Make a peep: Margaret Roy on gender-based violence

‘Women are closer to exploitation, injustice, and inequality.’

I scoured the Friend’s reporting on Britain Yearly Meeting for a word on violence against women and girls. Not a jot. The media is full of it, however. The government has declared its intent to tackle it, and even the royal family are in on it. Quakers? Not a peep.

Sexual assault and rape figures have been rising, and a woman is killed by a man in the UK every three days. Meanwhile Legal Aid is withdrawn from many survivors of domestic abuse. But not a peep from Friends. 

What about our own violence? One of the most violent words used among Friends is ‘should’. When does that become coercion, the same subtle dominance that is a core element of domestic abuse? 

Many Quakers today have not heard of the Lamb’s War. The idea is perhaps best explained in a tract by James Nayler, in 1657, which talks of how God uses Christ the Lamb to defeat evil and establish the kingdom of heaven on earth. But to early Friends it was just as important to seek peace within as without. It is a two-edged sword, cutting both ways. You could even say violence starts within. 

‘What about our own violence?’

Friends have always seen humans as capable of transformation. This horrified the orthodox churches, which focused instead on sin that needed redemption. Today self-help is a well established practice. Externalised, it is the urge to change the world, to bring about the kingdom of heaven, to work for a better world. One serious question might be: what is the interface between human ingenuity and divine inspiration? Without God this has become more complicated. Once it was simply called grace.

Here I must refer back to our patriarchal economic system, the values of which put women at the bottom of the pile. This is to say that women are closer to economic and political exploitation, injustice, and inequality. Those of us who have received some status within the system are yet very aware of the number of ways we can be silenced or rendered worthless. 

To bring women in from the cold needs a quantum shift in consciousness – perhaps a Lamb’s War. In one way we can change our attitudes and thinking by contemplation. Real change starts within. As Quakers we come into silence to engage Spirit, to be led or inspired. But we can be very individualistic, sticking with the ways of thinking of the ego mind. The early Christians practised kenosis, self-emptying – emptying the mind before entering the Presence that is heart consciousness. With this heart consciousness we become aware of unity, of ubuntu, of love. The kind of community that arises from this has different values, ones of co-operation, belonging, participation and inclusion. 

I referred earlier to the kingdom of heaven. It’s a term we get from the Bible, and remember especially in the Lord’s Prayer: ‘thy kingdom come’. But here’s an interesting thing. The Hebrew term malkuth from which we get the word ‘kingdom’ isn’t masculine, it’s feminine. It’s not a kingdom of heaven, it’s a queendom.

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Comments

This article is mistitled. Nowhere in the article is the issue of gender mentioned.

It is in fact about Quaker silence on sex-based violence: violence against women and girls, rape and sexual assault, and the murder of a woman every three days.

Could we have some Quaker plain speech please?

By Ol Rappaport on 31st October 2024 - 8:17

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Ol, I’m baffled by this one. The term used for “violence against women and girls, rape and sexual assault” by the UN, the EC, and just about every other reputable organisation, is ‘gender-based violence’, which is why (I presume) Margaret used it. I don’t understand your objection…

By The Friend editor on 8th November 2024 - 14:48

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