Reviewing “Disobedient Women” by Sarah Stankorb
Sarah Stankorb is an exceptional journalist who researches and shares sexual abuse survivor’s stories from within Evangelical spaces such as the IBLP movement, Sovereign Grace Ministries, the Southern Baptist Convention, the #churchtoo movement etc. This book is called “Disobedient Women” because women are speaking out against abuse despite being trained by evangelical patriarchal systems, to keep quiet, submissive, and simply forgive. Sarah delves into how patriarchy and purity culture have sustained and supported rape culture under the pretense of doing the exact opposite. She dedicates an entire chapter to the “umbrella of protection” which describes husbands as above their wives and fathers as authoritative over their children. This is a patriarchal hierarchy that has perpetuated and minimized the sexual abuse, assault, and exploitation of women.
Sarah describes the rise of purity culture with its father-daughter balls, the “Silver ring thing,” movements like “True love waits,” virginity pledges and abstinence only education. She shares her own experiences as someone influenced by purity culture, evangelicalism and an abusive father.
She fills out details about Bill Gothard and the IBLP movement. She delves into the Duggar family who were part of IBLP. She writes of the push toward home-schooling within Evangelical spaces like IBLP. Joshua Harris, whose parents were popular within the home-schooling movement, rose to fame after writing a book titled, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” and soon became Pastor of Covenant Life Church. Many years later, when it came to his attention that sexual abuse had been mishandled within his church, Harris resigned and subsequently kissed goodbye to his book, his marriage, and Evangelicalism.
Sarah mentions the late, great, Rachel Held Evans who was foundational to the deconstruction of many Evangelicals who have various qualms with Evangelicalism, yet many of whom persist to have some form of faith in God. Sarah also talks about Rachel Denhollander who brought down the physiotherapist who sexually assaulted hundreds of women under the guise of “internal treatment.” Sarah writes of Emily Joy Allison and how the #churchtoo movement came about.
She has given a more thorough and researched picture of the lives of many victims and the institutions they come from in this book. She shares how many women have fought to be heard and to gain some semblance of justice for themselves and other sexual abuse survivors. I only wish she had included the name “Jessica Van Der Wyngaard” who produced the documentary “I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye.” Mentioning Jessica and Devi Abraham’s podcast, “Where do we go from here?” for untangling sex, self, and community, could be really helpful for readers to know.
I love Sarah’s closing paragraph: “They were called disobedient, Jezebel, Satan’s mistress, while they tried to protect others. From them I learned a vital lesson: Disobedience is not wrong when you defy those doing harm. It might be the thing that saves the rest of us in the end.”