I am a Woman

It's hard to distinguish between what is morally right and what is cultural tradition sometimes.  I find this particularly true just now as I contemplate what it is to be a woman - both personally and collectively.  Mostly I look around me in this world of marching and pussy hats and Facebook posts about the sanctity of motherhood and see so many sides that feel in conflict with one another about what a woman is, or what a woman should be.  What I find so bizarre about all this is that I don't see the need for this conflict.  It feels like both sides are pulling on false opposites.

All the same, it has me thinking - what does being a woman actually look like and feel like for me?  This is in no way an attempt to universalize the female experience, but for me - being a woman looks and feels a bit like this:

1. It feels like pencil skirts and hot red lipstick.  I have a mad obsession with fashion from the 30s-60s.  I hate wearing heels most of the time (I teach.) but when I get the excuse, man I love the way I look.  I'm a short, not terribly curvy girl, so the chance to show off my calves (that I am oddly proud of) is awesome.  What the rest of my body lacks in curves my lips make up for in spades.  I love the way I look in red lipstick.  A lot.  (I have a Lady Mary streak, ok?!)

2. It feels like a battleground.  Against people who dismiss contrary emotion as PMS.  Against those who seek to define how I define myself.  Who, for example, assume I will quit my job to raise my family (that I don't currently and may never have.)  Who assume that when I get married, I will move wherever my husband's job takes him and take his last name (because the possibility choosing not to marry/choosing to marry but not take a new last name is unfathomable.)  Against those who take to the internet in vicious "mommy wars" and seek to define the "right" kind of mothering.  Against media attention on the right kind of woman and wrong kind of woman.  Against religious culture on the right kind of woman and wrong kind of woman.  Against governments made up primarily of men who want to make laws dictating how women can or can't control their choices, especially when it comes to their own body.  Against myself and my own doubts on where the line between feeling inspired about something and being an all out rebellious sinner begins and ends.

3. It feels like an adventure. I grew up surrounded by a myriad of amazing female role models.  I had wonderful real women (my mom, my grandmothers, my aunts, a host of amazing teachers).  I had fictional women and girls (Anne Shirley, the March sisters, Hermione Granger, Winnie Foster, Fern Arable, Heidi, Sara Crewe, Mary Lennox, Wendy Darling, Harriet Welsch) who were strong and creative and determined in a huge variety of ways.  For my creative mind growing up, everything felt possible if I had enough nerve.  I still feel that way.  I've never felt limited in possibility by virtue of my gender.

4. It feels a little lost.  Looking at government representation, church representation, Biblical representation and seeing so few examples of women in leadership.  "But!" I hear.  "The woman is most powerful in the home!  That is where she belongs!"  "But!" The other side screams.  "What if that home is like mine?  What if it has no children?  No spouse?  What if it has those things and the woman has great talents and gifts to share?"  It feels tugged in frustrating directions and obligations.  It feels confused about what is culture and what is doctrine.  (Is a woman's place in the home because Puritan tradition has always said that to be so, or because that is what God wants?  Because if that's what God wants, I'm definitely not interested in spending eternity in a maternity ward, any more than I'm interested in sitting around playing the harp forever.  And if I'm not happy with that vision of eternity, is that because I'm sinful and can't see the truth and beauty of that existence, or because the vision and culture that suggest it are flawed?)  It is full of questions about what I want and what God wants for me and how to somehow combine those forces for good.  Somewhere in of all this mess of confusion is an example of womanhood I can strive to reach for.  Somewhere there is a vision of the divine that is pure and can encompass the wide variety of desires, interests, and abilities that are inherent in our individual worth.  God help me find it.

5. It feels like compassion.  It feels like sleeping with my kitty purring while she sprawls over my legs and being so grateful that she's warm and fed and cared for, not trying to find food and shelter outside.  It feels like smelling the top of a baby's head.  It feels like seeing women, men, children who have felt limited by their gender or race or social status or sexual orientation and reaching to help them as best I can.  Tradition has not always been kind to women, and to those who have fought and are fighting to extend basic human rights to women - my heart is full of gratitude and admiration.  Tradition has not always been kind to minorities of so many varieties, but the internet makes it easier, so much easier, for people to have a voice.  Being a woman to me means a duty to listen, to feel, to ask that question "what would this be like" before I clam up with "I've never felt like that."

6. It feels like hard work.  Because while I have not felt harmfully limited by my gender, so many around the world have.  Women who are told what to wear and when to wear and how to wear their clothing (or face not just social pressures but political retaliation.)  Women who face genital mutilation, rape, inadequate access to feminine hygiene products.  Women forced into marriages they don't want and sex they don't want and children they don't want.  It feels like a long way to go to help my sisters feel not just safe, but wanted.

7. It is an honor.  There are many elements of being a woman that are hard, are uncomfortable, are painful, are frustrating.  But there are many, so many, that I find beautiful and inspiring and full of opportunity.  I find this time in which I live so empowering.  Unlike so many of the women who have come before me, who have fought so hard for rights that I now enjoy, I live in a time where I can make a difference.  I am allowed to live on my own, to buy a house and car and vote without permission from a spouse.  I am allowed to attend universities and have received a great education at one of the best universities in the country.  I can travel the world unchaperoned.  If I marry, I will not have to quit my job by virtue of being married.  I can obtain safe and affordable medical care by good doctors.  I can use my voice and my influence to encourage change and better representation.  And because of these amazing luxuries, It is my honor, my great privilege, to speak up and act on behalf of those who do not yet enjoy these rights either in whole or in part.

The Flag

Our school had a flag changing ceremony outside today in honor of 9/11.  While I watched, several postcards of images came to mind.

Algebra

One was me in my Algebra class, hearing rumors.  "A plane hit the World Trade Center."  "The World Trade Center was bombed."  "A plane accidentally hit the World Trade Center!"

The what?  I hadn't ever been to New York.  Hadn't ever paid enough attention to business or architecture to really understand what that meant.  Not wanting to appear ignorant, I talked about it along with everyone else in hushed tones.

After we said The Pledge, our teacher turned on the news.  I think he had it on mute.  I remember watching moments after he turned on the TV as a second plane flew into the second tower.

The rest of the day was a blur of watching the planes hit the towers on a repeated reel over and over and over again.  The school was buzzing with conversation.  Looking back, I remember feeling sick over the whole thing but not really understanding why.  Maybe it was my American confidence stepping in and assuring me that, in the end, none of this would matter because we would "win".  Whatever that meant.


Paris

After a few months in England, my friend Liz and I were exploring Paris.  While the rest of her family was at Disneyland Paris, we were determined to continue our cultural exploration no matter our youth or inexperience or the language barrier.  Liz with her virtually nonexistent French and me with my long ago two years of meagerly attempted high school French roamed streets without a map in search of art museums and churches.  We came across the US Embassy.  Perhaps it was the lack of hearing much English that day (which always makes me feel terribly claustrophobic and crippled), but I've never been so happy to see a piece of fabric in my life.


Schoolhouse

For several years I spent my summer playing make believe.  Dressed in period clothing, I would go sit in the school house of a local museum designed to teach about country life during the late 1800s.  Some were assigned to houses or stores and had people to socialize with.  I was the schoolmarm, left to my own devices until the replacement volunteer came along.  I didn't mind.  Armed with knowledge gleaned from years of obsession over Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie, I knew my duties.  The schoolhouse was set outside of the main part of town and, as a result, often forgotten by tourists.  As a result, I would regularly be left for hours without any connection to humans, but I would still carefully go about my responsibilities.  I would open each window in the hopes of a nice breeze.  I would sweep the floor and brush away cobwebs.  I would make sure that the slates were neatly stacked and the books organized by grade and the slate pencils put away.  Often I would write my name on the board.  (Often I would write "Ann" just so I could add the "e".)

The task I remember most was that of raising and lowering the flag outside the school at the beginning and end of each shift.  There was something peaceful about this task.

This is what I thought about most this morning.  I watched a group of scouts professionally and carefully raise the flag and felt a bit jealous.  Every year this task is carried out by boys.  My feminist heart protested, and remembered the way I would carry the flag outside each day and raise it alone, taking great care to make sure that it didn't touch the ground.  Later, I would lower it and fold it as well as I could by myself.  It wasn't as professional or formal as the ceremony today, but the reverence of doing this by myself felt important.

The Thing About Modesty

I remember where I was the first time I saw the phrase "Modest is Hottest!"  It was on a hand-made t-shirt a girl at a church camp was wearing.  "Awesome!" I thought.  After growing up in an area where my religious beliefs were by far the minority, it was novel to have someone proclaim what I believed was true too.  Bodies are meant to be appropriately covered!  You tell them, stranger!

When I went to college I worked for the IT Department helping people fix their internet and other computer problems over the phone.  We could work on homework after a while if call volume was low, but for the first half hour we were supposed to review documentation we needed to know and also to familiarize ourself with current campus events by reading the school paper (which was still a paper.  Funny how fast things change.)

My favorite section to read was the Opinion section because there was guaranteed to be some crazy in there at least once a week demanding something totally ridiculous, like the bookstore needing to take down their Halloween decorations because Halloween is evil or that the cheerleaders were crazy immodest and needed to cover up or whatever.

The funny thing is, the longer I read the paper and the longer I attended BYU, the more often I heard comments about the cheerleading uniforms being inappropriate.  It always seemed centered there, and occasionally on the gymnasts.  It was never on the track and field uniforms or the swimming uniforms.  Something kind of tweaked in my head - what is it about modesty that is so completely and thoroughly centered around women alone?  I thought that maybe people just saw cheerleading as superfluous and unnecessary and therefore a waste of "compromising standards".  Fortunately as I talked with the people I was around, most of them agreed that those people who were annoyed with the uniforms were ridiculous and that people need to wear clothing appropriate for the activity they are doing.

The more culturally aware I've become, however, I've started having some serious problems with the way modesty is discussed.  Here are some of the things I have observed that I have issue with:

1. Discussions of modesty are culturally centered around how it makes you more physically beautiful.
(As if the only way to con girls into covering their shoulders and knees is to train them from birth to believe that their shoulders and knees are ugly or evil or bad because they are enticing in the wrong way, so you need to cover them and then you are enticing in the right way, because, by the way, that's the most important thing you can do.)

2. Discussions of modesty are centered almost completely around women and women's clothing choices.
(As if it was impossible for men to be immodest.  And I'm not just talking about wearing your pants around your knees or having long hair.  I'm talking about how tired I am of teaching our girls and boys to focus on the "errors" in fashion choices instead of, you know, actually getting to know the person they are with.)

3. Discussions of modesty often focus on the relationship between clothing trends and the statement that God's standards never change.
(The simple response to this is that garment lengths and styles have changed significantly since the 1850s, so if you believe that God's standards never change, and I do, then you have to believe that modesty isn't a principle that revolves entirely around clothing and that there is a greater truth we are missing out on.)

I would like to submit that that melding the discussion of modesty only to fashion is a red herring to what modesty really is.

Modesty is not a principle that excludes clothing choices, but it is not a principle dominated by them either.  If it was, then the church would be calling for women to wear burqas.  Current discussions (like this one here) or the recent issue with the school editing what girls' pictures looked like for the yearbook can only lead in the "girls must cover everything because their bodies are dangerous" train of thought.  I could go on and on here about how much I hate that girls are led to believe that they control the thoughts of men with their hemline, hate that men are claimed as being incapable of controlling their own thoughts, hate that the intense focus on a woman's clothing choices encourages rape culture; but that discussion has happened elsewhere and better than I can do it here (it's tech week for my show.  My brain.  My brain!)

What I want to say instead is this:

Modesty is a principle of respect for yourself and respect for others.  This can manifest itself in many ways.  It includes dressing appropriately for the activities you are doing.  It involves being kind and encouraging to the self image of others, and to your views of yourself.  It means accepting no for an answer when a person denies you the chance to kiss them, hug them, hold hands with them, touch them in any way that they do not want.  It means speaking honestly about what you see and hear and giving a fair evaluation.

Modesty is historically associated with the principle of moderation.  Unfortunately, it is also historically associated with the clothing of women and very closely linked with the word "shame" in Old English.  So it isn't as though the rhetoric we are using is new - blaming women for the actions of men and focusing on women as objects to be carefully covered until the appropriate time comes to uncover them goes back centuries.  Isn't that sad?  It does make it somewhat easier to sympathize with how hard it is to change the trends of discussion.  But those discussions need to happen, and change needs to come or we are totally selling ourselves short.  So instead of focussing on a negative value, let us instead focus our discussions on the true positive aspects of being modest.  Let's focus on presenting ourselves well in our clothing choices, yes, but also in how we respect and honor others.  Let us remember that the Lord doesn't look on the outward appearance, He looks on the heart - and it is our job to be strong enough and smart enough to see past the exterior foibles of people and to see them.  Really see them.

Or there's always damnation. . .

I would not necessarily consider myself a feminist. Not in the traditional/stereotypical sense, at least. I don't think that women need to take on all male jobs to be worthwhile, I don't think all men are chauvinists, I'd love to have a family some day and a little girly part of my soul likes it when couples get together in books and movies. I also, erm, would rather wear all my clothing (seen or unseen) than not.

But every so often, there's a part of my soul that rears its feminist head that cannot be stopped.

A good friend of mine posted something on Facebook as a status that looked something like this:

"I want to become something or do something great. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm looking!"

There followed a handful of responses that all looked something like this (including spelling errors):

"Ur the mother of a great baby! You can't do better than that!"

Or

"But your a mother and a wife and a really great friend. Your already great."

(That low rumbling that sounds like thunder? That would be my feminist monster head waking up from a nap before its had enough sleep.)

Now, you might look at me and say, "Hold the phone. Those are nice responses. It is after all, good to be a wife and a mother. What's wrong with being great already?"

My response?

This friend of mine is already certifiably great. I won't argue that even a little. She's been gifted in many different areas of her life and I've always admired her for her grace, generosity, and charity. She's legitimately great already. These responders aren't wrong.

Those responses may have been meant to comfort my friend into acceptance of her life as it is, but it didn't look to me like she was looking for comfort. It looked to me like she was looking for progress. Like she was looking for something beyond what she already had. Wanting to find a way to influence more of the world for good. Being a mother and a wife are wonderful, but the process of buying a ring and producing children and earning the titles "wife" and "mother" do not give women a "get out of progression free" pass. These responses may have been intended for comfort, but the culture around such attitudes reeks strongly of: "Don't worry about getting better, God loves you just as you are right now and you don't need to work or try to be like Him." (Which, last I checked my Bible Dictionary, shimmies rather close to the definition of "damnation." Lack of progression? Check.)

What is it about our culture that wants to treat the act of getting married and becoming a mother as the peak of achievement a woman can make? That once those things are done, we cannot possibly do anything else with our lives that would influence the world for good? Why do we, as women and as a culture, feel the need to patronize ourselves into boxes so that we can justify who we are?

Next you might say, "Well, this is all fine and great. But 'no success can compensate for failure in the home.' Right?"

I'm not arguing. What I would like to suggest, though, is that our definitions of "failure" and "home" might be a little different. It is, I suppose, a certain kind of success for a family to be well fed and decently fond of each other at the end of the day. But the real triumph of a family is when they are then able to, as individuals and groups, go into the world and make a difference. If they were fond of each other at home forever and never went into the world, that wouldn't be a very successful situation. That seems obvious. But shouldn't that apply to every member of the family, not just the children and the father? For the mother/wife to be fully successful in the home, doesn't she need to be the greatest person she can be outside of it as well?

(The petty part of me would also like to suggest that the above quote was not directed only to women, but to men as well, and I don't remember anyone telling men recently not to enhance their talents and abilities. In fact, I remember a specific instance where they were commanded to expect more and do more. But I digress.)

I think that monster is starting to feel slightly better about the world. Maybe it's just a touchy subject for me and I'm overreacting a bit. I am, after all, a successful, happy single adult woman in a culture that sometimes sees those traits as incongruent. But I took no shame whatsoever in posting my own response to my friend in which I said something to the effect of: "______ - I think it's wonderful that you want to learn new things and be great. Go for it!"