Sentimentality sells. I fear that women’s ministry is just another commodity. We are being targeted for our empathy. And this is all a distraction from the problem that there are still many questions about how the church can better invest in women and engage with their intellectual contributions to the covenant community. The Christian bookstore and parachurch ministries may reject the sexual revolution, but it seems evangelical women are still subverted to the “pink-collar ghetto” when it comes to what we are often invited to write and speak about (26). I fear that everyone is just fine drowning us in fluff.

 
“As a form of withheld truth, propaganda can be 90 percent true. It’s the deceptive 10 percent that gets you” (14)

I picked up Sue Ellen Browder’s fascinating tell-all book, Subverted: How I helped the Sexual Revolution Hijack the Women’s Movement, to keep me company on my plane ride last weekend and found myself enthralled with it in the hotel room as well. Books as a Glance will be posting my full review, but I had some further reflections to share as well.

A major theme in the book is the “menacing power” of propaganda. We are well aware of our exposure to propaganda, and yet it is still so darn effective. Browder shares the unapologetic fabrications of sources and fictitious experts that was pretty much mandated from the top down in her work as a writer for Cosmo Magazine, perpetuating the illusion of the “Cosmo Girl” lifestyle. And yet the Cosmo girl didn’t really exist. Browder deems her a marketing fairy tale, fueling the cause of the sexual revolution.

Maybe you think yourself above falling for propaganda. I think it affects even the most discerning people more than we know. And that’s because it’s often 90 percent true. Not only that, propaganda is attractive because it preys on our desires. It even creates desires and tells us we should have them. Browder pinpoints the manipulative power of propaganda is that it uses that 10 percent of falsehood to create an illusion to which we then become enslaved.

One way to identify propaganda is in its sloganeering. Browder highlights the rallying cry Larry Lader used to amp up the sexual revolution:

“No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her own body.” On its face, the slogan is true. Who could deny it? But what does it mean? “Owning and controlling one’s own body” is one of those empty phrases that could mean anything from dieting to lose weight to schussing gracefully down a mountain slope.

“That’s the whole point of good propaganda,” media critic Noam Chomsky points out. “You want to create a slogan that nobody’s going to be against and everybody’s going to be for. Nobody knows what it means because it doesn’t mean anything. It’s crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy? That’s the one you’re not allowed to talk about.” (54)

This kind of manipulation isn’t only employed for liberal causes like the sexual revolution.

Read More