Opinion
Gilead rising: In Trump’s America, misogyny has found a powerful toehold
Julia Baird
Journalist, broadcaster, historian and authorYou know you’ve reached a low point when reporters need to ask if America’s defence secretary does, in fact, support women having the vote. Yes, a hard and long fought-for basic right to have a voice in public life. Yet they were prompted to when, earlier this month, Pete Hegseth approvingly posted a CNN segment on Christian nationalist and pastor Doug Wilson.
In the clip, women were referred to as unskilled breeders. In a staggeringly patronising remark, Wilson told the female reporter: “Women are the kind of people that people come out of.” He added: “It doesn’t take any talent to simply reproduce biologically”, as countless women sat on their couches yelling that they’d like to see him try.
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In Wilson’s vision of a theocratic Christian society, women would not vote individually. A pastor of one of his churches told CNN the 19th Amendment should be repealed because there would be a household vote, cast by the man. Another pastor stressed he’d discuss it with his household first. (There’s a recipe for domestic harmony!)
Women are to obey, men to lead. Patriarchy 101.
“Unsubmissive women,” Wilson has written, “are a truly destructive force.”
He also reiterated his belief that more needs to be made of the masters who were good to their slaves, for some reason. (And thinks gay sex should be criminalised again. He has joked that if he conducts a wedding, he’d like to be warned if “a radical lesbian aunt is going to be there – if there is going to be awkwardness at the reception, you might as well be prepared for it!” Hahahaha what?)
So, is this just another fundamentalist loon hearkening back to days when women were chattel, their entire status linked to their husbands, if they had one? Or is this the sign of a broader reassertion of the subservience of women, stealthily creeping into the mainstream?
What amazes me – and, yes, I know that there are a million spot fires in the United States right now – is that more was not made of this, given Hegseth’s seniority and power. Because if you just take a quick peek at what Wilson is about, you will find some disturbing stuff.
And we should note, he’s not lacking in influence, having established a seminary, a college and school in Idaho, founded the Association of Classical Christian Schools, which now has several hundred schools, one of which Hegseth’s children go to. He started a denomination called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), which contains about 130 churches around the world.
So, let’s have a look at some of his beliefs.
In his book, Her Hand in Marriage, Wilson argued that if women submit to husbands, they are protecting themselves from having to submit to other men (don’t get me started on that illogic). They need “godly masculine protection against ungodly masculine harassment”.
But, he says, “women who genuinely insist on ‘no masculine protection’ are really women who tacitly agree on the propriety of rape”.
He doubled down in 2016: “One consequence of rejecting the protection of good men is that you are opening yourself up to the predations of bad men. I fully acknowledge that this is not what such women think they are doing. They think they are rejecting the patriarchy, or some other icky thing, but when they have walked away from the protections of fathers and brothers, what it amounts to is a tacit (implicit, in principle, not overt) acceptance of the propriety of rape.”
So, is he actually saying women who don’t get married are implicitly accepting rape? And is he aware that the men from whom most women need protecting are their partners?
Wilson says he has been clear that he doesn’t support rape, but we are in murky territory here.
“When women reject the protective shield of their own husbands, they have to come up with makeshift shields – because all those other men are still out there,” he writes. “So, she resorts to a therapist maybe, or vagina hat marches, or the sisterhood, or a federal agency, or something else equally lame. Why not seek protection from just one man?”
What of consent? Well, this is how he writes about sex. “[T]he sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonises, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.”
Then there’s the thorny question of what to do if an uppity woman won’t submit to you. Sarah Stankorb, author of Disobedient Women, writes in The Cut: “In his book, Federal Husband, Wilson argues that the first time a wife does not do the dishes, her husband should gently remind her, but if she ‘continues to rebel’, then he should call in the elders.”
These teachings about male control are often interpreted as instructing women to put up with all kinds of abuse. Credit: Getty Images
His advice to men to lead women with a “firm hand” has reportedly led some to start “spanking” their wives. And spanking is simply a gentler word for abuse. This is the problem with these teachings of male control and female subservience, ordered by God, rooted in nature – evidence has repeatedly shown they are frequently interpreted as instructing women to put up with all kinds of abuse, and enabling abusers.
So why hasn’t more been made of Hegseth’s admiration for Wilson? Remember the outcry about former president Barack Obama’s preacher, Jeremiah Wright, who had made inflammatory remarks about American foreign policy before the 9/11 attacks years earlier? This was the subject of prominent outrage for months, and, though there was no evidence Obama had been present when those remarks were made, or agreed with any of them, he was forced to make long clarifying statements disavowing Wright’s views.
But for Hegseth, a shrug.
When asked if Hegseth believed women should have the right to vote, Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said it was a “stupid question”. “Of course,” he thinks that, apparently, despite just prominently, supportively posting men who think they shouldn’t (the gaslighting!). The Pentagon said in a statement to NPR that Hegseth was a “proud member of a church affiliated with” the CREC and that “[t]he Secretary very much appreciates many of Mr Wilson’s writings and teachings”. Without, note, specifying if there were any teachings he did not agree with.
Nor what he thought of that icky old thing, female equality.
Julia Baird is an author, broadcaster and columnist.