Dear Shary,
My first instinct after noticing this morning that you had unfriended me on Facebook was to wonder What should I have said or done differently?...because I learned early in my adult life to blame myself if someone is either hurt or angry with me. Like yourself, I learned self-blame and victimhood in church. We share some early conditioning. We are women who tolerated a subservient place in the church and home because we believed that our pastors taught truth and our husbands led our marriages according to god's will. Together, we helped build a place for Frederick Drummond. Together, we united and supported women -- the dear friends of our youth -- who suffered outsider roles in that church, experienced failed marriages, wore outdated clothes, wondered how to pay doctor bills, heard the public shaming and insults from the pulpit. We went through this together. You and I and other women who are now 70 years of age or more. We should know better than to blame ourselves when other women shun us for our experiences or opinions.
However, one of us still carries that mindset. One of us is willing to believe propaganda. One of us accepts without question and sans verifiable evidence the talking points of powerful white men.
The cult mindset is very difficult to overcome. Yes, today's Republican party is a cult of personality. Yes, this political party has many similarities to a religious cult. More important, there is no escaping the facts of its cultist approach to political campaigning and organizing. Did you unfollow me because I am outspoken and skeptical? Were my replies too candid...unlike the replies of a proper woman? Did my posts and replies make you uncomfortable because they openly challenged the authorities you follow and your own opinions?
Among the behaviors I changed after leaving our church and then pursuing higher education for a career was this one: fearing and resisting challenge. Not an easy behavior to change. In fact, I only recently feel like I've conquered the urge to avoid challenges to my thinking. Even twenty years into a professional career, twenty years after escaping the Drummond cult, I would still avoid pursuing leadership roles because I loathed having to defend myself or accept full responsibility for my faults. I avoided being offended or hurt by avoiding the situations or conversations that could lead there. Drummond would approve. He did not like his church women challenging his authority. If a woman as did Grace challenged her husbands's authority, he could tolerate that. He respected so few of the men in that church; he learned to use and manipulate them for his own profit. The women who stayed with Drummond's cult are women who have no respect for their husbands but have a cultist's belief in Drummond.
This belief in absolute authority is how the Republican party wins votes. We who vote against absolute authority will never again vote for a Republican. We hear the cultism in their MAGA rhetoric, their propaganda on FOX and Newsmax and Conservative Radio. The culture wars the GOP famously fight are mere distractions and manipulations. You and I know this. We experienced this. Why are women who've experienced extremism so blind to it when it exists outside their own churches? Why give your power to a political cult that wants you to ignore its criminality, its lies, its leaders' cruelty?
I learned over decades since 1982 to replace those fears with Reason and think critically about my doubts and others' opinions. However, that change was too slow for me to catch up with the aspirations I held dear at ages thirty and forty. I wanted to do much more with my life. When your heart and stomach ache with the fear of challenge -- challenging myself and being challenged -- you know that you've not conquered cult mindset. Cults thrive when their followers run from challenges.
And the most loyal of a cult's followers are its women. Which leads me to this conclusion: I feel sadness, Shary, that you chose to end even the most superficial of a relationship on Facebook. It feels like rejection. But I know that it is not rejection. I understand your need to avoid confrontation. I understand that many women accuse others like myself of being rude and negative when we are merely being candid -- you probably accept candid behaviors from men. FB rejection is silly. I want you to know that I do not take this seriously; it is not my person that you reject. You reject challenges to your beliefs.
If we are to improve our lives for the better, make it through this fascist era to the other side, kick Christian Nationalism to democracy's curb, raise our daughters to be honest and accept challenges, replace fear with Reason, and overcome any cult's hold on women, we must accept our challenges and take back our power as women.
Sincerely,
Nancy