In this landmark account of American women leaving the church, award-winning journalist Sarah Stankorb, author of Disobedient Women , asks why they leave--and where they land. Ordinarily, women are more religious than men. But these are no ordinary times. In America, where Christianity is still the most common religion, women are vacating churches. In the past decade, 16 million women have left the church. Younger women are disaffiliating from religion faster than men. For some women, leaving is like a dramatic divorce; for others, as one woman tells Stankorb, it's more like women and the church "stopped calling each other." Exploring trends from the 1980s to today, Damned If She Does is an intimate account of women whose stories got missed during the Christian Right's headline-grabbing rise to power. Their exodus is marked by harm, disillusionment, and drift: from pastors' wives and a national Christian TV show host, to girls whose horrific abuse gives another face to the Catholic sex abuse crisis. Some couldn't stand by a church that cast out their queer friends. Others were maligned for who they loved. Churches with strong opinions on sexual purity and abortion stood beside men with histories of assault. With horror, women who loved the church watched the rise of Christian nationalism and saw their faith bastardized. Finally, they've had enough. Some are atheists. Others are forging new spiritual avenues through astrology or energy work or connection to their ancestors. Some have a Christian faith they no longer entrust to an institution. Attuned to emotional subtlety, women's agency, and religious longing, Stankorb asks what happens when a woman realizes that she's damned both if she stays and if she leaves. This consequential work of narrative nonfiction is a poignant reminder that women deserve better, and a tale of what happens when they don't get it. "Women are exhausted by the head-spinning conundrum of Christian patriarchy, which demands they hide the realities and crises of their personal lives to uphold a reputation and that they hold the ladders for men to climb, and that shelters abusers rather than those harmed. Damned If She Does is a book of windows in which women open up about what's really happening on the Christian Right and why they are right to walk away." -- TIA LEVINGS , author of A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy and I Belong to Me: A Survivor's Guide to Recovery and Hope After Religious Trauma "As revelatory as it is prophetic, Sarah Stankorb's Damned If She Does is a brilliant, readable journey into the lives of women who are the canaries in the coal mine of American Christianity: the taken-for-granted Sunday school teachers, potluck organizers, rally goers, and model mothers who are no longer willing to stay in institutions that devalue them and so many others.... Stankorb is the rare journalist who does two things at once--forces us to stare at the uncomfortable places we'd rather not see while somehow humanizing them into sources of understanding, insight, and activation." -- BRADLEY ONISHI , author of Preparing for War and American Caesar "For a people and a country mired for far too long in institutions that no longer serve us, Stankorb offers hope: voices that deserve to be heard and acknowledged, and maybe, too, even an apologetic for a kind of truer faith." -- REV. ANGELA DENKER , author of Red State Christians and Disciples of White Jesus "With journalistic integrity and emotional intelligence, Sarah Stankorb delivers another deeply insightful testament to women reclaiming their agency and forging meaning after being pushed to the margins by institutions more concerned with power than compassion. Damned If She Does is a powerful and timely contribution to conversations about belief, belonging, justice, and community. It's an essential read for anyone seeking to understand the changing landscape of spirituality and secularism within the United States and the individuals reshaping it into something more inclusive and humane." -- DEBBIE GODDARD , vice president of programs for American Atheists "Following her decade-long investigation into women who blew the whistle on sexual abusers and the religious communities that protected them, Sarah Stankorb is asking a more foundational question: Why do women leave their churches? . . . A must-read for anyone who needs to understand how and why this is happening." -- SARA MOSLENER , author of After Purity: Race, Sex, and Religion in White Christian America " Damned If She Does is so much more than a book about women leaving the church. It's about the future of American Christianity. Sarah Stankorb lays out the stakes: Despite their historic subjugation and abuse in traditional Christian contexts, American women hold churches together. They also exercise the greatest religious influence on their young children. And while the Christian Right doubles down on patriarchy and culture warring, th