"College was called 'Babylon'": A former "stay-at-home daughter" exposes Christian patriarchy [View all]

"College was called 'Babylon'": A former "stay-at-home daughter" exposes Christian patriarchy
In her memoir "Rift," author Cait West describes Christian radicalism that is scarily powerful in the modern GOP

By AMANDA MARCOTTE
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED MAY 1, 2024 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) Christian fundamentalism is a competitive sport, with adherents often trying to outdo each other by escalating their extremism. Author Cait West is a survivor of this toxic dynamic, having grown up in a church and family seemingly intent on generating ever more stringent rules governing people's sexuality, education, and life choices — especially those of girls and women. In her new book, "Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy," West details a childhood under a father who spent years trying to tighten his grip on his family, denying his children ordinary life experiences like dating, education, or even the barest amount of autonomy.

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Many of our readers are quite familiar with the Christian right, their strict gender roles, and even their abstinence-only teachings. But what you describe in your book is next level. You even say that the book "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" was considered too liberal. What is being a "stay-at-home daughter?"

I grew up in the Christian patriarchy movement, which teaches that because God is masculine, he's the ultimate patriarch. That means that men are the best representation of God. Men are supposed to be leaders of the family, the church and the government. Women were created to submit, either to their fathers or their husbands. Growing up as a girl, I was told I would never leave the home until I got married. I wouldn't get a higher education. I wouldn't have dating relationships. I wouldn't have a career. My job was to learn homemaking skills and prepare to be a stay-at-home wife. And that's why they called girls like me "stay-at-home daughters," because we were living very differently from the outside world. We were proud of that fact.

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In your book, you really get into maddening and contradictory expectations around courtship. You were told that a young man was supposed to ask if he could court you and your father would say yes. It was supposed to go smoothly into marriage. But that was not your experience. What happened when you actually tried these courting relationships?

First off, I wasn't allowed to really be friends with boys. I was allowed to be friendly or polite, but not to have real friends who are boys. So I didn't know the men who were interested in me. In the specific case of my first courtship, he asked my father if we could have a courtship. My dad said yes. We had quite a long relationship, but because this man wasn't quite meeting my father's standards in terms of like income and job stability, he ended it. We followed a courtship guide called the "Pathway to Christian Marriage." It had all these questions that we would go through every week with my father. All of our time together was chaperoned. I never really got to know him very well, but I also thought I was going to get married to him and that we would eventually get to know each other after that. When my father ended the courtship, I felt heartbroken. I was really upset because I had no choice about it. I didn't even really get to say goodbye.

....(snip)....

It seems very ironic to me. People raise children in these rigid fundamentalist spaces because they're afraid to lose them. And then what they do is they end up driving them away. Have you ever talked to your father about that?

Well, the last time I talked to my dad was like five years ago. But when I left I tried to explain to him how I was feeling and my belief that my emotions weren't sinful. That I thought he was emotionally abusing me. That didn't go very well. He rejected that and he was very hurt that I would even say that. He's never taken accountability for anything that I talk about in the book. He thinks that he was following God the whole time. We don't have contact anymore. .............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/05/01/college-was-called-babylon-a-former-stay-at-home-daughter-exposes-christian-patriarchy/