A History of Supressing Women’s Speech

The pursuit of censorship has often one of silenced women. Since the 2016 election, people have been saying to Hillary Clinton that she should go away, that she should be silent.  Even people from the left, and from the Democratic party were saying this.  Fortunately, Hillary Clinton has not been silent, and in an interview with Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, she said that to the best of her memory, no man who had ever lost an election was ever told to shut up and go away.  She also said she was glad that they weren’t because each had points of view and experiences that were worth hearing about.

And Kamala Harris who was cross-examining Jeff Sessions and was told to stop talking and “Don’t do that..” Or the time when Elizabeth Warren was ordered off the floor of the Senate by Mitch McConnell when she was reading a letter from Coretta Scott King about Jeff Sessions.  But when a male colleague came to finish reading the letter, he was not told to leave the floor.

Since Medieval times powerful men have tried to silence women.  Women have been threatened for speaking out against discrimination and abuse.  In the Bible’s New Testament, Saint Paul pronounces that women cannot teach on a public platform or communicate their faith due to their “inherent sinfulness and moral corruption.” In other words, silence was the essence of femininity and the condition of being a woman. But many women did break their silence and spoke up against violence.

Young virgins who objected to harassment were subjected to physical torture and unwanted sexual predation.  Saint Agnes of Rome, who was devoted to religious purity, chastity and virgins, was dragged naked through the streets of Rome to a brothel where she was raped, and eventually thrown into a fire because she refused to marry a Roman official.

The claim of a patriarchal society is that she was identified for her sexuality, and if she could not be one man’s wife, she could be every man’s whore.  But Saint Agnes was a free woman who was beyond the power of any man.

However, silence does not mean that a woman does not have a voice.  Some Medieval visionaries and mystics saw silence as a form of reflection, contemplation, and a time for spiritual and physical healing.

Saint Gertrude of Helfta was one of those.  She was the leader of a female community, and she saw herself as the bride of Christ.  She claimed direct access to divine grace bypassing the clergy.  Gertrude wrote The Herald of Divine Love; Spiritual Exercises, and a collection of revelations given to her sister-nun, Mechtild of Hackeborn.  Her visions were often about her female community, and her spiritual teachings make clear the priority of service to the neighbor over the pleasure of private prayer.  Christ often appeared to her and told her he would supply her with whatever she promised in his name, and that he would speak through her mouth, so that her sisters might share in what Christ has given to all.

The texts of Helfta represent a turning point in Western culture.  For the first time scholars determined that religious sensibility is more common in women than in men.  These visionary texts, and their strong emphasis on the devotional, influenced male writers. Between 1200 and 1400, the visionary ideas and practices of female religious houses, women’s institutions, and women in general, changed the universal culture.

Gertrude and other thirteenth century nuns supported a communal identity which was undeniably clear in their committment to a service of each other, and extended to writing each others’ works.

The character of Serena Joy in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, is a former speech- making televangelist who supported a theocratic misogynist society. The character is now taken at her word and forced into silence, and is a fictional warning of how there could be a backlash against women’s rights, if the religious right took power in the United States.

The Women’s March inspired by Trump’s inauguration was a reflection of the Margaret Atwood story of women protesting being denied their rights.  Since the election of Donald Trump, the points brought up in The Handmaid’s Tale seem more possible than ever.

Fear of Trump’s undemocratic tendencies, his war on women and girl’s health, and on Islam, which endangers mostly muslim women, and not men, and vice-president Pence’s anti-gay and anti-abortion beliefs, all make the #metoo movement and #timesup more crucial than ever, and the importance for women to find their power.

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