Bodies of Hope and Harassment – by abby mohaupt

I am editing this piece just after a man came up to me at a presbytery meeting, looked me over, and said, “Baby, you got this thing figured out.” While it doesn’t matter what I’m wearing it is notable that I’m fully covered and wearing my collar.*

In December, I read Cynthia Jarvis’ Christian Century piece I can’t even remember the names of all the men on my #ChurchToo list. In it, she includes snippets of her harassment and assault across the timeline of her ministry. She ends the first paragraph by saying that while she cannot remember all the names of these men, “what I do remember is the office of ordination that they held in the church and the implicit power they assumed over a relatively small number of women who shared that office a few decades ago.”

Not much has changed.

My life as a woman in U.S. culture means that I have grown up understanding that my appearance is up for conversation by anyone, but particularly by men in power over me. I have understood that no matter what I wear or what I do, I will hear about it, and most likely, I will not consent to those comments. I know too that my white privilege and my white skin protects me from a lot of comments and harassment. Women and female-presenting people of color so often carry the double burden of racism and sexism.

This hasn’t changed since I started working in the church, nor has it changed since my ordination.

I have worked in churches where members and elders and leaders have commented on my clothing and my weight. I have worked in churches where I have been propositioned by staff and members. I have worked in churches where people in them have not understood the meaning of the word “no.” I have worked in churches where I have been asked when I am having a baby—and have been surprised when I have said I will not talk about my sex life with church members.

Soon after the comment at the presbytery meeting, I told a (male) friend with me that I live with a certain amount of PTSD, on high alert for unsolicited comments.

To be fair, I have worked in churches that have been wonderful to me and who have empowered and honored the women in the congregation and on staff. These congregations have worked to stop sexual harassment and assault in the congregation and in the world.

But, those good churches have done little to make me feel better about my chances in the church. Those actions haven’t made the church as a whole feel like a safe place for me.

I often run long distances, and I often run at night. These runs have been a way for me to reclaim my body and to live without fear despite so much gender-based trauma in my life. When my parents found out about my night runs, they expressed their (loving) concern that it might not be safe for me to run at night, even if I’m in well-lit, well-populated places. In our conversation about their concerns, I reminded them of my experiences of the church—that if they want me to be safe all the time, then perhaps I should stop working in the church.

On my runs, I’m often trying to work the trauma out of my body—not to run away from it, but to let my body work through it. On my runs, I often think about how there is so much of the church and its relationship with women that needs to and must be fixed.

It is not the responsibility of those of us who have been victimized by the church to fix it. It is our right to leave the places that cause harm. It is our right to run away if we need to.

Harassment and assault in the church won’t end by people leaving, however. People in the church have to be willing to root out the causes of harassment and assault, and then they (we) have to work against those causes.

I went for a run a couple of days after the presbytery meeting with a (male) friend who noted that we who are women face so much abuse. The fact that I can have multiple conversations with men who are sensitive to and support of women is proof that it’s not about individual men. Not everyone in the church is unaware or abusive. It is a systemic problem, etched into the culture of the church.

The work of saving the church from a culture of harassment requires doing boundary and safe church training. It means doing background checks. It requires listening to and believing the stories of women. And it means returning to the theologies and scriptures that marginalize women and having the courage to wrestle with those texts. Scriptures like 1 Corinthians 14:34 (“ the women should be quiet during the meeting. They are not allowed to talk. Instead, they need to get under control, just as the Law says” CEB) or Ephesians 5:22 (“wives submit to your husbands as you do to the Lord” NIV). These are not-so-subtle teachings about the role of women in the church. But Judges 19 points out the violence that emerges when we silence and objectify women. It is a traumatic story of rape and dismemberment, and it is the story of what is at stake for women. It is a story that I’ve been sitting with for years, letting my body hold the story.

And so, I offer this video reflection (intentionally black for the first part)—both of how we hold the trauma and how we might find resilience.

*While I focus here on the assault and harassment of women, I want to honor the difficult stories of men and non-binary people who are harassed and assaulted. May their stories be told and heard and believed.

abby mohaupt is the moderator of Fossil Free PCUSA, a PhD student at Drew University in NJ, and a minister member of San Francisco Presbytery. She’s is a partner, daughter, aunt, and sister, as well as a long distance runner and artist.