Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy
Cait West
Eerdmans
April, 2024
In our conversation about her recently published memoir, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy, West shares some of the disturbing elements of her upbringing, including myths about rape and contraception, the stay-at-home daughter movement, how she managed to heal, and more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
One of the book’s persistent themes is that of a voyeuristic father-God who surveys not only your neckline, but also your every thought. You write, “Dad was always watching, which meant God was always watching.” What effect do you think this voyeuristic conception of God has on girls?
I remember from a very early age being sexualized and objectified. My purity was of utmost importance to my father. I was told my value was in being sexually pure until my wedding night. Even kissing was forbidden. I held a lot of shame about my body and sexuality, dissociating much of my life to avoid thinking about my body. When I moved out at the age of 25, I experienced panic attacks during sexual experiences, not understanding how I’d been affected. I now see abuse as tied to my sexuality and how I perceive myself as a sexual being. I think it can be called sexual abuse.
Many survivors like me experience post-traumatic symptoms similar to those of people who have been sexually assaulted. Even if we haven’t been physically touched in the same way, we experience it as trauma. All abuse is ultimately about power and control.
You write of a rape myth undergirding the stay-at-home daughter movement (which you also wrote about for RD). Its logic is: Unless a girl or woman is subordinate to her father or husband, she’s vulnerable to ghastly sexual violence. This reminds me of the Jim Crow era, when Southern White women were told to respect the authority of White men, especially regarding the color line, or else risk being ravaged by dark-skinned others. Do you see purity culture as an instrument of racial terror, not just Christian patriarchy?
More than simply an instrument of racism, purity culture has White supremacist roots, which Dr. Sara Moslener writes expertly about. Intertwined with the idea of sexual purity is the idea of racial purity, although few in the Christian patriarchy movement say it out loud.
Growing up homeschooled, I was taught White-washed history about slavery. For example, my Christian curriculum taught me that enslaved people were blessed because they were given the Christian religion. On the other hand, I was told that interracial marriage, while not necessarily wrong, wasn’t desirable and that it would be a challenging marriage. I don’t think it’s an accident that most people within the homeschooling and Christian patriarchy world were White. White people were seen as more civilized, with access to true religion.
Another variant of the rape myth has it that contracepting women are eminently rape-able. In Quiverfull and “Trad” Catholic circles, for instance, girls are commonly told that birth control renders women sexual objects. Only the procreative are truly respected. You grew up with these myths, and yet you found yourself having nightmares of being raped—and not by worldly, secular men. Could you say more about the ways that Trad circles allow for rampant sexual abuse even as they endlessly threaten exactly that?
Like many girls in the Quiverfull movement, I was never taught about consent. This ignorance leaves girls vulnerable to abuse with nowhere to turn for help when something happens. Documented cases of mishandled sexual abuse within Christian patriarchy include Jamin Wight at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, Doug Phillips of Vision Forum, Bill Gothard of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, and Josh Duggar.
The whole ideology of Quiverfull is that men are sexually driven aggressors and leaders. Women are submissive helpers who must have their “garden gates” open to their husbands at all times. This belief system raises boys to believe they’re unable to control their sexual desires and girls to believe they’re the brake system on maintaining purity until marriage. This is essential to rape culture: Girls are always to blame for their own sexual assaults. And by offering up [stories about] the “bogeyman” predators of the outside world, patriarchalists distract from the very real predators within the church.
It interests me how purity culture and “family values” also serve eugenicist ends. You mention pamphlets, like John Thomson’s Pathway to Christian Marriage, that aim to ensure marital harmony and longevity. This reminds me of James Dobson’s early work for eugenicist Paul Popenoe’s American Institute for Family Relations. The institute’s goal was to keep able-bodied White couples together so they’d outbreed ‘undesirable’ populations. In your circles, were eugenicist concerns ever made explicit?
Eugenics was not a term I was familiar with when I was growing up. However, I inherited the Quiverfull belief that women should have as many children as God gives them. This would eventually result in the Christianizing of society, as the children would grow up and shape the culture. Christian families were glorified and seen as superior. Add to this the fact that the Quiverfull world is predominantly White and teaches White supremacy (though not always explicitly), and you have an environment that promotes large White families while diminishing the value of families of color.
You read your way out of Christian patriarchy. Authors like Avi and Jane Austen gave you the idea that girls “don’t have to be good to be happy.” This resonates with me, having also used books as a North star. I often wonder if, even in the absence of feminist messages, there’s something inherently transgressive about reading literature. What do you think?
Books have power. They can open windows into other worlds and the experiences of others; they can help us understand ourselves better. Reading encourages us to ask questions and become critical thinkers. All of this poses a threat to high-control religion because freedom of thought means a loss of control. We can see this in the recent book bans and libraries closing. Some libraries are becoming “adult only.” It’s a tragedy because kids like me in abusive or restrictive homes won’t be able to access the place where many find freedom: the public library.
In the book you use “rift” to refer both to your separation from Christian patriarchy and, in the more literal sense, to a geological splitting-apart. What does the earth’s story have to do with your own?
My memories are strongly tied to the places I’ve lived, and I found myself researching the history of the land and how each place has evolved over time. I started with the Rocky Mountains and ended up discovering how the Great Lakes formed because of a rift that failed to split the North American continent in half. I became fascinated by how the earth has evolved into the landscape we see today and how it’s been through violent changes. For instance, Lake Superior, a beautiful freshwater lake, was once the site of volcanic activity.
I chose “rift” as the overarching metaphor because, while there’s a “before” and an “after,” leaving is never so simple as stepping over a line. In a geological rift, if you dig down deep enough on each side, the underlying materials are the same. In the same way, I feel like I can never completely escape my past. Learning to integrate it into my identity now is the only way I’ve been able to heal.
