I've recently started reading a blog called No Longer Quivering. Two women who left the Quiverfull* movement use the blog to tell their stories, explain what happened to them, how they got into the movement in the first place, what it was like, how they finally got out, and the problems they face now, from large (one of the two authors lost custody of her children) to relatively small (learning how to express personal likes and dislikes again, after needing permission for every decision for so long).
As a lifelong atheist who grew up in a secular family, these are obviously not issues that will ever affect me personally. Still, it's a compelling read. The authors are both good writers, telling powerful stories with honesty, sometimes anger and sometimes even humor. If you've ever wondered what extreme fundamentalist Christianity is about, wanted to understand it better than just writing the whole thing off as "they're crazy and/or evil," I highly recommend this blog. It's been an eye-opener to follow the story and learn why patriarchal religious movements like Quiverfull are so conducive to, downright encouraging of abuse. And also how an intelligent woman with the best of intentions could gradually fall into an abusive situation, even participate in the abuse of herself and her children, and why it was so difficult to leave. (Hint: being told by everyone you know that God will punish you for eternity if you do anything to stop the abuse had something to do with it.)
One of the two authors was something of a poster child for the Quiverfull movement before she left it. My favorite series on the blog is where she reprints articles she wrote before, for homeschooling magazines or whatnot, then dissects them, explaining what was really going on at the time and what all the "code words" really meant. The title of the series: "Vyckie's Tour de Crap."
*Quiverfull is an evangelical Christian movement which promotes an extreme patriarchy, demands total female submission and encourages families to have as many children as possible. The name comes from a Bible verse which says "happy is the man who has his quiver full of [children]."
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