettes don't do 'cause SAHDs E and A-S are busily stuck at home expanding their horizons intellectually circling the drain while claiming to be vicariously and vigorously titillated by their brothers' adventures abroad.

In accordance with Jon Stewart's admonishment that "The best defense against bullshit is vigilance. If you smell something, SAY SOMETHING!", Katie said something about the pseudo-intellectual manly stance Egypt adventure book by creating a blog post that pretty much dismantles the whole thing. You can read her take down here:

kbotkin.com/2014/07/29/navigating-history-dominion-worldview-and-christian-jihad/

I'll start you off with a bit o' text from that post, which was written in Summer 2014:

Navigating history: Dominion worldview and Christian jihad.

I’ve just finished reading through the book “Navigating The Worldviews of Egypt,†written by my cousins Anna Sophia, Elizabeth, Isaac and Noah Botkin and a variety of their colleagues (and parents and in-laws). I read it at various intervals and in small chunks, because it was difficult to consume at any length without it hurting my brain.

The book is dedicated to pointing out the inferior worldviews of Egypt, starting with its pagan decadence and finishing with the more recent uprisings. Large portions of the text are dedicated to explaining that Islam is terrible and that often, Muslims will lie to you about what they actually believe (p. 93). The authors concede that there are some moderate Muslims in the world, but they insist these people aren’t really following the Koran and Mohammed’s example.

This is juxtaposed with various comments about the right way to do things, such as the right way to have adventures and take dominion over the earth. The right way to adventure is seen, for example, in the exploration and dominion of Christopher Columbus. The right way to take over a nation is seen in the example of Oliver Cromwell, whom the book speaks very fondly of. That’s right, Oliver Cromwell. The same guy who invaded Ireland and slaughtered thousands of Irish Catholics, some of them even after they’d surrendered, on the assumption that their religion would pre-dispose them to be pesky and possibly belligerent.

The next time E or A-S goes to the doctor, they will get to see a woman physician, because SHE did not stay at home serving her father and living vicariously through her brother(s). Yeah, I know these people probably don't go to the doctor, it is a hypothetical.

[FundieWatcher]

“She was never being a little rouge, autonomous, feministic, little maverick.

:dance: Nice. A Sarah Palin dig. I think that was my favorite. Thanks for paying and summarizing. :martini:

Botkins, you guys just keep doing you. Researching and video editing. :clap: What an epic adventure! Next you should make phone calls and travel arrangements. A life spent trying to do as must as possible from home. Can't wait for more speeches. :popcorn2:

[FundieWatcher]

Wait. Stop the presses. Wasn't their father's vision for them to be the mothers of hundreds of generations or something?

[anjulibai]

Wait. Stop the presses. Wasn't their father's vision for them to be the mothers of hundreds of generations or something?

Yup. Even prayed over their ovaries. I guess that's not happening now.

[FundieWatcher]

So really they are feminists. They didn't do what their dad wanted them to do. Awesome.

[nickelodeon]

Urrrrghhh. They are so vile.

It's easy to say "you can have rich exciting experiences while being servile to your dad and bros" when your dad is the globetrotting duck-tolling Western Conservatory guy. For a lot of girls in their audience, helping daddy won't involve reading fun books, wearing fancy dressups and planning expensive foreign travel itineraries. They have to know that, don't they? The girls whose dad tells them to write books about Egypt telling the girls whose dad tells them to wake up at 2 AM to change a newborn brother's diaper "don't envy another person's father" is just too cruel!

Also throwing tons of shade at the introduction of Eliza Pinckney like some sketchy ad for teeth whiteners ("feminists HATE her! Local stay-at-home daughter discovers one weird trick to growing indigo")... Pinckney has been the subject of lots of scholarship in the last 20 years, and lots of it is done by people in the Women's Studies field! C'mon.

[Cartmann99]

Yup. Even prayed over their ovaries. I guess that's not happening now.

If I had been told that my only purpose in life was to marry and have children until my uterus fell out and ran off to Vegas, I would be so angry right now. These two followed all the rules and there doesn't appear to be a prospect in sight for either daughter. Why on earth do they still have fans, when they themselves have failed to achieve the only two goals their crappy worldview allows them to hope for!?! Gah!! :pull-hair:

[Marian the Librarian]

Wait. Stop the presses. Wasn't their father's vision for them to be the mothers of hundreds of generations or something?

"The best-laid plans..." (pun intended)

:lol:

[defraudingjezebel]

You're a star, Columbia. Thanks for slogging through that tripe and writing up such an articulate, thorough and interesting synopsis!

I've said it before and I'll say it again- this extremely subservient mentality is mentally lazy. Very mentally lazy. Its allowing someone else to make all the tough decisions while you get to just follow along. Then if things go wrong, they can play the martyr and simply tell everyone that they were following their husband's/father's wishes. It takes a lot more guts and internal strength for someone to strike out on their own.

[Bbfamteam]

Their entire line of thinking made me throw up in my mouth a little. I suppose I should have just researched about India instead of going and spending 7 weeks immersed in the culture and traveling. I should be punished because one of the weeks I spent working in the western medical clinic alongside a doc from berkley who lives and works at the Buddhist monastery/college in the Tibetan protected settlements. I got dengue fever which put a damper on things and then my travel partner got sick and I spent a week traveling alone. According to the Botkinettes I should have stayed home and tried to find ways to make my dad's business better and help him with adventures. I just got married at 32 but lived on my own for 14 years prior to meeting my husband. Oh and I'm the primary breadwinner in our household. I have officially failed fundie femininity 101 and I do not feel an ounce of sorrow.

[AmazonGrace]

A-S opens the talk by explaining how she and E have been invited to talk on various aspects of femininity: modest femininity, feminine femininity (redundant redundancy), beautiful femininity, but this time they’re giving a talk on the adventurous side of femininity (“one facet that often gets neglected.â€) The side that is interested in “quests, dragon-slaying, archaeology, swashbuckling… general feats of daring.†The hope to address the questions: “Where did these hankerings come from? Are they okay for a girl? How can she live them out in a Biblical way? Does a girl have any part in the adventurous life, or does she have to extinguish every spark of spunk she has in order to become a real lady?†A-S says these questions are ones that she and E have had and now she’s going to tell us about an adventure the two of them had that helped them figure out the place for these desires.

BBM.

I got this far before becoming thoroughly depressed. The mere fact that they even have to ask, or think it's a relevant topic talk to others about, whether it's necessary for girls to extinguish every spark of spunk they have, is profoundly messed up.

Hey, I got to reserve the plane tickets for my male relative, yay, I had adventure :O)

If I reserved plane tickets for a female relative does that count too?

[Peas n carrots]

So question - my dad's hope and dream for me was to get a college education and have a career- am I not still a damn dirty feminist but a biblical daughter?

This whole dialogue sounds like them trying to justify their lives to their audience. I wonder if their fans have caught on to the fact they are 30-ish and not married?

[Howl]

I'm recalling a post from Lisa Pennington, talking her to her daughters about how they can play their required role in Patriarchy without, um, dying inside.

I think the term she used was, Without losing hope. There is something so idiotic about patriarchy, which encourages women to bear many children, develop no marketable skills and just assume that the breadwinner husband will

a) never die

b) never be disabled

c) never have a prolonged illness

These women may also not be eligible for Social Security if there was some type of under-the-table business; they could be left, literally, destitute.

And let's take the case of E and A-S. What is their source of support if they never marry and Geoff and his wife have passed away and they have no work history?

Maybe they are part of the T Rex Arms business, but by the time E and A-S are getting along in years, there are going to be many, many mouths to feed.

Also, out of curiosity, we're pretty well versed in what Patriarchy requires in terms of the marriage relationship: wifely submission, no birth control, SAHD, child discipline and so forth. I've never seen anything about an obligation to care for one's aging parents.

There is something so sad about these two SAHD-Bots, although I'm sure they would strongly disagree about my assessment of their lives. But surely, at some point, their still unmarried SAHD readers will have a meltdown when they realize that they, too, could still be at home at 30, but likely living a life of domestic drudgery.

[salex]

So question - my dad's hope and dream for me was to get a college education and have a career- am I not still a damn dirty feminist but a biblical daughter?

This whole dialogue sounds like them trying to justify their lives to their audience. I wonder if their fans have caught on to the fact they are 30-ish and not married?

I suspect they would view your father as not stepping up to his godly role, as they do men who don't want submissive wives.

[FundieWatcher]

I suspect they would view your father as not stepping up to his godly role, as they do men who don't want submissive wives.

I always wonder like what if your dad is Dennis Hof or something. And his vision is opening brothels. How could a stay-at-home-daughter assist with that? :think: :mrgreen:

[PearlKrabs]

So once I force my interests to be those of my father/brother/husband's, I then have to accept that I'll never act on those interests. I can only 'support' them by doing the tedious grunt work for all of their projects. The things I do have to myself, like making muffins and home decorating, I can't enjoy too much because then I'm being a feminist. And this is how I please God? :| Screw that.

[Columbia]

So question - my dad's hope and dream for me was to get a college education and have a career- am I not still a damn dirty feminist but a biblical daughter?

I've wondered about this before. In one of their talks they talked about fathers abdicating their duty to protect their daughters, and how it would be justified for their daughters to seek out an older couple that would provide them with protection. At the same time, they also came right out and said that they don't think going to college is a sin. So I have no idea if telling your daughter to go to college would count as abdicating your role as her protector. I think that if someone wrote in asking them they would at least counsel her to find some sort of "authority" and protection close to campus (a pastor's family, or the like) since obviously her father doesn't think any more highly of her than to send her out to the wolves.

[Marian the Librarian]

The Botkinettes' faux-intellectual messages have, over time, proven to be more changeable than Montana weather. "You thought we said that, but you're wrong! What we really meant was this! Did you think we told you to do ABC? No NO! We really meant that you should do XYZ! Be adventurous and brave, but stay home and submit to male authority! Buy our 'Beauty' course, but don't draw attention to yourselves! Praise militant fecundity, but live a celibate adulthood with mom and dad!"

Our obviously sporadic output is thanks to our frequent decisions to pull back from writing and speaking altogether to focus on growing theologically, spiritually, and in ability in handling the word of truth – as well as to focus on really living the message we’re trying to preach backtrack, revise, make mental hairpin turns, and switch up our game of Dominionist Whack-A-Mole. Gotta keep the sheeple guessing! Good luck keeping up with us!!!

Like cigarette manufacturers, the Botkin family should be required to label each and every one of their sermons, blog posts, and products with "WARNING: This Way Lies Madness." Trying to make sense of anything they say is a guaranteed first-class ticket to crazy town.

Columbia, thanks for taking this one for the team. You're a stronger woman than I! :worship: