I know this personally on multiple levels. It really is a painful betrayal for the victims. I had to pause for a moment in this section. Whether it’s by turning on the women truth-tellers or helping abusers with their alternate narrative, Bluhm labels “the swift defense from other women to protect him and inadvertently belittle the victim’s testimony patriarchy at its peak.” They are the perfect puppets to validate the false narrative and so-called good character of the abuser. Later in the chapter, Bluhm goes for the jugular-the women enabling the men. “Often enablers are more concerned with staying on the side of power rather than fixing the broken system that enables the powerful to prey on the powerless.” And even if there are signs that we pick up, red flags that there may be some problems, we easily dismiss them because there is something that we gain for our silence and participation. We never like to think of ourselves as the ones being manipulated. The reason why this is a system rather than a few bad apples is because the enablers are the ones really legitimizing it. She covers a lot more than I can write about in a review, but I wanted to highlight one particular chapter on a topic that isn’t discussed a lot: Puppets of the Patriarchy. She sets out to identify the dynamics of the system that silences or manages the woman’s voice, to reveal how we all participate in it, and propose ways to balance this with true reciprocity. “What if we could hold space for women who have been harmed, who have been humiliated, and who have been silenced? Lament alongside them? Ensure them that they are seen, that their stories matter, and that they will be treated with the utmost care? What if our churches, kitchen tables, and faith gatherings were the safest places for them to process those experiences?”īluhm doesn’t set out to write a book that condemns men. Bluhm is very good at speaking to the basics and turning the reality of the responsibility of the agency of each one of us around, especially for the church: Even in some ostentatiously benevolent environments, this painful truth becomes clearer when a woman uses her voice outside the often-unspoken boundaries. And yet our personhood is often circumscribed by men. Power, dignity, agency: these are basic elements of being human. The unspoken understanding is that women have a place in the world not because they deserve it but because a man allowed for them to have a place, and since he has given them opportunities, he holds power over their time, earning potential, and bodies.”

“More often than not, women tell themselves that they can let low-grade sexism slide if they are given a seat or place of power, dignity, and agency. Sadly, we often try to bargain for some opportunities to contribute: “I mastered silencing my own voice in order to be of value to the world around me, especially to the men who employed or pastored me.” And then we use our own silence as currency for approval: And sadly, it can be in the house of God where we learn this system at a young age. It begins with the silencing-the devaluing-of women. But we neglect to see that it is even worse for minorities, who are more likely to be sexually assaulted as well as dismissed or punished for speaking up.īut this book isn’t only about the worst cases of sexual assault. White women may not think about this, as we already see how awful the response is all around. One significant way this discrepancy is revealed is in the response to abuse. One thing I really appreciate about this book is learning more about the additional challenges for non-white women and the necessity of hearing from them.

And so the book is divided into three sections: Why We Silence Women Who Tell the Truth, How We Silence Women, and How Everyone Can Speak Up. This is a popular-level book that is backed with research and written in Christian love. I know a LOT of good men! Bluhm just skips the nonsense of this defensiveness to get to the real point: this is a systemic issue in both the secular world and the church and therefore we all have a responsibility in recognizing it and working for change. It even makes me a little uncomfortable at first- is she going to lose an audience that needs to read this? Not all men want to silence women. Tiffany Bluhm doesn’t use the whimsical approach to try and soften the male reader and help him better digest the hard truths she sets out to convey in this book. Prey Tell-well here is a hard-hitting word play for a hard-hitting book about the silencing of women.

Prey tell book