clovenhooves The Personal Is Political General Can a woman be a feminist and religious?

Can a woman be a feminist and religious?

Can a woman be a feminist and religious?

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Colibri
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Dec 21 2025, 1:31 PM
#11
(Dec 21 2025, 12:20 PM)ShameMustChangeSides Anyone see this one on Vexxed? Watcheratthegates went on a complete derailment. https://vexxed.org/o/Women/7239/remembering-a-snippet-of-my-faith-crisis

Chalice: Here’s my experience with Mormonism…

The Daily Mail lady: nOt aLl mOrMoNs
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Colibri
Dec 21 2025, 1:31 PM #11

(Dec 21 2025, 12:20 PM)ShameMustChangeSides Anyone see this one on Vexxed? Watcheratthegates went on a complete derailment. https://vexxed.org/o/Women/7239/remembering-a-snippet-of-my-faith-crisis

Chalice: Here’s my experience with Mormonism…

The Daily Mail lady: nOt aLl mOrMoNs

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Dec 21 2025, 2:25 PM
#12
(Dec 21 2025, 12:20 PM)ShameMustChangeSides I think religious women can have feminist leanings and can take feminist actions but cannot fully be feminist while still subscribing to and propping up deeply patriarchal institutions.

Anyone see this one on Vexxed? Watcheratthegates went on a complete derailment. https://vexxed.org/o/Women/7239/remembering-a-snippet-of-my-faith-crisis

/u/butchplease said it well in that thread:

butchplease on Vexxed Sad and disappointed to see that this website is no longer a place where women can criticise harmful patriarchal religions without immediately being guilt-tripped, blamed, and encouraged to apologise and minimise their experience. Sickening.

I ranted about that thread last night when someone shared it on Discord. Based on one of my last interactions with Watcher back on Ovarit, the guilt tripping and encouragement to "apologize" (aka women should rug-sweep the abuse they've gone through, at the hands of patriarchal religions in this particular scenario, make nice and keep sweet), is not new to me. She is patronizing and the poster child of "Not My Nigel": patriarchal religious edition.
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Dec 21 2025, 2:25 PM #12

(Dec 21 2025, 12:20 PM)ShameMustChangeSides I think religious women can have feminist leanings and can take feminist actions but cannot fully be feminist while still subscribing to and propping up deeply patriarchal institutions.

Anyone see this one on Vexxed? Watcheratthegates went on a complete derailment. https://vexxed.org/o/Women/7239/remembering-a-snippet-of-my-faith-crisis

/u/butchplease said it well in that thread:

butchplease on Vexxed Sad and disappointed to see that this website is no longer a place where women can criticise harmful patriarchal religions without immediately being guilt-tripped, blamed, and encouraged to apologise and minimise their experience. Sickening.

I ranted about that thread last night when someone shared it on Discord. Based on one of my last interactions with Watcher back on Ovarit, the guilt tripping and encouragement to "apologize" (aka women should rug-sweep the abuse they've gone through, at the hands of patriarchal religions in this particular scenario, make nice and keep sweet), is not new to me. She is patronizing and the poster child of "Not My Nigel": patriarchal religious edition.

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ShameMustChangeSides
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Dec 21 2025, 4:20 PM
#13
(Dec 21 2025, 2:25 PM)Clover /u/butchplease said it well in that thread:

butchplease on Vexxed Sad and disappointed to see that this website is no longer a place where women can criticise harmful patriarchal religions without immediately being guilt-tripped, blamed, and encouraged to apologise and minimise their experience. Sickening.

I ranted about that thread last night when someone shared it on Discord. Based on one of my last interactions with Watcher back on Ovarit, the guilt tripping and encouragement to "apologize" (aka women should rug-sweep the abuse they've gone through, at the hands of patriarchal religions in this particular scenario, make nice and keep sweet), is not new to me. She is patronizing and the poster child of "Not My Nigel": patriarchal religious edition.

I really appreciated what butchplease said because I was feeling the exact same. Given the shift that's happened over there I shouldn't have been as shocked as I was to see Watcher's comments and essentially gaslighting ("chalice, it's an urban legend at this point. It just is not happening" to someone who seems to be saying they literally experienced thing-that-is-not-happening).
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ShameMustChangeSides
Dec 21 2025, 4:20 PM #13

(Dec 21 2025, 2:25 PM)Clover /u/butchplease said it well in that thread:

butchplease on Vexxed Sad and disappointed to see that this website is no longer a place where women can criticise harmful patriarchal religions without immediately being guilt-tripped, blamed, and encouraged to apologise and minimise their experience. Sickening.

I ranted about that thread last night when someone shared it on Discord. Based on one of my last interactions with Watcher back on Ovarit, the guilt tripping and encouragement to "apologize" (aka women should rug-sweep the abuse they've gone through, at the hands of patriarchal religions in this particular scenario, make nice and keep sweet), is not new to me. She is patronizing and the poster child of "Not My Nigel": patriarchal religious edition.

I really appreciated what butchplease said because I was feeling the exact same. Given the shift that's happened over there I shouldn't have been as shocked as I was to see Watcher's comments and essentially gaslighting ("chalice, it's an urban legend at this point. It just is not happening" to someone who seems to be saying they literally experienced thing-that-is-not-happening).

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Dec 21 2025, 7:27 PM
#14
(Dec 21 2025, 4:20 PM)ShameMustChangeSides Given the shift that's happened over there I shouldn't have been as shocked as I was to see Watcher's comments and essentially gaslighting ("chalice, it's an urban legend at this point. It just is not happening" to someone who seems to be saying they literally experienced thing-that-is-not-happening).

That was soooooooo fucked up and made me go :excuseme: It's not okay. Why the fuck do some women think they need to fall over themselves defending fucking patriarchal religions?? And to go to the point of dismissing and denying what Mormon women had to go through?!

The Salt Lake Tribune, 2017 For decades, some leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints taught that a woman had to fight off any attacker with all her strength and energy or she might be “guilty of unchastity.”

And the faith’s signature scripture, the Book of Mormon, describes how evil men kidnapped the “daughters of the Lamanites” and then deprived them of “that which was most dear and precious above all things, which is chastity and virtue.”

At the time Smart was abducted in 2002, young Mormon women studied that scripture under the value of “virtue” in their Personal Progress workbooks.

No wonder, then, that she had internalized feelings of self-loathing when she was routinely assaulted by her captor.

Smart didn’t try to escape, she later told national audiences, because she felt like a “chewed-up piece of gum; nobody rechews a piece of gum, you throw it away” — repeating an analogy she had heard growing up.

From  The Salt Lake Tribune, September 19 2017 - Elizabeth Smart reveals she considered suicide after she was raped

The Salt Lake Tribune, 2018 Chewed gum

Elizabeth Smart decried the use of chewed-gum analogies in teaching about sexual sin because during her captivity, when she was sexually assaulted multiple times, that metaphor was what she remembered.

Smart explained:

“I thought, ‘I’m that chewed-up piece of gum. Nobody rechews a piece of gum, you throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth. Your life no longer has value.”

So for many of those who were victims of sexual assault, the church’s teachings seemed to suggest they were garbage and were no longer worthy.

But slowly the culture around these lessons is changing as the church continues to update its resources on abuse and this filters into the youth curriculum.

From The Salt Lake Tribune, April 3 2018 - Commentary: Mormon apostle needs to clarify his remarks about ‘nonconsensual immorality,’ because even unintended words can do harm

Mormon Teens, Sexism, and Sex I’ve never attended an LDS “Standards Night.”  I didn’t grow up in the church, and I was out of town when this occurred while I was serving in the YW presidency. So I have no personal experience. I have read plenty of accounts of other people’s mostly negative experiences — the plucking of the petals of the rose, for example, to demonstrate the loss of a teen’s innocence until there is nothing left, and who is going to want a deflowered rose? Or, even worse, the chewed-up piece of gum that is passed from hand to hand — who would want to touch it? Such “object lessons” are horrifying in their messages to girls (as well as their stubborn refusal to acknowledge the power of the Atonement).

From Flunking Sainthood, November 2010 - Mormon Teens, Sexism, and Sex

WHY GO TO BAT SO HARD FOR A MASSIVELY FUCKING SEXIST MISOGYNISTIC PATRIARCHAL CULT??? JFC.
Edited Dec 21 2025, 7:29 PM by Clover.
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Dec 21 2025, 7:27 PM #14

(Dec 21 2025, 4:20 PM)ShameMustChangeSides Given the shift that's happened over there I shouldn't have been as shocked as I was to see Watcher's comments and essentially gaslighting ("chalice, it's an urban legend at this point. It just is not happening" to someone who seems to be saying they literally experienced thing-that-is-not-happening).

That was soooooooo fucked up and made me go :excuseme: It's not okay. Why the fuck do some women think they need to fall over themselves defending fucking patriarchal religions?? And to go to the point of dismissing and denying what Mormon women had to go through?!

The Salt Lake Tribune, 2017 For decades, some leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints taught that a woman had to fight off any attacker with all her strength and energy or she might be “guilty of unchastity.”

And the faith’s signature scripture, the Book of Mormon, describes how evil men kidnapped the “daughters of the Lamanites” and then deprived them of “that which was most dear and precious above all things, which is chastity and virtue.”

At the time Smart was abducted in 2002, young Mormon women studied that scripture under the value of “virtue” in their Personal Progress workbooks.

No wonder, then, that she had internalized feelings of self-loathing when she was routinely assaulted by her captor.

Smart didn’t try to escape, she later told national audiences, because she felt like a “chewed-up piece of gum; nobody rechews a piece of gum, you throw it away” — repeating an analogy she had heard growing up.

From  The Salt Lake Tribune, September 19 2017 - Elizabeth Smart reveals she considered suicide after she was raped

The Salt Lake Tribune, 2018 Chewed gum

Elizabeth Smart decried the use of chewed-gum analogies in teaching about sexual sin because during her captivity, when she was sexually assaulted multiple times, that metaphor was what she remembered.

Smart explained:

“I thought, ‘I’m that chewed-up piece of gum. Nobody rechews a piece of gum, you throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth. Your life no longer has value.”

So for many of those who were victims of sexual assault, the church’s teachings seemed to suggest they were garbage and were no longer worthy.

But slowly the culture around these lessons is changing as the church continues to update its resources on abuse and this filters into the youth curriculum.

From The Salt Lake Tribune, April 3 2018 - Commentary: Mormon apostle needs to clarify his remarks about ‘nonconsensual immorality,’ because even unintended words can do harm

Mormon Teens, Sexism, and Sex I’ve never attended an LDS “Standards Night.”  I didn’t grow up in the church, and I was out of town when this occurred while I was serving in the YW presidency. So I have no personal experience. I have read plenty of accounts of other people’s mostly negative experiences — the plucking of the petals of the rose, for example, to demonstrate the loss of a teen’s innocence until there is nothing left, and who is going to want a deflowered rose? Or, even worse, the chewed-up piece of gum that is passed from hand to hand — who would want to touch it? Such “object lessons” are horrifying in their messages to girls (as well as their stubborn refusal to acknowledge the power of the Atonement).

From Flunking Sainthood, November 2010 - Mormon Teens, Sexism, and Sex

WHY GO TO BAT SO HARD FOR A MASSIVELY FUCKING SEXIST MISOGYNISTIC PATRIARCHAL CULT??? JFC.

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LeftFem
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Dec 22 2025, 12:31 AM
#15
That is the same BS I hear from people on the veil when I say it's not a choice, and one of the reasons I don't believe. Yes, it's technically a "choice" for some, but is it really a choice when:

https://islamqa.info/en/answers/7436/punishment-for-not-wearing-hijab

Basically this + a few sayings about being burnt in hell with your hair that men saw. Leaving aside peer pressure (See the type of wording used in that, those are thoughts a lot of religious people have, makes me disgusted to even think, evil men with temptations indeed) and the countless forced to wear it, is it really a choice? I was not "forced" to wear a veil, my parents were far too liberal for that, but was I judged by everyone for not wearing it? Yes, until I moved away to another country.

It's a tangent but I've always seen ex-mormons and ex-Muslims as very similar, we both have stories that people brush aside (unless they want to use it to push evangelist Christianity) and every single thing is seen as a "choice" when both are very similar to forced with the peer pressure.

That Ovarit or Vexxed allows this content is ridiculous, even more so AS A RESPONSE TO SOMEONE'S STORY.... but I'm sure the mods will say how x didn't REALLY ACKSHUALLY MEAN THAT.

Handmaidens are the worst, no matter which religion they simp for, going to post just as support on Vexxed, even though I don't use it much
Edited Dec 22 2025, 2:04 AM by LeftFem.
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LeftFem
Dec 22 2025, 12:31 AM #15

That is the same BS I hear from people on the veil when I say it's not a choice, and one of the reasons I don't believe. Yes, it's technically a "choice" for some, but is it really a choice when:

https://islamqa.info/en/answers/7436/punishment-for-not-wearing-hijab

Basically this + a few sayings about being burnt in hell with your hair that men saw. Leaving aside peer pressure (See the type of wording used in that, those are thoughts a lot of religious people have, makes me disgusted to even think, evil men with temptations indeed) and the countless forced to wear it, is it really a choice? I was not "forced" to wear a veil, my parents were far too liberal for that, but was I judged by everyone for not wearing it? Yes, until I moved away to another country.

It's a tangent but I've always seen ex-mormons and ex-Muslims as very similar, we both have stories that people brush aside (unless they want to use it to push evangelist Christianity) and every single thing is seen as a "choice" when both are very similar to forced with the peer pressure.

That Ovarit or Vexxed allows this content is ridiculous, even more so AS A RESPONSE TO SOMEONE'S STORY.... but I'm sure the mods will say how x didn't REALLY ACKSHUALLY MEAN THAT.

Handmaidens are the worst, no matter which religion they simp for, going to post just as support on Vexxed, even though I don't use it much

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skunk
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Dec 22 2025, 10:55 PM
#16
(Dec 20 2025, 10:21 PM)dobby
(Dec 2 2025, 1:03 PM)skunk Can a woman genuinely be feminist if shes also religious? What are your thoughts? Would it make a difference depending on the religion in question?

I lean towards no on this one but I want to hear other womens perspectives.

I remember a Vexxed post on this recently where i commented my full thoughts, but basically i have torn opinions on this. I should dig up my comment link tbh to remember what i wrote out there lol. I ramble too much on that site but it all gets downvoted anyway tbh lol

Yeah, I posted it in both places since it was on my mind and I was admittedly a little curious to see the difference in discussion. I think it was Watcher, not surprisingly, who immediately took offense. Her replies to it were really irritating and not at all what I was going for. 🙄 I love your comments there! Thanks for participating!
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skunk
Dec 22 2025, 10:55 PM #16

(Dec 20 2025, 10:21 PM)dobby
(Dec 2 2025, 1:03 PM)skunk Can a woman genuinely be feminist if shes also religious? What are your thoughts? Would it make a difference depending on the religion in question?

I lean towards no on this one but I want to hear other womens perspectives.

I remember a Vexxed post on this recently where i commented my full thoughts, but basically i have torn opinions on this. I should dig up my comment link tbh to remember what i wrote out there lol. I ramble too much on that site but it all gets downvoted anyway tbh lol

Yeah, I posted it in both places since it was on my mind and I was admittedly a little curious to see the difference in discussion. I think it was Watcher, not surprisingly, who immediately took offense. Her replies to it were really irritating and not at all what I was going for. 🙄 I love your comments there! Thanks for participating!

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Impress Polly
The kind they warned you about.
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11 hours ago
#17
(Dec 22 2025, 12:31 AM)LeftFem That is the same BS I hear from people on the veil when I say it's not a choice, and one of the reasons I don't believe. Yes, it's technically a "choice" for some, but is it really a choice when:

https://islamqa.info/en/answers/7436/punishment-for-not-wearing-hijab

That's like me discussing why hell must exist with some random Christian conservative. The exchange always goes something like this:

Me: Why hell?
Christian: To give you freedom.
Me: Freedom to burn?
Christian: Freedom to reject God.
Me: And burn if I do?
Christian: Yes. God wants you to have that option.
Me: But I don't want that option! Why would anyone?! That's not freedom, that's the proverbial offer ya can't refuse. It's Mobster logic.
Christian: Actions have consequences.
Me: On consequences then, why is my fate the same as Hitler's?
Christian: Because you both disobeyed God.
Me: This conversation is over.

Something like that. I don't believe they grasp the concept of freedom. Theology, peer pressure, parental pressure...the context and framing of choices matters!
Edited 11 hours ago by Impress Polly.
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Impress Polly
The kind they warned you about.
11 hours ago #17

(Dec 22 2025, 12:31 AM)LeftFem That is the same BS I hear from people on the veil when I say it's not a choice, and one of the reasons I don't believe. Yes, it's technically a "choice" for some, but is it really a choice when:

https://islamqa.info/en/answers/7436/punishment-for-not-wearing-hijab

That's like me discussing why hell must exist with some random Christian conservative. The exchange always goes something like this:

Me: Why hell?
Christian: To give you freedom.
Me: Freedom to burn?
Christian: Freedom to reject God.
Me: And burn if I do?
Christian: Yes. God wants you to have that option.
Me: But I don't want that option! Why would anyone?! That's not freedom, that's the proverbial offer ya can't refuse. It's Mobster logic.
Christian: Actions have consequences.
Me: On consequences then, why is my fate the same as Hitler's?
Christian: Because you both disobeyed God.
Me: This conversation is over.

Something like that. I don't believe they grasp the concept of freedom. Theology, peer pressure, parental pressure...the context and framing of choices matters!

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