I started Robin Thinks! as a leadership platform with a particular emphasis on empowering and developing female leaders. That being said, it was never intended to be a platform just for women. By far the majority of our ideas of what it means to be a leader have been set and determined by men and only a very small handful of men at that. Although many women are already leaders, they are only considered to be leaders if they lead in a way that is consistent with the definition of leadership set by that same small handful of men.
The truth is, we all have a very different leadership style but the different ways in which boys and girls are socialized in America is also going to have a strong impact on how they lead as adults. It doesn't necessarily mean that the way girls are socialized is inherently wrong, but it does mean that they are socialized one way and then told that if they want to be leaders, they have to act in a way that is completely contrary to the way they have been socialized. Which, in many cases, is also contrary to their own nature - and that is true for both men and women.
I think there are currently a very narrow set of values and ideals around what it means to be a leader and what that looks like. The best leaders, however, have a number of different leadership styles they can call on depending on the situation. First, however, we have to discover our own innate style and then we can build from there. I think when women are set free to step up and lead as women or in a way that feels natural to them, it will set men free to lead in a very different way as well.
Although I want to focus on helping women lead in ways that are more natural to who they are, my ultimate aim is to help everyone find their own unique leadership style and develop other styles that are more appropriate to the specific situation they are called to lead in. The leadership skills needed in a time of crisis are very different from those needed in a time of peace and great leaders know how to accomplish both. That being said, I believe that female leadership is far more critical than we understand.
Religion is and will always be one of the biggest challenges to female leadership, regardless of whether a woman even participates or not. If you look at the most religious countries around the world, they will always be the most restrictive of women’s freedoms. By far the majority of rigid gender roles are set by religion and their reach extends far beyond the walls of any individual church. Conversely, however, women also pay the highest price for the choices of men.
What few people realize is that one of the first things the Nazi party did on their rise to power was outlaw abortion, severely restrict access to birth control and essentially decriminalize rape, all while presenting themselves as representing “good Christian values.” Prior to the rise of the Taliban, Iran was a modern, egalitarian culture where women enjoyed largely the same freedoms as men. Just like with Nazi Germany, one of the first things the Taliban did was to severely curtail the freedoms of women. The religion in question does not matter, but it should tell us something that some of the most brutal regimes in history have always begun their rise to power by restricting the rights and freedoms of women.
The aftermath of WWII saw the largest mass rape of women in history as Russian soldiers took out their rage on Germany’s women, who were left completely unprotected by all the men that went off to fight their precious war. Angelina Jolie brilliantly captured the disturbing consequences of war to the women who are left behind by the men who go off to fight those wars in her movie In The Land of Blood and Honey. Female leadership is not just a “nice thing to have” - it literally means the difference between life or death for entire nations.
What is ironic, however, is that while institutional religion represents a severe threat to women, some of the most empowered women I have ever met have been Christian missionaries. I’m not entirely sure what it is about missionary work exactly, but I have definitely noticed that female missionaries are given opportunities to develop and build leadership skills in ways very few women in America ever get. What’s even more important, however, is that they are often even given the opportunity to fully develop their own leadership style. I myself was a missionary for ten years and it was absolutely foundational for helping me find, build and develop both my leadership skills as well as my own leadership style.
It was incredibly disorienting, however, to leave an organization where I was every bit as accepted, encouraged and empowered as any of the male leaders and walk back into the church world, where I was diminished, dismissed and even rejected because I no longer fit into the role they relegate women to. Truthfully, I had never fit into that role in the first place, but prior to my time as a missionary, I was much more capable of forcing myself into it, even if it never really fit. Although many churches consider themselves to empower and accept women as leaders, the truth is, they actually only accept women in secondary roles to men.
Too often, when we talk about female leadership in America, we’re talking about women who have had to learn how to survive in a man’s world. Perhaps even more importantly, however, they have to learn how to survive and thrive in a capitalistic world. Although it should be fairly obvious, I also think it cannot be overstated how much of an impact American capitalism has had on American churches. Many of the things we blame on religion actually have far less to do with religion than with capitalism and greed, although those elements have always and are always there whenever men gain unrestricted power.
Encouraging and empowering female leaders that simply act like and lead just like men is kind of defeating the point of having female leaders. In addition, forcing men to all lead the same way or embrace the same set of values in order to consider themselves leaders is also destructive and damaging. Although my platform is predominantly geared towards helping women lead like women and not like men - the ultimate aim is to encourage and empower everyone to break free of the very rigid and narrow model we have for what it means to be a leader.
Although I was completely unaware of the word “deconstruction” prior to a few months ago, it puts a name to a very important process. The truth is, we have all been handed various rules for life from a number of different people that may or may not work for us. We have this tendency to assume that what works for one person will work for everyone or even that the word “success” means the same thing to everyone. We think of deconstruction as something that we do with religious beliefs, but it’s actually an important process for almost every area of our lives.
Deconstruction could just as easily be called deprogramming. Most of us have certain messages we have heard our entire lives from parents, church leaders or other authorities; many of which were passed down to them by their own parents, church leaders or authorities. Some of them will actually work for us, many will not. Deconstruction is the picking and pulling apart of all these many different messages we have tangled up in a complete ball to figure out which ones work for us and which do not.
Although I started off wanting to build a leadership platform for women, when I got on Twitter and started trying to figure out who my target audience was, the Twitter algorithms led me deep into the deconstruction space. Although it seemed at first to be completely contrary to my original mission, I realize now the algorithm was exactly spot on. Regardless of whether you are religious or not, or even a Christian or not, American Christianity has a huge impact on every aspect of American life. You can’t just walk away from it or refuse to participate in it and think that ends its impact or influence on your life.
If we want to live lives that are authentic to who we really are, we have to learn to silence the very loud voices telling us who we have to be and what we have to do and learn to listen to the still, small voice inside of us. Those messages don’t just come from the church, they also come from culture. Walking away from churches doesn’t do anything to silence the voices of our culture, which we are surrounded by in media and advertising. Everyone is selling you a product - including the church. Whatever you call it: deconstruction, questioning or untangling - the process has many names because it’s so important.
Recently, I have come to understand that the TV show Yellowstone is literally the perfect allegory for the American Church. Over the next few months I’m going to be doing a very special blog and podcast available to both my Substack subscribers and Patreon supporters. In that blog and podcast, I’m going to be deconstructing the show Yellowstone and showing the very disturbing picture it paints of both the American church and the values that Americans hold. If you’d like to be a part of that, you can either become a subscriber on Substack or become a Patreon supporter here.
If you haven’t watched the show, you can find out how to stream it here. One thing that makes this a really good tool for understanding the problems with the American church is that even people who have been spiritually abused or who have experienced religious trauma should be able to watch it without being triggered. It takes the same dynamics and places them in a very different context, but when you take a closer look and understand what a powerful picture it paints of the American church, it becomes very disturbing. What’s also very disturbing is that it’s absolutely not a show suited for young viewers - which is also a pretty accurate commentary on the church.
You probably won’t need to watch the show to understand the allegories, but watching it ahead of time will help avoid spoilers if the blog & podcast makes you want to watch it. I’ll be starting working on it in the next few weeks, but I learned from my first podcast that I want to have a few episodes already complete before I start to release them, so you should have time to binge your way through the first four seasons if you are interested.
Empowering women to lead like women will, I believe, open the door for men to embrace a very different kind of leadership style as well. This is what I hope to be doing as a full-time ministry, so I hope you will consider supporting my work either through Patreon or Substack. Up until now, I have offered all of my content for free and I will continue to offer some content for free, but I am reaching the point where I will need to start soliciting paid subscribers and supporters as well. I hope you’ll consider joining!