Religion and Politics

Mike Pence’s Marriage and the Beliefs that Keep Women from Power

The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino writes on the news that evangelical Christian Vice-President Mike Pence adheres to the “Billy Graham rule,” in that he avoids social situations with women other than his wife. An old quote from Pence on this matter resurfaced last week after the Washington Post published a profile of Pence. Tolentino writes, “It’s one thing to avoid a particular situation involving a particular woman who makes you feel a certain way; it’s another entirely to avoid all women as a group and as a rule because of the abstract possibility of sexual temptation.” She continues, “The problem is that women always end up bearing the burden of that reckoning. If we are framed as temptresses, our only power is sex. It’s remarkable, and depressing, that the top two people in American government agree so colorfully on this matter.”

Read at The New Yorker

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