Why I feel most churches are not safe places for women!
If you have been reading this blog, then you would already have read that I grew up attending church. Over the course of my life, church would play important roles in the choices I made and how I spent my time, resources and talent. You would also have read that just before the global lockdown in 2020, I was at a point where I was questioning my faith — especially the role the church played in my life. The more I tried to find answers to the many questions I had, the more questions came up — lockdown provided me with time to put my thoughts on paper and look at them closely.
I have been sitting on this post for a while now — but the part of me that still grieves the absence of the church from my life did not allow me to articulate how I felt about my experience in church. However, every time I looked at this blog, this subject would jump to the front of my mental list of future posts and I felt the time was now to put this out there. Also, when I posted about deconstructing my faith, I had people reach out with their experiences and I had been sitting on them because I was afraid of my own voice — I am now choosing to take up space and in so doing give all these people the space to be heard as well.
I viewed lockdown as a blessing in my life, well, to some extent, because I had time to sit with myself and question a lot of things that I did. I recently found a journal I kept in 2020 — as I read what I had written, I could see why self reflection was important to me in lockdown. Before lockdown, I was already questioning many things in my life and I had ended one journal entry with this statement “I need a reset and to face myself, I need to dig deep to find myself because I am not sure that this is really me”.
I did not remember making this entry and reading it made me realise that, even though I was unconsciously going through life, my subconscious mind was still trying to communicate through the many distractions. One of such distractions was my involvement in the church, especially the one I was attending when I made that note.
Years ago, there was a young couple that came into the church I was attending who were not married — the young lady seemed to have some behavioural issues, however, no one tried to understand why she was that way. She kept coming to church with her boyfriend and I could see that she struggled to fit in, however, her boyfriend had already made himself at home and was already involved in the church by volunteering. Though I had always been involved in church activities, I am never one to be drawn to any drama or incidents that may happen in church unless I was present when it happened.
So I was not certain what had happened in church and behind closed doors but certain utterances from the pulpit as well as certain actions alluded to the young woman having some form of influences of evil spirits — yes, like the ones in exorcists narratives. After one particular incident, and a very public prayer of laying of hands, the young lady did not attend again and no one went looking for her. I would later find out from her that the young man, who was easily accepted by the church was messing with another woman, had gotten the young lady who had left the church pregnant which she had had to abort for whatever reason known to her and the other woman was now pregnant and he had chosen to marry her instead! Everyone that heard this story spoke of how bad this young woman was for her choices but I saw the trauma she had had to endure. It was not long before she was replaced with this other woman in the same church!
What happened in this story never sat well with me — relationships end and people are allowed to chnage their minds. But how do we allow this to happen and point fingers at one party and accept the other? The man in this scenario just continued like nothing had happened and it almost seemed like he had people rallying around him in support. Now while I may not be privy to what fully happened, I had seen this too many times and that incident was the beginning of my consciousness that this place was not safe for women. I had heard comments made in passing about how some young ladies dating other young men in the church were merely being used for the sexual exploitation of these men because they had not ‘sowed their wild oats’ in their younger years.
Instead of the leadership calling these young men to order and protecting these young women, some of these leaders would spread confidential stories about these women to smear their reputation. One leader, a woman, went as far to tell me that one of the young men was merely using one of the younger women. For these words to come from a woman, who had daughters, I was appalled and knew that change would not come and I needed to remove myself from such an environment. We had visited a friend in another church when a pregnant woman was made to apologise to the church for getting pregnant outside of marriage — my sister and I left the service and could not get our heads round what we had witnessed!
When it comes to morality, women are expected to be exceptional — especially in church settings with no grace when they ‘fail’. However, when men fail, I hear all sort of reasons why it is not easy for men to uphold good morals and so much grace is given them. Why this is not extended to women is something I do not understand yet — perhaps this is something I would never get an answer to. A reader reached out about how she had to leave her marriage because her husband was not only physically abusive but a serial cheat. She would be encouraged to stay in the marriage and pray for the change in her husband by a leader in the church she attended.
She was also encouraged to keep the abuse happening in her home to herself and this poor woman suffered in silence for years before plucking up the courage to speak to her mother who would help her pack up and start divorce proceedings. It is this same culture of silence in the church that had the pastor of one of my readers call her into a meeting to tell her off for liking and commenting on this blog and it’s posts!
This week, I was on twitter when I saw a post from a history account about ‘The Castrati’. The castrati were male sopranos who were castrated before they reached puberty so they would not lose their high singing voices. You may be wondering why the church would be involved in this and go to such extreme measures to keep the voices of these innocent boys high when women could hold these notes — turned out that someone did not want women singing in church! Shocking right? Not really — I had always sang in church and I am very good at it — however, I have had instances where private conversations were had where people did not want me to sing and I was removed from singing.
The most recent was in the church I was attending before lockdown — the leadership would heed the words of these people and sit me down to give me flimsy excuses and then turn around and ask for my help when the people who wanted me out could not deliver. It got to a point where I realised that my self esteem was more important than pleasing people in the church, so I asked to sit out all musical activities. I was sabotaged on many occassions with wrong keys being played which was not what was practiced to songs being conveniently forgotten — I had had enough. I was not shocked reading about men being castrated to do what women could do — because after hundreds of years, the same atrocities are happening, though not as extreem as castrations.
For me, it took a while but I finally saw why I was such an easy target for some of the ways I was treated in church and I could also see why for the women who got in touch as well as witnessed. Most of us did not attend church with any male family members there to speak for us — even women who came in with boyfriends had a bit of protection if those boyfriends spoke up for them. It was a big no no to stand up for yourself or to challenge anyone on treatments received if there was no male there to back you. Coming to this realisation made me angry — church should be a safe place for all who came and not for a select few. I was sat in church as a young lady when someone snatched the offering bag from a lady because he did not think she should be the one holding it — the atrocities are endless.
What kicked my backside this week to put this out was the memoir of a Ghanaian actress who tells her story of a pastor’s son asking for her hand in marriage on condition that his dad performs some form of deliverance (exorcism) on her before he would marry her. This is insulting to the person of this actress — but it is the norm in most African churches. I have seen young love destroyed because the young woman dressed a certain way, had piercings, wore her hair a certain way, had a certain career, talked a certain way and the many endless excuses. In short, these women were not as these church men expected them to be — but the irony is, anytime these men cheat outside of their marriages, it is never with these women they try so hard to get church women to be like, so what is the deal with that?
I have merely scratched the surface on this issue and will be looking at this topic in depth in the coming weeks. I know that abuse is not gender specific and that what I have experienced does not happen in all churches, unfortunately, most of the places I had been had these issues. The testimony of readers who got in touch cements this conclusion I have come to and there are several stories on the Internet to back this. African churches are rife with these issues and it is time we started addressing them. I now pursue spirituality and practice christianity without going to church — perhaps I will find a safe place to attend some day but as I sit here writing this, I am not very hopeful about that. The church through the ages had been a beacon of hope for many — however, these days, the hope is very little with a barrage of one scandal after another. If you or anyone you know find yourself in any religious setting where you are not protected and are expected to change who you are to be accepted, take some time to reflect and think about your safety in such a place.
Thank you for taking time to read, like, comment and share — keep sharing your experiences so we can effect the change we need.
