The unthinkable sexual assaults are based in recent history, but the resistance philosophy goes back to St. Augustine.
At the start of Women Talking — both the film and the novel from which it’s adapted — we’re told this is a work of “female imagination.” The question then is: What story is being imagined?
Maybe it’s obvious. The story springs out of a horrifying true story from 2011, in which seven men from an ultra-conservative Mennonite colony in Bolivia (populated by the descendants of the Eastern Europeans who settled there in 1874) were convicted of drugging and serially raping over 100 women from their community. (An eighth was sentenced for providing the drug, a cow anesthetic derived from belladonna.) Author Miriam Toews, who grew up in a Mennonite community and considers herself a “secular Mennonite” despite having been excommunicated, took the story and ran with it. She imagined a scenario in which the women of the community decide whether to do nothing, to stay in the community and fight, or to leave.
The resulting novel has often been taken as a cry of desperate defiance, in a metaphorical sense for the struggles of women everywhere, whether or not they’re from an oppressively patriarchal religious community. That it was initially released in 2018 — less than a year after the #MeToo hashtag became a movement and a byword — certainly adds to that reading.
For the film, writer and director Sarah Polley, who has written recently about her own experiences with destructive behavior by men, did what every good adaptation should do and found her version of the story inside of the original. With a cast that includes Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Ben Whishaw, and Frances McDormand (in a tiny but thematically crucial role), she tells a story that’s about learning to unlearn oppression, about embracing freedom after violence. It’s a skillfully made, conversation-forward movie that unpacks various ways women have responded to violence and abuse over centuries and across the world: living with subjugation, fighting it, fleeing it, or trying to reform society from within. It imagines a feminist future.
Yet, reading the novel closely reveals some extra layers — layers that disappear in the movie. The novel’s explicit backbone has to do with a figure from ancient Christian history: St. Augustine, who is mirrored in the book’s narrator, August Epp, as well as in the women’s conversations about the flow of time, the nature of memory, the meaning of faith, and more that feel drawn out of Augustinian thought. In the film, August Epp and the conversations remain, but this reference is gone. That has ramifications for the movie, though an Augustinian thread still binds them together.
In the novel, August tells us that his mother’s name was Monica, and that his family was excommunicated from the colony when he was a child, he thought at the time for a sinful act he committed: stealing pears. Readers of Augustine’s seminal book Confessions know that as a boy Augustine famously did the same thing, stealing a load of pears with his friends simply to enjoy the wrongdoing. He credits his mother Monica (herself the patron saint of mothers) with having been the force guiding him back to faith.
In one of Augustine’s most famous texts, City of God, written following the fall of Rome, Augustine proposes the notion that people inhabit either the City of God, marked by those who search for the truth, or the City of Men, inhabited by those who only seek after their own pleasure and the cares of this world. Many of the women’s conversations, in both book and film, echo this concern, although it’s easy to miss without the Augustine markers. The City of God is characterized by love of others; the City of Men is about love only of self. And the City of God, Augustine says, is the one that will not crumble.
The women recognize this truth easily, and one of the women, Ona, proposes the women pursue “a new religion, extrapolated from the old but focused on love.” In the novel, when the women discuss the community they dream of building, they are discussing building the City of God on earth. (They are, emphatically, not wanting to recreate another city of men.)
The women’s ability to come to similar conclusions as a church father gives the distinct sense that they don’t need to be led to truth by men; having experienced suffering and spent their lives in more or less forced service, when they’re given a modicum of freedom to talk with one another, they arrive at the same place as the greatest minds.
Underlining all of this is the novel’s naming of a character named Peters, who functions as leader of the colony and thus its lead villain. Even if he didn’t rape the women himself, he is complicit in the act, and has sheltered the men who did it. “Peter” is the name of the apostle on whom Jesus said he would build his church, and Peter is often considered the first Pope. The implication is damning.
Much of this is eliminated, more or less necessarily, in the film version of Women Talking. Many of the conversations are preserved, but in abbreviated form and largely focused on the question of staying, fighting, or leaving. Peters isn’t named, nor is Monica. August is no longer the story’s narrator, though he remains a character. Other elements from the books disappear, too: an incident with two brothers from a nearby community and two teenage girls; the suggestion that the women could be heading straight into a literal raging fire; the knowledge that not only are the women illiterate, but that they can’t even speak Spanish, the language of their neighbors, having only been taught the low German of their ancestors.
Those omissions don’t really harm the film itself, but they do change the nature of what’s being imagined. Women Talking, the novel, is about knowing that the men who hurt you, who perpetrate evil in the name of God or themselves, will never get their comeuppance in this life. Scars remain. Children born of rape enter the world. Memories do not go away. So how do you imagine a future? What world can the women imagine for themselves? Can they conceive of a life outside this colony?
One last piece from the novel — the revelation of the identity of August’s actual father — brings this reading together, and leaves the story in a not-entirely-comfortable place. The women have left, but they might be headed straight into catastrophe. August knows he must stay in the colony, but he’s not sure how he’ll carry on. The book doesn’t end with a note of triumph. It’s a sense of impending calamity.
The movie’s ending is more upbeat. There’s no fire looming, for one, though there are dangers. We aren’t quite aware that August sees in himself a reminder of the violence, and of the heroic act of staying. And, of course, the Augustinian layers disappear. Women Talking, the film, is about leaving in search of a better life; it’s a story of feminist defiance, of cutting off the patriarchy at its knees.
Yet both versions of the story do lean on the same Augustinian question, which is what ties them together. Because what animated Augustine’s writing across his entire life was wrestling with the problem of evil (sometimes called “theodicy”), most succinctly stated in a familiar question: If God is good, why do bad things happen? Or to put it another way: How can you believe in an all-powerful, good God when that God doesn’t stop the evil in the world? How can you make sense of this contradiction?
For some of the women of the colony, the answer is to refuse. McDormand — arguably the biggest name in the film — is cast in a nearly silent minor part precisely to show the diminishment that happens when we decide we simply must go on without talking at all. You keep waiting for her to have a big revelation, to change, and … she simply doesn’t. Not all women want to overturn the order of things.
But honestly, when I think about Women Talking’s ultimate approach to the question, I get chills down my spine. How do you make sense of evil? The women’s answer stems from a long Augustinian answer, which is: You don’t.
As Augustine writes, evil wasn’t created by God; it is a perversion of the created good. And though we wish to live in and fervently work toward a world without evil, we’ll never achieve that in this life. Making “sense” of evil, explaining it, would diminish it. In both book and film, the women understand this.
Augustine’s solution is deeply Christian in nature — to believe in the eventual conquering of evil by a God who endured it himself on a cross — but one needn’t believe in that (and it’s not clear the Women Talking characters do either) to see how the story responds. At the end of both stories, August is charged with making a list of everything that is good in the world. Sun. Stars. Pails. Birth. The harvest. He includes Flies. Manure. Wind. And Women. Augustine suggested that humans are defined by what they love and what they desire, and August notes in the novel when he finishes the list that “My list is listing, listless. The origin: liste, from Middle English, meaning desire. Which is also the origin of the word ‘listen.’”
And that might be the greatest gift of seeing Women Talking translated from page to screen. In the shift of medium, we are no longer reading. The women talk, and we are listening.
Women Talking premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and played at the Toronto International Film Festival. It opens in theaters on December 2, 2022.
It’s possible to have a platonic friendship with someone you used to date. Here’s how — and whether you should try in the first place.
Sometimes, romantic relationships end with explosions. Sometimes, ties need to be severed completely. But sometimes, your ex-partner was once your best friend, someone whose influence on you is undeniable. After years of growing together and taking joy in their joy, it can feel impossible to let that friendship go, even if your romantic relationship wasn’t working. Sometimes, friendship is a goal you shouldn’t give up on.
“If you need to not be friends, and you need that space, that’s okay,” says Jesse Kahn, a psychotherapist and the founder, director, and sex therapist at The Gender & Sexuality Therapy Center in New York City. “But that isn’t what you have to do because of what seems to be expected [by society].”
How you feel about friendship with an ex can depend on the culture of the community you surround yourself with. Heterosexual people often “conflate all different types of love at once, platonic, romantic, sexual,” says Marisa G. Franco, professor, speaker, and author of Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends, “so that you can’t cuddle with a friend without it seeming like it’s sexual.”
But the queer community is smaller. You often work with your ex, run in the same circles, or share the same chosen family. According to a 2002 study published in Communication Quarterly, members of the queer community often retain higher levels of interpersonal contact with exes and are more satisfied with the friendship than members of the straight community. This shows that “you don’t have to grieve all of these [types of relationships] at once,” Franco says. “You can retain platonic intimacy, which is part of a relationship, without romantic intimacy, without sexual intimacy.”
There are copious reasons to strive for friendship. Maybe you realized you are incompatible as partners but love discussing politics with each other. Maybe you have different goals in life but still enjoy playing tennis together. You may share kids or attend the same temple. It is possible to be emotionally in tune with someone or platonically drawn to them, even if the romance dwindled.
“If you’re trying to be friends with your ex, you have to think of it as a different relationship,” said Franco. “This isn’t us breaking up, continued.” When preparing to foster the new relationship, it’s important to go in with a plan.
Before friendship, take a break
Before transitioning into a friendship, it’s important to take some time, says Zoe Shaw, a psychotherapist and the host of the Stronger in the Difficult Places podcast. Fully processing the dissolution of your romantic relationship could take months or even years. You might need to unfollow your ex on social media, stop listening to music that triggers certain feelings, or avoid favorite spots you frequented together. Instead, lean into resources of emotional support, like existing friendships, family, and therapy.
After a cleansing period, if you are ready for the reset, you and your ex have to be on the same page as to what the friendship will look like. To help visualize what you want in a friendship, it can be valuable to think about how you relate to your other friends, says Kahn, because the expectations we have for how we engage with our friends can differ from person to person. Ask yourself how emotionally intimate you are with your friends. Are you comfortable with them touching you or are you big on personal space? How often do you see your friends in person: Weekly? Daily? Every couple months?
It’s important to establish clear boundaries. Will you discuss each other’s love lives at all? Is it okay to call each other, or are you just text buddies? Franco recommends setting rules about not visiting old haunts. “If we’re in a similar setting that we were in before,” she says, “we’ll tend to act similarly to the ways that we used to act in that setting.” Instead, create new memories in neutral spaces, whether that be museums, hiking trails, or children’s playgroups.
If the versions of friendship you are both envisioning do not line up, it might mean having a negotiation talk, or it might just mean a friendship can’t work between the two of you at that moment. And if at any time during the process you find yourself falling into old emotions or conflicts, you can always change your mind, says Elizabeth Earnshaw, a marriage and family therapist and the author of I Want This to Work: An Inclusive Guide to Navigating the Most Difficult Relationship Issues We Face in the Modern Age. “It’s okay to say this isn’t working.”
Take time to process old wounds
According to a 2010 study in The Journal of Social Psychology, you are more likely to have a friendship if you had a nice breakup. Were you fair? Did you apologize? It all matters.
“Doing all of that reparative work at the time of breakup is what is going to make it easier when you want to be friends after the breakup,” Franco says. And even if the breakup wasn’t clean, it may not be too late to take responsibility.
Some people need to process old wounds before jumping into a friendship, and others just want to “move on and create something new,” says Kahn. What you don’t want to do is make believe that everything is okay when it’s not. “We don’t want to be like, ‘I’m cool as a cucumber,’ and I can let it go, but really you are someone who needs to process.”
When processing past events, it’s important for both parties to speak up about what they experienced in the relationship, and be straightforward about past hurts and feelings. With that approach, it will be easier to say what you need from your ex as a friend going forward.
Earnshaw recommends clearly stating to your ex, “I know that I’ve hurt you or I know I’m still resentful, can we sit down and talk about this?” and directly acknowledging that “I need to hear from you that you understand how [your actions] impacted me.”
Make your new partner the priority
In time, you and your ex may find yourselves getting involved with new romantic partners, and it’s important that everyone is on the same page and comfortable with your friendship.
Be empathetic to your new partner’s concerns, says Franco. “A lot of people have their triggers and insecurities, and trying to befriend your ex can certainly trigger those.” Instead of asking a binary question about if you can still be friends, ask your new partner what situations and contexts would make them feel secure.
“You can’t make your friend have a great relationship with your partner, but you do want to try to facilitate that as much as possible,” says Shaw. She suggests introducing new partners to exes you are friendly with as soon as possible because “the longer you wait, the more meaning you put on the relationship.” There should be no secrets about your history together.
Make your new partner your priority, and earn their trust by showing them that there is no competition. If they ask you to stop talking with your ex, you should, says Shaw. “More than likely, if you’re willing to give up the relationship you won’t have to,” she says, because showing that willingness will show your partner that they come first. Once they feel heard then they might be able to make space for your ex.
If your ex enters a new relationship, Franco recommends you have a conversation with your ex where you explain that you value their friendship but want to make sure their new partner feels safe. An ideal relationship between you and their new partner should look friendly and trusting. There shouldn’t be any feelings of threat.
Don’t shut out close friends
Establishing a friendship with an ex can trigger friends and family to voice alarm. If the person is not close to you, Earnshaw suggests giving a quick, distanced response, such as, “Thank you for your concern. We actually have a great friendship, and it’s something I feel good about.”
But if the person is someone you trust and someone who cares for you, it might be worth hearing them out. Are there valid reasons that they believe you should not befriend your ex, coming from a place of genuine concern?
She recommends telling them that you might not agree that the friendship’s a bad idea, but “would still really love to hear what your concerns are.” Listen to them. Maybe you should take their worries into account.
If you stand firm with the belief that you are making the right move, Earnshaw suggests replying to their fears by saying, “I totally get why you’d be concerned. I understand it’s not common for somebody to stay friends with their ex. I’m confident that if there’s a problem, I’ll be able to take care of myself. And I want you to be able to trust me on that.”
It’s okay to let go, too
No matter how much you want the friendship to thrive, you may find yourself stepping over your own boundaries or flooded with sadness every time you hang out. In many cases, it’s important to remember that you left the relationship for a reason, and those reasons may be toxic.
If you do need to halt the friendship, Franco recommends saying something like, “I know we’ve tried to build a friendship, but I just think it’s not necessarily working out for me.” Then allow yourself time to grieve.
But hopefully, your friendship will bloom. A sign of a healthy friendship is that you are no longer mourning the romantic relationship, says Franco. “You’re not bitter, you’re not resentful.” Instead, she says, you truly want what’s best for one another.
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The GOP’s bickering over midterm campaign strategy is a preview of larger fights ahead.
With the midterm elections less than two months away, Republicans are strongly favored to win a majority of seats in the House. Democrats, for now, are expected to keep control of the Senate, though some of the contests — particularly Wisconsin, Georgia, and Nevada — could be particularly close.
With President Joe Biden’s veto power, the implications of Republicans reclaiming one or both chambers in Congress will have more to do with blunting a Democratic policy agenda than swiftly enacting conservative priorities.
But if they do win power, what do Republicans want to do with it? If you’ve had some trouble figuring that out, you’re not alone. It’s been confusing. Different factions within the party are competing for the agenda-setting mantle, and it’s been a long time since Republicans wrote a unified policy and governing platform. When they tried at their 2020 national convention, they ended up scrapping their plans. Instead, they kept their 2016 platform, and avoided an anticipated fight with Donald Trump over a new one.
Even the right-leaning magazine National Review observed recently that “Republicans are doing little to explain what they would have the government do differently if they took power.” There has been a mix of proposals introduced with varying degrees of specificity, and previews of the intraparty fights we might see over the next few years.
It’s always easier for a party to appear united when they’re in the minority, but if Republicans reclaim power, they will have the much harder task of needing to unite around a real agenda. That’s when they’ll have to make real decisions on issues like abortion bans, civil rights, rollbacks of environmental protections, and welfare subsidies.
Here are the many competing proposals for the GOP’s policy vision — and what they tell us about what might come next.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s forthcoming “Commitment to America”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has been preparing for a world where he becomes majority leader, and has been taking cues from Newt Gingrich, who in 1994 helped write the “Contract with America” that House Republicans used to successfully return to power. When the GOP retook the House in 1994, they worked swiftly to bring votes on their agenda.
Gingrich has been advising Republicans over the past year, suggesting they focus on “kitchen table” issues, on being “happy warriors” who are enthusiastic about the future of the country, and on doubling down on government oversight and accountability, like election security and Biden investigations.
McCarthy is even calling his forthcoming platform the “Commitment to America” — a name intentionally resonant of Gingrich’s 1994 plan. The Commitment to America, which has been in the works since last June, is expected to be formally announced September 19 in Pittsburgh, according to Axios.
Much of the platform will sound familiar to anyone who has read news headlines over the last few years, with bullet-point themes around economic conditions, crime, race, and gender. Details are sparse, but ideas it’s expected to contain include fighting inflation by ending “Build Back Better” federal spending, reimposing work requirements to incentivize labor force participation, and lowering gas prices by increasing American energy production.
School-related issues include a “Parents’ Bill of Rights” and expanding school choice.
Republicans also plan to target Big Tech and illegal immigration, and to increase funding for police and the military. Holding the Biden administration accountable for “mismanagement” and supporting gun owners and anti-abortion groups are additional listed priorities.
While the platform takes aim at rising health care premiums and a “Democrat socialist drug takeover” that the GOP says could lead to fewer treatments, the McCarthy agenda notably excludes any language about repealing Obamacare — a priority for the first eight years of the law’s existence.
Mitch McConnell has resisted any specific agenda
While McCarthy is looking to 1994, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is urging his party to instead heed the playbook from 2014, when Republicans seized midterm control of the Senate chamber after campaigning primarily just against President Barack Obama.
He thinks the Commitment for America-style bullet points are too politically risky and create too many opportunities for Democrats to attack the Republican Party. Last fall, McConnell rejected pleas from colleagues and donors to release a legislative agenda, preferring instead to keep the midterms as a referendum on the White House incumbent.
McConnell suggested that whoever is the 2024 Republican nominee for president can lead the process of crafting the party’s next agenda, in part out of recognition that Biden holds veto power until then. Still, not everyone in his chamber agrees; Sen. Lindsey Graham came out this week with a bill banning abortion after 15 weeks, sending a clear, if expected, signal about what he’d push for if his party takes power.
Some Republicans are getting specific
The House’s conservative caucus, the Republican Study Committee, and two presidential hopefuls have also entered the fray in releasing policy priorities.
In June, the RSC released a 122-page manifesto dubbed the Blueprint to Save America, with a long list of conservative ideas. While not a formula campaign document per se — it’s billed as an alternative budget to the one put forth by Democrats — it gives much clearer indications as to where House Republicans might go if they take power, as nearly 75 percent of House GOP members are in the RSC.
For example, while the Commitment to America platform states merely that the party would “defend the unborn, fight for life,” the Blueprint to Save America lists nearly two dozen anti-abortion bills the caucus supports codifying, including a bill effectively prohibiting abortions after about six weeks, and one that would provide 14th Amendment protections to fetuses.
Likewise, while the Commitment to America platform includes preventing transgender girls from playing school sports with other girls, the RSC platform lists seven specific anti-trans bills the caucus supports codifying, including one that would create a new criminal offense for providing gender-affirming health care to minors.
While Republicans may realize that campaigning explicitly on the items in the Blueprint to Save America creates more political vulnerabilities than the vague ideas in the Commitment to America, the RSC document offers more concrete clues as to what exactly conservative lawmakers are looking to do if they gain power.
Florida Sen. Rick Scott, a first-term senator and chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, in March released his own 12-point “Plan to Rescue America” — billed as an agenda for the House and Senate if Republicans take power in November. Like the other aforementioned proposals, it’s a mix of cutting taxes, fighting Big Tech and crime, and pushing cultural fights in schools, though some of its components seem more geared toward standing out in a future Republican presidential primary. For example, Scott recommends completing the border wall and naming it after Donald Trump, putting “America First,” and fighting socialism. (“Socialism will be treated as a foreign combatant which aims to destroy our prosperity and freedom,” Scott’s platform proclaims.)
Former Vice President Mike Pence also released his own 28-page policy proposal in March, dubbed a “Freedom Agenda.” It’s gained little traction among midterm candidates, but that probably wasn’t really the point, as analysts suspect he might use it for himself if he decides to run for president in 2024.
Centrists are pleading for a different path
Some political analysts and policy wonks are pushing for moderation and compromise if Republicans take control — likely a tough sell for many conservatives who are loath to give Biden any more bipartisan wins ahead of the 2024 election.
Last month, leaders with American Compass, a conservative think tank that bills itself as pro-worker and pro-family, penned a New York Times op-ed urging the GOP, if it takes power next year, to consider bipartisan dealmaking on industrial policy with China, apprenticeships and non-college educational pathways, and something like Sen. Mitt Romney’s proposed expanded child tax credit. “The common force pushing forward these various policy opportunities is the evolution in conservative thinking toward greater focus on the interests of the working class and a greater role for government in addressing the free market’s shortcomings,” they wrote.
In July, Douglas Schoen, a centrist Democratic campaign consultant who advised Mike Bloomberg’s 2020 presidential run, wrote an op-ed in The Hill urging the Republican Party “to coalesce around a moderate agenda that offers real solutions” and avoids “relitigating past grievances.” Schoen suggested some ideas that have been part of aforementioned Republican platforms, like prioritizing deficit reduction, loosening regulations on America’s energy sector, providing parents with school choice options, and increasing funding for law enforcement.
He also suggests that, “perhaps most importantly,” conservatives should moderate on abortion and guns, something no GOP coalition is calling for.
“By assuming a more open stance on abortion legality, Republicans can better sell their party as one that protects individual liberties,” Schoen writes. “Similarly, by moving to the middle on guns, the GOP can position and promote themselves as the law and order party.”
These latter proposals will likely fall on deaf ears for now.
The Trump wild card
One hard-to-predict variable that could greatly affect what Republicans do if they reclaim power in Congress is Trump, and how much pressure he seeks to put on their governing agenda. Trump made dozens of endorsements in congressional and gubernatorial elections, and even though his candidates’ win rate has been declining over past cycles, his influence over Republican voters, and thus candidates looking to win Republican primaries, is still very strong. If he mounts a bid for president, that could also affect the trajectory of a Republican-led House. He’s already promised that, if elected in 2024, he’d pardon January 6 rioters, sentence drug dealers to death, and abolish the federal Education Department.
Expect investigations and maybe an impeachment push
While the Commitment to America platform is sticking to less controversial euphemisms like “hold the Biden administration accountable,” some rank-and-file Republicans have been more explicit about the revenge and retribution they’d push for if their party takes over.
In late August, The Hill reported that some members plan to push for impeachment of the president, some of whom have already introduced at least eight resolutions to do that. While the existing impeachment resolutions will expire at the end of the year, some lawmakers have vowed to reintroduce theirs in January, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Another possibility is to push for impeachment of other high-ranking Biden administration officials, but not Biden himself. McConnell has urged his party to avoid campaigning in the midterms on impeachment, and a highly politicized impeachment process is unlikely to be a unifying strategy for the 2024 election, but sometimes pressure for impeachment takes on its own hard-to-control momentum.
Aside from impeachment, Republicans have confirmed they’re looking at holding a series of House investigations next year if they take power, specifically on areas like Democrats’ handling of the southern border, the DOJ, inflation, and energy. Rep. James Comer (R-KY) is set to lead the House Oversight and Reform Committee and told Politico he also wants to spearhead investigations into the business dealings of Hunter Biden and the origins of Covid-19.