Quiver Full

I may have mentioned in an earlier post that I have lots upon lots of time at work to cruise the internet, and I always want to bring my incredible findings back here to the faithful readers because you can't make this shit up.

The latest installment of my findings deal with the quiver fulls, an evangelical christian movement that takes this one passage from the bible very literally:

"Lo children are an heritage unto the Lord:
and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
As arrows are in the hands of a mighty man,
so are children of the youth.
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them"
Psalm 127:3-5

Obviously the name of the movement is based on this scripture, but basically the gist of their ideology is that the participants of QF should not practice birth control and the entire family (wife included) should submit to the patriarchy of the husband. Now I normally find this stuff so ragingly offensive that I wouldn't be able to stomach it, but one of the QF movement's most outspoken protestor is a woman named Vyckie Garrison. She had an extremely troubled early life that she writes about in exhausting detail on her blog, No Longer Quivering. Her mother was essentially single her entire childhood and went from deadbeat step-dad to deadbeat step-dad, men who sexually abused Vyckie's older sister and physically abused her mom. Vyckie got married when she was 16 to a man who emotionally and physically abused her for 5 years before they split. Then she moved to Iowa and married a blind man with whom she raised her daughter from another man, and eventually gave birth to six of his children. These pregnancies were extremely physically taxing for her, as she has a rare bone disorder, and to top it off, they had a home business and were home schooling their children. Her husband constantly berated and verbally harassed their oldest daughter to the point that the daughter attempted suicide.

Vyckie has not fully written out when the turning point came for her to divorce her husband and get her kids out of that environment, but the important thing to note is that she did eventually leave. She now runs her blog with writings from other ex-QFs and very eloquently writes about her own negative experiences.

Reading her story is quite the experience for someone with my worldview. She tries to remember her thoughts, feelings, and politics from the times that she describes, so she often says things that come across as unintentionally hilarious. An example (and I'm paraphrasing) is "At the time Bill Clinton had just been elected president so we truly thought it was the end of times." She had friends who ascribed to the belief that they did not have to hold themselves accountable for their actions (i.e. being in debt or sending their kids to public schools, two courses of action--in their minds--that were equally as "risky") because they thought they were gonna be raptured out of here sooner rather than later.

One thing that struck me about her beliefs during that time in her life is how firmly rooted they were in fear. She and everyone around her practically kept their families on house arrest. They believed that public schools were secular and godless, and that if their children were exposed to the government's evil and sin that their kids would be corrupted. They never once questioned why, if they were so certain that their lifestyle was the right one, that their children would immediately fall into the dangers of secularism and liberalism. One would think that this extreme level of belief would equal some sort of confidence. However, according to their system of thought, the devil is everywhere and he will git ya at any time. Therefore they sought to be vigilant warriors for the lord.

I write all of this about Vyckie's life without the intent to criticize her; through her writings it is evident that she is an intelligent woman. The two greatest victories of her life were leaving a man who mentally and physically abused her as well as a movement that created a psychological strangehold on her and her children (no small feats). I firmly suggest looking at her writing, although it requires a great deal of time to sift through. I hadn't given a great deal of thought to the intersection of patriarchy and religion in a long time. It was a definite wake up call to see how at least one segment of the American population thinks--there are apparently thousands of quiver fulls. (This fact scares me of course because that means they're producing obscene numbers of new Americans. All the better to consume the world with, my pretty! EEEE!!)

Since all of my reading on the internet fundamentally relates back to one subject--sexism--the quiver full movement definitely provided a new insight into the ways in which the oppression of women is perpetuated in our society. Sometimes in the academic world people seem to think that feminism is an obsolete discipline but these people couldn't be more wrong. Outside of the major global issues of inequality that I think all social movements need to address, we're still finding examples of extreme sexism in the darker corners of our society. Let's keep beating the bushes, America, and figure this shit out.

The Jezebel entry on the quiver full movement