Uncovered: Life Beyond
Join the conversations of Rebecca and Naomi, two ex-Amish Mennonite women who jumped the proverbial fence in their younger years and later experienced college as first-gen, non-traditional students. They discuss pursuing formal education while raising a family, navigating the hidden curriculum of academia, and other dimensions of reimagining a life beyond high-demand religion. Send your questions to uncoveredlifebeyond@gmail.com.
Uncovered: Life Beyond
22. What if Women Dared to Tell the Truth?
We reflect on last week's episode and the events that prompted it--such as public figures spreading misconceptions about Amish culture and failing to honor the truths of those living in high-demand religion. We stress the importance of listening to and respecting the broad range of individual experiences that together make up a culture far more dynamic and complex than any fiction writer could imagine. We also ask how our world might change if more women took our professed ideals and values more seriously than we do keeping the secrets of powerful men.
Links Mentioned in the Episode
Previous episode we referenced: 21. The Fantasy and Fallout of Amish-themed Romance Novels
Complete, unedited panel discussion: Coffee with JC, Ruth, Rebecca, and Naomi on YouTube Live; Hosted by Mary Byler (Abe Troyer and Old Order Amish); produced by The Misfit Amish 2024
The danger of a single story (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk)
Rhetorical Listening (brief summary)
Women Talking (Official Trailer) The film takes a Russian Mennonite colony in South America dealing with the fallout of rape culture as its jumping off point and then explores the revolutionary possibility of these devout women taking their future in their own hands. It is self-described as “an act of female imagination.”
Women Talking (Miriam Toews; Extended Preview)
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This is Rebecca and this is Naomi. We're 40-something moms and first cousins who know what it's like to veer off the path assigned to us.
Speaker 2:We've juggled motherhood, marriage, college and career, as we questioned our faith traditions while exploring new identities and ways of seeing the world.
Speaker 1:Without any maps for either of us to follow. We've had to figure things out as we go and appreciate that detours and dead ends are essential to the path Along the way, we've uncovered a few insights we want to share with fellow travelers.
Speaker 2:We want to talk about the questions we didn't know who to ask and the options we didn't know we had.
Speaker 1:So, whether you're feeling stuck or already shaking things up, we are here to cheer you on and assure you that the best is yet to come. Welcome to Uncovered Life Beyond. Hello everyone, welcome back to Uncovered Life Beyond. This is Naomi.
Speaker 2:And this is Rebecca, so we are so excited to be back with you again. So we hope you all enjoyed last week's podcast as much as we enjoyed being part of it. Ms Fit Amish and Mary Biler, I think, just did an amazing job with that panel and I know I felt honored to be part of it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I thought it was such an interesting cross-section of experiences and perspectives and yet there was a lot of agreement despite those differences.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and I think it's just a great representation of how varied and nuanced experiences can be from individual to individual.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and if anyone didn't hear our episode last week, you might want to go back and listen to that.
Speaker 1:It was episode 20, I believe, and in that episode you get the first 30 minutes of our panel discussion about Amish-themed romances.
Speaker 1:And this was prompted this conversation was prompted by another podcast that shall remain nameless, that doesn't have any ties to Amish culture who did a podcast about Amish-themed romance novels, and it really became clear over the course of their conversation of the host's conversation, that it became clear how much they didn't know about Amish culture and how much they didn't understand about the nuances of what they were talking about. And I think that part is nothing new. But I think what surprised me most about it was that my perception of them was that they take a very nuanced and thoughtful approach to topics and are very much aware of how ideas affect people's lives and the problems that are often hidden in high-demand religion. So it was really disappointing to hear this take, but then even more so when our concerns were actively ignored and they doubled down on their position and their celebration of these Amish-themed novels and didn't give any recognition of the damage that they can do. And so we decided it was time for us to speak up.
Speaker 2:And the part that just makes me laugh is they ended the podcast with the thought that Beverly Lewis is actually quite a good author. Whoa, I will say and I know you listen to this podcast more than I did and I will say I had some reservations before this particular podcast happened. I was not thrilled with the way they set themselves up to be experts.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. That always makes me cringe a little bit too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the thing is, the more a person is an expert and the more a person knows, invariably the more they treat topics and issues with nuance and respect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and kind of a sense and awareness of all they don't know. Right, right, agreed.
Speaker 2:Which kind of brought me to the question of you know, we've all had public figures in our lives, we've all had church leaders, we've had religious leaders who have got it horribly wrong. We've had people in our everyday life who gets it horribly wrong. And how do we respond to that? How do we respond in a healthy manner to those people? I think it's so easy with our background to just be like oh well, you know everyone gets things wrong, or well, you know, we all need grace when people in fact actually do some really damaging things.
Speaker 1:Kind of a passive. Just a passive response, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Which I think might be also a little bit lazy sometimes.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think, when we have this idea that people are either good or bad, they're either in or out Right.
Speaker 1:Right and then someone that we respect in many ways does something that disappoints us.
Speaker 1:It's hard to know how to hold both of those things Right and how to make sense of them, and in this situation it still does not make sense, still does not make sense to me.
Speaker 1:I have to wonder, you know, if we're raised in a context where it's pretty homogenous, everybody is pretty similar sameness, and, you know, conformity to the group is really celebrated and it's associated with safety, then when we come into these situations, I think we can feel unequipped with the tools, with the words, to deal with the strong emotions that come up, and that makes things even more messy and complicated, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I think it's a moment like these when we can get a taste of what it's like to be part of a minority culture, right, that is misunderstood or that, you know, is spoken of in stereotypes and harmful stereotypes. And this is just a taste. This is just, you know, small in comparison to what so many others have experienced, but I think it can be a very real reminder of the problem and there's a Ted talk about this the problem of a single story or something like the danger of a single story, something like that. It's been quite a while since I listened to it, so I don't remember the details, but essentially, when we have a single story or a single experience or a single author who is seen as an authentic representation of an entire culture, that should be a red flag for us right there. Right, that lack of understanding about the nuance within the culture tells us a whole lot about their outsider status.
Speaker 2:And I also question how much of a right we have to tell another culture, another person's story Right A few years ago actually this was probably about 10 years ago I realized that everything I knew about the world was presented to me primarily as a white man. I had white male pastors. I had white male school teachers even that was primarily who influenced me. And then I looked at my social media feed. Guess who was influencing me there as leaders white men. So I went through and did a massive cut, but basically, if you were a white male, you were axed. I think I ended up with two.
Speaker 2:I left on my feed and in turn I turned around and started looking for female leaders.
Speaker 2:I started looking for black leaders, native American or indigenous leaders, jewish leaders, muslim leaders, like, I started just looking for people because I wanted to read about how they experienced the world as well. And it was probably one of the best experiments exercises I've done. And let me tell you this if you decide to do this, promise yourself that you will just show up and read for a year without leaving comments. Do the hard work of reading, of learning about their experience, before you push back or before you argue, or even before you try to get them to do more of your emotional labor, like it's okay just to show up and read for a while. You don't have to make a racket, you don't have to make noise, you can just be there silently listening. The other thing I think is so important is this is why we should go to the Holocaust Museum. This is why we need to show up and immerse ourselves in other people's worlds, and when someone wants to tell me about somebody else's world, I'm just not okay, right.
Speaker 1:And I think, along with that immersion experience that you're talking about there, I like the emphasis on voices, right, multiple voices, because I think when we don't expect one black friend to educate us about racism, right, or when we don't rely on one voice to be the voice of the indigenous, native American experience, I mean that is the harm of a single story and so instead of just taking one, understanding there are nuances and layers and dynamics within other people, groups that are just as complicated and messy as our own.
Speaker 1:But I like that idea of just reading, just being quiet for a while while you're educating yourself about that kind of thing, and in that it's kind of accepting the messiness, accepting the things that don't seem to make sense, the things that seem to contradict each other, and just kind of living with that contradiction and holding it loosely.
Speaker 1:And I think with time those things can kind of fall into place more. But I think white culture not that that is one thing, but I think so many white cultures, so many Christian white cultures, are premised on that, they're value lies and being more right than everybody else, and we don't know how to perceive the world. If we are not right, we don't know what to do with that and that freaks us out. And I think so much growth can come from a willingness to sit with that discomfort and sit with that realization that I've been doing racist stuff. I grew up doing and saying racist things, not realizing it, and I can't grow until I can accept that, that that is who I am, even if I don't want to be that person. Lwt.
Speaker 2:And I think, for those of us that grew up in high-demand religion, it's easy for us to accept that what people who feel familiar to us say as facts CBT oh, yes, lwt.
Speaker 2:If a person who feels somewhat familiar, uses some of the same language, shows up and presents themselves as an expert as in this case, which makes me cringe or they call themselves a leader suddenly, yeah, if they set themselves up as the expert, it's easy for us to assume that that is in fact who they are.
Speaker 2:And I think part of the job of listening is, yes, to hear other people's experiences, but also then to learn how to, in your own mind, challenge some of the narratives, maybe especially from your own culture, or to recognize the red flags. Or if something makes you pause and you're like, really Just sit in that pause. What about it made me feel uncomfortable? What about that didn't I like? And it might be something as simple as a personality style, and that's okay if that's all it is, but it might be more and I think, I really think that we need to learn to pay attention to how our body responds to conversations and even if we don't understand why we were uncomfortable with it, I think it's okay, just to sit in that and acknowledge the discomfort.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:You know, as you're talking about this just yesterday, I was thinking about rhetorical listening, something I'm going to be talking about with my students here in the upcoming weeks, and it's a term from a rhetoric scholar, krista Ratcliffe, who talks about it as a stance of openness in cross-cultural communication, and there's a whole lot more that could be said about it, and so I'm just going to give the tiny, thimble-sized version of it.
Speaker 1:But what resonated or clicked with me in terms of what you just said now is that we listen very consciously. It's important to listen consciously and listen to what people are saying and at the same time, be not only hearing the words they're saying but then also recognizing the cultural objects that are embedded in what they're saying, because we have those too, those cultural logics that are the quote unquote common sense, right, and we all have them, and so when we listen to someone else, we can hear them speaking from their own experience, but also we can at the same time recognize there are cultural logics at work there and there's room for both of them, and there's a whole lot more to be said about that. But I think that's really important to recognize that those cultural logics are often ideas that we buy into without even being aware of it. We buy into them just because they were in the water, we grew up around them and they influence how we interact, how we see the world, our cognitive biases.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I think is important is and I don't think I realized how much this was a part of my process until I kind of stepped out of high demand religion. But I remember being in high demand religion and really and part of this, I know, is just the part of maturing, the part of figuring out who you are. But I remember looking to others for hints and confirmation about who I was and about my place in the world, and I remember picking up hints about who I was, not just from my culture but from those outside of my culture and the questions they would ask, and it was hard for me to challenge those narratives that I received. It was really difficult for me to challenge those and I think sometimes when we hear other people talking about our particular culture, it can be easy to accept their version of who we are in the world Because challenging it can feel so overwhelming.
Speaker 2:Well, overwhelming, and they have more education than I do. They say they're the expert. They say it with more confidence than I do.
Speaker 1:And there are so many layers to unpack, where do you even begin?
Speaker 2:So I am challenging myself and us to be careful about those hints and confirmations that we receive. They're not always correct. In fact, many times they're not correct, and it's okay to create your own truth about who you are. Those hints and those confirmations that we receive from others are important, but they're not the gospel truth and it's okay to challenge that Absolutely. So the other thing we talked about was the important things that happen when women start talking, and I think we saw this happening in Misfit Amish Mary Byler's YouTube that we were part of, but I think we see it happening often at the magic and the power that happens when women are able to have honest conversations. One reader, one listener, I guess, wrote in and said that that YouTube conversation was exactly what she wanted out of her sewing circles when she attended the conservative churches. She wanted to have the experience of being able to speak honestly and to be real about our life experiences, and honestly, isn't that what we all want?
Speaker 1:Right, you know, that idea of women talking reminds me of the film Women Talking. It's based on events that took place in a Russian men and women colony in South America, but the film is only using that as a jumping off point and then it imagines an entirely different outcome and it reimagines what might happen if women did start talking honestly about their life experiences and, instead of breaking from their values, from their tradition, they actually started taking some of those core and about disbeliefs, about forgiveness and love community seriously. And you know, for me that was such an important part of my journey out was taking the belief seriously and trying to live them out and finding I couldn't do that in the community. Right, and I just wonder what would change, what would happen in our world if we took those ideals and those values that we say we believe? What if we took them more seriously than keeping men's secrets? What would happen?
Speaker 2:You know, I think we have been so taught and so conditioned and so trained that, as a woman, protecting men's secrets is the most important thing we can do.
Speaker 1:And that's reinforced by the ways that women are ridiculed for speaking right, that hen, hen hen being compared to chickens when we speak right. Look at the party. Yes, we're ridiculed for speaking more than men, when actually research shows that men speak more in public than women do. And it's also not just ridiculed but also called gossip and made a sin Right. So there's so much to discourage women from talking honestly and sharing information about the things that happen in our lives.
Speaker 2:And you know we talk a lot about being open to sharing and we talk a lot about being willing to express ourselves, and that is important and that is a skill many of us need to learn. But I think the other side of that is we need to learn how to hold other people's stories and we need to learn how to be a space for people to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:To meet other people's stories with openness and curiosity rather than with shame. Right, yeah, to learn to say things like tell me more, yeah.
Speaker 2:And hold it with a friend of mine on social media just use the term. He said he met somebody who came from a completely other culture and he's been so surprised and impressed with this guy's ability to have non-judgmental curiosity and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I want.
Speaker 1:Because I think sometimes the curiosity that we grew up with in a very kind of closed environment enclave is that curiosity is often pretty judgy and I think for a long time I squelched curiosity because I didn't want to come off as judgy and I've realized that I need to cultivate a non-judgmental curiosity and I need to ask people to share and thank people for sharing and really create that environment where people feel safe to share, and that's something that I've really tried to do with my children. I know there are plenty of folks who think I'm much too permissive with my children, but you know what? They tell me things and I'm so glad, I'm so grateful that they feel safe to do that. I hope I can be that kind of person for other people too.
Speaker 2:I know you are that type of person for other people and I think you are raising fabulous kids. Well, thank you, and same to you for sure, thank you. I think having kids who want to spend time with you, kids who want to tell you things and kids who trust you is one of the most redemptive parts of my life, and I think if you have kids that will talk to you, you're going to also have friends that will talk to you. You're going to be a safe place there as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, I can't tell you after my divorce how many people said to me that they've been having questions about their own relationships and these are people who from all appearances have very strong relationships.
Speaker 2:So we would love to know what you all think. What has your experience been with leaders who let you down?
Speaker 1:What has your experience been with holding positive attributes of people alongside the disappointing ones? Yeah, maybe even harmful. How do we do that? Yeah, and how do we make space for other people's experiences and the burdens that maybe it's legitimate or not legitimate shame? How do we make space for sharing those and getting them out in the open? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So, my friends, go find yourself a sewing circle, go find a safe place to be, a safe place to listen and a safe place to express yourself and tell your story, because your story matters. Not all the narratives you've been given about yourself are true and it's okay to actively change those.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You get to be in charge of you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for spending time with us today. The resources and materials we've mentioned are linked in the show notes and on Facebook at Uncovered Life Beyond.
Speaker 1:What are your thoughts about college and recovery from high-demand religion? We know you have your own questions and experiences and we want to talk about the topics that matter to you. Share them with us at UncoveredLifeBeyond at gmailcom. That's UncoveredLifeBeyond at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:If you enjoyed today's show and found value in it, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app. This helps others find the show While you're there. Subscribe to our podcast so you never miss an episode Until next time stay brave, stay bold, stay awkward.
