Why Don’t Women Just Leave Fundamentalism?

I saw in fundamentalism a very clear life script and assurances that I didn’t have otherwise.. There wasn’t much about me that fit into my new faith system’s expectations for women, who were pushed into cookie-cutter molds and made to feel terribly guilty if they couldn’t fit. I tried my best. Outside of fundamentalism, I didn’t know how I was supposed to act or when it was okay to speak definitively or stand up for myself. But within fundamentalism, the rules were crystal-clear. If they were also impossible to fulfill, well, that was sorta my problem.

I didn’t notice that the demands were unreasonable, only that I finally had a clear vision of how to achieve respect and standing in my community. I didn’t have much else going for me. My church discouraged all clubs and community activities that weren’t part of their world; I was at church most days of the week, sometimes for many hours at a time. I volunteered extensively and studied my Bible in my off-time–and most of it while attending school full-time! Though I did well in classes, all that really mattered to me was my “walk”–meaning my spiritual life and devotions. I wanted the approval and admiration of my peers and leaders–and I wanted to have what all of them seemed to have: this deep, rich, two-way communication with “God.” I ached and hungered for it, and assumed that once I figured out what I was doing wrong, I’d find it. (Much later I’d discover that many of them were “speaking truth to power”–or in other words, faking it till they made it. At the time, I trusted that they were all being perfectly honest about their experiences and that I was the only one experiencing anything different.)

And, too, fundamentalism fit in very well with my very black-and-white way of looking at the world, and gave me a great deal of certainty about that world. Nobody ever has to wonder about much of anything in fundamentalism, or struggle with difficult questions. Every answer was easy and simple–even if putting that answer into motion was impossible, at which point the problem was me, not the answer, which was seen as totally infallible and unquestionable.
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So when someone says, all exasperated, “Why do so many women stay in a religion that unfair?” I’ll tell ‘em exactly why at least this woman stayed as long as she did.

I was afraid of so many things. I craved security. I wanted safety. I needed structure. I ached to see the reality of the spiritual world I’d been taught since toddlerhood existed all around me. I wanted to be part of something much bigger than myself.

Why Don’t Women Just Leave Fundamentalism?