Thoughts As March Ends.
I’m bitchy tonight, so buyer beware.
Easter Sunday is this Sunday for the majority of churchgoers. My views on religion have been shifting slight due to some large shifts in my personal philosophies across the board. I've spent the last two days trying to get some ideas on the screen, but without any success. Part of me wants to go back to church, and the other part says, "What the hell are you thinking?" My frustrations with the church remain:
* Leadership patterns that promote hypocrisy, backstabbing, and self-righteousness.
* Teaching/worship techniques that over emphasize the trivial, discourage thought, and uphold mediocrity.
* Social environment that is political, gossipy, and manipulative.
I will be the first to admit that these statements are highly summarized, but I am not here to argue those points. I’m here to argue how much I long to find a group of people who actually support my growth in God. The church has consistently failed to offer that for me, but I guess 3 years is long enough to not feel the sting so acutely. God forgive me, but I’m going to at least one church in the next few weeks. I’ll try to comment on this when my ideas reshape into something definable.
My friend Jacob last night pointed at my painted toe nails and commented, “Why would you ever spend time painting your toe nails? All feet are ugly. There is no purpose in painting them.” He had no idea he was triggering a private crusade of mine. I explained that I was just falling in line with a long history of dehumanizing women. My friends all agreed, but believed that women were being put under men. That is not my argument. I believe woman have always been treated as something divine. I read about this last semester (author Chris Cuomo?) that there are problems in feminism, because women have held onto some old models that we’ve assumed are good. Being divine is not derogatory, but it still serves to divide.
This first occurred to me with the poker game. Why don’t men want women around? Most who responded to me defined this behavior in terms of men being easily distracted, crass, sore losers, and prone to say things that are inappropriate. Women seem to still be viewed as good and if one were to invite women to a game, the game would cease to be manly and instead take the feminine attribute: good. This thought continued in my Perspectives course when my professor talked about the developing public and private spheres from the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s. The public sphere took the manly characteristics: crass, harsh, industrious, greasy, dirty, greedy, etc. The private sphere took the side of the gentler sex: religious, irrational, clean, peaceful, moral, center for child raising, etc. Some might see this as forcing women into inferiority, but not to my mind. There is a clear movement to make women so gloriously good, that it would be wrong to bring them back the world of men—the human world.
Though we have worked hard to encourage women can do anything men can do, we still cling to this denaturalization or dehumanization of women. Simply look at women: shaved of all hair except their head (which is colored, straightened, and styled until every hint of it’s natural appearance is completely removed), painted nails (frequently fake), make-up to hide natural blemishes, high heals to deceive the natural length of legs, control top panty hose to slim the natural shape of the stomach, bras that hold the breasts in an unnatural shaped, and so on and so forth. It is not a coincidence that a woman who does not participate in such primping is frequently thought to be a lesbian. A woman who sticks to her natural human form is almost a man. No, better to make women appear and act as angels. For women, we have been deceived that it is a compliment: who can complain about being said they are superiorly righteous? But men continue to use this as a means of division, as with the poker game. The poker game may seem like a small issue, but as long as men believe that it is acceptable to break off certain spheres for men only (such as the social public sphere, which is where some of the greatest advances intellectually, economically, and politically have been formed) women will never be equal. Well, damnit, I would much rather be a fallible human who bears some crass activity than an isolated angel who is denied access to the growth of humanity.
Easter Sunday is this Sunday for the majority of churchgoers. My views on religion have been shifting slight due to some large shifts in my personal philosophies across the board. I've spent the last two days trying to get some ideas on the screen, but without any success. Part of me wants to go back to church, and the other part says, "What the hell are you thinking?" My frustrations with the church remain:
* Leadership patterns that promote hypocrisy, backstabbing, and self-righteousness.
* Teaching/worship techniques that over emphasize the trivial, discourage thought, and uphold mediocrity.
* Social environment that is political, gossipy, and manipulative.
I will be the first to admit that these statements are highly summarized, but I am not here to argue those points. I’m here to argue how much I long to find a group of people who actually support my growth in God. The church has consistently failed to offer that for me, but I guess 3 years is long enough to not feel the sting so acutely. God forgive me, but I’m going to at least one church in the next few weeks. I’ll try to comment on this when my ideas reshape into something definable.
My friend Jacob last night pointed at my painted toe nails and commented, “Why would you ever spend time painting your toe nails? All feet are ugly. There is no purpose in painting them.” He had no idea he was triggering a private crusade of mine. I explained that I was just falling in line with a long history of dehumanizing women. My friends all agreed, but believed that women were being put under men. That is not my argument. I believe woman have always been treated as something divine. I read about this last semester (author Chris Cuomo?) that there are problems in feminism, because women have held onto some old models that we’ve assumed are good. Being divine is not derogatory, but it still serves to divide.
This first occurred to me with the poker game. Why don’t men want women around? Most who responded to me defined this behavior in terms of men being easily distracted, crass, sore losers, and prone to say things that are inappropriate. Women seem to still be viewed as good and if one were to invite women to a game, the game would cease to be manly and instead take the feminine attribute: good. This thought continued in my Perspectives course when my professor talked about the developing public and private spheres from the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s. The public sphere took the manly characteristics: crass, harsh, industrious, greasy, dirty, greedy, etc. The private sphere took the side of the gentler sex: religious, irrational, clean, peaceful, moral, center for child raising, etc. Some might see this as forcing women into inferiority, but not to my mind. There is a clear movement to make women so gloriously good, that it would be wrong to bring them back the world of men—the human world.
Though we have worked hard to encourage women can do anything men can do, we still cling to this denaturalization or dehumanization of women. Simply look at women: shaved of all hair except their head (which is colored, straightened, and styled until every hint of it’s natural appearance is completely removed), painted nails (frequently fake), make-up to hide natural blemishes, high heals to deceive the natural length of legs, control top panty hose to slim the natural shape of the stomach, bras that hold the breasts in an unnatural shaped, and so on and so forth. It is not a coincidence that a woman who does not participate in such primping is frequently thought to be a lesbian. A woman who sticks to her natural human form is almost a man. No, better to make women appear and act as angels. For women, we have been deceived that it is a compliment: who can complain about being said they are superiorly righteous? But men continue to use this as a means of division, as with the poker game. The poker game may seem like a small issue, but as long as men believe that it is acceptable to break off certain spheres for men only (such as the social public sphere, which is where some of the greatest advances intellectually, economically, and politically have been formed) women will never be equal. Well, damnit, I would much rather be a fallible human who bears some crass activity than an isolated angel who is denied access to the growth of humanity.
posted by Jesi E. at 3/24/2005 01:05:00 PM
1 Comments:
James, you know I love you, right? But, your comments make me want to cry. It may seem polite, even noble, to say that women are superior, but I'm afraid in only leads to more problems. Not only does in reinforce division between sexes (and because you believe women are superior, it specifically denies women access to more worldly, or "human," attributes), but might even inspire men to want to become feminine. And the world will not benefit if we overemphasize feminimity. Men and women are different, but the differences should not make one superior to the other.
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