Anguished Deliberations

~ Women Talking, by Miriam Toews ~

Agency and self-determination. That’s what the Mennonite women in Miriam Toews’ powerful novel struggle towards over the course of the book, despite the patriarchy, religious, and community culture stacked against them.

Mennonites are a sect of Christianity formed in the 1500s in the Netherlands, from where groups eventually migrated to Germany, Russia, and in the 1700s to the US and then to Canada. The Mennonite churches vary widely: some groups are like any Protestant denomination, and others believe in plain dress, shun technology, and run their own schools. A group of Mennonites started colonies in Bolivia, where the government allowed them essentially self-rule, and these colonies are ultraconservative: all members wear uniform clothing, work on farms and speak Plautdietsch (a dialect mixing Low German, Friesian, and Dutch). They are also intensely patriarchal. Women do not study beyond a few grades and are essentially illiterate, unable to even read the Bible, the book on which the colony policies are based, themselves. They do not learn or speak any Spanish, and thus are unable to function in the Bolivian country outside their colony.

It is shocking and infuriating to learn that Women Talking is based on a real-life story. From 2005 to 2009, women in a Bolivian Mennonite colony found themselves waking bruised and bleeding, blood and dirt on their clothes, with vaginal pain, headaches, and horrific dreams of rape. At first they kept it to themselves, out of shame, but it kept happening. Eventually a few women started speaking about these incidents and discovered that many women, from grandmothers to children, had similar experiences. One woman forced herself to stay awake all night and discovered a man climbing into her window: captured, he confessed that he had been using a spray made from belladonna to tranquilize the women and the households, and then raping them. He also rapidly spilled the names of eight other men who had been doing the same.

While most cases of abuse were kept quiet within the colony, in this case the fury of the women and their husbands and brothers put the rapists’ lives in danger, and the leader of the colony finally reported it to the police. The rapists were sentenced to 25 years (but a 2013 investigation indicates that similar rapes still continue).

Miriam Toews’ novel is set in the aftermath of the rapists’ incarceration. The men in the colony have gone to town to get the rapists released on bail so that they can be brought back to the colony. The women are given a viciously unfair choice: forgive the rapists, or leave the colony.

Eight women gather in a loft to discuss their plan of action: two grandmothers, four daughters, and two young women, all related as are most people within the colony. All of them have been raped multiple times. The women of the colony have voted, the choices being:

1. Do Nothing
2. Stay and Fight
3. Leave

The women have gathered to break the deadlock vote between options 2 and 3. How can they fight? Or leave? What about those husbands and brothers and sons that they love?

Women Talking is, in essence, the minutes of the discussion over two days. The minutes are recorded by August Epp, one of the few men left in the colony on this day, since none of the women can read or write. This seems like a slightly odd choice by the author, since the book otherwise so strongly focuses on the women themselves, their thoughts, their reactions, their anger, their varying levels of religious belief, their fears for the future, their determination to protect their daughters and granddaughters.

Greta, one grandmother “exudes a deep, melancholic dignity”. Agata, the other grandmother, is calm, suffering from many ailments which are untreated, as is the practice within the colony. Salome, Agata’s daughter: “her rage is barely suppressed, vesuvian”. Ona, Agata’s other daughter, unmarried, is afflicted with “Narfa, or Nervousness”, but is intellectual and eccentric. Mariche is a contrarian, sarcastic, disagreeing with everyone. The two young women, Nietje and Autje, the sixteen-year-olds, are giggly in this unusual situation, but contribute little to the discussion in the presence of their elders. So the women are distinct, but it’s often hard to keep track of their relationships.

The conversations are rambling and sometimes feel repetitive but realistic. Some women produce allegorical stories of raccoons and horses that are not straightforward for the others (and the reader) to interpret, but seem very consistent with the culture and personalities.

The torment for these women is multifold: the colony is all they know, and most of them are deep believers in God. They struggle to imagine life outside the colony, and equally, struggle to conflate their beliefs with what has happened to them. Yet, they realize that their concepts of religion and forgiveness come entirely from the men who abuse and oppress them.

[Agata:] Either way, it’s a waste of time to try to establish whether we are animals or not, when the men will soon be returning from the city.

[Mariche:] How will the Lord, when He arrives, find all the women if we aren’t in Molotschna?

Salome cuts her off, disdainful. In a mocking voice, she begins to explain that if Jesus is able to return to life, live for thousands of years and then drop down to earth from heaven to scoop up his supporters, surely he’d also be able to locate a few women who —

But now Salome is silenced by her mother, Agata, with a quick gesture. […]

Ona smiles slightly encouragingly, approvingly, although it’s also a smile that could serve as firm punctuation to Salome’s statement — that is, a silent request to end it. (The Friesen women have developed a mostly effective system of gestures and facial expressions to quiet Salome)

Over the course of the novel, additional horrifying realities are revealed. Ona is pregnant from the rapes. Small children have been raped and now have STDs, but were denied medical treatment by colony policy. One woman was attacked, “possibly by her brother”, gave birth prematurely, and now speaks only to children. Salome and Ona’s sister Mina had hanged herself after her daughter was raped. And there is more, but never, ever, told with the slightest hint of prurience (see, in contrast, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo where the description of abused women had a distinctly salacious tone at times).

The womens’ anger is intense:

Now Salome Friesen asks, aggressively, Is this how we want to teach our daughters to defend themselves — by fleeing?

Mejal Loewen interjects: Not fleeing, but leaving. We’re talking about leaving.

Salome acts as though she hasn’t heard Mejal: Fleeing! I’d rather stand my ground and shoot each man in the heart and bury them in a pit than flee, and I’ll deal with God’s wrath if I have to!

Agata is a strong woman, but whenever she hears the specific details of the attack on her tiny granddaughter, she becomes very still, predatory.

The reader is likely to feel likewise.

Toews, brought up in a Canadian Mennonite colony herself, writes very much from an insider perspective. While August Epps’ backstory added a different perspective to the novel, I would have preferred it to focus entirely on the women, as that is its strength.

This is not a novel for lovers of plot and forward momentum. It is recommended for its thought-provoking, nuanced discussion, and its spotlight on some women who are from an almost medieval culture, but are thoughtful, diverse, distinct and strong.

We are women without a voice, Ona states calmly. We are women out of time and place, without even the language of the country we reside in. We are Mennonites without a homeland. We have nothing to return to, and even the animals of Molotschna are safer in their homes than we women are.