Even by the reality-TV chaos standards of our political moment, this one was a doozy: Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Defense, called out as an "abuser of women" by his own mother in the pages of the New York Times. To be fair, Penelope Hegseth's 2018 email excoriating her son, who was then a Fox News contributor, was not intended for public consumption. But the email, which seems to have been passed around Hegseth's social circle at the time, was leaked to the Times over the weekend. In it, Penelope Hegseth calls her son a man who "belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego." Pete Hegseth, then 37 years old, was in the midst of his second divorce.
While Penelope Hegseth has since disavowed her 2018 declaration, those accusations were backed up by a New Yorker investigation showcasing years of complaints from colleagues that Hegseth ran his veterans organization in "a hostile and intimidating working environment," where sexual harassment — and even attempted sexual assault — was blown off or blamed on victims. Hegseth himself was characterized as a heavy drinker who "treated the organization funds like they were a personal expense account — for partying, drinking, and using [the organization's] events as little more than opportunities to ‘hook up’ with women on the road." This follows reports that Hegseth was accused of rape in 2017. Criminal charges were not filed, but Hegseth reportedly reached a financial settlement with the alleged victim in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement.
In the years since, Hegseth — now on his third marriage — has claimed that he rediscovered Christ, saying "faith became real" to him in 2018. He became deeply involved with the Association of Classical Christian Schools (ACCS), moving to Tennessee to enroll his children in a branch of this fundamentalist organization. He also joined the associated denomination, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. Both are led by Doug Wilson, an untrained and self-proclaimed pastor who advocates for Christian nationalism and has become famous for his trollish promotion of his far-right political views. At the center of Wilson's philosophy is a misogyny so overt that it's sometimes hard to believe he's serious.
"Wilson holds the most extreme views of women’s submission found in any form of Christianity," Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida, told Salon. "Women are taught that submission to their husbands (and other male authorities) is submission to God. Independence of any kind is cast as sin."
In one famous passage from his book on marriage, Wilson suggests that sexual violence is women's fault for not being submissive enough. "[T]he sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party," he writes. "A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts." The alleged failure of women to submit, he continues, leads men to "dream of being rapists," deprived of the "erotic necessity" found in women's submission. Nancy Wilson, Doug Wilson's wife, backs this view, comparing a wife to a "garden" cultivated for the husband's pleasure: "But of course a husband is never trespassing in his own garden."
Wilson has repeatedly denied that such teachings are a justification for marital rape, but interviews with members of his church and students from his schools suggest they were left with little room for interpretation. Sarah Stankorb, who reported on sexual and domestic violence in the CREC for Vice and Slate, told Salon that female church members she interviewed "understood that they must submit to their husbands in all things." In the church's marital counseling, "submission is often treated as a cure-all" and wives are instructed "to fix marital problems by being sexually available."
Podcaster Peter Bell and social media manager Sarah Bader have been producing a podcast about Wilson and the culture of abuse at CREC churches and ACCS schools, titled "Sons of Patriarchy." They've recorded a seemingly endless number of interviews with people who witnessed or survived sexual abuse or domestic violence — and documenting the unwillingness of CREC leaders to take it seriously. Bader told Salon women are told they are "accountable for all of their husband's sins" and that Wilson just "rewrapped rape as 'submission.'" Students at ACCS schools who said they were sexually abused by teachers reported being blamed for causing the older men to "stumble." Women say they've been blamed for being raped, for husbands who abuse alcohol and for men's infidelity.
The extremist view of gender "inevitably contributes to a culture of abuse and draws abusers to it," Ingersoll said.
While Wilson is focused on sex and discomforting descriptions of what he sees as women's sexual obligations to men, his demeaning attitudes about women expand beyond the bedroom. In a recent video titled "The Natural Use of the Woman," Wilson argues that God designed women "to make the sandwiches" and chastised women who believe "men have a responsibility" to care about the marriage the same way wives do. During the election season, he argued that women's suffrage was a mistake and part of "a long, sustained war on the family." He recommends that husbands who are dissatisfied with a wife's housework skills "call the elders of the church and ask them for a pastoral visit." Stankorb explained that this implies excommunication, "a serious threat for women who have no job or independent income."
Hegseth doesn't just attend a CREC church and send his kids to an ACCS school. He has associated publicly with Wilson's Christian nationalist teachings in multiple ways. Hegseth is a forceful advocate of the ACCS school system and championed Wilson's efforts to fight pandemic restrictions. After being nominated by Trump, Hegseth went on the "CrossPolitic" podcast, hosted by one of Wilson's pastors, and argued that ACCS schools allow Christian nationalists to "build [their] army underground" for an eventual takeover of American society. Hegseth has blamed sexual assault in the military on "equality," claiming that the issue was "exacerbated" by letting women enlist in the first place. This aligns with CREC teachings that male sexuality is ravenous and the tendency to blame victims for "immodesty" when sexual violence happens. If Hegseth is confirmed to lead the Pentagon, Bell predicted he "would not be worried about rape in military circles," because of these views.
Bell and Bader carefully monitor the larger CREC community and are alarmed by the response to Hegseth's nomination. "They are celebrating his appointment," Bader explained, seeing it as "this massive sign" that "they're on God's righteous plan." In their eyes, it's "legitimizing everything Doug Wilson is saying and doing." That includes the over-the-top misogyny as well as Wilson's other radical views, such as his argument that American slavery "was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence" and that enslaved people enjoyed "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care." He has also said that the U.S. government should be based on his interpretation of Christianity, denying the plain language of the Constitution that calls for a secular order.
In joining a CREC church after two failed marriages, multiple adulteries, a rape accusation and allegations of sexual harassment, Hegseth is very much aligned with Trump's belief in doubling down rather than accepting criticism. Hegseth's mother ended her 2018 email by asking him to "get some help and take an honest look at yourself." Instead, he joined a church whose culture is built around shielding men from accountability, while holding women responsible if they are victimized.
