Perverse Piety Criticism of Christian Extremism in The

Perverse Piety: Criticism of Christian Extremism in The Handmaid’s Tale, The Gate to Women’s Country, and The Fifth Sacred Thing Whitney Scott Honors Thesis Ferrum College April 28, 2011

Roadmap • • • Project Thesis Disparity between feminism and Christianity Historical context Extremism in novels

Presumed World vs. Proposed World (Wilson 77)

Perverse Piety: the Thesis • Religious values and political agendas • Perversion of something intended to be pious • Oppression of subordinates • Oppression of leaders

Disparity between feminism and Christianity (Gallagher 458)

Disparity between feminism and Christianity (Gallagher 459)

Disparity between feminism and Christianity (Steiner-Aeschliman and Mauss 254)

Are feminism and Christianity mutually exclusive? Denise Carmody Virginia Mollenkott Leah Gcabashe Time frame

Historical Context: Backlash Women’s movement, 1960 s Feminist legislate victories, 1970 s Rise of anti-feminism, 1970 s By 1980 s: New Right Silent Majority Moral Majority (Chafe) (Harris) (Wilcox) “periods of anticipation and anxiety” (Bartowski)

Tendencies of Political Extremism “An impulse which is inimical to a pluralism of interests and groups, inimical to a system of many nonsubmissive centers of power and areas of privacy” Incipient change Moralistic and absolutistic Evil conspiracies (Lipset and Raab 5) Concrete thinking Status symbolism Status preservation (Lo)

Tendencies of Religious Extremism Tendencies of religious extremism Five warning signs: Absolute truth claims Blind obedience Ideal time Ends justify the means Holy war Literalism (Kimball)

Synthesis of political and religious extremism Political Moralistic/absolutistic Concrete thinking Incipient change Status symbolism Status preservation Evil conspiracies Religious Absolute truth claims Literalism Blind obedience Ends justify the means Ideal time Holy war

How to express in fiction? “There was little that was truly original or indigenous to Gilead: its genius was synthesis” (Atwood 307) Based on reality Reality vs. fiction; non-extreme vs. extreme Setting Climate (convenience) Time (prediction) (Olderman) (Swale)

Gilead Gender roles Women as servants Women as reproductive vessels Sexual purity Punish deviant behavior The Wall Salvagings Particicutions

Gilead cont. Manifestations of extremism Why? Gender roles Women as servants Women as reproductive vessels Incipient change Concrete thinking Anti-modernism Literalism Moralism Sexual purity Punish deviant behavior Status preservation (eugenics)

And when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. And Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her, and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her. -Genesis 30: 1 -3

The Perverse Justified Ends justify the means Literalism Blind obedience Perverse piety Handmaiden demeanor Sex as ritual

Holyland Gender roles Women as servants Women as reproductive vessels Women as “virtuous” Sexual purity Punish deviant behavior Infanticide Beatings

Holyland Manifestations of extremism Why? Gender roles Women as servants Women as reproductive vessels Women as “virtuous” Incipient change Concrete thinking Anti-modernism Moralism Sexual purity Punish deviant behavior Infanticide Beatings Status preservation (eugenics)

“He counted on his fingers. Seven from Rejoice, all grown but one. Four from Cheerfulness, the oldest was only nine, and two from Plentitude. Six from Susannah, not including the ones he’d disposed of. Nineteen, all together, fourteen of them boys. Could be that was just enough…” -Elder Resolution Brome, 205

The Perverse Justified Ends justify the means Blind obedience Evil conspiracy Perverse piety Feminine demeanor Sex as ritual

The Millennialist Society Gender roles Women as reproductive vessels Women as “virtuous” Sexual purity Punish deviant behavior Military “Pens” Why?

The Millennialist Society Manifestations of extremism Why? Gender roles Women as reproductive vessels Women as “virtuous” Incipient change Concrete thinking Anti-modernism Moralism Sexual purity Punish deviant behavior Military “Pens” Status preservation (eugenics)

“I thought fornication was the biggest Millennialist sin, ” Madrone said. “Fornication is what you do with another person. We’re not people. Our mamas did something to lose their immortal souls, like getting raped, maybe, or selling their bodies to put some food on the table. And our holy genes have been tampered with. That makes us a sort of higher animal. ” “That’s insane. ” “Nobody ever rated the Millennialists high in sanity. ” -Madrone and Isis (Starhawk 186)

“The blonds. They were toys for rich men. Bred for it. Raised and trained from birth. For sex and pain. ” -Katy (Starhawk 303)

The Perverse Justified Ends justify the means Literalism Concrete thinking Blind obedience Perverse piety “Letter” of morality

Rule Breaking • Serena Joy, Commander Fred • Sons, Elders • Wives, Ohnine

“Like feminism, utopias are intended to bring about shifts in consciousness through engagement with political debates and critiques of the status quo. ” (Eichler 9)

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Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986. Print. Bartowski, Frances. Introduction. Feminist Utopias. Ed. Frances Bartowski. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. Print. Carmody, Denise Lardner. Feminism and Christianity: A Two-Way Reflection. Nashville: Abingdon, 1982. Print. Chafe, William H. The Paradox of Change: American Women in the 20 th Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Print. Eichler, Margrit, June Larkin, and Sheila Neysmith. Introduction. Feminist Utopias : Re-Visioning Our Futures. Eds. Margrit Eichler, June Larkin, and Sheila Neysmith. Toronto: Inanna Publications and Education, 2002. 77 -86. Print. Gallagher, Sally K. “Where Are the Antifeminist Evangelicals? Evangelical Identity, Subcultural Location and Attitudes Toward Feminism. ” Gender and Society 18. 4 (August 2004): 451 -472. Web. JSTOR. 11 November 2010. Gcabashe, Leah. “Spiritual Liberation or Spiritual Oppression? ” Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity 25 (1995): 7 -15. JSTOR. Web. 11 November 2010. Kimball, Charles. When Religion Becomes Evil: Five Warning Signs. New York: Harper. Collins Publishers, 2003. Print.

Lipset, Seymour Martin and Earl Raab. The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing Extremism in America, 17901970. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. Lo, Clarence Y. H. “Countermovements and Conservative Movements in the Contemporary United States. ” Annual Review of Sociology 8 (1982): 107 -134. Web. JSTOR. 11 November 2010. Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey. Women, Men, and The Bible. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1989. Print. Olderman, Raymond M. “American Fiction 1974 -1976: The People Who Fell to Earth. ” Contemporary Literature 19. 4 (Autumn 1978): 497 -530. Web. JSTOR. 11 November 2010. Starhawk. The Fifth Sacred Thing. New York: Bantam Books, 1993. Print. Steiner-Aeschliman, Sherrie and Armand L. Mauss. “The Impact of Feminism and Religious Involvement on Sentiment toward God. ”Review of Religious Research 37. 3 (March 1996): 248 -259. Web. JSTOR. 11 November 2010. Swale, Jill. “Feminism and Politics in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’: Jill Swale Examines the Social and Historical Context of the Novel. ”The English Review 13. 1 (September 2002): 37. Web. Literature Resource Center. 11 November 2010. Tepper, Sheri S. The Gate to Women’s Country. New York: Bantam Books, 1988. Print. Wilcox, Clyde. “Pre-millennialists at the Millennium: Some Reflections on the Christian Right in the Twenty. First Century. ”Sociology of Religion 55. 3 (Autumn 1994): 243 -201. Web. JSTOR. 11 November 2010.