women

Being a Woman Would Be Boring!

I’m having a Proud Mom moment, and I had to share.

S and I have been working on her handwriting. In each chapter, there is a concept (animals, foods, shapes). There are various activities designed to give the student a chance to practice writing the words:

We’re working on career words. Her book shows pictures of different people doing their jobs—doctor, nurse, dentist, teacher, farmer, pilot, firefighter, police officer, barber, grocer, construction worker, chef, and artist. S and I noticed that almost none of the pictures show women. In fact, the only jobs it shows being done by women are the nurse, the teacher, and the dentist. Every other picture shows a man doing the job.

We’ve been talking about it, and how even though the pictures don’t show women, women can do all of those jobs. The other day, she seemed rather fed up with seeing only pictures of men. Our conversation went like this:

S: It’s dumb that they only show men.

Me: Why is that?

S: Women can do those jobs too. Women can do anything they want.

Me: Yes, they can. We’ve been talking about that. Why do you think it’s important?

S: Because if those [nurse, teacher, and dentist] were really our only choices, that would be boring!

Me: You’re right, it would be.

S [scornfully]: This book must have been written by a man.

I like to hope that I’m doing a good job with S, making sure she knows that her options aren’t limited. It’s funny, I’m trying to teach her that she can be a strong, independent woman, when I have fallen into a fairly traditional role. I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for over eight years, and my two degrees are in…nursing and education. But I chose this life, I wasn’t forced into it. My husband would have been just as happy to be married to me if I’d been a doctor and he’d been a stay-at-home dad, or if we’d both been police officers. He didn’t marry me because I was prepared to be his “little woman.”

Bear with me, this may seem unrelated, but it’s not. The other night, one of our church elders came to see us about some business. (Relax, it was all good. It wasn’t one of those kinds of meetings.) During part of the conversation, he praised me for valuing our kids and staying home with them. But he also praised women who hold jobs outside the home, speaking blessings over their work. He’s a fairly traditional guy, but the whole time the three of us were talking, I never once felt as though he didn’t care what I was saying. He directed specific questions to each of us, but only in the sense that each of us has areas of expertise. As a woman, a mother, and a person of faith, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the respect we received.

This is the way we expect our son to behave. This is the way we expect our daughter to be treated. So far, I think we’re on the right track.

The Male Gaze

Women

This article right here sums up exactly what I’ve been trying to say and have been butchering over the course of my blog.

Dianna Anderson sums it up nicely in her critique of the Proverbs 31 culture. I had forgotten the proper term (“male gaze”). Thankfully, she didn’t, and she defines it for us.

Although I’ve touched lightly on it, I haven’t hit it quite as bluntly as she did. In case you don’t have the patience to read Anderson’s blog post (or this Wikipedia entry or this TV Tropes page), let me sum up. Male gaze has to do with the idea that women, in the media, are seen via the way men react to them. In other words, it’s not about her real self, but about her as perceived by and evaluated by men.

And now the pieces fit together. This is why so much of purity education is directed toward women. This is why there is still so much shame attached to premarital sex when it comes to women. This is why we have metaphors about kitchen appliances. When understood in this light, is it any wonder why so many men are confused about female sexuality and seem unaware that they have any apart from their men?

In her blog post, Anderson offers this:

Whether a Proverbs 31 woman or a Victoria’s Secret Model, it still comes down to the male gaze. It’s even more problematic that the campaign is phrased in a way that interjects the male gaze back into the conversation –“I’d rather have…” rather than, “I’d rather be…”. This, of course, makes sense as the campaign was started by a man.

Yes, exactly. Instead of thinking about what kind of men they could be, they’re figuring out what kind of woman they want her to be. Be yourself, figure out what God wants for you and through you. Then you can discover the kind of person you want to be with who balances you.

And this:

But what makes the campaign connect with people is also that which gives it the most problems. Regardless of which category you fall into – let’s lift the veil and call it what it is: The Virgin or the Whore – it is still something inspired by how one is perceived by the other gender. This is something I see reflected in the Christian singles culture over and over. The focus of the campaign especially is on Proverbs 31:30: “Charm is deceitful and beauty soon fades but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

Praised by whom? Why, men, of course! And this is the fundamental problem: Regardless of whether or not you’re living as the virgin or the whore, if you’re doing it because you think it will be more attractive to the opposite sex, then you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.

And again, she nails it. Life, for women, isn’t about being either of those ideals (physical or spiritual perfection) in order to land a man. It’s about listening to the whispers of the Holy Spirit and following the plan God has for our lives.

Double Standards and Wedding Cake

Sexual Morality, Sexuality and Gender, Women

I wrote yesterday about the way sexual purity has been idolized, particularly for women. I want to follow that up, because there is still something bothering me.

Many years ago, long before I was married, my friends and I discovered something interesting. One of the young women I knew back then had ended up broken-hearted after a relationship ended. He didn’t just cause her pain by leaving her. He ripped out her heart, stomped on it, and left it a bloody pulp. He utterly crushed her by making her feel dirty and damaged. He had found out that she wasn’t a virgin and told her he couldn’t be with someone who wasn’t pure. But even worse, he confessed later that he himself was sexually experienced.

Talk about a double standard.

I decided that this would make interesting “research.” I wondered if this was a common perspective among males. Did they all want the same thing? I questioned both my male and female friends on the subject and found some not-so-surprising results. Nearly every guy I asked said they would either not want to marry a woman if she weren’t a virgin or would have serious reservations. This included involuntary sexual activity. There were only two exceptions. One said he couldn’t justify being judgmental because he had already had sex. The other was gay.

On the flip side, the majority of women said they didn’t really care. They figured that what was in the past was behind them, and as long as he wasn’t pressuring them, it wasn’t a problem. Only those who had the most fundamentalist worldview preferred the idea of marrying a man with no prior sexual activity. Now, this is only anecdotal, and my sample was limited to my own friends and acquaintances. It was fascinating nonetheless, and I have a feeling it wouldn’t be much different among other Christian populations.

In yesterday’s post, I reviewed some common metaphors used in abstinence-based education. They were all about damage: The wedding cake, demolished flower, chewed candy, spit-filled cup. Obviously, the aim is to demonstrate how a girl or woman has been forever ruined by her sexual history.

Wait…but the guy wouldn’t be “ruined”?! So, he could be forgiven of his indiscretion, and he could move on, but she would have to live with the shame and guilt forever. There is definitely something wrong with that. Female virginity is still seen as a prize, and men who don’t get to claim it should be sorely disappointed. But male virginity isn’t important, at least in the long-term.

One thing I’ve turned up is that there is a difference in what we consider the Big Sex Evil when it comes to men and women. Men are often shamed for their “lust.” You can see the evidence for this with a simple Google search. There are literally thousands of web sites devoted to discussing, preventing, and treating lust (usually described in terms of porn and solo sex). If men give in to their desires, it’s almost considered inevitable, given the fact that “all” men have issues with lust. (Apparently, women don’t; we don’t have much a sex drive.)

Those aforementioned sermon illustrations, however, are obviously aimed at women (picking the petals off a flower and saying its beauty has been destroyed, anyone?). I don’t personally know any men who are ashamed that they had sex before marriage, even Christian men. I know far too many women who still, years later, beat themselves up over not waiting until walking down the aisle. Included in this are the women who feel the need to excuse or explain the fact that their children are older than their marriages, despite the fact that it’s really not anyone else’s business. I haven’t seen any men try to field that particular question.

One key difference between lust-shame and virginity-shame is that men aren’t considered damaged goods if they got off to Playboy. They’re not all used up. Again, men get to move on. There may be ongoing shame, but only if they continue to interact with porn. But once a woman’s virginity is gone, it’s gone.

I don’t think the answer is to make it more shameful for men to have premarital sex or for women to look at porn. The answer is to stop using it as a weapon. While I’m all for having morals and values when it comes to sex, I’m not much of a fan of using purity standards (of any kind) as a battle-ax. I believe somewhere out there is a better way for us to think about and deal with sexual morality.

All Dressed Up

Body Image, Sexuality and Gender, Women

Since I’ve already (twice now) addressed the problem of how men treat women, it’s only fair that I make a point about women. While I don’t believe it’s reasonable to blame women for male shortcomings, it’s equally unfair to blame men for the things women do.

I don’t get my panties in a bunch because a woman wore a low-cut blouse or showed a lot of leg. I think this is because I have a much more narrow definition of lust than most conservative people. Conservative Christians often define lust much too broadly, allowing it to encompass absolutely everything that even remotely seems “dirty.” That may be why we’re so anxious to absolve men of their “problem” by pointing fingers at women and what they are wearing. Let’s face it, this issue has been around since forever, and what women are wearing isn’t what drives it. If it were, then we should have no problem with cultures that expect women to be covered head-to-toe. I strongly suspect that it wouldn’t matter if some women wore sweat pants and didn’t wash their hair for a week. There are still men who would try to make a case that they’re using “pheromones” or something to attract men because they don’t cover up their natural scent.

That said, I do think modesty is important. But I don’t mean in the sense that girls and women should just “cover up.” (Because I think it’s perfectly acceptable to wear shorts to the gym or a bathing suit to the beach.) I mean in the sense of how she herself treats her body and how she treats men. Immodesty comes more from motivation than from the garment in question. I’ve seen women look immodest in t-shirts while others look appropriate in above-the-knee skirts and low necklines. But somehow, we’ve cultivated the bizarre idea that the percentage of flesh showing is directly proportional to the degree of sluttiness possessed by the woman.

This is the very same stupid logic that leads people to claim that public breastfeeding is improper. The idea that there is a nipple somewhere under that baby’s lips, and that a little flesh might show around the baby’s head, is just plain horrifying to some people. The irony isn’t lost on me that in cultures requiring head coverings, public breastfeeding is relatively common and no one blinks.

We’ve grown into a society that values women for their looks. From an early age, girls are coached on how to look good. Young girls are encouraged to look (and dress) like little adults, and adult women are encouraged to look like prepubescent girls. We’re all supposed to base our self-worth on how pretty our faces are and how thin our bodies are. Is it any wonder that so many women and girls dress themselves in ways supposedly designed to make men drool? We’re taught to believe that our value rests on whether or not we can successfully catch (and keep) a man.

Strangely, culture has become fixated on the most fleeting of female traits, her physical appearance, and has dictated which characteristics are the most attractive. What we are to find beautiful today will change tomorrow. And the other side effect of all this is to fail to give real men credit for being better than that. We tell them they “can’t help it” when confronted with “hot” women. But the fact that real men are marrying real women betrays the lie. Real men love their significant others for a lot more than what can be seen.

Instead of teaching our daughters that they ought to be careful how much cleavage, back, shoulder, or leg they show, we should be helping them love their bodies no matter what they wear. We’re aiming at the wrong thing. It’s not about trying to figure out where the modesty line is and how not to cross it. It’s about having a healthy concept of ourselves without needing external proof. It’s about dressing for ourselves instead of someone else.

We also need to encourage our daughters to treat their male friends with respect. I know a lovely (read: kind, sweet, charming, intelligent) young woman who has a lot of male friends. They all treat her with respect, even though she is pretty and dresses in ways that flatter her figure. Why? Because she knows the line and doesn’t cross it; because she treats them with respect; because she expects them to return that respect; and because she doesn’t place her worth on whether or not she is dating any of them.

It’s not an insurmountable problem. For every degrading beer commercial, there is a woman striving to help us become body-confident and see ourselves in a positive way regardless of our shape. If you’re a woman in the business of helping other women love and respect their bodies, I’d love to hear from you. Let’s raise a generation of young women who don’t buy into the commercialization and exploitation of their bodies.

I Made a Friend

Relationships

I have a new friend. This would not ordinarily be newsworthy. After all, I’ve been a functional member of society for some time now. But this was a little different.

We met by random chance. We happened to be in the same place at the same time. At first, I wasn’t inclined to like her. She has that oh-so-cute, perky innocence about her that usually makes me cringe, particularly in adults. Still, I figured I’d give her the benefit of the doubt. I made the effort to lay aside my own prejudices. I’m glad I did.

We make an unlikely pair. We have almost nothing in common, aside from both being church-going Christians. We don’t have the same taste in clothes, books, movies, or music. We don’t share similar philosophies on life or parenting. I’m willing to bet we don’t hold the same views on faith, and I’m certain we don’t on politics.

And yet.

I like her. It’s impossible not to. She’s sweet and fun, and not a little bit crazy. She loves people like mad and wants to hug the whole world. She doesn’t pass up opportunities to help and serve others, even at personal inconvenience. We may come at it differently, but in this we agree: As followers of Christ, we live to love and serve.

We don’t spend a lot of time together, and I doubt we’ll ever be close confidants. But I’m glad that I put away my own agenda and got to know her better. Having that kind of friend will make me a better person, a person who can look beyond the exterior.

The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7b, NIV)

Not a Devotion on Biblical Womanhood

Women

I’m resuming my current series of posts on challenging our thinking. I started with asking us to open our hearts and really listen to the stories other people have to share. Last time, I featured posts from two gay Christian men. This time, I want you to hear the voices (figuratively speaking) of a couple of women in pastoral ministry.

Before I get to the women I want to feature, I want to share my experience trying to do an Internet search for female preachers. The first thing I found was that the terms, “female preacher,” “female pastor,” and “sermons by women” did not actually turn up any of those things on the first page. I did, however, find unlimited resources on whether women should be pastors, preachers, and sermon-givers. Thankfully, I was already aware of several wonderful women I could feature. I’ve chosen two of them; others will be highlighted in future posts.

For those who were raised in, or are still involved in, conservative evangelical circles, this may be as much of a stretch as the previous post. Among conservative Christians, women are generally not permitted to preach. When they do speak to a mixed audience, they are frequently reduced to giving a message that sounds more like something out of a devotional book—a few nice thoughts about what a special Bible verse means to her, or ways in which husbands can show themselves to be more loving. Women are not expected to deliver hard-hitting sermons on the Big Stuff. For the most part, even women who do dive deeper into Biblical instruction are found more often in the classroom than the pulpit. Outside that, prominent women are featured at conferences or other gatherings for women, speaking on “women’s issues.” Not so with Reverend Janet Edwards, an ordained Presbyterian minister. This recent post is a great example of sinking her teeth into a lesser-studied passage of Scripture, seeing things that we all likely missed when we read it as Sunday school tots.

Second, women are often either perceived as having certain characteristics, or have been trained to have them. We are supposed to think and act in a particular way, all with support and instruction directly from Scripture…right? In order to experience this firsthand and, in her words, “start a conversation about how we interpret and apply the Bible to our lives,” Rachel Held Evans took on a year of living Scripture for women as literally as possible. You can read about the project here, and follow her blog for progress until her book is released.

As in my previous post, keep your heart open when listening to these women. Far from keeping silent in church, they are speaking boldly to all who will listen. When you’re done, try your own web search. Let me know what you find.

Being a Woman Would Be Boring!

The Male Gaze

Double Standards and Wedding Cake

All Dressed Up

I Made a Friend

Not a Devotion on Biblical Womanhood

Let's Be Friends

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