Your Monthly Momecdote, Issue 25: May, 2026

This blog post was originally published in my May newsletter. Subscribe to receive next month's essay along with book and music recommendations.

I'm going to talk about religion, which has gone poorly for me in the past (in that a man came to my YouTube video to lecture me, so, the usual). I am, as you probably know or can sense if you've ever read any of my books, something of a lapsed Catholic. As in, I was raised Catholic, but the older I get, the less sense religious doctrines make to me in general. Whatever your opinion on the Bible, for example, so few people who invoke it seem to have actually read it. My problems are not with the nature of faith or even the existence of God (call it a copout, but I am truly agnostic, in the sense that whether God/gods exists is none of my business and surely beyond my capacity to comprehend anyway) but with the danger inherent to religious institutions. Religion as an infrastructure for sociopolitical power is not the same thing, to me, as faith. When I speak about religion, I am referring primarily to Christianity in the United States, and to the structures of patriarchy and white supremacy that prop up its hegemony. So, you know. Do with that caveat what you will.

Where does this all start? Anecdotally, I suppose. My grandmother was very religious and a sort of benign hypocrite. I say benign because I think she focused her energy and resources on deeds—a very Catholic doctrine, "deeds" being acts of service on behalf of others for purposes of, well, let's face it, recruitment—and overall, I do think my grandmother tried her best to do right by other people. By that I mean: strangers who were less fortunate than herself. Was she kind or merciful or compassionate to other people in her real life? Mmm, indeed. Did she occasionally say startlingly racist things? Haha. Let's move on. 

So I was raised Catholic. I spoke about this recently, my relationship with religion being also mostly benign, due to the very progressive religious education I happened to receive. Which is probably why I can invoke a religious aesthetic without flashbacks from The War, so to speak. My particular exposure allows me to occupy this sort of odd middle ground, where I do not judge people who take comfort from their faith, but I also wince whenever I learn about people turning to religion who have not been religious in the past. Even when the faith in question appears to be, as I keep saying, relatively benign, it's hard for me not to identify the psychological imperative behind the desire for whatever religion offers. On the one hand, we're clearly experiencing a mass loneliness epidemic, and of course we are. We are being valued not for who we are, but for what we produce. That is reason enough to seek some higher purpose. But these days, a new religious fervor troubles me a bit more, because anecdotally, people I've observed to be newly entering religion are men.

I want to start with this piece—Are We Actually Experiencing a Christian Revival? The article was timely because I was beginning to notice the media claims of religious revival myself. Was it true, were more people turning to God? According to the article, evidence suggests not. There has been no meaningful increase in the number of people who are going to church. It's that more people are identifying as religious because doing so also makes a political statement. I imagine, considering that you are here in my newsletter, that you will find it unsurprising what political statement they are making, and can also intuit why those people are men.

I recently read WOMEN TALKING by Miriam Toews, which is a fictionalized story about real events that took place in Manitoba Colony, Bolivia, an ultra-conservative Mennonite colony where, between the years 2005 and 2009, 151 women were victims of gas-facilitated serial rapes by the men of their own community—their husbands, brothers, neighbors, etc., while their elders dismissed their bruised and bloodied bodies as feminine hysteria or an act of "demons." The book, an imagined version of the events during the 48 hours between the perpetrators being released on bail and their return to the colony, very interestingly reveals/explores the particular dynamics of such a community. The women cannot read or write or even speak the language of the outside world. Within the structure of their community, they cannot even hold their attackers accountable for their violence. They are asked, instead, to forgive the men, or risk their own entry to heaven. 

It's a strange time to hear of the popularity of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, or to watch the profitability of "dirty soda," or to watch the fascination with trad wives (again, I do not mean "any woman who fulfills a traditional feminine role" — I mean influencers who build their brand around being subservient to their husbands and/or children), or to observe that even those wary of Mormonism may find the Amish very charming (see also: Amish cases of sexual abuse, which is perpetuated within the community by insulation and fears of banishment). It seems to me very dangerous to glamorize these insular lifestyles, no matter how cute the furniture is or how nice natural linen looks or whether beef tallow really makes your skin softer. A world where women have no agency is a world where women have no escape route. A world where men are not held accountable for their actions, or are held accountable only within the scope of their self-preserving community, is a world where abuse sees no recourse. Are there good men in the world? Of course. But a world that does not create the framework for badness or harm to be mitigated is not a world where those in power are motivated to be good. Ona, says one of the WOMEN TALKING characters to another, we are born and then we live and then we die, and then we don't live again except in heaven. Where there will be justice.

And respect, adds another character. Two things that do not exist in their lives on earth, such that they can only aspire to them later. Slow living, indeed. 

I've written many times about my own longing for community; I understand why those inside any community would be driven to protect it, or to act out of fear of what might happen if they were forced to leave. I've asked myself which of my values exist because of my religious upbringing, and whether those things are worth passing onto my son. From a purely intellectual standpoint, I have always understood that any religious insight he would come by would have to come from me—my husband is a staunch atheist, an ideology (and corresponding set of values) I don't necessarily disagree with. It's just that, again, the mysteries of the cosmos are fine to remain mysteries to me. Faith, in anything, feels to me like something precious and private. But the more religion is invoked as a defense by warmongering bigots, the more I wonder what any of us can really gain from institutions that would seek to rule us—whose very structure necessitates subjugation, and by practice withholds resources to protect its elite. 

Then again, "how do I teach my son about religion" is the easy question. My real concern: if religion does speak to my son, and it's the kind of religion that—as Toews writes—"is responsible for these attacks, because in [the men's] quest for power, they needed to have those they'd have power over, and those people are us"—then how do I save him from becoming the kind of man who sees power as more rewarding than goodness?

Actually, the question might just be how do I save my son? It's May, which means it's almost Mother's Day, and also almost his birthday. Another year older and a baby no more. Someday he'll be a man, and I remain filled with apprehension about what he will think it means to be a man. At one point in WOMEN TALKING, one of the mothers wants permission to bring her son with him if they leave, because although he is considered a man by the colony, he is still young and good, and untainted—but, also, still young enough to become corrupted by the presence of the bad men. I know this fear. The trouble with the internet and the so-called "manosphere" is not that I worry about my ability to compete with those influences—it's that right now, unregulated, there is seemingly no competition. There are simply more of them than me, and they are more profitable, and they are louder. Whose voice will my son hear? Whose will he trust?

When I write about feminism, or identify as a feminist, or discuss feminism with other women, I am always asking myself what a more just world for women means for my son, and what he is to understand about his place in a world where, according to some, he is being asked to cede power that is owed to him by virtue of that thing between his legs or the color of his skin or both. It should be easy to present a logical argument, shouldn't it? Equality means equal access to resources. Equality means that the dignity owed to others is owed to you, too. Equality means that the things you want—compassion, political and social capital, recognition of a job well done, a life of dignity and respect—all of that can be equally yours. Nothing has been robbed from you. 

If I tell him that, will he hear me? Will it ever be enough?