![]() "If I saw a woman showing her arms or legs, I thought she would end up in Hell." "Guys just have to try not to rape people, but it's not their fault if they do, because the girl was probably dressed immodestly." Hear it enough and you start to believe it. "Girls bear all the responsibility for every man's thoughts," she says. This was also drummed into Sophie and her sisters. "If you expose your legs, even your ankles, a man could see you and think, 'I'd like some of that.' Then he'll follow you home and rape you." "There was always the graphic threat of being raped," she remembers. Their parents gave them gruesome warnings to make sure they covered up. Maya and her sisters were made to wear long skirts and loose T-shirts, and had to keep their hair long. "Even in a marriage, women put up with it simply because it's what God and their husbands require of them, to make babies." "It was never presented as something women could enjoy," says Maya. Girls are taught early on that sex is shameful. Instead, it's all about 'courting', where a boy asks the father permission to spend time with his daughter. "If you're a couple who farms together, it is still - and always will be - his farm."įinding a husband is a top priority for young Quiverfull women - but dating is off the table. "Boys can go to school and can become anything they want, but you'll only ever be his wife," she says. This is a cult that has no time for feminism. She says that women don't just become servants to their uterus, they also have to get used to one simple belief: men hold the power, women do what they're told. Maya, 27, spent the first 17 years of her life in a Quiverfull family. It's a movement that takes women back centuries, seeing them as little more than baby makers, vessels for continuing the human race. Books were written, blogs spread the word and there are now estimated to be 10,000 Quiverfull families across North America. The movement first sprung up in the '80s, when religious anti-abortionists seized on that passage, explains Kathryn Joyce, author of Quiverfull: Inside The Christian Patriarchy Movement.
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