The Bonnets We Don’t See: My Encounter With a Mennonite Woman

I was in the middle of Nebraska when I encountered the Mennonite woman in the bathroom of a Ruby Tuesday. She kindly let me know that there was only one stall with toilet paper to explain why she was waiting. There was nothing strange about the way she spoke or her social skills. Her appearance was the only indication I had that she was living in a completely different world than me. 

It was nearly 95 degrees in the cornfields of Nebraska that day. It was too hot for me even though I’m always cold. Her dress was dark blue, hand-made, and spun with thick, itchy fabric. She had long, healthy hair that was pulled back and tucked inside a white bonnet that I wouldn’t wear on Halloween. Frankly, the woman looked as if she was wearing a Halloween costume. 

I wondered at that moment what she might have been thinking about me. Did she pity me? Did she think I was a woman of the world that worshipped Satan? Was she horrified at my basic white woman from the Midwest costume complete with Lulu leggings, Birkenstocks, and Ray bans? 

Or,

Was she envious of my freedom? Did she wish she was living my life instead? Knowing about the overwhelming abuse that happens and is covered up in the Amish/Mennonite communities, did she want to run like hell? Did she want help?

All she had to do in that moment was ask and I would’ve found a way to escape with her from that Ruby Tuesday bathroom. Yet, I know she doesn’t trust me. She has been brainwashed to not trust anyone in the world. The world is dangerous, and her community is the only thing that can keep her safe. Everyone she knows is in her community and everyone she loves. If she leaves, how will she survive? Her education is at an eighth-grade level. If she leaves, she loses everything and everyone she knows. 

Does she know that her life would be my hell? Maybe not.

Days after this encounter, I can’t stop thinking about her. I put myself in her laced-up black boots in that Ruby Tuesday bathroom, and I find myself caring so much for her fate, the fate of a stranger.

I hope she finds a way to escape someday. I hope this for all women in oppressive religions, even the tame ones like Baptists. 

Baptists might not make women wear costumes, yet the oppression of women is foundationally the same. Women are the lesser vessel. They’re not allowed to be pastors, leaders, or deacons. They are taught to be silent in church. They learn that it is their duty to submit to their husbands.

Verses mandating the oppression of women are taught since birth. 

Verses like:

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” Ephesians 22-24

“The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”  1 Corinthians 14:34-35

“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven.” 1 Corinthians 11:1-34

“Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.” 1 Timothy 2:11-14

I don’t believe that any god wrote these words when the fruit of these words is detrimental to women and society. These verses inspire the oppression of the Mennonite/Amish women to flourish. These verses command the oppression of women in any church that subscribes to submissive wife theology, or theology that women can’t be pastors, deacons, and leaders. 

The fruit of this oppression of women is low self-esteem, low self-worth, primed to be attracted to abusers and predators, trauma, men feeling entitled to women’s bodies, men making laws about women’s bodies, men believing power over women is their god-given right, and far too many men use this “power” to cause harm and abuse. 

Women in these churches deserve healing and empowerment too, just the same as the Mennonite woman I encountered. They are choosing to sit in pews that are violent against them and doing so while believing it’s godly. How can rotten fruit be godly? How can this hideous bonnet be godly?

It’s not godly, it’s man-made. Why would god give power to a fallible human over another human knowing what humans would do with that power? Why would god silence women in the church when he didn’t silence the three women at the empty tomb of Christ, and then command them to tell the disciples? 

Yet, the Southern Baptist Convention recently voted to expel 5 churches with women pastors. 

This decision came on the heels of the 2022 federal investigation into over 700 sexual abuse cases the SBC covered up. 

It’s high time women sitting in these pews say enough is enough. It’s time to be held accountable for their complicity in the rotten fruit that sitting in these pews is yielding. It’s time they put themselves in the boots of a Mennonite woman and seriously look at the similarities of their oppression. Both are wearing bonnets. The only difference is the visibility.

Resources:

The Amish Heritage Foundation

Recovering From Religion