troubling

There's a lot more going on with the story about Juanita Bynum than I understand. She's a Pentecostal preacher who married another Pentecostal preacher, after having preached a pretty conservative message on abstinence and sexual fidelity, and perhaps wifely submission as well. Her husband beat her up in a parking lot, and now she's filing for divorce.

I keep reading it argued that the message she preached leads women into abusive relationships. Maybe so. Pam does a particularly good job of getting into the stickiness of criticizing the message she preached on femininity without saying that the abuse was her fault.

Pam links to this article on the story from the New York Times, which just made me angry:

Conservative critics among the evangelical clergy have accused her of exploiting the attack for publicity, calling her “loud,” “angry,” “aggressive” and “out of control”...

I wish the author had cited particular conservative critics, so that I could write them each an email explaining why it is inappropriate to belittle a battered woman for being 'aggressive.' Loud, maybe; she's a prophetess, and somehow I doubt those critics were belittling her for being loud when she was preaching on abstinence. But angry? aggressive? She ought to be angry, perhaps even more at evangelical clergy who would ask her to shut up than at her own husband. And slamming a battered woman for being 'aggressive' is... sickening.