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"Captivating" Review: 13-20, "Beauty to Unveil"

broken heart

Remember to put “Book Club” at the top of your comment if you’re reading along with me!

I left off last week before I’d finished chapter one– I don’t think I’ll do this that often, since I want to get through this book, but since this chapter is dedicated to explaining the thesis that Stasi and John are going to be arguing for the rest of the book, I thought it was worth to spend some time pulling it apart.

Beauty to Unveil

What Stasi is doing in this section is pretty typical of evangelicals; in an attempt to be subversive, she tries to re-define beauty. The world tells women that they need to be physically beautiful, but God says that women need to be inwardly beautiful– after all, man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. It’s what’s inside that matters.

A lot of people– religious and secular– have been saying this for a long time, and American culture doesn’t seem to be any closer to liberating women from the oppression of sexual objectification. One could argue that it’s gotten worse in the past decades, and exponentially worse in the last few years– tumblr and instagram and pinterest have created a delivery method for “thinspo”  and “pro-ana” to be a huge part of a teenage girl’s experience online. I would argue that conservative evangelical teachings about “modesty” are just as oppressive and degrading as anything people can see in Vogue or Seventeen.

What Stasi is trying to ignore in this section is that beauty doesn’t mean what Stasi is trying to make it mean. Beauty can be discussed in a lot of different ways: Edgar Allan Poe wrote a treatise on how beauty was going to save the world in Eureka; The Lake Poets used reams of paper to explain how beauty can be transcendent, divine– how it can be the doorway to sublimity.

When we’re talking about women being “beautiful,” however, it’s important to at least acknowledge that physical attractiveness is a part of what it means for us to be beautiful, and “physical attractiveness” is almost always defined by white supremacy and sexual objectification in American culture. Trying it ignore the overwhelming pressure that women feel when it comes to feeling beautiful is only going to weaken anything else you say, because you’re not being honest about what it’s like to be a woman today.

Notice that I’ve said that Stasi is trying to ignore this– she actually can’t get away from the physical component of beauty and how American culture has informed her view. In order to make her point about how all women want to be beautiful, and how this is a good thing, she gives an example of attending a formal ball:

For weeks– no, months ahead of the affair– I like every other woman who attended, asked the all-important question: “What will I wear?” (As the special night drew closer, I also wondered if it was possible to lose twenty pounds in seven days.)

Above the sound of the splashing water from the fountains, even above the music that floated through the air, was the sound of delighted exclamations. “You look beautiful!” “You are gorgeous!” “What an amazing dress!” “How lovely you are!” We were delighting int each other’s beauty and enjoying our own. We were playing dress-up for real and loving it.

Stasi does not say anything– not a single thing– to critique this experience.

To me, reading this passage was a little painful.

First of all, I don’t think I’d spend months ahead of time trying to figure out what I was going to wear unless I had to wear something expensive and that meant budgeting for it (as if I’d ever be going to something where I’d have to budget for a dress and not wear something I already own). I also think it’s possible that at least one women who went to this didn’t really care that much.

Second, as facetious as Stasi might have meant this, it’s not a good thing when you want to lose 20 pounds in a week– that is dangerous. If you want to lose weight, 1-2 pounds a week is a realistic, healthy goal. The fact that Stasi felt pressure to be “skinnier” in order to attend a black-tie event is a problem, and she should have said so or said nothing about it at all.

Last, she talks about how women spent the night complimenting each other on their appearance. I enjoy being complimented– there are times when I put a little extra effort into my appearance, and I appreciate it when someone notices. It feels nice, no lie. However, I’m pretty sure the men at this event were all wearing tuxedos and I’d bet you that they didn’t wander around this garden saying “I love your bow tie! So fetch!”

Women, in order to make small-talk, frequently fall back on complimenting each other on our appearance, and this starts when we are incredibly young. This isn’t the amazing, wonderful thing that Stasi is trying to  make it out to be. It’s the positive flip-side of how women enforce white supremacist, fat-shaming beauty standards on each other. It’s an example of how our culture has utterly failed women, because we are still locked into recognizing each other as physical, consumable objects first, instead of as human beings with dreams, opinions, problems, and joys.

Stasi seems to be blind to how she hasn’t escaped what our culture has to say about beauty and women– she’s included three separate things our culture teaches about beauty in two paragraphs!

She continually falls back on a stereotype about girls– that we enjoy playing dress-up, and the way that little girls play dress-up is lightyears apart from how boys play the same exact game:

Little boys play dress up, too, but in a different way . . .  they never once dressed up as bride-grooms, fairies, or butterflies. Little boys do not paint their toenails. They do not beg to get their ears pierced. Little boys don’t play dress up with Mommy’s jewelry and high heels. They don’t sit for hours and brush each other’s hair.

One question, John and Stasi: if they had wanted to, would you have let them?

Pretty sure the answer to that one is “heck no.”

Little boys, just like little girls, absorb how our culture genders people starting from a very young age, and they are aware of these stereotypes as young as 3 or 4. They know what boys and girls are “supposed” to do and say, and they know that they can be severely punished for not conforming– they’ve seen it happen with older children. They’ve overheard their parents say bigoted, homophobic things. They hear sermons like this one:

Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up! Give him a good punch. OK? ‘You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male.’

And when your daughter starts acting too butch, you reign her in. And you say, ‘Oh, no. Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play ‘em. Play ‘em to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you’re gonna be beautiful, you’re gonna be attractive, you’re gonna dress yourself up.’

To be absolutely clear: Sean Harris (who later claimed this was “a joke”) was talking about four year olds.

Anyway, that girls sometimes play dress-up and that playing dress-up does sometimes look like princesses and fairies is not a good argument for why all women want to be seen as “beautiful,” but it’s essentially all that Stasi has based her argument on.

I want to close out this post with a really good example for exactly how oblivious Stasi is to the fact that not every single woman on the planet wants what Stasi wants, and thinks the way Stasi thinks.

During the midst of a talk I gave on the heart of a woman last year, one of the women in the audience leaned over to a friend and said, “I don’t know what this whole thing is about– twirling skirts and all.” The words had barely left her mouth when she burst into tears and had to leave the room. Little did she know how deep the desire ran, and how much pain it had caused. Many of us have hardened our hearts to this desire, the desire to be Beauty. We, too, have been hurt so deeply in this area that we no longer identify with, perhaps even resent, the longing. But it’s there.

This paragraph made me want to scream, so I did. I also threw my book across the room and Elsa looked at me funny.

What Stasi has done here is infuriating. Instead of even considering that this women who she made cry might have been reacting to how she’s been made to feel deficient and abnormal in a Christian culture that exalts femininity at every turn and humiliates the women who don’t conform, Stasi assumes that this women doesn’t understand the “twirling skirts” picture of femininity– not because she’s just not the kind of woman who likes that sort of thing, but because she is broken. She has a “hardened heart.” She “resents” it. There is something wrong with this woman, for her to be hurt by Stasi’s reinforcement of a stereotype that might have been used as a weapon against her for her entire life.

If I’d been sitting in that auditorium, listening to yet again another woman telling me that “all women” have this bizarre need to wear ballerina tutus and tiaras, I might have walked out crying, too. But it wouldn’t be because of anything Stasi had to say— no, if I disagree with her because I’m damaged in some way.

That is . . . frustrating. This is not the first time that Stasi has made this argument– that women who disagree with her are damaged, broken, hurt, or scarred– and it’s not the last.

 

Feminism

"Captivating" Review: 1-12, "The Heart of a Woman"

broken heart
[art by papermoth]

I am working with the “revised and expanded” edition of Captivating. If you’re reading along with me, remember to write “Book Club” at the top of your comment.

One of the most frustrating things about the early chapters of this book is that Stasi does what a lot of other conservative evangelical women are required to do if they start saying things that could, at all, be interpreted as slightly femininst: she makes feminism the enemy. I’ve written about this phenomena before, so it wasn’t exactly surprising that she said this:

To be told when you are young and searching that “you can be anything” is not helpful. It’s too vast. It gives no direction. To be told when you are older that “you can do anything a man can do” isn’t helpful either. I didn’t want to be a man. What does it mean to be a woman?

She’s done a few . . . interesting . . . things in this paragraph. The first is thinking there’s a problem with women having too many options because it’s just too overwhelming for us. Women, apparently, need direction. We can’t be left on our own, to make up our mind on what we want for ourselves without the guiding light of Gender Roles.

If women can’t “be anything,” what can we be? What is beyond us? What are we not capable of? What should we not try to be? She answers this question when she conflates the statement “you can do anything a man can do” with becoming a man. These are not the same– and, I would argue that this is an extremely reductionist approach to feminism. However, she says that “you can do anything a man can do” isn’t helpful because doing what a man does is synonymous with being a man.

Stasi is assuming that gender is somehow based on our actions.

Enforcing this idea– that gender is tied to action– is one of the ways that patriarchy is self-perpetuating. There are currently many “signifiers” and “gender-coded behaviors” that are assigned either masculine or feminine labels, but this assignation is completely arbitrary, and subject to frequent and inexplicable change over time. When men perform an action thought to be “feminine,” they are punished– they are a sissy, a pussy. When women perform an action thought to be “masculine,” they are also punished– they are bossy, or a slut.

Stasi doesn’t really get into the meat of her chapter until page nine, when she begins laying out the thesis for the rest of the book:

All women have three basic desires that were given to us by God; we want to be romanced, to have a great adventure, and to be beautiful.

belle gif
in short, every woman on the planet is Belle

To Be Romanced

Stasi insists that all girls grew up wanting to play some version of damsel-in-distress because we all want to be fought for, and “This desire is set deep in the heart of every girl– and every woman.” If a woman like me were to pipe up with “uhm, no– actually, I hated being forced to play that game, and I don’t like being fought over,” Stasi would dismiss me by saying that I’m only “downplaying” my desire, that I’m “ashamed” of it and “Come now, wouldn’t you want to ride through the Scottish Highlands with a man like Mel Gibson?”

Uhm . . . no.

I’ve also been “fought over” by men, and it is not pleasant. It did not make me feel “wanted.” It made me feel used and like less than a toy. The men who were “fighting” over me had no interest in what I wanted– which was, in reality, neither of them.

But, apparently, in Stasi’s world, I don’t exist. Or, I’m deluding myself and I don’t understand my own life.

An Irreplaceable Role in a Great Adventure

This section starts off well:

I sensed that the men in these [WWII] movies were a part of something heroic, valiant, and worthy. I longed to be a part of it, too. In the depths of my soul, I longed to be a part of something large and good; something that required all of me; something dangerous and worth dying for.

There is something fierce in the heart of a woman . . . A woman is a warrior too.

So far, so good, but this is where she changes course again:

But she is meant to be a warrior in a uniquely feminine way.

Just . . . ugh.

I wish I could even understand what Stasi means by this. She tries to explain by referencing pop culture, and cites The Lord of the Rings (the films, not the book) as an example. She talks about how Arwen, Galadriel, and Eowyn are “valiant” and that they had “irreplaceable roles in a Great Story.”

I think you could only possibly argue that for Eowyn, since film-Arwen is literally a replacement. After the scene when she slays the Witch King of Angmar (with Merry’s help, notably), Eowyn is immediately shipped back to being a stereotypical woman by both Tolkien and Jackson. In the book Eowyn declares:

I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.

Another one of the significant problems with this book is that neither John nor Stasi engage with the media they are consuming critically or with awareness, which becomes glaringly obvious in the next chapter. I absolutely adore The Lord of the Rings, but I am an aware and conscientious reader, so I know I need to keep in front of me as I watch and read that Jackson and Tolkien incorporated tropes and stereotypes about women in their work– things which Stasi claims to think are “damaging.”

She also finishes this section by asserting that while yes, women “want adventure in the great wide somewhere,” we all want to be in this adventure with someone.

We want an adventure that is shared . . . Made in the image of a perfect relationship, we are relational to the core of our beings . . . We long to be an irreplaceable part of a shared adventure.

This is a stereotype. Many conservative evangelicals set up women as being more “relational” than men– that we are “nurturers” and “caretakers,” that we are more naturally given to fostering relationships and communities. Because this is our assigned role in our culture, women tend to do it– but not every single last woman in America is a nurturing mother-figure who desperately wants to be in a relationship, just like not every man is a power-hungry risk-taking ladder-climbing suit.

However, Stasi again tells women who don’t fit this mold that the only reason why we don’t fit it is “because we have been hurt, or are worn out.” Which, ok, yes, sometimes people want to withdraw from relationships because they’ve been hurt. That’s a human thing. However, I’ve met a lot of people– men and women– who just didn’t really need relationships the way that Stasi is describing. But, again . . . they don’t exist. They can’t exist, or John and Stasi’s entire premise for writing a book like this would completely evaporate.

I’m going to stop before we get into the section “Beauty to Unveil” because heavens is there a lot to unpack in that section.

 

Feminism

Fascinating Womanhood Review: sex

venus

This is the last week of my extended review of Helen Andelin’s Fascinating Womanhood. Good riddance, I’m sure most of you are thinking– well, you’re not alone.

I’ve been procrastinating about writing this chapter because my feelings about it are  . . . complicated. You’ll see why once we get in to it, but I want to start out with this observation: very often, I’ve found that many people easily slip in the ideas that someone like me find necessary: agency, consent, autonomy. On the surface, Helen is about to say a lot of things that sound like we would agree with her.

She starts off, however, exactly where we would expect her to: the only permissible form of sex is between heterosexual married partners. Whether or not you agree with that, you should be concerned with how she extends that argument.

Uphold virginity as the most precious of virtues . . .

Keep your sexual life with your husband pure. A marriage liscense is not a liscense to do wrong. Don’t engage in a sexual practice which is impure . . . Don’t expose your mind to anything that encourages impure sex thoughts, such as sexy stage performances, movies, TV, magazines, or any type of pornographic material. Don’t listen to rock music or any music which encourages unwholesome feelings.

Even if you believe that sex outside of heterosexual marriage is a sin, hopefully you can see the difference between encouraging abstinence and mandating virginity. One is an action, an ongoing path you can step away from temporarily and then come back to. Virginity, on the other hand, is not an action. It’s not a choice. It’s a state of being, and once you are no longer a virgin (whatever that means), you can’t go back. It’s something you lose.

And here is where things get complicated, because Helen says this:

You need not feel you owe it to  your husband to have sex whenever he expects it and never refuse.

But that is buried in the middle of this:

No man appreciates sex which can be had readily. It is simply too cheap. Although you owe your husband a generous amount of sex, he doesn’t own your body. To give him sex every time he asks is to spoil him.

I got a bit of whiplash as I was reading through this chapter, because I wanted to nod along with sentiments like you don’t owe your husband sex whenever he wants it, you can say no— these things are so very rarely said, and they need to be said more often. Except, they need to be said without justification, without qualifiers. Not wanting to haves sex is a perfectly legitimate reason: it’s the only reason anyone needs. However, it’s not enough for Helen– we can only say no because it’s for his benefit.

She goes on to tell us not to have sex when “he tries to insist,” but it’s only because if we give in to him, he will “experience bad feelings.” He’ll feel guilty for his “lack of consideration.” Everything we do, say, think, is about him. She emphasizes her point by referring to Amnon and Tamar– how he raped her, and that made him feel guilty. That’s the important thing to remember about this story, according to Helen. Tamar “gave in too easily, and Amnon felt bad because he pushed her, so don’t give in to your husband.”

Ai yi yi.

When she tries to give practical advice, she starts talking about how to “turn ourselves on”– which we should do, of course, so that our husbands feel adequate. But then this appears:

Parents, in an effort to withstand rampant immorality, teach their children to keep themselves clean. This gives children the impression that sex must be unclean. There is not a clear differentiation between the wrongness of sex before marriage and the rightness of it after. Without intention, the thought is placed in their minds that there is something evil about sex . . .

Unless she regards sex as natural, wholesome, and an enjoyable experience for both her husband and herself, her desire will be limited.

See what I mean about complicated? Because I can agree that the current evangelical teachings about sex can frequently result in this attitude. I wish she could keep on this track, but it’s Helen, so of course this happens:

When a man and woman have a wholesome attitude about sex, when they truly love each other, and are sexually awakened, they don’t need instructions about how to have sex with each other. It comes about naturally.

Excuse me while I, once again, go beat my head into a wall.

Helen, however, takes a turn toward they hysterical, and I have to share this with you all because it’s just that funny.

On occasion, a man may like his wife to be aggressive in sex . . . but a woman can be too aggressive, to the point of turning him off . . . She may dress in a frilly nightie, spray herself with perfume, give him a sexy look, and squeeze his hand . . . and this can strike him as too aggressive.

The first time I read that, I burst out laughing. Seriously, Helen– putting on a “nightie” and squeezing his hand is aggressive?! Wow. Just . . .wow. Makes me giggle imagining what she’d say if she ever ran into a dominatrix. I have a hard time imagining someone who is less aggressive than what she just described. What do you do if come-hither glances and frilly lingerie aren’t options?
Helen has exemplified in this chapter something I’m coming to see happen more often in evangelical circles. People are attempting to correct for some of the messages my generation has grown up receiving. I’ve seen articles and heard sermons recently from those who seem to realize that there are problems– they just have no clue what the problems are. Because everything about their universe is still male-centric, still oriented on the needs, concerns of men, still focused on maintaining male power, they are blind to what makes their teachings about purity so unhealthy. When you order your world around women maintaining their worth and value through sex– which purity culture does, and Helen has done above– no matter how you try to word it, you will fail to make any substantive change. Helen closes her book with a few pages of summary, and she makes it clear that the point of Fascinating Womanhood has been to show women how to “make him feel like a man.” In the end, it’s one of the dominant messages we still receive today.

Feminism

Nightline Prime and Purity Balls

white rose

I’ve seen a few documentaries about “Purity Balls” (which, every time I say that, my partner sniggers and I glare at him), and some are better than others. ABC’s Nightline Prime 20-minute documentary of the Wilson’s “14th Annual Father-Daughter Purity Ball” is not one of the better ones. The interviewer seemed to be either amused or baffled, and the only questions featured during the program seem to indicate a lack of awareness of what the underlying culture is– although she seemed to be catching on toward the end.

Because the program is so brief, it’s difficult to get a real grasp on what was actually said– the editing focused on a few ideas or phrases, so I’m left feeling that I don’t really understand Caroline Johnson or her father, Ron. However, I am familiar with the Wilsons, since they’ve shown up in a lot of the documentaries about Purity Balls, and the family, at this point, is obviously comfortable with the cameras and the questions posed by the interviewer.

The program drew attention to a few ideas presented by the Johnsons and the Wilsons– gender hierarchy, male strength and covering, and that women exist to be beautiful. The phrases they tended to concentrate on, however, were the ones designed to repulse the viewer. I don’t know how many times Johnson said something along the lines of “I’m my daughter’s boyfriend,” but it was more than just uncomfortable, and our discomfort was something that Johnson obviously found hilarious.

It was clear that both Johnson and Wilson are more than aware that what they are doing and saying is downright odd and creepy to most people in America, but it is also clear that they are proud of that. Considering that evangelical culture tends to over-emphasize concepts like the culture war, that Christianity is somehow “counter-cultural,” and that Christians are “Jesus Freaks,” this is unsurprising.

One of the interesting things to me about this documentary, however, was that it showed how these families view adolescence. When the interviewer asked Johnson about how the teenage years are supposed to be about separating from parents (a concept known as individuation), Johnson completely dismissed the entire question and its premise.

In this culture, men are encouraged to become independent adults, although only along gendered lines; boys can grow into strong, protective, warrior-like men. However, women are not given the same opportunities. They are to remain under the protective covering of their fathers– and later, their husbands. This concept appears in the language of almost every girl or woman interviewed in this program. Women are to be “on the arm of our men,” to be supporters, helpers, completers. Women are not to have their own independent identities separate from other people– our identities are centered on men.

This also shows up in how Johnson describes his role in his relationship with his daughter when it comes to her purity. He frames it in terms of “The Princess and the Frog,” and states that fathers are good at separating princes and frogs (which ignores that the frog is the prince in the original story, but ok). This is an idea that I am more than familiar with.

When I went away to graduate school, my parents were living in the mid-west and I moved to Virginia. One of the concerns I had about moving away from my family had to do with my dating life– how in the world would I be able to date someone, since I was nowhere near my parents and it would be next to impossible to get their approval? Over the two years I was away, however, I slowly came to understand that I didn’t actually need my parents to approve of the men I dated. I did date some “frogs,” that’s for sure, but it also wasn’t the horrific, disastrous train-wreck I’d always been taught it would be.

So by the time I met Handsome, I felt independent and individualized enough to start dating him without consulting my parents. I called and told my mother, of course, and she was happy and excited for me. However, when it became clear that our relationship was serious and I was falling in love with him, I told my father, and his reaction was . . . well, it was based on this idea that fathers are the ones who separate the princes from the frogs. During that conversation he told me that I was not capable of making this decision on my own.

To be clear: my father, like myself, still has a few left-over ideas from fundamentalism that crops up in interesting and usually surprising ways, and we don’t always know how they’re going to show up, or what ideas are simmering under the surface before something happens to expose them. This was one of those times.

But, it speaks to just how deeply women are viewed as incapable in this culture. Men are strong; women are weak. Men are the decision-makers; women are followers. Men are active; women are passive. Without our fathers and the “covering” they offer, we would inevitably fall away, be ripped apart by American culture, and make disastrous decisions that ruin our lives. The message is: women need men just to survive.

That idea is also reflected in how everyone in this program talks about men– the young men are taught that they need to be the “noble protectors” of women, that they are the “high priests” of their homes, that they are warriors and kings (no, really. The male version of the purity ring has four symbols on it, one of them a crown to symbolize how “men are the king”).

How men and women are viewed in this culture is extremely narrow and limited. Men and women have the God-ordained, biblically-based roles they are supposed to play, and stepping outside of those roles, they are taught, will result in unmitigated disaster. As a result, men and women who exist outside of these boundaries are severely punished by their culture– the harsh gender binary is one of the reasons why Christians can be intensely homophobic.

This culture damages both men and women, but it does so in different ways. Men are to shoulder the impossible responsibility of being the leader, protector, provider, and king of another human being– a human being they are supposedly quite capable of ruining in a single moment. Women, on the other hand, are not allowed to become a complete, independent, actualized person. We are trapped inside our supposed fragility and constantly controlled by our fear.

When men and women are constrained by these roles, these essentialist definitions of who we are allowed to be, nobody wins.

Feminism

Fascinating Womanhood Review: more childlike ways

wendy

I thought it might be appropriate to use a picture of Wendy for today’s post since Helen dedicates four pages to quoting J.M. Barrie’s The Little Minister. I’ve only ever read Peter Pan, so I’m only really familiar with Wendy, but going by how Helen has virtually assassinated the other characters she’s used as “evidence” before, I think she’s exaggerating the girlishness in Babbie’s character (the romantic interest in The Little Minister).

And, while she spends four pages quoting Barrie, she spends only half a page talking about what we’re supposed to do when our husbands are angry with us. We’re to:

1) Exaggerate by words or manner
2) Distract his attention
3) Change the subject
4) Be submissive, in a childlike way
5) Be teasingly playful

How she goes on to describe how we’re supposed to do this is ridiculous. One suggestion is to put our hands on his cheeks, look him in the eye, and say “My prince, my handsome prince.” Dear lord– if I ever did that with my partner when he is upset with me? It would certainly not help. At all. But, according to Helen, this will guarantee that he “melts.” Gah. Handsome would not melt, I guarantee you. He’d probably look at me incredulously and then walk out of the apartment.

And, can you imagine being in a discussion with a grown adult and suddenly “changing the subject” because the person you’re speaking with happens to be upset with you? We should be able to have healthy, productive discussions that operate inside each other’s boundaries, and part of that means respecting you partner enough to hear them out. I’m honestly a little surprised that Helen is suggesting these tactics– they seem to upend everything else she’s been saying about how women are to interact with their husbands.

~~~~~~~

For the first time in a long while, Helen’s actually managed to say some things that I agree with. She says she’s going to teach women how “to ask for things the right way,” but as usual she starts out be describing “the wrong way.” Here’s where we actually agree– and for the first time I even don’t mind how she said it. She says that hints, suggestions, and demands aren’t effective, and I think she’s right in encouraging directness. She also spends some time saying it’s a bad idea to be the “self-sacrificing wife,” to never ask for things just to make yourself feel unselfish and noble, and I definitely agree with that. There is, however, one method where she goes off the rails again:

You may think of all the reasons why you are justified in asking for something. Then you take the matter to your husband to try to convince him, backing it up with your reasons. This method sometimes works, but it more often invites opposition . . . you appear as a decision-making equal, prompting him to say no, just to show his authority.

Any man who says “no” for no other reason than his wife has brought him a well-thought-out argument is not worth his salt. That Helen, once again, teaches that all men are like this is incredibly insulting. Malicious people are like this. Being a “man” doesn’t automatically make you petty and vindictive.

Also the ways we’re supposed to respond to the gifts we receive are just ridiculous. Yes, when my partner bought me a complete set of Collier’s Junior Classics after he’d heard me talk about how my childhood set had been lost, I sat there and cried because it made me that happy (same reaction happened when he got me a boxed set of Harry Potter in hardbound). Yes, I can get wildly excited and emotive. That doesn’t make my enthusiastic reactions the only right way to respond to a gift. My personality is not every woman’s personality, and that is perfectly fine. But, not to Helen it’s not. In order to be a fascinating woman, we have to eviscerate our own personalities and become this  . . . hideous thing.

The last part of the chapter, though, just made me laugh.

If you want to create some youthful styles of your own, especially housedresses, visit a little girl’s shop. There you will see buttons and bows, plaids, pleats, stripes, jumpers, daisies . . . all of their clothes are pretty.

Also be conscious of hairstyles . . . little girls wear ribbons, bows, barettes, and flowers in their hair. They wear cute little hats.

I just about died laughing at the mental image this conjured up. Seriously? Her best advice to “appear youthful” is to dress like a toddler from the Victorian era?

Also, I just googled “hairstyle ribbons” and “hairstyle flowers” and all the most of the results you get for grown women are bridal styles, which, admittedly, can be gorgeous, but it made me wonder . . . women probably are putting flowers and ribbons in their hair on their wedding day to invoke this image of youthfulness and girlhood . . . and, well, probably virginity, too. Our culture is obsessed with our women remaining permanently young, and I’m beginning to think that by “young” we don’t mean “early 20s” but “12.”

Feminism

Fascinating Womanhood Review: childlikeness

venetian girl

You may have noticed a while back on Helen’s chart that one of the “Human Qualities” that every “fascinating woman” should have is “childlikeness.” The first time I saw that particular item, I about gagged. I had no idea where Helen could be going with that– telling women that they need to be “childlike” just seems . . . well, creepy and gross.

However, in the last two years since I picked this book up again, I’ve been doing a lot of reading, and one of the things I’ve found is that “childlikeness” is a trait American culture values in women. Women are infantalized in a million ways every day, and we idolize youthful women. But it’s more than just our physical appearance, or our age. Our culture values girlishness, childlikeness, and youthfulness in our personalities, our character, our behavior . . . There’s a reason why “virgin” has also traditionally meant “young girl.”

Helen starts out with a brief introduction, claiming that cultivating “childlikeness” will make your marriage fun, balance out the “angelic qualities” so you don’t become “cloysome,” and, somehow, childlikeness is supposed to make sure we don’t become a doormat. How being like a child helps you avoid being a person that can be easily overruled is beyond me, but let’s see where she goes with it.

Her first chapter on childlikeness covers how women are supposed to model how little girls get angry.

Childlike anger is the cute, pert, saucy anger of a little child . . . when such a child is teased, she doesn’t respond with some hideous sarcasm. Instead, she stamps he foot and shakes her curls and pouts. She gets adorably angry at herself because her efforts to respond are impotent . . .

A scene such as this invariably makes us smile with amusement . . . This is much the same feeling a woman inspires in a man when she expresses anger in a childlike way. Her ridiculous exaggeration of manner makes him suddenly want to laugh; makes him feel, in contrast, stronger, more sensible, and more of a man.

She uses the word saucy throughout this chapter, and, once again, I find myself identifying with what she’s describing. I’ve always been a little bit what my mother describes as “sassy.” And, I am one of those people that when I am pissed it always seems to communicate the way she describes.

In the first few weeks of being married, my partner did something that infuriated me. I actually started waving my arms around and stomped my foot before literally flouncing away to rage-clean my house. I don’t even remember what he’d done to make me so angry, but the fact that his reaction to me being angry was to laugh — you can imagine that didn’t help his case that much.

What I’ve found over the last year– not a very long time to be married, I admit– is that this “childlike” (ew) reaction isn’t helpful. It doesn’t accomplish anything. Helen makes the argument that women need to have “childlike anger” for the simple– and only– reason that it will prevent us from “building resentment.” We don’t express our anger like a child in order to communicate effectively– nope. We do it to “vent.” That’s it. Not to nurture a healthy marriage, not to have the root problem addressed. What has been helpful for my marriage? Looking my partner in the eye and saying I have a problem with that or I don’t like it when you do this.

But honesty is too much of a stretch for Helen:

Learn childlike mannerisms by studying the antics of little girls. Stomp your foot, lift your chin high, square your shoulders, pout, put both hands on your hips, open you eyes wide, mumble under your breath, or turn and walk briskly away, then pause and look back over your shoulder. Or, beat your firsts on your husband’s chest.

You may have to be an actress to succeed, if only a ham actress. But, remember, you’ll be launching an acting career that will save you pain, tension, frustration, a damaged relationship, and perhaps even a marriage. Is any acting career of greater importance? No, so turn on the drama.

She goes on to give us a bunch of different ways we can be childlike when we’re angry, including things like calling our husbands “hairy beasts” and using threats like “I’ll never speak to you again!” (which she refers to as an “exaggeration”).

She does, eventually, get to a section she labels “How to Overcome Anger,” which, perhaps unsurprisingly has nothing to do with open communication and treating a woman’s feelings as legitimate and worth solving. No, we just have to “learn to be forgiving, understanding, and patient.”

There isn’t a single part of this chapter where Helen encourages women to be honest, to work out the problems we have by having an actual conversation with our partners. No– we “act” like a child.

Feminism

Fascinating Womanhood Review: radiant health

boating

If you’re thinking this chapter is going to be chock full to the brim with fat-shaming, ableism, and classism– you’d be right!

First off, there’s a lot in this chapter that’s just common sense– especially since it focuses on eating a healthy diet and exercising. From my short life, it seems like most of what we hear from medical professionals is that eating your fruits and vegetables and exercising seems to be the bulk of their advice.

However, that’s not where Helen goes with it, since her definition of “eating right” is only attainable by rich people. When someone tells me that I can’t cook with canned or frozen food and must only buy organic, and then links this to whether or not my husband will love me, the only thing I can think is well, shit. I’m living on a solidly middle-class budget, and I can’t even afford to buy only fresh (and organic!) food. Later, she says we have to drink only “pure water” and says to buy bottled if we have to, which… this.

Then she moves into getting a good night’s rest, and this is where she gets ableist: some people have insomnia, including me. Getting a good night’s rest just isn’t possible for me most of the time. She also tells us to go to bed before 10p and to sleep on a “good, firm mattress.” I spent most of my life thinking I was a horribly lazy person because I was a night owl– for me, I get my best rest when I go to sleep around midnight and wake up around 9a. That’s just how I function the best. If I try to go to sleep earlier, I have nightmares, I wake up three or four times, and I get up in the morning feeling groggy and confused. It took me until I was 24 to figure out that I just didn’t need to force myself into a sleeping pattern that didn’t fit me. Same thing goes for “firm mattress.” I wake up in pain if I have to sleep on a firm mattress and sleeping on one for more than 3 days… nope. Just nope.

Here we hit “Exercise Regularly” and even more ableism. Because not everyone can exercise, and a lot of people have things like fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis, even when they’re incredibly young. And yes, people like this hear “exercise!” all of the time, but it’s especially problematic given the context of Helen’s book: you must do exactly what she says or your husband won’t love you.

But, it was the “Control Weight” section that really got me:

If you have a chunky figure you cannot appear dainty, feminine, or girlish, even with the help of soft, flowing, feminine clothes. No matter what you do to disguise it, you cannot hide excess weight. When you get down to normal size, you will look many times more attractive in your clothes. You will appear younger and more feminine, and will acquire a new vitality to your face and features. Just from the standpoint of appearance, it is well worth it to lose excess weight.

Excuse me while I go beat my head into a wall.

At 5’8” and 150 pounds, and with a BMI of 23, that puts me on the upper end of “normal weight.” I’m skinny, slender, whatever. However, I could never in a million years be described as “dainty.” Words like “healthy” and “big boned” and “curvy” — all code words for fat— have been applied to me my entire life. I desperately wanted to hear willowy, delicate, dainty and that desire to be treated as thin hasn’t really gone away, even though I actually am thin. This is just crazy-making, because it really seems that even thin women like me will never be good enough– not even stick-thin fashion models are thin enough.

But, I think the worst part of this chapter is under the heading “Have a Healthy Mental Attitude.” It’s not uncommon to hear people talk about “positive” and “negative” emotions, even outside of religious contexts. The Power of Positive Thinking –itself a Christian book and even quoted by Helen– did very well outside of the Christian market, and so has The SecretHelen is talking about the same thing here, and she lists what she considers “destructive mental attitudes”: worry, fear, anxiety, pessimism, hate, resentment, impatience, envy, anger. Which, ok, I can buy into the notion that your mental health can affect your physical health, but I am a little tired of lists like these.

Hate? God hates plenty of things (primarily injustice, greed, oppression), so how exactly is this a “bad” thing to feel?
Anger? Pretty sure Jesus got angry, too, so . . . 
Impatience? Yup, I’m positive God is described as impatient

For me, personally, recognizing that there’s no reason to feel guilt over my anxiety, or that I can embrace anger and even hate has probably been some of the most liberating realizations I’ve had over the past few years. It’s not wrong to be angry. It’s not destructive. I don’t have to feel ashamed because of my anxiety. The problem isn’t having the emotion at all. There are things worth being angry over. There are some things that I should not have patience with. There are some things that need to be hated.

But, to Helen, if I’m not constantly smiling, radiant, cheerful, enthusiastic, and optimistic, then I’m not being feminine. I’m failing God and my husband and society when I don’t smile every single second of every single day.

Feminism

Fascinating Womanhood Review: radiant happiness

ionian dance

Thankfully, this chapter was a little easier to get through, compared to last week’s. We’re back to Helen’s ordinary shenanigans, including her horrific twisting of literary characters in order to suit her purposes (it’s Natasha from War and Peace this time). One of the things that bothers me about the way Helen interacts with fictional characters is that it’s not much different than how she treats actual people– she reduces their complexity and nuance down to a single trait. All of our richness and depth as people is lost in favor of making sure women understand they’re not allowed to be complicated and human.

Her discussion on what it means to be “radiantly happy” is the same sort of always/never dichotomy she’s set up the entire book. You must be radiantly happy, you must not be serious or somber.

So what exactly is “radiant happiness”?

Radiant happiness is a voluntary quality such as when you suddenly decide to smile. It is cheerfulness, laughter, singing, joyfulness, smiles, bright eyes, sparkle, vivacity, enthusiasm, optimism, a sense of humor, a sunny disposition, and . . . the power to lift the spirits of others.

Ok, then. I don’t know about you, but this, to me, sounds like a personality trait, and it’s probably the most straightforward example of how Helen really wants women to change their personalities according to what she thinks men like.

But first, a confession: I fit this description . . . most of the time. I am one of the people who have this personality trait– this sort of “radiant happiness” comes easily to me, although I don’t think I’d ever describe it in terms of happiness. I’m vivacious, energetic, enthusiastic– I love laughing, and I sing a lot. And, since I’m one of the people with this trait, I know first-hand that a lot of people find it annoying. Over time, I’ve had to learn when to tone it down and when I get to let go. When I was a child, my mother described me as a “1,000-watt lightbulb among nightlights.” While this “radiant happiness” can be a boon, I’ll be the first to admit that it can get a little overwhelming. Other ways I’ve been described? “The Friendly Freight Train.” “The Friendly Bulldozer.”

So, when Helen spends the rest of the chapter talking about just how much men adore women with this quality, I know from personal experience that it just ain’t so. Sure. Sometimes my bubbliness is your particular cup of tea– and sometimes it’s not. I happen to be a good match for my partner, but I know plenty of people who wouldn’t be able to stand being in the same house with me after a week. There’s a reason why all of my best friends in college decided not to room together.

Helen’s insistence that all of the things that she’s described– most of which have been personality traits– are things that all men are guaranteed to lose their minds over leaves me exasperated. People are different. It seems like such a basic idea, but apparently not when it comes to relationship advice. Nope, then it’s all one-size-fits-all.

Also, Helen does not let you forget that everything you do, you must do it for teh menz. Women who “lack beauty… due to irregular features” all have “radiant happiness” because they have “worked diligently to make up for their defects by acquiring qualities that really count with men.” And “Women have always tried to be attractive to men.” One word, Helen: lesbian. Also, there are an amazing amount of straight women who could not give a bother about how attractive they are to men– myself included. I’ve been called a d*** more than once in my life and have had multiple men tell me that I must be gay because I don’t care about what men think about me.

Moving on, women who are “radiantly happy” are never “overly serious” and would never tell a “silly joke,” which could “detract from their feminine charm”– I suppose because it takes intelligence to by funny, and we can’t have that in our women.

The one thing I do agree with Helen on: one of the best lessons my mother ever taught me was to laugh at myself, and it’s served me well. I’m not going to go as far as Helen and say that all women everywhere must react to every little mistake or misfortune with laughter– that’s just ridiculous– but being able to dump spaghetti all over the kitchen and yourself (a situation Helen describes shortly after they’d gotten married) and then laugh can be a healthy reaction. It’s not the only healthy reaction, though.

Over the summer I had a few cavities filled– one of which was in between my front teeth. I got something stuck there Saturday night, and when I  flossed, I ripped my filling out. It wasn’t horribly painful, and I got it fixed in 20 twenty minutes on Monday, but on Saturday night for reasons beyond my comprehension I was upset. I started crying, and then I got really angry, and then I was crying again, and then I was stomping out of the apartment to go get a temporary filling from CVS. I don’t know why I didn’t just laugh this off like I normally can, but my tears, anger, and then grumpiness certainly didn’t make me less attractive to my partner– because my partner is an adult and he is more than capable of seeing me as a complicated human being.

But, to Helen, my reaction Saturday night would have beyond-the-pale awful. I should never have allowed myself to be upset over ripping a filling out and then having to go to the dentist on Monday to get it filled again. No, I should have stood myself in front of a mirror and practiced “smiling with my entire face” before I let my partner anywhere near me.  Because, to Helen, I don’t get to be a person. The only thing I could possibly worry about is whether or not some patriarchal chauvinistic misogynist thinks I’m attractive.

Feminism

what book should I review next?

My extended review of Fascinating Womanhood is almost over– it should be done in about five weeks, unless something comes up. When I started this review project, I began it with the intention that this would be a regular feature on my blog– not just Fascinating Womanhood, but other Christian marriage-advice books or “biblical womanhood” books.

As this project is close to being finished, I’ve started doing research into what book I should do next, and frankly, it’s a little bit overwhelming. There are so many, and with very few exceptions the Christian-marriage-advice-book market is flooded with books that lean toward or outright embrace complementarianism, patriarchy, and traditional gender roles.

So, I’m open to suggestions in the comments, or you can pick one of the books in the poll above. Each of the books in the above poll came from some form of “best Christian marriage book” list– Amazon, goodreads, ChristianBook.com, etc. My reading through comments and reviews indicated that all of these books are popular in a variety of settings– that they’re assigned as “required reading” for pre-marital counseling sessions, that people read them individually, that they’re recommended by pastors for struggling marriages in a wide array of churches and denominations.

The poll will be open for a month.

Also, since this is the first time I’ve done something like this, let me know if you have any technical problems!

Feminism

Fascinating Womanhood Review: feminine role vs. working wife

hammock

First of all, I want to address a comment that I keep getting on posts like this one: that Helen Andelin (or someone like her) doesn’t speak for modern, mainstream evangelicalism. That all of these women and men hold to rather extreme positions and the bulk of evangelicals today disagree with them. And, in one way, that is absolutely correct. They are extreme. They made their money and got to where they are today by being extreme.

However, and I’ve said this before and I will say it until I am blue in the face: For every single concept Helen has promoted in this book, there is a modern evangelical person making the same exact argument.

I’d like everyone, before we get into today’s post, to read “When a Woman Makes a lot of Money,” by Mary Kassian, published in June last year. Mary Kassian also published a book with Nancy Leigh DeMoss last year called True Woman 101: Divine Design, and you can find two posts I wrote critiquing an online interview they had with Focus on the Family here and here. Read through everything that they said, and tell me that what they say aren’t the same exact arguments Helen’s been making. They talk about how being “strong and independent” can only lead to “dysfunction” and ultimately depression and suicide. They say that not adhering to old-fashioned gender roles will make your children gay. They tell women in abusive marriages to “lay down their rights.” How is any of that substantively different from what Helen’s been saying?

And, they even say this:

Don’t make decisions based on practicality. You may have a job where you earn more money than your husband, and it may be practical for you to go out and earn the money and for him to stay home. But there’s something in terms of identity that you’re going against when you do that . . . Women have a unique and specific responsibility for the home in a way that men do not have.

Helen says this, almost word-for-word. And Kassian, in the article I linked to, said this:

Because when you boil it right down, you’re not going to be satisfied with a man who’s a beta boy. Deep down, every woman wants her man to be a man. And you’ll only inspire him to be a man when you act like a woman . . . when you choose to stand against culture and embrace, delight, and live according to God’s created design.

And you’ll only inspire him to be a man when you act like a woman.

That’s the only message in Helen’s book, really. She harps on it every single chapter:

When a man is in the presence of a tender, trustful, dependent woman, he immediately feels a sublime expansion of his power to protect and shelter this frail and delicate creature. In the presence of such weakness, he feels stronger, more competent, bigger, manlier than ever.

Yes, the language Helen is using is right out of the 60s. But it’s the same idea. And who are the people making this argument today? Focus on the Family. Moody Publishers. John Piper. Mark Driscoll. Some of the biggest, most influential people and organizations in evangelical culture are simply presenting the same argument in 2010 language. And if I sound frustrated, it’s because I’m terrified.

~~~~~~~~~~

Anyway, on to the actual chapter for this week. It’s about everything you could have expected: she lays out all the reasons a woman that could possibly justify a woman working outside the home, and it’s when your family is destitute and starving, you are putting your husband through college, or if you have no children at home (although she warns that you must be available to your children and grandchildren at all times).

Then we get the reasons for why you should never work, and one of them is “to do something important.” If a woman wants to make noble contributions, to use her gifts, talents, abilities, skills, or intelligence to try to make the world a better place: nope. You have a “false notion.” As amazing as curing cancer might be, you must be in the “simple routine of your home,” because, if you aren’t, your children are going to hell. No, really. That’s what she says. Then she goes on to give a few pages of quotes from “career women” who regretted having careers.

She also, fascinatingly, brings up something some of you have mentioned: someone apparently pointed out the hypocritical contradiction of telling other women that they’re not allowed to be career women when she herself is a career woman. Her response is hysterical:

Call me what you like, business executive, career woman, or working wife, but I never looked at it this way. To me it has been a mission of charity . . . the personal sacrifice has been well worth it.

I never wanted to be a career woman, see? I wanted to be a stay-at-home wife! That’s what makes it ok! I didn’t want to do this. It was a sacrifice, a necessary evil!

Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that.

Then she moves on to the age-old question: should daughters be allowed to go to college? Answer: no. Because it could make her independent (“by doing so she loses her need for manly care”), she could escape her marriage (“the ability to make money can be a dangerous thing for a woman”), and she’d lose out on the opportunity to read lots and lots of literature! (apparently, it “makes you more interesting” to men).

Also, if women go out to work, it could “rob your husband of his right” to be needed and masculine, and you could even lose your “womanliness” and your “charm.” (charm = attractiveness to men, as defined by Helen). Also, you’re destroying society when you work and wrecking untold damage on our national economy (something she says with absolutely nothing to support her).

So, there you have it, all you women who work: you’re hurting men, making yourself unattractive, and you’re also ruining the United States economy. Go you.