Browsing Tag

feminism

the awesome power of the gender swap

trigger warning for transphobia

I love gender swapping.

LOVE IT.

And, I’ve also been fascinated by it for as long as I can remember. I started writing gender-flipped fanfiction stories of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings when I was 11, although I had no idea that’s what I was doing at the time. Part of it was realizing that the books and stories that I adored had no women in them, so I provided my own by making Obi-Wan or Legolas a girl. But, as I wrote out those rather silly little stories in leftover scraps of notebooks, I was doing something interesting: when I transformed Obi-Wan into a girl, what I identified about his personality and character stayed the same. I wasn’t seeing Obi-Wan or Legolas as men, and I wasn’t internally labeling their characteristics as inherently masculine. The fact that I wasn’t amputating their character or personality when I made them women speaks volumes for my frame of mind when I was younger.

As I got older, though, I stopped doing that. I was still writing fan-fiction, but I started creating my own female characters and inserting them into the larger narrative– although these characters were literally silenced or repressed in some way. One character had her memory wiped. Another was brainwashed into believing she was weak. All of these stories revolved around these women discovering themselves and their power (oh, and falling in love with either Obi-Wan or Legolas . . . blush).

I forgot about gender-swapping or gender-flipping. My innocent childhood belief that men and women are people with their own individual differences was slowly eroded over years of gender-essentialist conditioning. Lines appeared between what was “male” and “female.” I learned that there must be hard, clear boundaries between gender and sex or our entire society falls apart. We have to be able to know what gender a person is by looking at them for less than a second. If we have to guess, or it’s not instantly obvious, than that person is obviously a pervert.

This was brutal on my personal development because I was growing up in the Quiverful South. Even though I fit into a lot of “girly-girl” stereotypes of American culture, I did not fit into the “lady like” stereotype I was supposed to be earnestly devoting myself to. I actively hated it, all while believing that I must be that way in order to be following God. I didn’t exactly have a lot of options. I spent most of my teenage years being taken aside and lectured by most of the women in my church. There would be whole Sunday school lessons devoted to the “womanly arts,” and the other three girl would be looking at me sideways because I was the only girl in that room who “needed to hear it.” When I would play with the other children and teenagers at homeschool meetups, I would be heavily berated by the other teenagers for wanting to be a soldier or a pilot in the war story we were acting out instead of the girlfriend back home pining away for her love. For a while I would fight for it, but . . . I started giving in. Ok, and I would admit in defeat. I’m a girl, I guess I should go pretend to be a secretary.

When I eventually decided I was going to college, several of the women at church told me that they had “washed their hands of me” and that I was basically doomed. I was never going to be a godly woman if I kept doing things like believing that I deserved an education and did not submit to my proper place below men. It was “feminine pride” and it would be my downfall.

However, when I getting ready for college, my mother decided that I was going to eventually decide I wanted to wear makeup, and since I knew absolutely nothing about it, she bought me Face Forward by Kevyn Aucoin. I didn’t even crack the spine my freshman year, but it turned out she was right– I did eventually decide I wanted to understand this whole “makeup” thing.

When I opened the book, I swear, magic dust must have fallen out of it.

At first, I was fascinated by the amazing transformations he was able to accomplish. He took pretty-but-still–normal-looking-women and created movie stars. It was amazing, and it made me feel powerful. I learned I could do the same thing on my own, although with much subtler effect. I could make my lips look poutier, or my eyes more cat-like. I thought it was incredible, and played around with “make overs” for many of my friends.

The back half of the book, though . . . initially, I didn’t go anywhere near it. Kevyn devotes a huge section of his book to incredibly dramatic make-ups, making over Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis and things– which was amazing how skillfully he did it. And then I turned the page, and staring up at me was Amber Valetta:

made up to look like both Clark Gable and Carole Lombard.

A few pages later, and Gwyneth Paltrow was James Dean.

Another page, and I saw someone named Alex who Kevyn had transformed into Linda Evangelista:

At first, my years of gender essentialist beliefs kicked in and I avoided the back of the book like the plague. I couldn’t force myself to go anywhere near that– but what else could you expect from a male makeup artist? Obviously something was very wrong with him, for him to be in a career that should only appeal to women. That’s why he’d done that. Because he was fundamentally unable to see the world properly. See? That’s what not having a Christian world view will do to you. You won’t see how clear and purposeful God was in creating two very separate, very distinct genders.

But . . . there were moments when I would go through those pages and stare. And I would feel horrible, wracked with guilt, and I would tell myself it was just morbid curiosity. That was it. I wasn’t feeling drawn to those images. There wasn’t anything there that was speaking to me in a way I couldn’t understand. No.

Eventually– a very long eventually— I started seeing those pictures the way 11-year-old-me would have seen them. As interesting. As powerful. As a very basic identification that we are maybe not as different as I’d been taught to believe. That I wasn’t limited by the “female role” that was being ascribed to me– that I could stretch beyond those requirements and figure out who I was and what I wanted independent of what sex or gender I “belonged” to. I could explore the parts of myself that weren’t ladylike. I could be proud of the characteristics I had that were “masculine.” I didn’t have to be ashamed.

So, today, when I see artists like Maaria re-imagine a whole world by asking the question does Harry Potter need to be a boy and create astounding art:

I’ve learned to appreciate both the question they’re asking and the statement they’re making. They’re pulling us into a world where everything doesn’t have to be the way we’ve always believed it is– that we have the power and ability to change and grow and be something more.

October 17, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism, Social Issues

ordeal of the bitter waters, part five

I puzzled over yarek naphal for days– I dug through commentary after commentary, through lexicons, through concordances, through history books– and what I found was frustrating. Of the people who bothered to remark on what yarek naphal meant, most seemed comfortable assuming that “thigh to rot” was a euphemism for miscarriage– but no one said why. It was usually a short phrase, perhaps a sentence, and then the commentary would move on to explanations why this ritual appeared in Numbers. Exasperated, I ranted for a bit on twitter, and one of my amazing readers, Jennifer, directed me to some resources I am ashamed to say I hadn’t thought about.

She gently pointed me in the direction of Judaism, and told me that I was likely to find answers there that I was unlikely to find elsewhere.

She was right.

When I first started researching the Numbers 5 pssage in Judaism, I was incredibly overwhelmed. Many of the websites I was visiting assumed you had a basic knowledge of Judaism– which I most definitely did not. I had to familiarize myself with terms like Tanakh and Torah Shebictav and Mishnah.

So, I started reading what the Mishnah (the written record of rabbinic oral tradition) had to say about Numbers 5. This ritual, known as “The Ordeal of the Bitter Waters” in Christianity, is referred to in Judaism as the Sotah (“Errant Woman”). One of the first things that was consistently pointed out is that the Sotah is a specific type of ritual very common in ancient Middle Eastern cultures– the “divine ordeal.” Western culture is most familiar with the “divine ordeal” in the form of ordeal by cold water— commonly used in witch trials. However, what is curious about the Sotah is that this is the only time that this form of ritual appears anywhere in the Tanakh. There is no other form of “divine ordeal” in Judaism. It is also significant to note that the Sotah was discontinued, and there are no records of it ever being performed.

However, the startling thing that stood out to me was that in translations by Jewish scholars– people who are steeped in the culture that I am wholly separated from– the way they translate yarek naphal is as “discharged uterus” (this is also how it appears in the NRSV). And what I discovered is that this is because there is a linguistic connection between “thigh,” “belly,” and reproductive systems. Yarek, in other places in the Tanakh, means “place of procreative power“– for both men and women. And naphal is actually closer to “fall,” but it is connected to violent death, to wasting away, and to failure.

The linguistic connections in yarek naphal paints a picture of something either dying or wasting away in a woman’s uterus.

This picture clicked with me in an epiphany a little while later as I was reading Half the Sky. In it, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn spend a lot of time talking about the global maternal mortality rate, and one of the primary reasons for it: fistulas. Specifically, obstetric fistulas due to obstructed labor. Nicholas and Sheryl spent time in Africa, in hospitals dedicated to helping women with this medical problem. They tell the stories of many women who have fistulas, and the medical care they desperately need.

But, as I read, something struck me. When they described the horrific plight of these women, they described these woman as surrounded by shame and ostracism– because their thighs are literally rotting away. For the women who survive, they are shunned by their families and communities because of this. It is not an image that I, as a modern American, am at all familiar with. I’m barely even aware of maternal mortality (although America’s rate is the same as Iran, Bahrain, and Hungary, and close to Saudi Arabia and Turkey)– but, it is an image that would have been common in the ancient middle East– and in 1611 England, when the translators chose the phrase “thigh to rot” for yarak naphal.

I had an answer– the Sotah ritual, if the woman was guilty, would resort in any pregnancy being aborted as well as a lifetime of barrenness.

As I continued reading about the ritual and Hebrew perspectives on it, the question that I’d been terrified to face, the question what does this mean about God, slowly faded, and I realized something that’s continued to help me in the few months since then.

I was afraid of Numbers 5 because I didn’t know how to face a God that would command that. I didn’t know if I could continue believing in a God that forced abortions. To me, that’s the only thing this passage could mean; God had created a ritual that forced abortions in order to prove a woman’s guilt.

But, as I explored the “ordeal of bitter waters,” I began to view the ritual through a different light. My perspective grew, and I attempted to see Numbers 5 not through the eyes that I’d been given as a child– the eyes that saw a holy, righteous, wrathful God ruthlessly punishing disobedience– but through eyes that see God as a mother-father trying to protect her children from themselves. Something Rabbi Riskin wrote nudged me in that direction:

Judaism emerged from the Middle East, where jealousy is rampant and women are often considered the chattel of their husbands. A jealous husband can easily persuade himself to harm the wife whom he suspects of adultery. I therefore believe this trial of the bitter waters provided a marvelous psychological ploy to protect the woman from a husband’s wrath.

This was an idea I started encountering everywhere I went. In a culture almost completely dominated by patriarchal jealousy and the belief that women were property, this ritual could have been instituted to give women a concrete, unassailable way to prove their innocence. Husbands could not divorce their wives on the grounds of some nebulous suspicion that she’d been unfaithful– he’d have to prove it in front of God and men. A woman could agree to the Sotah, knowing that she was innocent, and be supported by the kohen, the priests of the Tabernacle, and G-d themself.

But . . . now I felt truly rudderless. There’s no truly pro-life stance anywhere in the Bible. Between the story of Tamar; passages in Isaiah and 2 Kings that declare “their women with child shall be ripped up” and another in Hosea that God will give them “miscarrying wombs”; the fact that pregnant women aren’t counted twice in the census; that there’s only a fee for causing a woman to miscarry instead of the usual execution for murder . . . none of it adds up to a “biblical” position on a-fetus-is-fully-human-with-rights that pro-life advocates say that the Bible “clearly” has.

All of this led me away from thinking of “pro-choice” on purely religious terms. I had to look at it as a citizen, as a part of my culture, as a voting woman who would either have to take a stand on this issue or melt away into the shadows.

October 15, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

ordeal of the bitter waters, part three

This is simply my story of how I became pro-choice. I’m not writing this to convince anyone– it was a journey that took years, and what convinced me may not convince anyone else. I believe that writing my story for you is important; in all the reading I did during those years, I only found one person who was willing to explain what she had been through. Hearing her story helped me process what I was going through. I hope it does the same for someone else.

For over a year I existed in that place of tension– somewhere in-between pro-choice and pro-life, uncertain of some things, yet completely certain of others.

One of the things I was utterly certain of was that a fetus was a person. Another thing I was also completely certain of was that this was the only real question in the debate: Pro-choice people believe that a fetus was not a person, pro-life people believe that it is, and that was that.

The reason I believed that a fetus was a person, endowed with the same inalienable rights as all other persons, was, of course, my religion. I had been raised a fundamentalist Christian, and excepting a four-year period when I didn’t particularly care if God existed or not, Christianity’s principles regarding the sacredness of all life, including the lives of the unborn, was something I simply accepted. There were nebulous, unformed arguments I knew of– things about Elizabeth’s son, John the Baptist, leaping in her womb and being fearfully and wonderfully made. It was just a part of my faith. For me, life began at conception. It was the only way I knew how to think about this mystery, this miracle, in concrete terms.

And then, in November 2012, when I was researching NFP versus hormonal contraception, I stumbled across this:

So let’s get this straight, taking birth control makes a woman’s body LESS likely to dispel fertilized eggs. If you believe that life begins at conception, shouldn’t it be your moral duty to reduce the number of zygote “abortions?” If you believe that a zygote is a human, you actually kill more babies by refusing to take birth control.

I . . . had never heard this before. It took me a while just to process what I’d read. A woman’s body naturally expels the vast majority of fertilized eggs? I was faced with a conundrum I had never encountered before: what is conception? Does it really happen when sperm meets egg? How can that be, when up to 80% of all zygotes are naturally aborted? I read the common arguments– that this is just a natural part of the reproductive process. However, I noticed a contradiction I couldn’t overcome. In discussions concerning hormonal contraception, what frequently came up was that if the body expels it naturally, it’s normal and acceptable, but if a woman swallows a pill, it’s . . . murder? That didn’t make any sense to me. If the “intention” of not wanting to become pregnant makes it murder, how is not doing everything within our power to save this fully endowed human life not at the very least medical neglect? No one seemed to be very bothered by the fact that perhaps 80% of the human population was being decimated by “natural processes.” If conception really happens when the egg is fertilized . . . how is that anything less than a horrific tragedy?

It bothered me that we could argue that conception was the moment of ensoulment, but that all these souls– all these billions and billions of fully human people– were dying in a matter of hours or days, and no one in the pro-life movement seemed to mind that it was happening. And it hit me: I didn’t value a zygote. I didn’t really see it as a person, with life. I believed that a zygote was a person in a rhetorical, philosophical sense– it was merely a logical place to draw the line for the purpose of debate.

My initial response was simply to bump it forward: oh, that must mean that ensoulment happens when the egg implants on the uterine wall, which is how the medical community defines pregnancy. But . . . up to 70% of all pregnancies are also naturally aborted.

The confusion was overwhelming. I avoided thinking about it– really thinking about it– for months, simply because I couldn’t handle it. The closest word I have to describe my feelings when I tried to wrestle with this issue was panic. This was the first time I started reading about, and actually considering, the concept potential life. In the evangelical atmosphere I’d grown up in, there was no such thing as “potential life”– things are either alive or they are not. It is a alive, or it is a rock. It is alive, or it is dead. There’s no such thing as some nebulous, murky, in-between life-but-not-alive state. That was simply a rhetorical invention of anti-life people who want the right to murder babies.

Which, I ironically discovered, is not really true. In fact, “potential life” is a very, very old concept:

And therefore the following question may be very carefully inquired into and discussed by learned men, though I do not know whether it is in man’s power to resolve it: At what time the infant begins to live in the womb: whether life exists in a latent form before it manifests itself in the motions of the living being.

St. Augustine, from If They have Ever Lived

St. Augustine wrote that. Augustine. And he wrote it sometime in the early 5th century. Christianity had been wrestling with the concept of potential life almost as long as it has existed. I knew that Augustine was influenced by the classical Greek authors who also all believed in some pre-life-yet-alive-state, but he was not alone. The idea of potential life was one of the first that I discovered that I immediately latched on to; something inside of me resonated with this idea. Intuitively, it felt true. It made sense. It aligned with not only my experiences, but what I was starting to feel was a communal experience: somehow, as a pregnancy progresses from zygote to baby, we respond to that.

And pro-life people are not the only ones who feel this way:

It was when I [Noami Wolf] was four months pregnant, sick as a dog, and in the middle of an argument, that I realized I could no longer tolerate the fetus-is-nothing paradigm of the pro-choice movement. I was being interrogated by a conservative, and the subject of abortion rights came up. “You’re four months pregnant,” he said. “Are you going to tell me that’s not a baby you’re carrying?”

Had I not been so nauseated and so cranky and so weighed down with the physical gravity of what was going on inside me, I might not have told what is the truth for me. “Of course it’s a baby,” I snapped. And went rashly on: “And if I found myself in circumstances in which I had to make the terrible decision to end this life, then that would be between myself and God.”

But, even as I settled into this concept of potential life, I realized that I was in serious trouble. Because, the only concrete thing I was clinging to had evaporated. The unshakable belief that conception is the beginning and conception is life was gone, and I couldn’t touch bottom. If there is no beginning, if there’s this slow, inexorable process of not-quite-life-becoming-life, then I had to ask myself the question: am I even pro-life at all?

So, in my twilight hour, when I had completely exhausted every other resource, when there was nothing left to research, no more perspectives left to read and understand, no other opinions to listen to, no more facts . . . I opened my Bible, hoping that it would be the place I could discover some kind of an answer. And, for what was probably the first time in my life, I turned to the Bible completely empty of what I believed it said. I didn’t know what it said at all.

What I found shocked me.

October 11, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

ordeal of the bitter waters, part two

For a long time– years, actually– I was in a very similar space to many of you. It’s a place that is beginning to fill with people who are searching for answers and realizing that there aren’t many. So, I used to exist in a sort of limbo where nothing quite makes sense, but somehow it feels the most honest and the most compassionate. It’s an in-between place where your hearts can grieve over a tragedy, but still see the necessity for women to have access to safe reproductive medicine. Being willing to protect the reproductive rights of women, all while believing that abortion is morally wrong. Politically and legally necessary, but still wrong.

The interesting thing about this place is that there is a huge spectrum. No one is there for exactly the same reason, and the gray is constantly shifting. When I first entered that space, I was there because I had my first glimpse at a truly harsh, broken reality.

For most of my life, I believed that almost all abortions were wrong– evil, actually. The only exception– the only one— was in cases where the pregnancy threatened the life of the mother. Only then was it acceptable. Only then. Exceptions for rape and incest weren’t even on my horizon– after all, why punish an innocent baby? It’s not his fault that the father was a rapist. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and the words would come out glib and blithe while I confidently flipped my hair and turned up my nose at women who would murder their own baby.

But then I came staggering, bewildered, into the gray place. Because, at the time, I didn’t have the word rape for what had happened to me. The only thing I knew was that the thought of having my fiancé’s baby terrified me for reasons I couldn’t explain. I could not have his baby. I could not. And I didn’t understand why. But, in those weeks, before I miscarried (most pregnancies fail in the first few weeks), I came to understand that there were probably thousands of girls who were so frightened they could barely breathe or eat or sleep, and I could no longer judge them– because I was one. It took me years to understand that one of the reasons why the thought of carrying my abuser’s baby frightened me beyond reason was that he was also my rapist.

And that’s when I understood that being pro-life and advocating for the rape exception was still wrong. Not because of what I used to believe, no– it’s wrong because it wouldn’t actually be an exception. It’s a totally hollow and empty, utterly useless stance.

Because, if I’d lived in a system where you have to prove you were raped? I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I didn’t even understand that I was raped– and, even if I had, that would have meant going through the excruciating, traumatic process of reporting him. All of that would have had to happen before I could have even called a clinic. And the thought of living in that world . . . it sickens me. And when I first stumbled into the gray place, one of the first things I discovered was that, in 31 states, rapists can sue for custody of the child— and they frequently do this in order to get the woman to drop criminal charges. If she doesn’t take him to trial for raping her, he’ll surrender all legal rights to the baby.

My eyes were forced open, and the reality I’d been denying all my life came crashing in. None of what I’d been taught to believe was as clear-cut, as black-and-white, as it had been given to me. There were reasons– desperate, horrible reasons– for a woman to need to end her pregnancy. I understood that, had felt it in a way that now, when I try to remember what those weeks were like, I can barely breathe and all I want to do is cry.

I wandered deeper into the gray when I started reading the stories of women who had terminated for medical reasons. I had come into this place believing, with all my heart, that it was all right– even merciful– to terminate a pregnancy if it threatened the mother’s life. It never occurred to me how untenable that position was, or what it revealed about what I believed about unborn life. But these stories brought that piece of me into the harsh light: there was a sliver inside of me that already knew that an unborn fetus was not the same thing as a full-grown human being. I had accepted that, in this worse-case scenario, it is morally acceptable to terminate a pregnancy, and I had made that decision because I believed that a fetus did not have the same rights as a mother.

But I read stories, like this one, and my heart broke. Because these mothers didn’t see it that way. They wanted their precious babies, to cradle them in their arms and smell their skin and touch their fuzzy-soft hair. But they gave them up, valuing them as life unlived, because of a diagnoses that meant their child would live in constant, unending pain. And what I’d always believed– that God is in control, and he created that little baby with all its medical problems — that belief was crushed under their grief. And they didn’t decide to terminate their pregnancies because it would eventually result in their own death: they ended them because they loved their baby, and were trying to do the right thing, the best thing, for their child.

So I stepped further into the gray. I decided that I could no longer accept any of what the anti-abortion movement wants to accomplish. They seek to reduce access to contraception– even though that raises the teen pregnancy and abortion rates. They believe that a rape exception would be all right– but living in that world would be heinous and terrifying. They want to ban any abortion after 20 weeks outright, with many laws having no exceptions for any medical reason.

In short, they want what Ireland used to be, or Poland, or El Salvador.

Ireland was a anti-abortionist’s dream.

But, Ireland is being forced to come to terms with the real-life consequences of its policies. Tania McCabe, pregnant with twins, died in 2007, because doctors could not legally terminate her pregnancy. Savita Halappanavar died in 2012 from sepsis, because the doctors had to wait until the fetus’ heart had stopped beating in order to perform the procedure. And, today, lawmakers in Texas, Ohio, Nebraska, North Carolina and others are pursuing the same type of legislation that killed these women.

So, I became politically pro-choice.

But, morally, I couldn’t bring myself to embrace it.

That changed when, after years of struggling, I turned to my faith for answers– and what I found unraveled everything I believed.

October 10, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

ordeal of the bitter waters, part one

trigger warning for rape and abortion

My heart was in my throat, my fingers floating over the refresh button on my twitter feed. I was curled up under a gigantic down-alternative comforter, huddled under the half-tent I’d made on the floor of my bathroom. Hours went by as I watched what was happening– the strikes, the interruptions. In the last few minutes I joined with thousands of other voices shouting and screaming, a cacophonous din stretching over the internet, across twitter mentions and live feeds. Together, we watched the underhanded attempt at deceiving an entire country of watching people.

The next day, we celebrated. We declared “We Do Not Sit.” We’d spent the night standing. It didn’t matter that we all knew what would happen, that all of that would swiftly be overturned, and the voices screaming into the night would be silenced. We’d stood. For that single day, it was . . . almost enough.

~~~~~~~~~~

I’m pro-abortion. Pro-reproductive rights. Pro-choice.

This is not something I’m revealing flippantly. I’ve been wrestling with whether or not to even write this series for weeks now. I started writing about these ideas back in February. I took the time to explain my stance toward hormonal birth control. I’ve believed, for a long time now, that the most common rhetoric of the pro-life/anti-abortion movement is at best misleading, but that most of the information commonly available to pro-life individuals is, much of the time, outright deceptions.

This isn’t a recent development. It started over four years ago, now. It started when I was raped. It started when I realized I was over two weeks late. It started the day I called the Crisis Pregnancy Center, frightened and desperate, and the woman on the phone implied that I was a slut and I deserved whatever happened to me. It started when I called Planned Parenthood, and she said the words “whatever you decide you want to do, we will help you get there.” She told me about helping me apply for assistance and aid, about adoption, about my options— all of my options. And I realized that at least part of what I’d always believed had been a lie.

Over the next few years, my views began developing. My perspective developed nuance. I accepted the confusion I felt about all these ideas as something I would struggle with; I decided I could live with the tension, the uncomfortable gray.

But, even through all of these subtle changes, I remained staunchly pro-life. I began thinking that maybe it wasn’t my place to campaign against what another woman wanted to do, but for me– well, I couldn’t budge on that. I believed that a zygote was a baby, and removing it was murder. I even joined the pro-life advocacy group on my grad school’s campus. I became friends with other pro-life activists.

And then, one day, someone asked me if I could drive them to Richmond so they could sit outside the abortion clinic.

I squirmed. “I . . . I’m sorry. I can’t.”

She nodded affably. “Too much work that weekend?”

Do I say anything? Do I just let her think that? That would be the easiest thing. “Actually . . . I don’t really agree with that.”

“With what?” She stopped, turned to face me, her stance becoming aggressive.

“With sitting outside the abortion clinic. Oh, I know you don’t do anything crazy,” I rushed to add. “But I’m not comfortable with the whole thing.”

“Oh.”

She defriended me on facebook. When I saw her around campus, she wouldn’t look me in the eye.

Later, in the private facebook group, the principle leader called one of the women he’d seen going into the clinic on Saturday a misogynistic slur. I called him on it– and was immediately and viciously attacked.

I left the facebook group. I stopped participating in any of their events.

I stopped calling myself pro-life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At this point, I started reading everything I could get my hands on — in dead earnest. I started reading Natural Family Planing blogs– so many now, everything I learned about NFP and all the various methods is one gigantic tangle I still can’t quite sort out. I learned about a completely different approach to being pro-life– a way of seeing procreation as something beautiful and sacred. I began appreciating the earnestness in the dedication of these men and women, who saw a part of the divine in the act itself.

I read about women who were feminist and pro-life, who argued from an interesting perspective on history– and even though I couldn’t quite bring myself to validate their arguments, I liked that they defied the “norm” I’d been taught my entire life: that all feminists are selfish baby-killers.

And I started researching what it meant to be truly pro-life. I asked myself what it would look like if the pro-life movement were actually life-affirming. Would that look like pacifism? Could you claim to believe in the sacredness and dignity of all human life and allow the death penalty? Could you advocate for the rights of the unborn while completely ignoring the desperate needs of the born? What would it look like to bring balance to these issues? I started finding whole organizations who were dedicated to advocating for federally-mandated maternity leave, for legal protections for pregnant women and working mothers. I found people trying to educate others on what women who also want to be mothers face in our world today– realistically, not just the cozy, rose-gold suburban middle-class vision I’d been handed as a child.

I saw people asking the question: how can we help mothers when so many of them are the sole provider? What can we do to make sure their children are clothed, and fed, and healthy, and educated?

All of it made me hopeful.

But then, one day, I read Numbers 5.

And everything fell apart.

October 9, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

lace, tulle, ribbons, satin– and why I love it all

“I’m just being myself. There is not an ounce of me that believes any of the crap that they say. We can’t be feminine and be feminists and be successful? I want to be a fucking feminist and wear a fucking Peter Pan collar. So fucking what?”
Zooey Deschanel

I have mixed feelings about Zooey — well, mostly about the public persona she has– but I do love this quote. I’m not exactly sure who the “they” is that she’s referring to, but I know who “they” are in my life. Sometimes, “they” have been individual people telling me what I should be doing in order to be considered legitimate, or sexy, or mature.

I bought a Cosmo a few weeks ago– picked it up in the grocery store because it had an intriguing line on the cover. One of the features that month was evaluating what men in different parts of the world find attractive or sexy in a woman– and one of the quotes they had was a man talking about how a woman who drinks (and enjoys) beer is just so sexy. I asked my husband what he thought– and he nodded in agreement. “It can indicate that you’re not one of those women,” and he shrugged, flipping through his Aviation Week.

“One of ‘those women’? Who are ‘those women’?”

“Oh, y’know, high-maintenance, kinda bitchy– the stereotype city girl.”

“Hmmph.”

He looked up at me. “What?”

“I am one of ‘those women.'” I tossed my Cosmo away and threw up air quotes.

Now he was just confused. After all, I grew up in the Deep South, I know how to handle guns, I want to buy a dune buggy so we can go “muddin’,” my wardrobe is primarily jeans and hoodies, I’m a huge geek– there’s nothing about me, on a day-to-day basis, that screams girly girl. Even my own mother would confirm this– she spent nearly every day of my childhood and teenage years trying to get me into something that had lace on it. I detested “frou-frou socks,” anything that had a drop waist– and yes, I absolutely hated Peter Pan collars. Hated them. Still do, actually. When I was finally somewhat in control of buying my own clothes, it was baggy chenille sweaters and twill khaki cargo skirts all the way. I spent almost half my life doing everything within my power to avoid anything that I perceived as stereotypically feminine.

Looking back, though, I’m starting to understand how my own in-born sense of style was slowly mixed up with the culture I was being raised in. On top of being burdened with all the restrictions of southern fundamentalist Modesty Rules– there was this entire culture of “tough women” or “Southern women” or “country girls.” I grew up in a place where half the pick-up trucks had “Silly boys, trucks are for girls” bumper stickers right next to the Browning logo. I grew up in a place that mocked the genteel Southern belle and idolized cowboy boots. I grew up in a place the helped create the lyrics of “Before He Cheats“:

right now he’s probably slow dancing with a bleached-blond tramp,
and she’s probably getting frisky
right now, he’s probably buying her some fruity little drink
’cause she can’t shoot whiskey

That’s the message I breathed in right along with hem lengths and collar heights– the kind of man you want to marry, the kind of man you want to be attracted to you, is going to want this version of a woman. The kind of woman you can “ride the river with,” as Louis L’Amour would put it. He’s not going to want some fragile, delicate little thing he couldn’t throw into the back of a Conestoga wagon.

And, I’m not exactly delicate– I think of myself as fierce, and capable, and independent, and a little bit bad-ass. But that does not mean that I automatically fit into every other mold designed to shape a “strong woman.” I cry at everything– everything— and I can’t handle violence in movies very well. I’m easily frightened; I refuse to kill bugs or spiders. I love shopping, and British tearooms, I’m obsessed with Paris and I love, love pretty clothes (<–that’s one of my pinterest boards, for the curious). I don’t like metal music, or heavy rock, and I’m a huge fan of Katy Perry.

In short, who I am as a person fits some parts of a stereotype about “girly girls,” but not all of them.

Part of discovering all of this about myself was incredibly painful. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out a lot of things about me when I was in grad school. I did a lot of exploring, made a few decisions I regret, but one of them was allowing myself to be so pressured into not being “one of those women.” In an effort not to be perceived as anything remotely approaching high-maintenance, I down-played and mocked parts of myself. I alienated myself from myself so that I could win some kind of “cool woman” card. I tried 50 different beers looking for one I could tolerate, just so I could be a woman who liked beer, and that was somehow cooler than a woman who liked apple martinis.

It took me a long time to realize that it doesn’t matter.

It took me forever to figure out that I’m bad-ass, but I also want to be held and comforted. That I’m bold, and yet timid. That I’m confident, but terribly self-conscious. And all of these things that don’t exactly make sense when you put them together– they somehow make me who and what I am. Complicated.

And it’s ok for me to totally go ape-shit over haute couture, but spend most of my days wrapped up in my husband’s flannel shirts. And it’s ok for me to squee over the fact that the creators of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries are now doing Emma (which, y’all, SO MUCH FREAKING YES), but also loose my mind over the fact that Ender’s Game comes out in a few weeks.* I can love all things lace and lovely and fuzzy and cute and adorable– and apocalyptic grunge. I can drink my little fruity drinks with the little umbrellas, be a teensy bit high-maintenance, just a touch bitchy, and yet reject any person’s attempt to mock, belittle, or judge me. It’s totes not my problem if Judgy McJudgmentpants decides he doesn’t like me because I toss my hair too much, laugh really loud, and have opinions.

It’s all good.

I’m me– whatever that means.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*As a side note, you should be aware that there are people who are boycotting Ender’s Game because Orson Scott Card, the author of the book and a producer of the film, is a bigot. He’s spent the majority of his career viciously campaigning against LGBTQ rights. I have chosen not to boycott the film, but I believe that awareness of this is important. It is necessary to engage with any of the media you encounter critically.

October 8, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

Fascinating Womanhood: Pandora's Box

I’m going to be honest: I have no idea what to do with this chapter. None. So, for today’s post, I’m going to quote a some larger portions, in their entirety, add some of my concerns, and see what you all think of what she says.

In a Pandora’s Box reaction, instead of the man responding with love and tenderness, he becomes angry and pours out hostile feelings toward his wife. Why does he do this? Up to now he has been afraid to express his anger. In the face of his marriage problems he has felt he must suppress his anger to hold his marriage together. This it not to say that he acted wisely, but only to say that he did so out of what he felt was a necessity. A high-principled man who loves his children will make every effort to hold his marriage securely together.

When his wife applies Fascinating Womanhood over a period of time, he begins to feel secure in his marriage. He no longer feels he must hold his troubled feelings within and loses his fear that speaking out will cause marriage problems. Then one day, at last, he dares to open Pandora’s Box and release the resentful feelings he has kept hidden there.

If you should face this situation, allow him to empty Pandora’s Box. You should, in fact, encourage him to speak freely and completely. And you should not make the mistake of defending yourself, justifying yourself, or fighting back. You will have to sit there quietly, taking it all and even agreeing with him by saying “I know, I know, you are right.” But, when the last resentful feeling has been expressed and Pandora’s Box is empty, he will have a feeling of relief, and a love and tenderness for you not known before. And if has had a reserve, it will probably come tumbling down along with the Pandora’s Box . . .

She then goes on to relay stories from readers, two of which are horrifying and involve verbal abuse and extra-marital affairs that the wives in these situations “humbly accept” and “know that they deserve.” For the wife whose husband cheated on her, she woke up in the hospital after getting her tubes tied so her and her husband could have more sex (they’d been on NFP previously, and they were both Catholic)– only for his “mistress” to be in her recovery room the second she wakes up. And… she blames herself entirely. The fact that her husband didn’t even bother telling her that he was cheating before she had an invasive medical procedure performed just . . . Ack. And then it’s her fault. I can’t even.

But, back to her opening paragraphs: I can somewhat understand where she’s coming from with this. I’ve been in some relationships– friendships and otherwise, where I didn’t feel comfortable enough to ever be honest about my feelings. Our relationships just weren’t the kind where we could talk about things that were bothering us– and that was ok with me, I just didn’t put in a lot of effort to those relationships, and they either never deepened (which is fine, you don’t have to be “bosom friends” with every Tom, Dick and Harry on the planet), or the relationships died– which was also fine.

I imagine, in a marriage relationship, becoming comfortable enough to share your feelings could result in this “Pandora’s Box” situation she describes, but there seems to be several assumptions going on in the background:

She assumes that if you don’t follow the path laid out for you in Fascinating Womanhood, then your husband is hiding all his true feelings from you. The only environment where a man can safely express his feelings is one where the wife is following Helen’s plan to the letter. Any other marriage style will result in your husband feeling unsafe, trapped, insecure, and unloving. She makes this attitude clear in the stories she chose to include.
Communication, apparently, is a one-way street. You’re not allowed to criticize, you’re not allowed to have needs, everything you want, everything you need, is supposed to be superseded by his preferences, his wants, his needs, his desires. He is allowed to resent you, treat you badly, disrespect you; you are required to “take it all” and “agree with him” without the opportunity to have a discussion.
This “Pandora’s Box” situation, she assures us, will only happen once. After he has emptied it, you will never have to revisit these issues again. That one just seems impossible. I’ve watched marital relationships closely for over 20 years– I’ve never seen a couple who could talk about an issue that caused deep resentment and anger only once and never, ever, have to talk about it again. This Pandora’s Box, she says, can last “up to several months,” but then she confidently tells us that the only thing he’ll express is “love and tenderness”– as long as we keep following Fascinating Womanhood, that is.

For those of you who have been married a while, what do you think of this?

October 7, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

songs and ballads and True Knights

from HBO’s Game of Thrones, Season 3.

trigger warning for emotional and physical abuse

Just a heads up– tiny spoilers for Storm of Swords.

I’ve been reading through A Song of Ice and Fire by G. R. R. Martin for the past few months. Ordinarily I speed through fantasy novels like a hot knife through butter, finishing entire series in a matter of days, but I haven’t been able to do that. Game of Thrones was incredibly difficult for me to read, especially after you-know-what for anyone who’s read the books (or seen the show. I have not watched it yet). They are not your typical epic fantasy fare– it’s not that they’re so much darker than other fantasy novels I’ve read, it’s that they are . . . so very deeply human. I’m sure anyone familiar with the series is already brutally aware of this, but none of Martin’s characters are especially good– or especially bad. There are characters you’re rooting for all through Game of Thrones, and character you absolutely despise, but then you get to Storm of Swords and you’re reading the book from the perspective of the “evil” character, and you realize . . . no one’s particularly “evil” in these books. There’s no bad guy.

But, at first, one of the characters I fiercely hated in the first book was Sansa Stark. After the incident in the woods with Arya, especially, and the whole mess that resulted from that. I found myself nodding my head when The Hound constantly insults her with “little bird,” telling her that she’s just a silly little girl that is naive and silly and who romanticizes everything even when her situation should make it clear that Joffrey does not love her and Cersei does not have her best interests at heart. She seems to play a constant game of make believe, seems to purposely delude herself.

But then I read this scene:

“I want you to tell me the truth about this royal boy,” said Lady Olenna abruptly. “This Joffrey.”

Sansa’s fingers tightened around her spoon. The truth? I can’t. Don’t ask it, please, I can’t. ” I . . . I . . . I . . . “

. . .

“Calm yourself child,” the Queen of Thorns commanded.

“She’s terrified, Grandmother, just look at her.”

. . .

Sansa felt as though her heart had lodged in her throat . . . a shiver went through her. “A monster,” she whispered, so tremulously she could scarcely hear her own voice. “Joffrey is a monster. He lied about the butcher’s boy and made Father kill my wolf. When I displease him, he has the Kingsguard beat me. He’s evil and cruel, my lady, it’s so. And the queen as well.”

After the end of the chapter, I had to stop reading just to cry, because it suddenly hit me. I could feel my heart pounding against my bones, everything throbbed– I felt hot and cold flashes everywhere.

I was Sansa Stark.

I’d been raised with the expectation that I would marry a knight in shining armor, or a prince. All the stories I had were in places like Lady in Waiting and Stay in the Castle. All the images I had, all the metaphors, all the stories, fit inside this narrative. I was a princess who had locked herself in a tower to protect herself from “the world,” and I would spend my life waiting for my “one true love” to come and claim me (with permission from my father, of course). This knight-errant, this prince, would be good and noble and just, a “True Knight,” like Sansa would call him. He would follow honorable codes of conduct, be respectful of authority. He would be handsome, and kind. And we would live happily ever after.

So, when I met John*, I instantly saw in him all the traits I’d been taught to look for. He was gallant, charming– a gentleman in every respect. He held the doors open, he stood in the cafeteria line, again, just to get me a cookie. He found the biggest bouquet of stargazer lilies for our first date, remembering after I’d mentioned once that I liked lilies. He wrote me poetry, and songs, he played his guitar for me over the phone, he passed me notes written on 3×5 cards between classes.

Everything, everything, was exactly as I’d been told it should be.

So when he started emotionally manipulating me, I was so utterly blind to it. He was kind and devoted— so when I was up, huddled on the cold tile of my bathroom floor, until two or three in the morning, listening to him rage and sob about how terrible I was being, that I just didn’t understand how much he loved me, I had no way of processing what was happening. Even when he started physically hurting me– twisting my arm, squeezing my knuckles together, pinching me, I was so deeply buried in the story that I believed with all my heart– that I was blind. He was my True Knight. He was rescuing me from myself. He was teaching me how to be good, how to be self-controlled, how to be the meek, quiet, gentle wife I’d been taught I was supposed to be but couldn’t manage to become on my own.

So when Sansa spoke those words, when she said, out loud, what Joffrey was– that he was a monster, and cruel– it was a flash of recognition so strong it bowled me over. There were people around her– people like the Hound, who were trying to show her what was happening, but she couldn’t see it. It wasn’t necessarily stubbornness, or willful ignorance. It was that she didn’t have any other way of viewing her relationship with Joffrey. The songs and the ballads were all she had. For her to admit, really admit, that Joffrey was not the True Knight she desperately wanted to believe he was– I’ve been there.

I was helping with the dress rehearsal changes of a dramatic production the first time I saw it. John* had been made director, and I had actually helped him cast the short play immediately after he’d broken our engagement– and become friends with two of the women in his play. During the final rehearsal, when I was pinning on her wig, she was ranting.

“I don’t know how you were ever in a relationship with him! He is such a jerk!”

I tried not to meet her eyes in the mirror, concentrating on making sure the wig was appropriately disheveled. “What do you mean?”

“He’s so manipulative! It’s like he’s always had everything he’s every wanted, exactly when he wanted it, and we all have to bow and scrape and be his little slaves. It’s like we all have to be mind-readers. If we don’t do exactly what he wants, exactly what he wants, then he completely looses it and starts screaming. It’s a freaking tantrum!”

I laughed, nervously.

“Did he ever do that to you?”

My throat tightened. I couldn’t swallow. My ears were ringing. “Yeah . . . yeah, he did. A lot.”

And, suddenly, her hand was touching mine, holding it still, and I met her eyes in the mirror. She was crying. “That’s not all he did, is it?”

I shook my head, and then she was holding me, and I was sobbing in the dressing room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After that night, though, somehow– things were better. Worse, but . . . better. Freer, in a way. I’d said it. I’d told someone. I’d finally told someone, and even though I didn’t tell her anything specific, it was like saying those words out loud helped me break out of the cage I’d been in for years.

He was a monster.

A liar.

He’s evil and cruel, my lady.

October 3, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

drawing in the sand

I wrote a guest post for one of my favorite bloggers, Becca Rose, while she takes time to rest and recuperate. Her blog, Bookworm Beauty, is absolutely incredible and if you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it. She covers a lot of the same themes that I talk about here, but from the perspective of a pastor’s kid.

One cheerful middle-aged gentleman approached us, and we engaged in the typical Sunday-after-meeting small talk. At some point, he started talking about what his small group was working through: Every Man’s Battle. He was excited about the honesty and vulnerability his group had built, the level of trust and confidence they shared in each other. And I was happy for him about that. But, as he continued talking about all the “wonderful truths” they were discovering, I sat there cringing inside. I’m familiar with the Every Man / Every Woman series, and while I appreciate some of the messages, I find the whole series complicated and problematic. The books reinforce nearly every gender stereotype imaginable, and the sections of the books dedicated to women are filled with patriarchy, male privilege, and slut-shaming.

He eventually moved on to talking about how his small group had recently split up by sex to read Wild at Heart and Captivating, and I had to stifle a groan and make sure my smile stayed plastered on my face. Those two books did violent damage to evangelical teachings about the imago dei. The authors elevated Medieval and Victorian gender narratives to the level of “biblical truth” with no actual biblical grounding.

But, I sat there, and I didn’t say anything, because I couldn’t.

You can read the rest of the post here.

October 1, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

Fascinating Womanhood: wounded pride

Picking up from where we left off last week, we’re about halfway through the chapter “Masculine Pride.” Helen has spent a lot of time explaining exactly what she means by “masculine pride” and went into a lot of detail on what men are proud of and all the ways we women constantly destroy them, by doing things like having a job or having interests he doesn’t share. Next she’s going to explain to us how the entire world seems designed to break and humiliate men and all the ways women are responsible to make up for how terrible the world is.

This will soon be clear (if it’s not already), but the kind of behavior and reactions Helen is about to describe as completely normal, natural, inescapable, and unchangeable are what most of society classifies as immaturity. She describes things like withdrawal and pain avoidance, which are normal human responses. We all struggle with hurt feelings and humiliation, and to some extent, we all know that it’s a part of life. We learn to process it, confront it if necessary, but ultimately move on.

However, that’s not what Helen describes.

She begins by outlying how men have grown up in a world hell-bent on making sure they are fragile and weak. Their families mock teenage boys for their youthful beards: “their mothers may have viewed it with disdain.” So, men have grown up where families show endless disdain for their burgeoning “masculinity.” Then, it’s the working world, which is “brutal,” “sadistic,” and “undermining.” Which, granted, it certainly can be all of the above. And, finally, his wife “wounds his pride” by showing “indifference” (previously described as being busy or preoccupied). All of this, she argues, leads to a very specific set of reactions that men cannot help but have. These responses, she says, are always how a man responds to his environment.

Reaction #1: Humiliation

This happens because you, his wife, has touched “the most sensitive part of his nature.” A woman who shows indifference becomes “repugnant,” and Helen is not surprised when “he reacts by being explosive.” This is one of those times when Helen’s language deeply concerns me. Her word choice has been far too consistent for phrasings like this to be accidental. Over the course of this book (and we’re almost halfway through it), Helen has deliberately chosen to use words like “violent” and “explosive” to describe how men react to wives that displease them. Almost always, these words are accompanied by “no wonder” and “unsurprisingly.” Given all the threats she makes to her readers, it deeply bothers me that she also threatens us with our husbands’ overt and physical violence.

His “explosive” reaction to finding you “repugnant” is followed by–

Reaction #2: Reserve

And she makes it clear she doesn’t mean shy. Reserve, she says, is “a wall to protect himself.” And the only possible way we could ever hope to get around this wall is making sure he is:

absolutely certain that his ideas will be met with appreciation . . . the slightest hint of misunderstanding will shatter the illusion and drive him behind his wall of reserve again . . . If [you] indicate that [you] are not the least bit interested, he will wince as if struck by a lash . . . If the girl acts indifferent at such a crisis, she has a heart of stone.

Such is the case with every man . . . He will quickly resume [his reserve] unless he can bask in the full glow of an all-comprehending sympathy . . . the higher the caliber of the man, the more he tends to draw into himself when his pride is hurt . . .

If you detect this reserve in your husband, take measure to eliminate it. If you don’t, he may be tempted to seek the company of another woman.

So, in order for you husband not to view you as “repugnant” or react “explosively,” he must be absolutely certain that you worship the ground he walks on. If you’re confused, or bored, or distracted, you are whipping him with a lash and he’ll cheat on you. This, Helen says, is the inescapable reality of manhood, especially for men of “higher caliber.” She goes on, in the next reactions, to tell us that they’ll also become dishonest, resort to blame-shifting, and start constantly fishing for affirmation.

This is what I meant when I said Helen describes immaturity as a universal, unchanging male constant. Yes, all sorts of people have the kinds of reactions Helen has laid out here. We are all capable of getting our feelings hurt, and doing what we can to protect ourselves. Yes, we are all quite capable of throwing people under the bus and lying our asses off to keep ourselves out of trouble. I’ve even done the whole “fishing-for-compliments-by-belittling-myself” thing. We’re human. We do some ugly, pathetic things.

However, this is not behavior Helen describes as immature, or wrong, or anything. This is not only appropriate, she even says that this should be what we expect from men of higher caliber.

I know I’m reviewing Helen’s book, but this is one of those times when I start thinking “surely this is crazy. Nobody thinks like this anymore.”

Unfortunately, that’s not the case. These sorts of attitudes about men are not only common, they are the dominant narrative concerning men and masculinity in fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism. Men in these circles are consistently painted as base animals. They cannot help themselves. Their reactions are completely and totally outside of their control, and the only arbiters left, the only barrier between themselves and debasement, are chaste, virtuous women. It’s our responsibility, women, to restrain the beast. Men can’t do it on their own. They need us. We commonly see this crop up in any sort of Modesty Rules discussion– “women, we need your help to keep ourselves pure! We can’t help it when we lust after women who are immodestly dressed! It’s just how we are! We’re visual!”

But do women get any sort of the same consideration?

You cannot pour your heart out to him. You must withhold feelings and confessions which would wound his sensitive pride.”

And that is how Helen finishes this chapter. She has quite efficiently done everything she possibly can to make sure that women are permanently silenced. While we sit in rapt attention, hanging on our husbands’ every word, we also have to make sure that we never say or do anything that could possibly be interpreted as a slight to his pride.

September 23, 2013 by SamanthaField

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