As an adult middle-aged JW convert, I never bought into the submissive baloney. Even during my bible study I laughed at that stuff. My bible teachers just sighed, but let it drop.
I openly made fun of the "capable wife" story, pointing out that it was the wife working her butt off to bring money into the household and running fricking everything while hubby was out getting drunk with the boys at the "gates of the city" - pretending to be a "judge." Yeah, right. Judging slave girl booties, more like! I delighted in pointing out that according to the Scriptures, a husband was supposed to exercise headship like the Christ exercised headship over his "bride" and that if the man abused his authority his prayers weren't heard by Jehovah and he'd be totally screwed (although I didn't use exactly those words, they got the point). I went out of my way to point out that Jesus hung out with women as much as he did men, and he sure didn't seem to take it amiss that rich women (like Joanna, I think that's her name) openly supported him in his ministry by providing the money to feed, clothe and house him and probably some of his male followers, too. I pointed out that Jesus FIRST openly declared himself to be the Messiah to a woman - and to a Samaritan woman, at that. He also first appeared to a woman after his resurrection, although he certainly had the power to appear before any and/or every MALE believer at the time.
Usually, I tried to be a good "witness woman", but within limits; I got baptized knowing they believed some of this "submissiveness" stuff but in practice, it certainly was a different story, as far as I could tell. I could see, for instance, that in our congregation there were many women who "wore the pants" in the family while giving nominal headship to the man; there were also many never-been-married women, like me, who were independent, had good paying jobs and/or careers (nurses, teachers, civil servants, and me, a legal-eagle); there were many widows who had control over money they'd inherited from their husbands. There were also poor sisters, too; some were single monthers trying to scrape by supporting a family on minimum wage while trying to teach their family Jehovah's ways (at least, we thought they were Jehovah's ways) or elderly sisters with very small social security pensions, some who couldn't work because of age and/or disability, and some who were still working in their 70's to try and pay the rent. I had such tremendous respect for those women - and still do.
When I didn't agree with something that was being said from the platform about male-female relationships and proper "roles" and that kind of thing, I would cross my legs and start tapping my foot on the floor and look bored. The more I disagreed with what was being said, the louder the tapping got and the more bored I would look. Occasionally by the end of this kind of talk, if there were other women sitting in my row (there ALWAYS were) they had joined me with the tapping - perhaps unconsciously, I don't know. If I found what was being spoken particularly offensive and/or lacking in common sense, I'd cross my arms too, and heave great insulted sighs through the talk. Sometimes I'd shake my head visibly from side to side "no no no" (sometimes I could hear distinct giggles from way back of the hall when I did this, because I always sat WAY up front) and would heave an audible disgusted-sounding sigh or sighs. And it was a WT talk, I'd close it up and refuse to follow along or volunteer any answers. If it was another kind of talk I'd close my bible and refuse to look up any of the scriptures.
Among the women we generally didn't speak of it afterwards (although sometimes it would come up in a car group of all women later on and then we would REALLY have fun, LOL) , but there was a LOT of eye rolling going on after some of THOSE kinds of talks and lots of laughter over totally inane (that is, coded) words - for instance, I'd say in a most innocent tone of voice "oh yes, another hubby sitting at the gates kind of talk". Sometimes even some of the brothers would join in the laughter.
I didn't give a hoot who overheard those comments or who may have reported what to whom afterwards. Perhaps some thought me a bitch. Shoot, even just sitting here reading back over these words, I sound like a bitch! Loved every moment of it too! Ha! I made my views known in the ways I had open to me without actually SPEAKING (for the most part) and judging from the reaction of many sisters in the hall (and some of the brothers), they either sympathized with or agreed with me. I was not "Jerry Lewis" in my actions during talks, but people who were watching knew EXACTLY what I was thinking. The elders NEVER said a word to me about any of this, and I was in the congregation from about March, 1994 (about a year after I started studying) until I da'd in October, 2003.
As for the clothes stuff, I didn't mind the "Sunday best" dressing thing. I tend toward more conservative taste by natural inclination and I wasn't a younger sister trying to attract a mate by dressing sexy. I just wanted to be - and still do want to be - comfortable.
I helped my sisters where I could and did what I could - I worked full time and wasn't there during daily car groups and my weekends were so precious to me I often skipped out on weekend stuff too, so I couldn't give the same kind of "moral" and other support as other sisters who were pioneers and who were really in the "know" as far as what was going on in the congregation. But I gave money willingly to those where I knew it was needed, and cooked enough meals to feed an army both for hospitality and to people who needed food for whatever reason; I gave clothes to some, furniture to others, and "treated" many sisters in the congregation to special shows and events Saturday after service and Sunday after meeting luncheons and what-not. I also held many a screaming, squiggling baby against my unwilling breast to give a tired, frustrated mom a bit of a break, and took charge of many troops of children from other tired moms. (I have lots of nieces and nephews, so I was not without experience handling children, even though I've none of my own). I did what I could, and I'm happy I did those things. It had nothing to do with being a witness, per se, but everything to do with being a woman of fellow feeling, first of all, and a christian secondly. I would do it all again, tomorrow.