Kathryn Joyce Interview

An interview with Kathryn Joyce the author of Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement. Fundamentalist Christianity may have lost some access to power in the last election, but it has long-term plans. Joyce introduces us to the world of the patriarchy movement and Quiverfull families. Here, in direct and conscious opposition to feminist calls for marital equity, women live within stringently enforced doctrines of wifely submission and male headship. Instead of raising independent daughters, these Christians advocate a return to keeping daughters at home — and out of college — until their marriage to a suitor approved by Dad. To counter reproductive rights, they eschew all contraception in favor of the Quiverfull philosophy of letting God give them as many children as possible — families of twelve and more children that will, they hope, enable them to win the religious and culture wars through demographic means. Quiverfull is a fascinating examination of the twenty-first-century women and men who proclaim self-sacrifice and submission as model virtues of womanhood — and as warfare on behalf of Christ. Kathryn Joyce is a freelance writer based in New York City. Her freelance writing and reviews have appeared in The Nation, Mother Jones, Salon, The Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The American Prospect, Search, Religion Dispatches, The Massachusetts Review, RH Reality Check, Newsweek.com, Alternet and other publications. She is former managing editor of The Revealer.org, a project of the New York University Center for Religion and Media, and currently writes and produces at the Revenue Watch Institute. Recorded April 21, 2009