A Deep Dive into 'For Women Only' by Shaunti Feldhahn ft. Meghan Tschanz & Devi Abraham
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- Опубліковано 21 сер 2024
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Our post that does a deep dive in the problematic survey questions that Shaunti Feldhahn asks:
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Find Meghan Tschanz’s podcast series on For Women Only: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4
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Devi Abraham’s podcast Where Do We Go From Here, including my latest episode with her!
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We take apart the “love and respect survey question at the end of this podcast:
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I can’t say how thankful I am for this conversation. I was knee deep in an abusive marriage with 5 little boys in the early 2000s when I read Shauntis book and watched seminars she did. I was in constant emotional pain and fear and her book gave me a sense of relief that maybe my then husbands pornography and abuse issues were somehow normal. Especially with how she talked about a mans incredible need to look at a woman in a sexual way. I didn’t know that she used Dr. Eggrichs information but it makes so much sense because it’s so similar. I am convinced that much of church culture and leadership believe women are spiritually and emotionally inferior to men because “ Eve was deceived’ and it encourages domination, abuse and wolves in sheep’s clothing. Growing up as a Southern Baptist missionary kid, I know firsthand how this mindset about women is so deep against women. Coming out of that, I am one of the few among my Christian friends who sees this and it’s a bit lonely. It also harms men, like Keith said.
Answer to question at minute 20, why the evangelical church would want to prove men are animals basically? Because the men who are the “leaders” can justify their perversions instead of taking responsibility for their sexual sins and repent of them
True, but what’s still mind-boggling is that it proved they actively WANT to deny God’s Word. I Corinthians 10:13, Galatians 5:16-17, and others plainly state that the only thing a man (or anyone) needs to overcome temptation is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. By insisting that men are just animals that need women to gatekeep, they are outing themselves as not being redeemed or Spirit-filled.
Thank you! It’s really challenging to look forward on marriage as a woman when I heard this…
Also I really wonder if we are reading the same bible. Jesus himself said that a man who lust after a woman has already committed adultery.
Doesn't sound very Christian to me.
@@Sequoia98 it doesn't matter if it's the same Bible. They take what they want and twist it or edit it or take it out of context to make it say whatever they want it to say. Then defend it with their authority or chastize challengers for undermining them.
As to marriage. You don't need to be afraid, but you do need to be informed. And you need to be a solid and complete person by yourself first. I wish you that you find every happiness with someone who deserves you.
This is so validating to me. I spent years in a sexually and emotionally abusive marriage and was repeatedly told by several pastors that I needed to respect him more and never ask for anything. Meanwhile implying I was to blame for everything.
I went through the same thing. Happily alone now. With my kids.
I was devastated when I read her book but I had no idea it was so poorly researched.
Me too. I literally couldn’t finish it… I was so heartbreaking 💔
@@melissaiahn5336 how do you figure her research was poor?
8:12 - Meghan Tschanz brings up a really good point that I've heard phrased in another way:
"When people say 'respect,' some of them mean it as 'an authority,' while others mean it as 'a person.' And some people say, 'If you will not treat me as an authority, I will not treat you as a person.'"
38:27 - [Shaunti Feldhahn and her co-author Craig Gross]
Holup, Craig Gross from XXXChurch? Craig Gross "I'm good friends with Ron Jeremy and we did friendly debates on college campuses" (I wanted to attend when I was in college but had a class that evening) ? ABC News, ten years ago, had a fascinating article about Jeremy and Gross that's still available for not-at-work reading ("America's Ultimate Odd Couple").
In The Godfather it was clear that by “Respect” they meant FEAR 😢
@@stregalilith Yep. Too many of them make that very clear. "I think there are two virtues. Loyalty and confidentiality. Be loyal to the people who helped you and learn how to keep your mouth shut. If you have information that could be hurtful to someone, be confidential." ~ Mike Huckabee, Newsmax video interview (and to be fair, he was a nice guy to me when I personally met him once, but I don't agree with his virtues)
Many of these leaders are charming in person so you’ll vote for them😂
So his job is to talk to her and her job to give sex to him. But he is allowed to be too overwhelmed and not need to talk; but she is expected to do the sex regardless where she is emotionally or physically.
I really want to know if the women who shared this book understand what type of marriage it’s describing for them. I can understand the attire for some egoistic men but as a woman how can you aspire to this arrangement ?
Min. 6. Yes! Love and respect are so interconnected you can't really separate the 2! Growing up in a family where I wasn't valued as an individual, I sought out respect way more than love, because I knew if someone respected me, they would be able to love me. And I'm a woman
This is just appalling. Thank you for this deep dive. Truly. Thank you for standing for truth. I can't recall if I read her book, but I read Every Young Woman's Battle and Every Woman's Battle and generally consumed or was exposed to so many of these teachings that I've spent the last little while undoing. Oof. Grateful for your work, and hubby and I are reading through the Good Girl/Guy books!
People are visual period. If I'm in a train station by myself, and another person walks in, I'm going to look, whether they are attractive or not.
It's a reflex reaction and it's also a part of "situational awareness". I read her book YEARS ago when I was pre-teen, I honestly don't remember it. I also read the "For Men Only"
So if the fern doctor guy’s wife were to dismiss his desire to talk with, “Oh honey, I’m sorry, but that’s workplace stuff, and my brain just won’t go there,” I’m assuming that would be OK with him and he’d understand, right?
I am in the UK and the evangelical culture like this is very small here. Saying that I have heard about the Power of the praying wife, but most of the rest of these books you cover are a new insight to me, and a horrifying one.
This one seems worst than most, with the implication of 'research'. Those questions are so loaded. And the follow up book blaming the damage she caused as 'it's your issues that you can't cope etc. The amount of testimonies about damage she has caused, picked up in your work but even heard by her, which this comment confirms, and still she insists on reprints.
As a single person driving around, I would love to have someone else in the car to offer corrections. Especially having moved to a new area, and reliant on phone sat nav which randomly decided to stop speaking to me!
This was a great discussion, and eye opening 👀 for me in many ways. Thank you for that!
May I add a request/suggestion as well? How about we stop throwing stones at "white evangelicals" or "white males". I am neither white, nor male, and I'm not even sure what "evangelical" is, I'm just a Christian. When we condemn "white evangelicals", are we saying that any other group, from any other culture is better? I, like Devi, am a woman from the Indian culture. From what I have seen and experienced, inequality between the sexes, abuse in marriage, and injustice towards women is far worse in the Indian culture. It's normal, and accepted, and society rewards the man, and condemns the woman, regardless of what happens. The man is always right, and the woman's job is to make the man happy. This is a human issue. This problem exists all over the world! How did everything become the fault of the "white evangelicals"?! This is a trend in the world, to blame everything on the white man, and to condemn Christianity as hate. We are Christians. We should not mindlessly follow the world, and condemn Christianity, when Christianity actually lifts the woman. It teaches the husband to love his wife as Christ loved the Church and gave His life for her. No other religion teaches such a thing, and no other culture provides protection for women as much as the West, which is a direct influence of Christianity. Please, let's all give this matter serious consideration. Thank you.
It’s exactly for this reason that its so important to condemn white evangelicals. I hear what you’re saying, and it’s very true. The fact of the matter, is that Christianity is something precious, because it is truth. And BECAUSE OF THAT, it should contradict everything in the world that’s dark or wrong or sick or doesn’t feel right. When people condemn white evangelicals, they are speaking to the twisted power these men have had for so many decades. When you hold something that contains truth, it’s so easy to draw people in and twist and change it, and I’m so doing, control others. This is the accusation. It’s so serious because it claims to be, and contains ultimate truth, YET, is damaging the world around it in the same way as things which do not. We NEED to hold these systems accountable. Christian shouldn’t be a better alternative to other religions, it should be the truth that everyone is missing. We should be able to look at what the church is preaching and find no darkness. thats exactly where the anger comes from.
Yes it seems that patriarchy is universal but especially in what they call “high demand” or fundamentalist religions. You bring up an important point. In the United States these ideas predominate in the white Evangelical churches and since they are so intent on spreading the word their ideas and books and TV shows are very prominent in public but are by no means exclusive to them.
Here in the US, white evangelical culture seems to dominate Christianity, but you've brought up great points about the world in general.
While my ex fiancé and I were in premarital counseling, we were given the books “For Men/Women Only”. As we were going over the books with our pastor, he (the pastor) said that the book for the women really irritated him when he first read it because it gave away all of men’s secrets. I fully believed the book. Even once my now husband and I were dating, I believed the books were good. I still had the book for the women, and bought the one for men for my husband. I told him I wanted to read through them, but as I was reading, I had horrible anxiety…. I was being brought back to the time with my ex. I haven’t touched the book since.
Our book club read it; it never saw right with me. The others loved it but they had more traditional marriages. Generally I missed the purity teachings as I married in ‘85.
Same year as my parents.
Oh, the abuse I enabled and even praised in the name of "respect."
Great job folks😅 Appreciate hearing the truth 👍👍💜
Sheila! You said you are an ENTJ! I’m an ENTJ too!
"There can only be one opinion" Have any of you read the book The Woman Who Would not be Silenced?
It's not been so long ago that a woman expressing a different opinion from her husband was grounds for committing her to an asylum and declaring her insane.
Reading the Great Sex Rescue really gave me a different perspective on purity culture and why I've been reacting so much against books like Every Young Man's Battle (haven't read the others in the series and never will). I thought that For Men Only was giving me some real insight into the female experience that I'd never had before, and that both that book together with For Women Only did a pretty good job of providing an idea of mutuality in relationships. In fact I've been recommending it to couples and even gave a copy away to some friends! Now I'm rethinking that decision thanks to your perspective here. I still think that Feldhahn has some great things to say though perhaps the way she's wording things needs to be changed to not leave the stragglers behind.
It's interesting though that you talk so much about For Women Only while never mentioning its companion for men. And do you have something that IS aimed at men trying to understand women, that you would recommend reading?
1:25:15. Sorry, this book is in curriculum in seminary??? There is no way it would pa's into theological training for ordination in UK. Not even in the evangelical ones. But whilst our theological colleges can be owned and run by denominations accreditation comes from links to mainstream universities which demand a higher rigour than 'books our leaders like'.
The overall US evangelical extreme culture is so alien to the European Christian mindset. Was it to do with new territory, distance from established historical churches, space for the independent preacher ? But then Australia doesn't have the same dynamic, Canada I am not familiar withbut don't get the same impression as US. Where I have encountered this theogical and social approach, in UK and Zambia, it has been traced to links with the US.
I am grateful for all the work you are doing to critique these issues from a place within the faith. Those who have left to recover from it are dismissed as backslidden and not to be listened to. But brave and strong voices from people of faith is a huge contribution.
You should do a review on the book called Love-ology by John Mark Comer. I just finished it based on a recommendation by my fiance's Pastor and am horrified by its contents. Not to go into much detail I'll just sum it up by saying it blends somewhat good advice with a heap of horrendous advice.
1:15:40 Oh my word. Can we talk about DARVO here? My opinions and decisions were respected literally everywhere EXCEPT AT HOME. At home, I did not matter at all, except as the resident unpaid domestic help and blow up səx doll. But HE will feel like he doesn't matter. DARVO all day long.
Pure projection.
Oh yes, projection was one of his favorite weapons.
I had this episode on in the background while folding laundry and my husband happened to walk in during the part where Keith said it doesn't feel good to be corrected while he is driving. He thought that was weird, so he would probably find at least some of the book's statements of how men are as ridiculous! Shout out to the good husbands/boyfriends/fiances!!
I can't remember for sure whether I read the full book, as I read a few of her works, but I was definitely exposed to the whole "guys are visual" argument by my math teacher as a teen--even though she had told us in multiple occasions that she herself is a visual learner. It definitely made me lose respect for the boys at my school a little, even the ones I thought were nice and were my friends, by being told all guys are like this and they can't help it. I also read For Men Only when I had downtime at my graduate internship and I knew some of the generalizations about women didn't fit me but assumed I was just weird.
To this day when I call for someone to repair something in the house I make sure I’m not alone but the I think do other women feel this same fear when my son comes to their house to fix their plumbing?
1:16:10 I bet they seek out advice and feedback from their colleagues at work. While behaving at home as if their wives bring nothing of value to the relationship. BTDT
This trash can also distort normal family relationships to where a a daughter can’t feel safe around her own dad, and a sister can’t feel safe around her brothers.
The Dugger children being victimized by these false teachings have acted it out right in front of us. The Dugger daughters were not safe from their brother Josh who was also a victim of purity teachings. Those ideas twist all relationships between the genders. It’s a tragedy 😢
I’ve recently been listening to her podcast, trying to help my marriage when I found that she kept calling the women’s fives it was for men only, and she said to all of the spies that are listening, which I took a great offense to that because I’m trying to save my marriage that’s why I’m listening to your podcast, but did you know that in the for women only when she addresses the men that are reading the book, she calls the men she does not call them spies if you ever noticed she’s always helping out the guys. I did reach out to her to explain how the word spies was very insulting to me because I tried saving my marriage and I did a lot of research and searching that. I guess she would call a spy but I was a mother trying to save my family anybody else never noticed her spy words.
INTJ here - I guessed Sheila was a xNTJ!
Sheila says she doesn't understand the difference when Shaunti says that she doesn't say that all men struggle with lust, but instead that they struggle with their visual nature to consume women. I thought about this for just 5 minutes and I see the difference. Saying that all men struggle with their visual nature to consume women is like saying that men struggle with the male PROPENSITY to lust. There's a difference there. How is it that Sheila, who has thought about this for years, fails to see the difference??
No there is no difference. Shaunti teach that all men lust after women because the are more visuals and it’s the wife jobs to help him with that. How ? Don’t hold sex.
@@Sequoia98 Perhaps she does - I'm just pointing out that there is a difference between "all men struggle with lust" and "all men struggle with their visual nature to consume women", a difference Sheila doesn't grasp for some reason.
@@Sequoia98Don’t “withhold sex” you mean?
No, men really ARE more visual sexually than women! Shaunti is correct, Sheila and her panel are wrong! At 18:50, Sheila says "there really are not differences in the visual nature between men and women. It's more that women don't necessarily register arousal in the same way that men do, even when they're physically aroused. We have more arousal non-concordance. Women get aroused by different things." Yes, men's and women's brains may initially react similarly to visual stimuli, but then other parts of the brain kick in! The parts that make men think "Woah - she's so hot!" and the parts that make him horny kick in to a much higher degree than they generally do for women. So, in the end, men ARE more visual. They are much more likely to want to sleep with a random hot woman that they see than a woman does with a random hot guy that she sees.
This is a myth which was spread to justify the inability of men to be sexually disciplined as women. Women have always been socialised to be more in control even internally. We see an hot man but don’t allow ourselves more. Men can do this too. Jesus tells them they can do more.
And also why do you guys are proud to be the weaker sex in the most important aspect of marriage but at the same time want to be the leaders? It’s makes no sense.
@@Sequoia98Men could be trained to be more like women, but they would never be the same. One reason: this arousal non-concordance that Sheila mentions. The fact remains though: for several reasons, men are more visual sexually than women.
@@Sequoia98 Guys aren't proud of it - they just want it acknowledged.
What research can you cite that backs this up?