Mastodawn

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

1/16
On a tweet about organic chemistry...(see ⬇️)

I received that same "find an alternate career path" demand/speech from my NCSU college advisor as a Pre-Vet Zoology major. I had gotten a C (I think?) in organic chemistry and my average had sunk all the way to a B. So naturally, instead of providing some encouragement or constructive action like - hey you might need to retake that class -

#science #religioustrauma #womeninstem #mentor #patriarchy #organicchemistry #veterinarian #vetschool

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

2/16
- he tells me, "you won't get into vet school with this average so find an alternate career path." He may have chuckled too.

I was angry, ashamed, defeated, confused, lost and shattered. I think worst of all, I believed him and took his words as proof of what I already knew about myself through a copious amount (20 yrs?) of religious conditioning - I am truly not good enough to be here.

#science #religioustrauma #womeninstem #mentor #patriarchy #vetschool #jiujitsu

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

3/16
Now, I have some thoughts, but it's not a horror story by any means. My "alternate career path" was fine. I worked in a lab, worked with awesome people I feel bad I've lost touch with, worked on really interesting scientific projects, became proficient in techniques I'm still proud of even though I don't do that anymore. I burned out after just ten years, though.

#science #religioustrauma #womeninstem #mentor #patriarchy #vetschool #jiujitsu #blackbeltwomen

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

4/16
I left the job to stay home with my two toddlers. I'm grateful that was even an option - I know many *have* to work. And not working has given me the chance to pursue my other interests - for example, earn a black belt in jiu-jitsu, which I would've wanted to do if I worked but maybe wouldn't have had the time.

#jiujitsu #bjj #blackbeltwomen #science #religioustrauma #womeninstem #mentor #patriarchy #vetschool

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

5/16
But if I'd stayed with vet school, maybe I would've been able to overcome a bit of the burnout feeling because this is the thing I had wanted to do since I was eight. (Maybe I wouldn't have, though, and I'd have had vet school debt on top of it all!) "Peopling" didn't ever come easy for me, but I always felt animals were my friends whenever I encountered them. What could be better than a career, a lifetime, helping them?

#science #religioustrauma #womeninstem #mentor #patriarchy #vetschool

jiujensu🇵🇸

6/16
Many people, perhaps those who didn't have religion as a primary influence, may take that one teacher's bad advice based on very little as fuel to succeed and overcome. But I was conditioned from birth to hold these sorts of men, especially those bestowed with any authority, in the highest esteem. Like God. And my dad. I wouldn't want to tell everyone that all religion is destructive for every body...

#science #religioustrauma #womeninstem #mentor #patriarchy #religion #vetschool #jiujitsu

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

7/16
...but I would encourage you not to think of religion as a prima facie GOOD (or your priests and preachers and elders as unimpeachable) either. But that is America. *sigh* And this is part of my story.

There was the headship doctrine, frequently cited from 1 Corinthians: "the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God"

#science #religioustrauma #religion #womeninstem #mentor #patriarchy #headship #purityculture #vetschool #jiujitsu

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

8/16 (part of a list in a pre-vet religious trauma--don't read this one in isolation, lol)
And again in Ephesians 5, for funsies:
"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything."

#science #religioustrauma #womeninstem #mentor #patriarchy #vetschool #jiujitsu

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

9/16
I used to go to this (Proverbs 31) when I needed something uplifting (or wanted to coerce myself into what the church thought was a good woman), but when I survey the damage of purity culture, headship, and all the rest on my own life, it is brutally depressing. Beauty is fleeting, but lucky for you, you've handed your life over to men who are recklessly controlling every aspect!

#science #religioustrauma #womeninstem #mentor #patriarchy #vetschool #jiujitsu

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

10/16
This is it-- Proverbs 31: "Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing,
But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised."

We subscribed to Paul's ideas that women should be silent in worship and ask their husbands at home if they had any questions on the subject covered. Shame, submission, not permitted to speak. I probably absorbed some of this as my personality, as I learned to recite many of these things...

#science #religioustrauma #womeninstem #mentor #patriarchy #vetschool

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

11/16
...as memory verses before I could tell you what it meant.

But why would you teach this to children you wanted to grow up and be functional in the modern world??
This is the one: 1 Cor 14:34-35 "Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. 35 And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church."

#science #religioustrauma

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

12/16
(*⬆️ isn't an exaustive list, but you get the idea)

I wanted to be one of those women in this thread who persevered, who achieved their dream job or life. Mine took a different turn, however, & not all bad! I do feel super weird about the what do you do for a living question (I mean where do I begin, how long do you have, do you wanna hear a little story?), but I don't have severe regrets. Things change. We adapt. That's life.

#science #religioustrauma #womeninstem #mentor #patriarchy

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

13/16
The messages I got from the binary bubble of religion - deny yourself, obey My voice, submit to your husband, submit to God, women be silent in church, be crucified, if you love me keep my commandments - (and the only alternative - sin, hell, eternal punishment, death, lake of fire, everlasting torment) - I can't help but wonder if some of these things may have annihilated any nascent self-confidence I might have been able...
#science #religioustrauma #womeninstem #mentor #patriarchy

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

14/16
...to cultivate to overcome baseless criticism (while still accepting valid, constructive criticism). But that too is water under the bridge. I got out. I'm free. I won't pass that on to another generation.

#science #religioustrauma #womeninstem #mentor #patriarchy #vetschool #jiujitsu #exvangelical #exchurch

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

15/16
There's no real conclusion or moral here I guess. I hate when I relate to a tweet this hard. And how it's frustrating that I can't even contribute in the same way to the thread of success stories referenced where they turned these crochety old men's sexist advice into fuel for their success and satisfaction. The thread made me feel things. I wrote them down. Consume religion responsibly. Or not at all.

#science #religioustrauma #womeninstem #mentor #patriarchy

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

16/16
P.S. If I ever write about this stuff seriously and at length, I'll need one heck of a nice, patient and empathetic editor. I think there's a better narrative arc in there, lol.

Jon 404 Mar 31, 2024

@jiujensu Your experience very much mirrors my sister's experience in Christianity.

Both of us got as far away as possible as adults, but for both of us it never seems far enough away.

jiujensu🇵🇸Mar 31, 2024

@jon404
I'm so sorry you both experienced that. Now I have more good days than bad, but it still haunts me or catches up with me occasionally!