The Woman They Wanted Quotes

“It's awfully convenient for men who think very highly of themselves to have a God who also thinks this of him.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“The institutional church must decide what their mandate is. If it is simply to make converts or fix those they believe to be broken, then perhaps they'll continue on with it brutally, as they have many times throughout history. But if the mandate is to love? Then they must first deal with their fear.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“The rules of life were different at the church, though. Here, God made things happen. Men made things happen. And women? Well, women waited.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“So no matter what someone says, don’t become less to make someone else more comfortable. You don’t need to hide your talents or opinions or your beauty or even your sexuality. Don’t offer less of your presence, offer more. If someone has a problem with that, let them deal with it, not you. You belong here, nipples and all.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“This has to be one of the greatest ironies of the church. To proclaim a Creator so loudly, yet disrespect the creation so deeply.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“The church of all places should be a refuge where it is safe to be human. And yet I found it was the church that struggled to associate with the not-so-pretty things--the suffering, the weak, the broken. They so wish to avoid being identified with the appearance of failure. Leaders scoot away from the fallen as fast as they can manage. 'He must not have been one of us' they say. The dividing wall goes up; the finger of shame is pointed. The church's opportunity to love and remember its own humanity is lost. It is disappointing. Because until the church is willing to go to hellish places with people who are hurting, they will continue to live lives steeped in illusion, disconnected from reality.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“But what if worse is a husband who enjoys forcing his wife to do sex acts she doesn’t want to do? What if worse is the husband loses his job and decides it’s easier to become a drug addict than to reinvent himself? What if worse is beatings? Controlling food? Sexual assault? Abusive words? Emotional manipulation? Abandonment? Neglect? Abusing the kids? What if worse is constant criticism? Years of disinterest? This is the man who promised to protect and cherish? To love and honor and treat his wife’s body as his own?”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“Life is not martyrdom. It is not burning yourself for others until you turn to cold ashes and die, and people at your funeral exclaim what a wonderful woman you were. Meanwhile your dreams never saw the light of day. No. That is not respect for a woman's life, that is a waste of it.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“The enormous capacity of women to enlarge resources is one of the reasons I think we stay too long in places where we are no longer thriving. We are good at stretching the goodness. But sometimes you have done all you can do. You have outgrown the pot and though you keep reaching, you know you are not thriving. The only thing to do then is die or find a bigger piece of earth.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“There are many living in these cages. I know because I see them claw and nip and fight. I watch them stand guard and protect what little they have for themselves. I see them attack in jealousy when another woman gets a larger piece. And I know what it is to be held down by a woman who doesn't want to share what little she has. And this is what I know.

Only starving women do that.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“If your world crumbles because you have started to value or believe yourself, then let it, because it means that you were the only one holding it up. let it go. It is the only way a more supportive universe can emerge in its place.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“Eve's story is not our story. Eve's story is a story church men have told about a woman they have never met. She is the only one who can accurately tell her story, just as we are the only ones who can tell ours. If women are to be free from the heavy hand of patriarchy, we all must be free, and this includes Eve, who has been bound to a story that has in turn been bound to us.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“OUR MARRIAGE NEVER stood a chance if forever is the only measure of success one is willing to use.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“The language used to soften the sound of submission to a woman’s ears is clever. We were told women were equal to men in worth—only the roles were different. We were told women were honored and respected. Leaders were not to be leader lords but servant leaders. Husbands were taught they should “love their wives as their own bodies,” nourishing and cherishing them as they would for themselves.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“This was a model of convenience. Having women cast to the side of business affairs, keeping them busy with children and homekeeping tasks? It meant that men didn't have to share their spaces. Or change their plan or stop to discuss. It meant they could still receive the credit. It meant they could maintain their position of power and authority in the home and in the church.
And for women? What did it mean for them? How does it help society for a woman to live as a mere fraction of herself?”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“I assumed the church understood love. I assumed it loved me, a woman. It never occurred to me that misogyny was a reason behind the teaching of submission. Or that shaming those living outside the box of patriarchal norms was really just a way of hiding hatred and fear. This has to be one of the greatest ironies of the church. To proclaim a Creator so loudly, yet disrespect the creation so deeply.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“To hold onto something we know is no longer true is its own sort of madness.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“I’ve learned not to trust men who have all the answers or have stopped being curious. I’ve learned that the families who are always smiling are often the ones hurting the most. And I’ve learned that women are some of the most invisible, resilient, exploited, beautiful creatures on the planet.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“MY MOTHER AND I have a lot of conversations these days about women and why we ignore our own knowing. It’s easy now to see the precise moments I should have trusted my gut.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“And anyway, women were supposed to get married and have children. There had been a lot of pressure to give up my dreams. That pressure just floated in the air. Air pressure.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“Religion carries with it great potential for good and for harm. It's humans that make it more complicated (and more certain) and heavier than it needs to be. Religion shouldn't be something heavy we give each other to carry. It would be better to have no religion than one that is a burden, or does more harm than good, or fails to respect and love all living creatures.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“But the truth was that church was making me ill. Even the loveliest church in the world couldn't make up for the fact that I had had too much church. My body was rejecting Bible verses with the strength of a bad case of food poisoning.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“...the hypocrisy of it all was too much to take. To have heard the words 'forgiveness' and 'grace' in hundreds of sermons, thousands of prayers, in every quote, every song, at every meeting and then to discover that in real life it had no impact on our actual relationships...I had never experienced something so deeply and profoundly disturbing in all my life.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“The hierarchy in the church is built on the principle that a woman’s wisdom is broken. So when a young woman walks through the church doors, before she has even found a seat, her value as a person has been weakened and an important boundary line has already been crossed. This is why reestablishing our value and trust in ourselves, and redrawing the lines of where we begin and end as a person are some of the most self-defining tasks we can do. When our emotional, physical, intellectual, and spiritual boundaries are intact we are less vulnerable to those who might take advantage of our abundant, desirable resources.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“We underestimate the impact of small, tiny decisions that build up over time. We imagine what we are getting for our compromise is far better than it really is. And we underestimate the cost to ourselves”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“It is not a coincidence that mother nature is finding her voice at the same time women are finding theirs. She has been long-suffering, but now she says, "Enough." And like the monsoons and rising waters, women are rising too.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“As it turned out, I was not really marrying the man I loved. I was marrying the church. And I had not seen that coming.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife

“Then I pulled my arm back, and as hard as I could I threw my lovely ring into the sea.”
― Shannon Harris, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife