Thread by @monaeltahawy

I am adapting my first book to focus on this:

Purity Rings and Patriarchy: Why the Evangelicals Need a Sexual Revolution

https://twitter.com/cindy_w_brandt/status/1204534205981413377

"rigid gender norms characterized by women’s submission and male authority.”

What part of the world am I talking about?

#PurityRingsAndPatriarchy

For decades, I’ve been asked by white people:
- What is wrong with Muslim women?
- Why do they put up with all that patriarchy and misogyny?
And here I am asking the same about these white Evangelical women.

- Who indoctrinated these women?
- Who taught them to submit to men?
- Why are they so brainwashed?
- Should I save them?

#PurityRingsAndPatriarchy

I’ve written lots about patriarchy & misogyny in my cultural & faith background & I’ve never asked anyone to “save us.” No one saves you. You save yourself.When - always a white - woman at my events asks me “what can I do to help women in the Middle East”I say”Nothing.Fight here”

It’s always easier for - always white - women to wonder how to help women “over there”than to ask how to fight for women “over here.”White patriarchs love to play “You should be grateful to live in America. It’s shit over there for women.” Yeah, it’s shit “over here” too, Mr. Man

God, guns, white men: that’s what’s indoctrinated these white women & because they’re white it’s not seen as indoctrination it’s considered “normal,” the default, “how things are.”

While their equivalents in Muslim/other backgrounds are “abnormal” “brainwashed” and pathologized

I guarantee that many white Evangelical women who submit to the rigid gender roles of their church, will act horrified at the misogyny subjected onto Muslim women and insist they need saving. They don’t turn that critics eye on the misogyny they’re subjected to.