On Thursday, April 27, Hilary Crowder, the wife of far-right shock jock podcaster Steven Crowder and her family released home surveillance of Steven berating a very pregnant Hilary in a way that is easily classified as emotional abuse. Steven berates her and does not allow her to take their car because she did not perform her “wifely duties, to his anal ass specifications.” In the video, you can see her pleading with him, and you can tell that this ain’t his first rodeo. He’s been talking like that to Hilary for quite some time, and seeing that he has rude and warped views that he blatantly displaces outside of the home. I cannot imagine that he would be the role model for sweet loving inside when he’s even more comfortable.
There is no safe place for women in patriarchy.
White women often think that they will be shielded by their marriages and adjacency to white men (both Black women and white women use the church as a shield) but there always comes a point where angry white men are going to angry white men and when they can’t take their aggression out on random people, they will still turn on the very women who share their same last names. Quite often, conservative women are silent and even complicit in the racism and subjugation of others because even if they are intelligent enough to know that patriarchy does not directly benefit them. They are still very much under the impression that they are not subject to the same cruelty in their own homes, even if it was grown there.
White male patriarchy and Christianity have been linked since they decided to use it as a justification to conquer the world, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the biggest purveyors of it are, in fact, white males, but somehow women like Hilary keep signing up to row down the stream of life with a douchecanoe and are perplexed that they are up sh-ts creek. Women being on the receiving end of men’s indecisive demands on how women can achieve perfection, especially through far-right dogma and impossible standards, is bound to leak over into the home. While it’s safe to say that most of these far-right conservatives are pro-life, it really feels like less of a religious reason and more about taking away women’s bodily autonomy, and Crowder’s video showed that he had very little respect, not only for his wife but for women in general. This is reiterated by a tirade that released Tuesday, detailing his particular gripe about marrying in a state that allows “no-fault,” divorcees and that if he had his way, his wife would not be granted one. Not only did he say this once, but multiple times, essentially forgetting that his wife has every right to leave a situation that is emotionally and mentally abusive to her.
There is no safe haven from patriarchy; it destroys most things in its path, including its primary users.
Steven Crowder is a prime example of that destruction in real-time. Sure, he’s an absolutely sh-t person, but that does not mean patriarchy does not use him to find more victims, like his wife for instance. As a woman, I feel sorry for Crowder’s wife for having to relive a very painful incident so publicly, but she knew what she was marrying.
She thought she was too good for the clutches of white male patriarchy, but white male patriarchy reminded her that she will still never be good enough.
