In a time of exhausting questions, we want to help you find the answers

Ninety-percent of women either do not want to or do not care to vote.

How many women ever devote 10 minutes to the conversation of a political question?

The woman’s true sphere is … in the household and among the home circle.

Women who wish to pursue a career are “lost,” “man-hating” and “ridden with guilt complexes.”

“When you push (your husband) away, pretend you’re asleep … and his needs aren’t met. ... He can’t deny God made him that way. Your man still has that need and he has to decide something. Am I going to stay in a starvation diet? Am I going to look elsewhere for that need to be met?”

The first statements were published in the mid to late 1800s, as people spoke out against giving women the right to vote. After all, “it is unwise to risk the good we already have for the evil which may occur,” as one pamphlet from a national association put it.

Women who wished to pursue a career was the topic of a 1950s book published at a time when the female of the household was designated as cook and childcare provider, but not breadwinner.

The most recent statement occurred in 2021, in a Malden church.

The Rev. Stewart-Allen Clark of Malden took the pulpit in his popular church one Sunday morning and turned very complex issues between men and women into a punch line.

And it garnered national attention at a time when the world has said very clearly and very publicly, that we must do better.

The DAR wants to be clear here as well, that we must do better.

The truth is, we’re probably all pretty tired of having tough conversations.

That’s the case whether it’s trying to explain the pandemic to children — who have dozens of questions we haven’t figured out for ourselves yet — taking a closer look at issues of race, or figuring out how to keep all the bills paid as the economy continues to struggle.

A lot of people probably winced when the recent sermon at First General Baptist Church of Malden popped up on their Facebook feeds, or in conversations. Not just because of the content, but because it’s another hard conversation. The kind of difficult topic that’s left us all a little worn out.

The Daily American Republic reported on the matter in our Friday edition. It was something we looked at closely, from how to approach the interviews, to our approach in print.

Some questioned why the matter needed to be reported on. The pastor in question has taken a leave of absence and been publicly scolded by not only those in his own town, but across the state and nation.

While we’re all grappling with the other hard questions in our world, this was one we wanted to tackle.

It was important to report on this because it is important to the people who live in the communities we serve.

It was important that the only source for information on the situation not be unvetted social media accounts or outside publications that don’t know where we live and work.

It was important this information comes from a local source who you can question and who will answer your questions, to the best of our ability.

Reporter Elizabeth Coady didn’t just watch a video of the sermon and compile an article based on the faceless comments made behind the distant safety of a Facebook page.

She went to Malden and spoke to people who shop in the businesses there and work in the storefronts.

She also called many people from the church congregation, who declined to comment on the record. Coady reached out multiple times to the pastor in question, and officials with both the Malden church and the General Baptist Ministries national headquarters in Poplar Bluff, all of whom also declined to comment beyond statements already released.

We tried to give everyone involved a chance to say their piece and shed light on any issues they felt were important to this debate.

This is what local news providers do, and we hope it helps you as you grapple with these tough conversations.

Thank you for reading the Daily American Republic.

— Daily American Republic