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
41. Forgive, Fight, or Flee: Unpacking Women Talking
What happens when women in a tightly-knit religious community decide they've had enough? It's a scenario rarely considered. Join us as we reflect on the gut-wrenching film directed by Sarah Polley and based on the novel by Miriam Toews.
While the film and novel take a real-life tragedy as their starting points, neither attempts to retell actual events. Instead, they invite us to imagine what might be possible if women owned their collective power, gave voice to their deepest sorrows and dreams, and embraced their faith to leave all they have known behind.
It wasn't just the familiarity of cape dresses and head coverings that resonated with us, but we were gripped by the narrative unfolding on the screen that dared to imagine an entirely different outcome than what is typical in most communities that turn a blind eye to assault and systemic abuse. Sequestered in a hay loft, these fictional women contemplate the violence of forced forgiveness and the restoration that is only possible with distance. In this imagined world, we see an example of how women everywhere might radically accept an unacceptable situation, find healing in mutual accountability, and prioritize the welfare of their loved ones over the egos of complicit men.
Links
Women Talking (IMDB)
Women Talking by Miriam Towes
The Ghost Rapes of Bolivia (Vice)
Why I Want Viewers to Know about the Story Behind Women Talking (TIME)
Thanks for listening! Connect with us via
- Facebook: Uncovered: Life Beyond
- Instagram: @uncoveredlifebeyond
- Email: uncoveredlifebeyond@gmail.com
- Website: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2171591
Subscribe (for free) to Uncovered: Life Beyond on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts so you'll never miss an episode!
What topics at the intersection of education, high-demand religion, career, parenting, and emotional intelligence are of interest to you? Help us plan future episodes by taking this quick listener survey. We appreciate your input very much!
This is.
Speaker 2: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 1: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 2: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 1:We want to talk about the questions we didn't know who to ask and the options we didn't know we had.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Uncovered.
Speaker 2:Life Beyond. Hello everyone, welcome back to Uncovered Life Beyond. This is Naomi and this is Rebecca. So just to give everybody a peek behind the curtains here, we are up early in the morning and so our voices might still be a little bit creaky Probably are creaky actually, might still be a little bit creaky to record this Probably are creaky actually. But, as we've said before, we have to fit this podcast in where we can in the cracks of life, and so this is where we were able to fit it in. But today we're going to be talking about the film Women Talking. It's available on Amazon Prime, and this is something that has been on our list for a long time and as as a topic, and then recently it came up in a in a Facebook thread and that kind of brought it back to the top of our list and we decided let's just do it.
Speaker 3:You know I'm so glad we decided to do it. I had read the book probably three years ago and it absolutely broke me in ways I wasn't really expecting, and so I was really hesitant to watch the movie because I was afraid it wouldn't do justice to the book. And I was surprised the movie was very on point.
Speaker 2:Right and I was under the impression that there was a big difference between the book and the movie, but I didn't see that at all. I mean, there were a few details that were different, but certainly different from the actual situation that it was based on, which is going to be something where we're going to talk about. Yes, to your point. I listened to the audio book for the first time on Sunday afternoon and then that evening I watched the film, and it was the second watch and, man, I don't know when I have shed so many tears. The next morning my eyes were still weirdly familiar, Like there's so many points of it that are weirdly familiar but we're probably, I'm probably getting ahead of ourselves here.
Speaker 2:Well, yes, and I just want to say to that point, you know, I remember having a similar experience, seeing FLDS women, fundamentalist Latter-day Saints women, and realizing how much they look like my mom and aunts and relatives. And there is, you know, I know representation is a thing, right, it's an important thing, is an important thing, and in moments when I see my, I realize how rare it is to see our background in media and it just it hits different. I don't know how else to say it, other than it hits different when you can see yourself in what you're consuming.
Speaker 3:And in some ways I give mad respect to whoever did the work, in costuming and even in behavior and songs they sang. This wasn't some silly bonnet ripper.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3:Comedy oh my goodness, comedy.
Speaker 2:oh this, this was, this was a work of respectfully, yeah, telling everyone's story yeah, and it did not shy away from the pain, right right, it didn't gloss over it, um, and I think that's what it just for me, was so gutting how even his story was handled with respect and honor.
Speaker 3:Even at the sometimes some of the women reminded him that he should almost not be there, Understandably but, I, just thought it was handled so beautifully. Anyway, should we give a little bit of a backdrop? Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So the film is based on Miriam Tave's book by the same name and it is the setting is based on an actual situation that happened in an old colony Mennonite community in Bolivia. But in the very beginning of both the book and the movie it says this is an act of female imagination and I think, if I could, I would change that to feminist imagination, because the idea is it takes this really tragic situation and it says what if there were a different outcome? What if? And what if? Instead of just asking for freedom from oppression, women said, hey, let's make, or women or in this case it was women but those who are oppressed say let's make our own society.
Speaker 2:But this the film is, um, like it could. It could be a play, because so much of it is conversation that happens up in the hayloft of a barn with this group of women and as they are deciding what are they going to do. There have been this, this series of what they call ghost rapes over the years, where women and girls are waking up realizing they've been drugged and attacked, but then at least in the film and I can imagine that this was if this was not true to life in terms of that situation. It also reminded me of the crucible um and uh, the salem witch trials, but the the blame was put on women.
Speaker 3:Right, it must be the devil, it must be it must be the devil, it must be their imagination. There's one line in this story where she says Mariel am I saying it right? Said they made us disbelieve ourselves. That was worse than you said. It correctly? Isn't that I mean, and isn't that, like I think, true for anyone who's experienced trauma of any kind like the action of them making us disbelieve ourselves? It invalidates our story, it questions. Our story ends up being so much worse than the actual experience.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's where the real betrayal is.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And in this case, okay, and again, this is the story as it was presented in the film. I don't know enough about what actually happened to say this is exactly what happened, but I believe this is part of the setup. The original situation was that one of the girls eventually stayed awake and saw someone and the perpetrator one of the perpetrators was caught and then ratted out the rest, and so it was a handful of these guys who were doing it, and so it was a handful of these guys who were doing it, and then one of the women whose three or four-year-old daughter had been attacked she came at them with a scythe.
Speaker 1:And she was ready to kill.
Speaker 2:She was ready. And at that point then, the men of the colony took the perpetrators into the city to protect them, not to protect the women. And you know what, whether or not that is box, is it the box article? Was that what it is? Hang on just a second. We should, we should put a link. We should definitely.
Speaker 3:Yeah in, I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure that happened for real. Um. Whether all the men in the community went um, I'm not sure, but because in the in the story all the men went.
Speaker 2:Right and you know, one of the things that have been observed about is how unrealistic the film is and the book is, and I think that is absolutely right and that's the point. It's saying what if there were a different outcome? So in the film, at that point when all the men go to post bail or see after the perpetrators protect them, be there for them, show up for them, the women are left back at the colony and they decide we've got to do something. We either have to leave, we have to stay. A small group did vote to do nothing, but most of them are saying we have to do something and then most of the film is taken up with their discussion and through that discussion we see things that have happened in the past, we see the incredible pain and we see the layers of a dysfunctional community and the ending, I mean it leaves itself wide open for a follow-up film.
Speaker 2:But I don't even know what that would look like. And if somebody wants to make it, I think that would be awesome, but I think it would look like the anti-Handmaid's Tale.
Speaker 3:I just thought it was kind of really interesting the way the film started. Early on the women of the colony decided they had three options either to stay, stay and fight or leave. And because they couldn't write, there were pictures drawn. There was an artist in the midst and she drew pictures representing stay, fight or leave. And the voice said in this colony women had little schooling or education, but on that day we learned how to vote.
Speaker 3:And it shows every single woman going through and voting, and I just thought it was so. I thought it was fascinating from the sense of and I think this is probably human nature but women, even without an education, can figure shit out. You take resources away from people and it's harder and it's more difficult, but they can figure it out.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And when you say that, I think one of the reasons or I suspect one of the reasons we could identify with what we were seeing on the screen so much, was that you and I have an aunt and an uncle who married into Russian Mennonite Russian Mennonite family.
Speaker 2:Now that Russian Mennonite family had already joined the Beachy Amish church by the time that they met up. But they had that background and one of the matriarchs in the film, agatha, was reminded me so much of their mother, their, yeah, the matriarch of their family and it was I think that was also part of the resonance was that, even though we have not had a ton of experience of exposure to that kind of strain of Mennonites, we've had enough and as I'm speaking now I'm thinking of another friend I have who comes from that background of exposure that we've had enough that it's familiar, I mean, and I also thought of Haldeman, like similarities to like the way Haldeman went, mennonite women dress so and all this is like to an outsider looks so much like the way we grew up Right Well and wore cape dresses.
Speaker 3:It started out so so.
Speaker 2:Black veils, black veils.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so when they did the vote, there was a tie. So the community appointed three families so the females from three families to sit in the barn and figure this out. And some of the pushback I've heard against the film is this idea of yeah, right, like women are going to have time to sit around and talk like this. The other women from the colony appointed them to do this, and the other women from the colony were doing their work so that they could do this. They covered for them. They covered for them, they made space for that. And you know what we women do, that we decide what's important and we absolutely pick up extra work so that other people can do what needs to be done.
Speaker 2:And I think it also it speaks to another resource that's possible, that we have access to, that we too often don't consider. Oh, I know, that's what I was going to say. My our grandmother was always so impressed with her in-laws who had Russian Mennonite background because this is so schmatt is what she would always say and they were incredibly resourceful, incredibly resourceful, and I think we saw that here in the film too.
Speaker 3:In Paraguay, the Russian Mennonites tended to do better financially than the Anabaptist.
Speaker 2:Well, they're Anabaptists too yeah that's right.
Speaker 2:So the more like the Swiss Mennonite. Yeah, correct, and we should. Just just for anyone who's not clear about this, the Russian Mennonites and the kind of Swiss Amish Mennonites all fit under the Anabaptist larger Anabaptist umbrella. But the Russian Mennonites all fit under the Anabaptist larger Anabaptist umbrella. But the Russian Mennonites came through well, did a stint in Russia before eventually immigrating to Canada and Mexico, central South America and some now inS too, and they often go by what Old Colony, mennonite, kleine Gemeine, and I'm sure there are other terms too.
Speaker 3:And their Dutch would be different from our Dutch.
Speaker 2:It's a low German, and I think it's also influenced by a number of other European languages, right right, and they mention them in the book. I think it was like Polish and Finnish, I forget Not Finnish, flemish, anyway, I don't remember, but it was a mixture for sure, and just enough to be again. A little bit of similarity and yet different.
Speaker 3:Right, but yeah, I thought it was so beautiful the way it started out there in the barn. So August was the school teacher whose family had been expelled or just excommunicated from the colony, and at one point someone asked him why they were excommunicated. And the little girl asked did your mom question God? And August just replied she didn't question God, she questioned power. But they had left the colony and August went to the university and got an education and he was the only one left in the community who knew how to write. So they asked him to stay and take notes because they knew that this meeting would be significant, yeah, yeah, and a defining place in time and I even thought that was really neat.
Speaker 3:It's giving space for women to understand the importance of their work and the decisions they make. But they started it off with foot washing and I thought go ahead.
Speaker 2:Which is a tradition we grew up with.
Speaker 3:Right, it's a tradition we grew up with. Right, it's a tradition we grew up with. And it was funny because I haven't done it in years, yeah, and I don't know that I necessarily would have said I miss it, but yet, knowing the tradition, I just thought it was such a great representation of their faith and their commitment the best parts of it, yeah, and their commitment to doing whatever they do from a sense of community and what's good for us all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, right. And again, like in the book and it certainly comes out in the movie too there's plenty of conflict, there's lots of conflict, there are lots of big feelings, but the foot washing ritual is all about service to one another and care for one another and honoring one another. And on the face of it, it seemed, like you know, my initial impulse was like wait, why are you wasting time with this? Like you know, my initial impulse was like wait, why are you wasting time with this? But actually I can see how, you know, taking time for a ritual like that kind of reminds them what's really important and where and what it's all about. Yeah, and we should say, too, this is going to be full of spoilers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that should have been maybe set up right, shouldn't it? I mean not that there's a lot to spoil, but I think it's the kind of film that's not spoilable, should we say? I mean like, the point is not what happens, the point is how they got there.
Speaker 3:And we probably won't make our audience cry today.
Speaker 2:Watch the film read the book, you'll cry probably won't make our audience cry today.
Speaker 3:Watch the film read the book, you'll cry.
Speaker 3:That's right. That's right. I thought it was so interesting when the conversation finally started. There was this strong sense that forgiveness was important, but forgiveness somehow meant staying, somehow meant staying which was then linked to the kingdom of heaven, and I had to think about how that is so many of us so often this notion of forgiveness means not making changes. You leave it as it is, you don't challenge the status quo, and somehow that is your ticket to the kingdom of heaven. And isn't that how religious institutions hold power? Over and over and over again?
Speaker 2:It's like they're waiting for the same playbook.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. And at one point and I don't remember who said this, but someone said surely there must be something worth living for in this life as well as the next. We've been treated like animals and, to be very clear, in the book and the movie, both this was based on the notion that, while there may have been a few of the main men who were the players or were the rapists, all the men were involved in it, all the men knew about it, all the men were complicit.
Speaker 2:They were all complicit. Yes, right. And the drug they were using? It was a drug that was used to anesthetize cows and horses. Yeah, to anesthetize cows and horses. Yeah, yes. And throughout the film we keep hearing about Peters, the minister, the bishop, the head, honcho, and Peters seemed to run the place with an iron fist and he, oh, and in the book. They didn't mention this in the movie, but in the book it turns out that that drug had been stored in his barn. That's right. Yeah, I tell you talk about complicity. And the women themselves confess their complicity, right, is, she's throughout the she's. She's the angriest character there in the loft, she's the kind of the contrarian and you can tell that there's, she's just underneath, she's just seething and then at one point her mother says apologizes to her. Wasn't that beautiful, oh my god. And she said I'm, let me see if I can find my notes here, cause I wrote.
Speaker 3:I wrote that kids, he was horrible and the mom apologized for telling her to forgive and for not protecting her. And then she said what you were asked to endure was a misuse of forgiveness.
Speaker 2:And sorry if that's not what you were looking for?
Speaker 1:No that is exactly.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Thank you. And what I thought was so wonderful about that was how the mother took accountability. She said I told you to go back to him again and again. And we know, we know that story. We've all known or been people in those situations who have been hurt and have been told to go back again and again. That's the only solution.
Speaker 3:Yeah, told to go back again and again. That's the only solution. Yeah, well, it was interesting because earlier on they were discussing who was guilty, like was it just the men who'd been captured? Were all the men who were captured actually guilty? And at some point the comment was made. The comment was made the men have all been excellent students and, following this apology, I believe it was Marike who said you know, it's not only the men and boys who've been excellent students.
Speaker 3:Boy, isn't that true? And I just sat there and I'm like dang it all. It's so true because none of these systems would survive if the oppressed wasn't also a good student.
Speaker 2:That's right, and so many of us have been in situations where we had to go along with it for survival. The problem is that when we just stay stuck there and we don't access the power we do have, which in this case, the power was in community- and you know it's tricky.
Speaker 3:It's tricky to know when you have the power, or it's tricky to know when it's time Right.
Speaker 2:So tricky.
Speaker 3:And I think we need to be really careful to never push or judge someone who doesn't feel like the time is right for them.
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely, absolutely, because the person who is experiencing that situation is going to have their finger on the pulse of what's going on in a way that those of us who are on the outside do not, and only they are going to know when the right time is right. Right, yeah, you know something you said a little bit ago about how forgiveness is interpreted as maintaining the status quo, the victim not demanding justice. And that was one of the big, that was one of the biggest hurdles, mental hurdles for these women to overcome, because again and again, calling out the injustice is characterized as betraying one's faith, and that goes without saying. Again and again and not just in our backgrounds, but I mean think about scandals in any other religious setting the idea is that if you call out the perpetrators and the perpetrators happen to be within that religious community, it's seen as a betrayal of the community. Not that the community has betrayed their own, their members and the most vulnerable in their members. What I found so powerful in the film was seeing the women embrace their faith as a resource for making some massive changes, source for making some massive changes, and it was in seeing that, maintaining the status quo, they were actually betraying their faith. There's a one line and I think it's so interesting.
Speaker 2:You and I took notes of so many of the same things, but Ona is a essential character in the film and Ona is a single woman who has chosen to remain single. August, the schoolteacher note taker, has asked her to marry him many times and she says you know, if I got married I would become a different person, not the person you love. And she is just beautiful. She just glows when she smiles. And she was also attacked and in fact she is pregnant as a result. But she is also kind of the philosopher of the group and it's clear she has done a lot of thinking. When she was younger she had been influenced by August's mother and that's pretty obvious. It's pretty clear that that has stayed with her. But at some point they talk about how is forced forgiveness genuine forgiveness?
Speaker 3:And I think the phrase was is forgiveness that is forced upon us, true forgiveness?
Speaker 2:Right, right, yes, thank you. And I just had to think how is requiring forgiveness of the person with less power kind of bullying them into forgiving anything, but a way to maintain the status quo and to turn a blind eye to harm done? And one of the women say later in the film forgiveness becomes permission. Yeah, it does. And how often have we seen that that forgiveness means the person with less power is forced to suck it up and the perpetrator is effectively given permission to continue.
Speaker 2:And Ona makes the beautiful point. What if, leaving, she says. Or Ona says we cannot forgive because we are forced to. But with some distance perhaps I'm able to understand how these crimes may have occurred and with that distance maybe I'm able to pity these men, perhaps forgive them and even love them. And Greta, one of the other matriarchs, says leaving will give us the more far-seeing perspective we need to forgive. And I just think how often victims in these situations are pushed into the spiritual, bypassing form of forgiveness, where it's like just shut up, comply, and in the process there's nothing transformative. All it does is reinforce the power of the institution.
Speaker 3:At some point and I think it was somewhere in that conversation the point was made perhaps it's not the men, but it's their way of seeing the world, and I thought that was such a humanizing statement. Yes, but also holy shit. Yeah, it's so true. Yes, yes, and the power we keep, the power we continue to give these religious institutions and the men running them, has got to be challenged and it needs to stop.
Speaker 2:Absolutely about this? Was that restoration true, healthy, genuine restoration requires that the victim is empowered, so that forgiveness is one option of many. How many times have we heard forgiveness or hell as the option? That's not a choice, that's not a choice, and if our only options are forgiveness or hell and maybe it's not stated quite, but it's pretty, eventually it will come down to that. And how is that anything but a recipe for resentment and permission and an endorsement of abuse?
Speaker 3:Right, I thought it was so interesting. As they were talking about you know whether to stay, whether to leave they all of a sudden realized they needed to talk about you know. What is our goal here, what's our mission? Yes, and it was like all of a sudden they realized they didn't know who they were. The quote was when we liberate ourselves, we will need to ask ourselves who are we? Yeah, and I think for anyone who has left anything, that is so true, whether you leave a church system, whether you leave a culture, whether you leave your home, when you leave something that is so deeply embedded into who you are. That's why deconstruction is so painful Absolutely Because, all of a sudden, you have no idea who you are.
Speaker 2:Right, and I'm just going to say again, because so often deconstruction is misrepresented by detractors.
Speaker 3:By the same people who want us to so easily forgive.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. And they equate deconstruction with destruction. Deconstruction is not destruction. We are deconstructing this movie right now.
Speaker 2:Deconstruction means we are carefully reflecting, we are looking piece by piece at a belief system or a text or whatever it is, and we're saying what is going on here, what are the messages behind these different elements, what's the relationship between these different elements? And really gaining a deeper understanding rather than just kind of the surface level, a sense of what it is that we believe. And I love that, because I think that's where a lot of attempts to change the status quo get gummed up is when there's not a clear sense of what are we aiming for, and that's really hard to do. That is so much harder to do than just, I mean, resisting the status quo is hard, that's another order of magnitude. But I think that that's where we get the power of freedom too.
Speaker 2:Like they were recognizing, not only do we have the option of leaving or option of fighting that you know the option of pushing back against the oppression, but we also have the freedom to, and a responsibility to say what do we want to create, you know? And so then they came up with their well not statement of faith, their manifesto their core beliefs. And here's the thing it wasn't about a break from their beliefs in God and pacifism and those service and community, those things that are really distinctive about the Anabaptist tradition, but it's about embracing them, and embracing them in a way that also embraces justice and compassion.
Speaker 3:So they quoted the verse as a group, actually in Philippians, about you know, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are lovely, think on these things. And one of the matriarchs I don't remember which one said this I think it was Agatha.
Speaker 2:I think so yeah, Ona's mother.
Speaker 3:I have done the verse of Philippians. But by staying we betray the central tenet of our faith. We must go. If we stay we will turn our home into a battlefield. What is good is also freedom. Freedom is better than slavery. What is good is forgiveness. Forgiveness is better than revenge. And that's when they talked about. Perhaps with distance I am able to pity these men and perhaps forgive. But then they moved on to say and they kind of did it as a group always moving, never fighting, always moving, never fighting, always moving, never fighting which, again, I just thought was so insightful. Insightful, but it's like a picture, picture of so many women who have fought for change.
Speaker 2:What, for you, is in the word moving? In that line, I'm just curious what does moving mean to you? Because, I'll be honest, that line I was not quite sure what to make it. So many of these lines like mic drop after mic drop, and just as you're saying that, I think I'm seeing a new meaning in that. But what does it mean to you?
Speaker 3:So earlier on they were talking about a few people who'd committed suicide, a few women who'd committed suicide, and they were specifically discussing one, and the question was why did our feet keep moving? Others couldn't, and sometimes I think movement is just getting out of bed, and it's depending what you value.
Speaker 2:Right Taking action.
Speaker 3:Right, it's doing the next right thing. And oftentimes I think this movement is something many people don't see, and it's usually not the loud, flashy things that we value, in quote leadership, but that daily movement, that daily.
Speaker 2:It speaks to a vitality. I mean growth is all. You can't grow without moving, right, right, kind of that continual evolution and change. Yeah, yeah, wow, that's so moving. Okay, thank you, wow, wow.
Speaker 3:And I also think the fascinating thing here is, we like to hold men up as the protectors and the one who'll take a bullet for their wives and family, which I think is bullcrap. I mean, when has a man last been asked to take a bullet for his?
Speaker 2:family when has one yes, exactly. Or even asked to, but even if Much less. Yeah, or I even asked to, but but even if this conversation wasn't about them.
Speaker 3:it was about their daughters. Yeah, it was about their babies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, their children.
Speaker 3:It was about protecting, and I'm telling you, we set men up as the protectors. It is not the men who do the protecting. In my life, rarely have I seen men do honest protecting. It's the women who, time and time again, are the ones who show up, and the women are the ones who say yeah, no, not on my watch.
Speaker 2:Right. What maybe even some would call protecting, in reality looks a whole lot more like abuse.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:It's power.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, it's it's. Power and protection are not the same things, people.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. How many times have you been in a situation often say it involves children or dependents and a man comes in and sees that your hands are full? I've yet to see a man who and sees that your hands are full. I've yet to see a man who, or there let's put no. Let me rephrase that there are very, very few men who will walk into that situation and start helping dish up the food or start helping with the nighttime routine. No, they'll start yelling at the kids, they will start barking out orders. That is their idea of helping, and it's not. All it does is escalate. All it does is make the situation worse, and that's their idea of protection and leadership is making the situation worse.
Speaker 2:And guys, I know there are a handful of you out there who are the exceptions, but just beware, even if you don't want to be that kind of person, this is probably the kind of masculinity that has been modeled for you and you're going to, just like we have to unlearn being part of this system.
Speaker 2:So are men, and one of the things that I really liked was so they were trying to decide about the boys between the ages of 15 and 12. Should they come with? The women, as you know, be counted as children, or should they be left behind with the men? And at this point the women ask August for his input and you know he's a schoolteacher, so he has spent a lot of time with these boys and he says, yes, they are a danger, a potential danger, to the younger ones, but then he also points out their vulnerability to the ones who are older than them and basically reminds them if they leave them behind, then they're going to be, they will be the likely victims because they're going to be at the bottom of the pecking order.
Speaker 2:They will be the likely victims because they're going to be at the bottom of the pecking order, and so the decision is made to take those young men with them so that they can learn a better way. And I just I put this plea out there for anyone who doesn't want to be any man who doesn't want to be described this way, any man who doesn't want to be part of the status quo. Please realize it's going to take conscious effort on your part, just as much as it takes conscious effort on us women, Because there might only be a handful of perpetrators of the actual violence, but it's the complicity of everyone else around them that allows the system, allows the abuse to continue. So you have a role. If you're not part of the solution, you're going to be part of the problem.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely. In the end, they said we are leaving because we cannot stay, and then this, I believe, ended up being their mission statement we want our children to be safe. We want to be steadfast in our faith.
Speaker 2:We want to think. And Marike the one married to an abusive man? She says this with her arm in a sling and her eye swollen one eye, yeah, swollen shut. And she has been speaking out of a place of despair and anger and resentment and all these things completely legitimate, but that next morning, when it's time to go, she has this whole new sense of resolve. She sees the hope in going. And they don't know where they're going. They have a map, they have a sense of what they want to avoid. They don't want the other communities to find out about this so that the men you know who might, they might alert the men and they'll come after them. They don't know where they're going. And I just thought is that not the case with refugees everywhere? You know it's. I don't know where I'm going, but I can't stay here.
Speaker 3:When home is the no hang on, when home is more dangerous than the mouth of a dragon.
Speaker 2:Yeah Is that the line, that's the concept, that. I'm thinking of Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a dragon.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely, okay, absolutely Absolutely. We judge people. We judge people so harshly, from immigrants to runaways, to everyone gets judged for leaving. I am convinced people do not leave unless home is the mouth of a dragon.
Speaker 2:different reasons and every situation is different, but absolutely, absolutely. The pain, the difficulty, the uncertainty, all of that makes the barrier to leaving so high that you've got to, there's got to be desperation behind it.
Speaker 3:I had to wonder back to Marieke. I had to wonder whether she would have been able to reach this point if the apologies hadn't been made, if she hadn't been heard If she hadn't been seen, if they wouldn't have said yes, you're right.
Speaker 2:We've let you down, yeah.
Speaker 3:It seems like I think the whole film did such an incredible job of seeing every single person in that damn barn Like to me that was one of the magical parts of it. There wasn't necessarily a star, they were really a group who took this position seriously.
Speaker 2:There was no hero.
Speaker 3:There was no hero. Yeah, they were all heroes.
Speaker 2:Because nobody could have done this without the others, the other. It took them all working together.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah working together. Yeah, yeah, and I thought it was so beautiful how August's mother, who was excommunicated, was even honored. It all came back and August in that was honored as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for all the criticism I have heard about the book and the film, I don't see this as someone trying to tell the Bolivian story or as it should be. It's telling everybody's story.
Speaker 2:Yes, right, and in the film it never says where they are, it never says who they are, it doesn't, it does not even go into any of that. Yes, that the universality of it I think, is so important, because how many of us have been in a work situation, a family situation or a church situation? Of a religious situation, I should say, not just church, but religious setting, where these dynamics have been at play, but religious setting where these dynamics have been at play and where we have to break out of our hyper independence and we have to join hands with others who are also experiencing this oppression, and it's only by working together that we can recreate something better.
Speaker 3:And guess what? They didn't need someone from the outside coming in to be. Guess what? They didn't need someone from the outside coming in to be the hero. They didn't need to be rescued, they didn't need someone to tell them what to do, and I think that's part of the beauty of it. They were their own damn heroes, right, right, and I think we all can be that for ourselves.
Speaker 2:We can take inspiration from them. Yeah, I mean, they have shown us how to do that self-examination and how to act on it. The film does not for a second turn away from the grief. Exactly, I just boohooed at that scene when they are finally leaving. But there were a handful of people who stayed behind, who didn't want to leave.
Speaker 2:And there was one mother played by Frances McDormand, and folks might know her from Fargo and lots of other films. She's just wonderful as an actor, but they refer to her as Scarface. It's clear she has survived some significant abuse and her daughter, it's evident her daughter has as well. She has two daughters and at the very end of the film, as the caravan is heading out, the mother is standing there with her two daughters. As the caravan is heading out, the mother is standing there with her two daughters. And then the mother goes back in the house and the two girls run and jump in one of the buggies and join the caravan. And it's such a bittersweet moment where you're cheering for the girls but your heart is ripped out for the sacrifices that everybody is making there For the mother who lost her two daughters, for the daughters who lost their mother in that moment and I had to wonder did Frances McDormand's character, the mother in that situation?
Speaker 2:Did she intentionally go back in the house instead of standing there with her girls? Did she understand that, implicitly, she was standing back so they could leave, even though it was clear that that was not her position? She had very little to say, just lots of disapproval on her face all the way through. I want to sacrifice, and even she has. It's a redeeming moment for her, even though, for whatever reason, she's decided to stay behind and who knows, who knows what her story is. I just, yeah, I can't think of that moment without becoming emotional, because of how much love and pain was present in the same moment and pain was present in the same moment.
Speaker 3:And you know, I think that this whole thing is it's not about staying or going, it's about the unimaginable grief. It's about the unimaginable grief that is involved in making that decision, the grief involved in all of them. I mean stay or go. It's a horrible, horrible spot to be in and I think it's a story for every person who has had to decide to leave or to stay. I mean, either way. Either way, there is so much pain and there is so much grief and there's so much loss. And this is not about trivializing any of it. It's to go back to your point that there's pain either loss, and this is not about trivializing any of it.
Speaker 2:It's to go back to your point that there's pain either way and all we can do is choose what hurts versus what hurts worse, and we don't always know what that's going to be. Sometimes you just have to jump because the mouth of the dragon is right there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think sometimes we do this whole notion of staying or going and we try to make it a right or a wrong thing. We do it to ourselves, we do it to other people. I recently not recently, this isn't really recent, but anyway I have friends whose marriage endured infidelity and addiction. He made changes, she stayed, and now they're kind of the spokes people for the God Heals Marriages crowd. I have another friend who left and this friend is absolutely creating a beautiful life. But this friend is almost the star of Leave and Pursue your Dreams. What if it's not that simple? What if the magic isn't in staying or leaving, but it's in the choice? What if it's in having a voice and the power to make that choice?
Speaker 2:Why is it so?
Speaker 3:difficult for us to simply support and empower women, no matter the choice.
Speaker 2:And respect their sense of knowing. Yeah, respect that they are weighing the pros and cons and making a complicated calculation and arriving at a particular place with good reason. I can't tell you how many times I have observed someone or something and thought, oh, they've got to do this differently, they've got to do this, they got to do that right. How can they not? And yet, when I actually learn more about the situation, or, down the road, when I have a better perspective on it, I go, oh okay, that makes so much sense. And what's the saying? Don't judge someone's choices until you know what their options are. Yeah, and I just think, whether we're talking relationships or whatever the situation is, the further you are from it, the more simple the answer appears to be. And, again and again, are from it, the more simple the answer appears to be. And, again and again, the closer you get to it, the more complicated it is, the more all the options are crappy and you just have to choose between what hurts and what hurts worse.
Speaker 3:We like to brag about people who make good choices. Sometimes, people just simply have good options. Yeah, and that makes a difference.
Speaker 2:It makes a huge difference when you have all good options. Yeah, and that makes a difference. It makes a huge difference when you have all good options versus all bad options. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I also think that this is about the magic that happens when women talk. When you get groups of women together, it can produce change, and community-wide change, right. That typically doesn't occur when it's men talking. I mean, let's even consider who headed up the scholarship for the Amish Educational Fund it's women. We have so many male doctors who have left the Amish Mennonite community. Are they setting up scholarships?
Speaker 2:No, and they're at a retirement age. They are at an age when they could. And who is it? No, it's women, One of whom is at least one of whom is a mother of young children.
Speaker 3:I mean she, yeah, and I think there is so much power when women start talking, when women start arguing, when women start debating. Women know how to protect and they know how to survive and they know how to get shit done, and women will do the impossible if only to protect their kids.
Speaker 2:That's so true. It's like the film is a giant. What if? Right to protect their kids? That's so true. It's like the film is a giant. What if? What if women were given the space to think? What if women took advantage of whatever meager resources we have available to us to create that space where women can think and make decisions that are going to, where women can think and make decisions that are going to improve the lives of everyone in the group? What if women dared imagine something different? What if?
Speaker 2:And to me, the aesthetic of the film. It's not exactly black and white, but awfully close. I'm not sure what the technical term for it is, but it kind of has this dreamy, otherworldly quality to it. It might even feel a little bit stylized and stiff, but even so, what they're doing is different for them too, right? Exactly, they are charting a new course, so there's a learning curve for them. They are expressing thoughts they've probably never really had an opportunity to express and to challenge each other and arrive at resolution to determine what it is they do want out of life, like. All these things are new and it's all as an active female or feminist imagination. It's saying what if? What if we did this more often, and not just in an obscure religious community in South America, but also those of us in privileged North America Right.
Speaker 3:What if the question was asked who benefits from the film and the book? And I think the answer is we all can benefit. So the question was asked like who benefits? Who benefits from the film, who benefits from the book? And I think the answer is we all can benefit. This isn't some kind of glamorization of someone's trauma, but it's a really real and a very raw depiction of what abuse and violent behavior does to survivors. It validates the pain, it validates the conflict and, I think, even more importantly, the growth that happens when women band together and decide they've had enough. And I just think it is such a beautiful work of art and of imagination and it's changed the way I even think about things. It doesn't change the way I think about Olivia necessarily, I mean maybe indirectly.
Speaker 2:Necessarily, I mean maybe indirectly, but it changes the way I think about my power and even my responsibility. I don't know that there's anything left to say after that. That's such a beautiful way to sum up what we just saw.
Speaker 3:Yeah grab a box of tissues, go watch the movie. Shoes, go watch the movie. I think reading the book is quite important.
Speaker 2:I agree. I agree Because you get some details you don't get in the movie. And I tell you for me, I watched the movie before. It was very moving. I mean, it has stuck with me ever since. But then listening to the audio book Sunday afternoon and then watching the movie that evening, oh my goodness, oh my goodness. Like I said, my eyes were still puffy the next day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it was but?
Speaker 2:but it was not. I don't want to scare anybody off right like the. I think what was so moving was not just the pain that we saw in their faces and that we could identify with, but it's also the power. It's also what they were doing. I had so much admiration. Oh Ona, oh my gosh, I know, it was good. They were good tears. Yeah, they were good tears. Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. I, yeah, grab the Kleenex, grab an extra box and then settle in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think it would be fair to say too, I was concerned about triggers before I watched it and I think that was part of my hesitation as well, and I think they had a good therapist involved, like, are there moments where it's triggering and difficult? It was very tastefully done.
Speaker 2:There was no gratuitous violence. There was. We only saw the effects.
Speaker 1:After effects the after effects?
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, we only saw the effects. The after effects, yeah yeah, and of the violence, of the attacks. We didn't see them actually happening. The drama comes in the relationships between the women. Yeah, the drama comes in the choices the women are making. The drama doesn't come from the violence that's done to the women.
Speaker 3:Which again takes back the power.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Makes women, the center.
Speaker 3:It doesn't give power to the violence.
Speaker 2:The perpetrators are never we never even see the faces of the perpetrators, right? We never see or the men, or most of the men anyway, right, yeah, yeah, it doesn't. Or the men, or most of the men anyway, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it doesn't. It acknowledges the violence and it acknowledges the abuse, but it doesn't give power to it, right?
Speaker 2:It takes the power back. Yeah Well, and if anybody has watched the film and has thoughts, you know, you can just click the link in our show notes and send us a text and let us know what you thought about it. We'd love to love to hear from you. And maybe it doesn't hit with everybody the way it did with us, and that's okay too. We all bring our unique set of experiences to media and to films like this one. But if there's something you'd like to share about your thoughts about the book or the film, we'd love to hear. And so, until we find the next crack in our lives, we can steal a moment to record, to sit down to record. We wish you all the best and thank you for listening.
Speaker 1:Catch you next time. 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 2: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 gmailcom. That's uncoveredlifebeyond at gmailcom.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2:Until next time, stay brave, stay bold, stay awkward.
