An Invitation to Outrage
This week has provided yet another shocking moment for the world to reflect upon how poorly it takes care of one whole half of its population. I, along with many others, am reeling from the news that a Metropolitan Police Officer, one who has supposedly dedicated their life to the service and protection of others, may well have abducted and murdered a woman as she made her way home at night. Whilst the exact nature of this particular crime against women has particularly caught the attention of the media and public, the depressing truth is that this is just one example of the many, many daily occurrences of the intimidation, devaluation and mistreatment of women. I am grateful for those friends and family members who have bravely shared their own stories and experiences of misogyny in order to highlight just how prevalent the issue is.
Shamefully, the fact that most women continue to feel unsafe and sense the need to be permanently vigilant and guarded against men is a very ancient problem. In many ways our modern society is no better than those of centuries ago. As I’ve reflected on the many distressing stories filling up my social media this week, of those I know and love being on the receiving end of toxic-masculine culture, I have been reminded of the various biblical accounts of women who’s stories have been uncomfortably exposed for all posterity. I think about Hagar’s treatment by Abraham, Lot’s treatment of his daughters, Bathsheba’s treatment at the hands of David, and the treatment of the unnamed concubine in Judges 19.
What is particularly shameful is that the Church has a terrible history of seeking to ignore, hide, gloss over, or explain away the horrifying experiences of these women, relegating them to the trivialised and humiliating position of plot-devices and side-shows or burying their pain in sanctimonious spiritualisation. Perhaps, this is because the Church has historically been so shaped by men who do not know what to do with these accounts. But there is a different way to engage with these women’s stories. We can listen. We can empathise. We can be convicted. And we can be outraged.
I wholeheartedly believe that when we read the Bible we are engaging in a reflective conversation about who YHWH is, what the world is like, and what it means to live well in relationship with that god and that world. When we read stories like these, therefore, I think we are meant to sit up, to take notice, to reflect. We aren’t meant to trivialise them or ignore them. We aren’t meant to leap to the more uplifting passages. We are meant to be confronted. We are meant to squirm. We are meant to ask questions as to why this is there. We are meant to be horrified and indignant. These stories, I would argue, invite us to be outraged. To shout. To scream. To be offended. We should be offended! These stories are outrageously offensive! They demonstrate the ways in which the world is deeply broken. They highlight the behaviours that have led to such brokenness. They reflect to us our own complicity in the creation and perpetuation of a culture in which such events could ever take place. They are, I believe, there to demand that we hear, notice, react, repent, change, and do better.
The sickening truth is that, in many ways, the experience of many women today is no different than that of Hagar, Lot’s daughters, Bathsheba, the unnamed concubine, and others from ‘biblical times’. Despite the presence of these distressing narratives in scripture, we still have not learned our lessons. The tragic death of Sarah Everard is the latest in a long line of seemingly endless contemporary stories which highlight the ongoing risks and environment of fear that women have to face daily because of their male counterparts. Despite the fact that these travesties keep occurring and female voices keep (rightly) demanding change, the toxic, predatory, masculine generated culture of fear, intimidation, violence, abuse and the devaluation of women continues. As does the ignorant, self-defensive, and blind-deaf-and-dumb response of men.
There is a terrible irony that all these events coincide with a week that began with International Women’s Day - a day designed to both celebrate women but also a day which exists in recognition of the fact that we have so much further to go in the fight for establishing gender equality. Yes, women have more rights in modern times than many from years past, and in some ways we have come a long way in terms of there even being a notional desire for equality. But not only are we still far from realising the fullness of that equality in terms of pay, opportunity, recognition, etc, we are, to our shame, still far from realising equality in terms of the basic experience of security and safety. Maslow must be turning in his grave; what hope do we have of reaching true equality in all areas of life if we cannot even get this most fundamental concern right?
To those men reading; we have to stand up and take notice. We have to check ourselves. We have to not defend or deflect. We need to be aware, we need to listen, we need to be moved, we need to repent, and we really need to change.
