The Stepford Wives of Project 2025
What Is 'Male Headship' and What Does It Mean for Trump's America?
I was raised in the 80s and 90s in a small town. Back then, you knew your place in life based on the church you belonged to. The Southern Baptists were conservative, but not as conservative as I was because their church allowed instrumental music in worship. The Methodists were alright, but their sermons must not have been very substantive because they always arrived at Luby’s Cafeteria before our church was dismissed. The Catholics had a lot of traditions that unfortunately didn’t mean they were saved because they were sprinkled with holy water — they hadn’t invited Jesus into their hearts as adolescents like the real Christians did.
Such was life in the Texas Bible Belt. I made these calculations every time I met a new person: Were they as holy as I was? Would they bring me closer to God or push me further from Him? Did they believe in the One True Way to be a Christian, like I did?
As a young member of the Church of Christ, I tried my best to be a good disciple. I sang a cappella, refused to attend school dances (because dancing was considered a sin), and rejected all forms of female “headship.”
What a conflict to have both fondness and frustration for the way I was raised coiled in my body like a spring. I still remember the crack of the spine from opening the old blue hymnal. Still remember the harmonies that floated from our lips. Still remember the rhythms of Sunday service. Those fondnesses are as familiar to me as my bodily organs — and buried just as deep.
But then there’s the rage I feel when I read phrases like this from televangelist Pat Robertson:
“I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household, and the husband is the head of the wife, and that’s the way it is, period.”
Growing up, I was taught that my responsibility as a woman was to be silent while the men around me, even the least competent, qualified, or moral would be my leaders. Most evangelical churches teach complementarianism, which is the theological belief that men and women were created with different complementary purposes. Men are supposed to be the providers and deciders, while women are the nurturers and supporters. Men are supposed to be active while women are passive.
Complementarianism says that in a group of people, the worst man is still a better choice than the best woman. This makes women in those communities look to men for solutions to every problem, even when the men themselves are the problem. Take the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest evangelical organization in the United States. In 2002, a report disclosed that for decades SBC leadership covered up sexual abuse scandals within their churches by moving pastors to new locations instead of reporting their crimes. The next time the SBC met as a body, did they address this unconscionable crisis?
No. Instead they doubled down on their belief that only men are to be employed as pastors or elders, even barring six Southern Baptist churches with female leadership.
Complementarianism teaches believers that their salvation depends on choosing incompetent male leaders over qualified female ones. We’ve seen this play out inside and outside churches, like during *cough* elections *cough* when white, evangelical women were one of the largest voting blocks for Trump.
If this sounds extreme to the point of absurdity, please understand that this is most likely the future for women in America under a Trump presidency. Your going to begin seeing complementarianism in public schools, professional services, government offices, and healthcare. It’s going to become a normalized part of our world. Again. Because under Trump, we are going back.
Remember that Project 2025 is the Christian nationalist playbook for our country with conservative leadership. It’s 900+ pages detail the authors’ vision for society, which looks a lot like the same narrow, patriarchal world I grew up in.
On Page 258, Project 2025 describes deleting any government offices that focus on ‘gender equality’ and replacing them with the Office of Women, Children, and Families. Do you like how they lump us all together like that, as if to say, “Children and families? That’s women’s work.” Subtle.
What will the men be doing, you ask? Whatever they want.
Project 2025 claims: “Instead of protecting women’s and children’s unalienable human rights and propelling their ability to thrive in society, past Democrat Administrations have nearly erased what females are and what femininity is through ‘gender’ policies and practices.”
Project 2025’s authors don’t want to support women. They want to suppress us by:
Weakening laws that would hold abusers accountable
Eliminating abortion and nearly all forms of reproductive care (many of which have nothing to do with pregnancy)
Rolling back decades of hard-earned securities for women in the workplace, making it more difficult for them to choose to work outside the home
Rescinding protections for workers on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics (this is taken nearly verbatim from Page 584)
Encouraging employers to discriminate based on religious beliefs
The seeds of Christian Nationalism are blooming into government-sanctioned hostility for women, girls, and LGBTQ+ individuals.
Project 2025 sees us as handmaids or Stepford Wives or property, not as equals with equal protections under the law. Under Project 2025, men are platformed while women are silenced. I don’t want that for my family, and I certainly don’t want it for my country.
I’m glad I broke away from that dysfunctional lifestyle, began to trust myself. Now I have the honor of teaching my son and daughter a different way to live.
asked me about my faith deconstruction and disentangling from fundamentalism’s rigid expectations for women. Go subscribe to her substack and listen to her podcast, .
Onward, Democracy Defenders!
All people are human first and foremost, and equal as such. All the rest is window dressing.
Honored to call you friend!