"The author describes women who join cults as intelligent, active, and seeking to make an impact. These women are looking for an environment where they can experience themselves as powerful but not competitive, be part of a community where they can get recognition and mentorship, and feel somewhat safe from the gender inequities that characterize the culture at large. In reality, most cultic groups are characterized by attributes that are diametrically opposed to those they emanate and espouse. Thus, women in such groups become anxious and depressed but have difficulty leaving because the manipulative techniques of the leaders mirror the gender power differentials to which women are accustomed."-- The abstract to "Gender Attributes That Affect Women’s Attraction to and Involvement in Cults" by Shelly Rosen, C.S.W., for the International Cultic Studies Association
"(...) women in such groups become anxious and depressed but have difficulty leaving because the manipulative techniques of the leaders mirror the gender power differentials to which women are accustomed."
ReplyDeleteAnd many of those manipulative techniques reflecting "gender power differentials" are related to or directly based on sexual exploitation, a.k.a. "love," or perhaps more appropriately, LOVE (spelled, grandiosely, with capital letters -- often the main idea and cause for existence of a cult). It's no accident that there are so many women surrounding male gurus and willing to serve them in any way possible, including sexual subservience. That subservience is promoted by the guru as a necessary expression of the love between them, or the universal LOVE, or whatever particular "spiritual" phrase they use to coerce women into submission and perpetrate the abuse. Whenever you see a male guru, look around him for brainwashed and sexually abused women. Gurudom and sexual perversions/exploitation go hand in hand.
BTW, pay attention to female gurus -- there are not that many of them out there, but they exist. For obvious reasons, they usually do not gravitate toward religious gurudom, but more so to healing/therapeutic aspects of the enterprise -- you'll notice a relatively high number of men surrounding them, eager for self-sacrifice. Byron Katie comes to mind as one example: All those wide-eyed men hanging on her every word, following her from meeting to meeting, abandoning their ho-hum lives and starting their new "careers" based on the nonsense she perpetuates.
The sexual dynamics are likely different there, however -- though I'm not sure if that's indeed so. Males sexually exploited in cults, especially by a female guru, may be more reluctant to come forward with their stories because of the shame and stigma attached to their experience (more so than it is for women, though obviously women face this challenge as well).
Thanks for the link to the website - good resource.
ReplyDelete