I am so sick of the sexist rubbish that goes on in churches. First, when I was 17 and traumatised from being raped, the male youth leader decided to spread a rumour that I was the youth group ‘slut’ because I hugged my male friends. I got called a label, while he flirted with girls literally half his age (he was 30, they were 15). He’d go on mission trips and do talks about “the mission” when he got back. Except what he really talked about was the girlfriends he had overseas. That ain’t mission!
He also had a lingerie catalogue in his car, in full view of any kids he drove home. Wonder what he used that for? Said very sarcastically.
One evening we had a “sex ed” talk, boys separate from girls. We had to sit through slides of girls in different outfits and whether they were OK to wear or not. That’s not sex ed, that’s fashion critique and judgement! We got told that we should never be alone with boy, that if we were hugging a boy, we may as well be having sex, that we must always dress modestly. When one girl told us about being molested, the leader shrugged it off, making it seem like us wearing short skirts would have been worse than an actual rape!
I was made to feel like my sexuality was a problem and labelled a slot, even though I was a virgin.
Next, when I was a youth leader, another male youth pastor stopped me from going with one of our girls to report a sexual assault shed recently gone through. He said I was too emotional about what happened to her, that she was making it up and exaggerating, that she was doing it for attention. He said I cared too much for her, as if that was a sin.
The same guy also slut shamed some of our girls, particularly one who was beautiful. Hed call her names, bitch about the others, then expect us to turn around and lead them!
One night he got another guy and me to drive with him to check on some of our kids who were having a party. But we never did get to check on them. Instead, he called the young girls there sluts for wearing short skirts and drove off!
Recently, we left a church because the pastor was bullying our son. That was the last straw, but really, in the year till now, I’d been stopped from helping with music (I play harp and sing), for no reason, I’d been told they want to see people with servant hearts “cleaning toilets and things,” and I’d been told I wasn’t ready to preach. On face level that sounds like they’re just ensuring faithfulness, but in reality, it’s sexism because my husband never got asked to do the cleaning! And hes been allowed to preach there since 3 months into attending! We’d been there 4 years and I still wasn’t allowed to serve using my gifts or skills but I was expected to clean. Its always the women who are expected to do the cleaning and cooking too. I barely see the male pastor cleaning. He just stands around talking! Some of the men are great at helping with these tasks but a number leave it to the women while they talk. Oh yeah, and I got in trouble for talking about how my faith got me through trauma on my Facebook page and for asking for prayer about making a police report on the prayer page too. Apparently I’m not allowed to talk about rape, even in a women’s only prayer group, because it might upset someone. Didn’t put details, just said I was raped can people pray.
This shot gotta change!
