Has anyone ever read / followed Fascinating Womanhood?

[gigglygirly]

Just wondering if anyone has ever applied it while married?

Reading quotes on-line I can't imagine how anyone would live it in real life.

This book in case you haven't heard of it - www.fascinatingwomanhood.net/

This sounds a bit like the Surrendered Wife stuff that's popular among fundamentalist Christians in the US (and one of my friends, sadly).

Very anti-women, I find it very

Isn't that a mormon thing?

Read these quotes on line -

"Fascinating Womanhood is an immensely powerful force for good in
your marriage, however it also gives you the knowledge to manipulate
men. Please strongly resist any temptation to abuse it in this way."

"The first thing to learn is that men are different from women. Men don't think, act or react as women do, nor do they have the same needs and values."

"Accept your husband for the man he is today, with no changes. Acceptance means you recognise him as a human being who, like yourself is part virtue and part fault. This is an honest look. You realise that his faults exist but focus on his virtues. You accept the total man with all his potential goodness and all of his human frailties."

The Secrets from the book:

1 is "accept who he is"
2 is "admire his masculine qualities"
3 is "make him number one"
4 is "allow him to lead"
5 is "inner serenity"
6 is "enjoy your home making"
7 is "make the most of yourself"
8 is "femininity delights a man"
9 is "just ask with a smile"
10 is "handle anger femininely"

"Childlike anger is the cute, pert, saucy anger of a little child. They are so trusting and innocent and yet so piquant and outspoken, they are often teased into anger."

"When such a child is teased she doesn't respond with some hideous sarcasm Instead she stamps her foot and shakes her curls and pouts. She gets adorably angry. We feel an irresistible longing to pick up such a child and hug it. We would do anything rather than permit such an adorable little thing to suffer danger or want; to protect and care for such a lovely human little creature would be nothing less than a delight."

So am I to assume from the last couple of paragraphs that women are to be treated as women? Ugh.

"She gets adorably angry."

Hmm, maybe I am associating with the wrong sort of children. In any case, this is clearly shite.

I meant women treated as children, obviously.

Mooncup it's shite squared.

I was just sick in my mouth a bit when I read that passage about childish anger. There's something creepy at the bottom of this.

Ooh, sounds very creepy to me too. I'm not keen on the woman-child advice at all.

As I said a friend of mine follows the 'surrendered wife' policy. Hands over all financial control to him, isn't on the bank accounts or mortgage, he gives her 'housekeeping'. Sahm who homeschools using a fundamentalist American curriculum which is frankly scarey! She practices "modest dressing" ie covers her head and never wears trousers or skirts above the knee, never goes swimming as she can't wear a costume - it's too "immodest". He insists on a certain level of housework and inspects her. She's told how to vote. She never ventures an opinion, in fact she has trained herself to say "whatever you think". She never criticises him even when he's blatantly in the wrong - she uses an example from the surrendered wife book, if he takes a wrong turn in the car and she knows it, she doesn't tell him cos it would "emasculate" him. All discipline of their 3 ds's is done by him, she marks on a whiteboard if they have done something wrong and he "deals with it" when he gets home. I've honestly never asked what that means .

He vets her friends - at her request, aparantly and funny enough I only talk to her when I call her, I think I'm too much of a scary feminist for them.

They had a lovely equal relationship to start with but got involved with a very old fashioned church and totally changed.

Daily act of husband worship?
Enjoying my home making?

Sure! After all, this is precisely why I pursued an engineering degree and a doctorate! You see, nothing teaches you to calculate the ideal water temperature at which to wash your dirty dishes like university level mathematics, ...

I wonder if a systems level flow chart would be helpful in my endeavor to be lead by DH, too.

This kind of crap makes me want to adorably punch random people in the face with my cute little fist!

weegiemum

Scary stuff! Your description sounds exactly like abuse to me. WTAF?!

I've told her that IMHO he's being emotionally and financially abusive, and I suspect physically and probably sexually too, but she keeps saying it's how she wants to live!

Her take is that it's the natural way to do things and the Christian way. Well, I'm a serious Christian and I can tell anyone who asks that it's NOT the Christian way. And I think it was last thought of as 'natural' in about 1830.

I do worry about the boys, they're very isolated on a smallholding in the country being taught some very dubious young earth creationist homophobic claptrap, and I suspect Dad beats them but have never been able to prove anything.

Now I'm getting all worried. I'm standing back looking at it thinking in real MN fashion WTAF? and thinking I need to call her. And possibly think about calling SS anonymously. Cos yes, the kids are probably being "chastised" way beyond what is right, or even legal.

Oh crap, I need to do something, don't I?

Whether or not it's 'natural' is basically irrelevant (not that it is, of course): Death from starvation, HIV/AIDS, childhood leukemia and devastating earthquakes are all perfectly 'natural' - that doesn't make them desirable or mean that we ought not to try and take measures to address them.

I'm not sure what, if anything, you can do for your friend beyond simply being a friend, offering support and being there for her - but this line of thinking has me worried.

weegiemum How scary! I mean people have the right to live in how they want but it must be hard to see a friend being treated like that. Makes you wonder how a woman gets involved in that.

If they have this idea of marriage in their mind and look for a man that believes it too or if the man has the idea and convinced her it is right.