Absolutely and Amen: "Why I Want My Sons to See Me Naked"

I was starting to doubt myself and feel self-conscious about my boys seeing me naked, as I get out of the shower and change, or strip down in my bed room to disentangle myself from a snotty yogurt-encrusted shirt that I just can't bear to wear anymore. We talk so.much. about bodies and nakedness and it seems like few other families do, at least with 2yos and 4yos. My oldest son already knows the basics of how babies are made and the correct anatomical names of his body. He's seen me naked just about every day of his life. Was I just being too open? Was I making a drastic overcorrect?

Ha! I really only wanted to address whether or not my kids should see their parents naked, but I can't think about that topic without thinking about 10000000 other aspects of nakedness as it involves my children and their perceptions of the body and its purposes.

So. Narrowing focus to the question "should my children ever see me naked?" this article helped me remember one of many reasons for my answer of "yes!":

Because for right now, for these few formative years, my flab is their one and only perception of the female body. And I want them to know that it's beautiful, even in its imperfection.

[http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5797920?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000037]

"Dangerous Cat"

I have long taught the boys that names for animals are not synonymous with girls, without exception.  And suddenly I was in every way okay with the identity.

[http://tricialottwilliford.com/2014/12/dangerous-cat/]

Sweden's Prostitution Solution

The novel rationale behind this legislation is clearly stated in the government's literature on the law:
"In Sweden prostitution is regarded as an aspect of male violence against women and children. It is officially acknowledged as a form of exploitation of women and children and constitutes a significant social problem... gender equality will remain unattainable so long as men buy, sell and exploit women and children by prostituting them."

[http://esnoticia.co/noticia-8790-swedens-prostitution-solution-why-hasnt-anyone-tried-this-before]

Body Image and Influences

By then I was still tall and fit, but I had developed an athletic build rather than a slight, willowy one... which is a perfectly acceptable thing to be. But I was surrounded by tiny girls who talked about weighing petite, girly numbers. Wearing petite, girly clothing sizes. Inhabiting bodies with petite, girly bones. I was starting to feel like a linebacker.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mandy-fishburn/when-i-stopped-being-skinny-and-the-whole-world-fell-apart_b_5712213.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063]

"Should You Catcall That Woman?"

This made me laugh, because I truly just don't understand catcalling (wwwhhhyyyy??? what response do they want??). And because, for the first time in several years, a man just did yell out at my across the parking lot, asking if I wanted a date. I guess that's what I get for going to the grocery store without kids.

Women, Sex, Hip-hop

I had to pull out this quote from the article "Nicki Minaj’s backside backlash highlights hip-hop’s hypocrisy" so that I could think about it some more:

So much of our culture, as it pertains to sex and gender, is built on the idea that sex is driven by male desire and women’s acquiescence to that desire: men want sex, women “give up” sex to appease men. This conditioning is why we automatically view a sexualized woman as a victim: she must be exploited somehow or in some way damaged. We don’t view her as a person in control, doing what she wants to do — she’s lessening herself for the desire of men. That’s a puritanical generalization if ever there was one. And it denies a woman the right to decide who she is and what she wants for herself. It keeps her imprisoned in the dungeon of male judgment. Her sexuality doesn’t belong to her — not if we have anything to say about it.

SEEN IT

What Miley, Ke$ha and Rihanna are showing off — young, thin, sculpted, low-body fat physiques — are everywhere. The internet is made of them. YOU SEE IT ALL THE TIME. There's no longer anything remotely "new" about a 20-year-old ass in a thong, about an under-educated twenty-something showing us she has slender inner thighs and no pubic hair. SEEN IT.

And let's be honest: This is all for shock value. There are no statements being made about female sexual power, it's not a commentary on culture or art, it doesn't raise questions about How We Live Now. Attention for the sake of attention is pointless. When you're in command and have millions listening, you ought to have something to say. Neither Miley, Rihanna, Ke$ha nor Gaga are using their chart-topping positions and rabid fan bases to draw attention to issues that plague today's woman — the wage gap, having it all, FOMO, yogurt mania. The problem with all these half-naked pop stars is that they fail, even as they succeed, because they are "artists" turning themselves into objects. Objects have no agency. Objects are disposable. Objects have no feelings. And although there is value in shock value — power in startling, provoking — the truth is, while the nightly news anchors may feign mild consternation, though talking heads may raise their brows, no one, no one is really surprised.

[http://jezebel.com/the-problem-with-all-these-half-naked-pop-stars-is-that-1441224725]

"The Feminine Mystique at Fifty"

Jessica Hong writes about the impact of Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique fifty years after it was published. Her article has (and will) take me a long time to process. I still haven't read Betty Friedan's book. I want to... and I don't want to. But I do feel like I need to.

Here are two concluding remarks from this article.

I imagine I wouldn't have received my Master of Divinity at a conservative evangelical seminary, nor other countless opportunities I take for granted, had it not been for the questions Friedan's book raised. Yet the identity crisis persists in women today as it did back then: different circumstances, same problem.

Men are not the answer, but they're not the problem, either. My own brokenness, which keeps me from finding the fullness of my identity in who I am in Christ, is the real problem. In Christ, any role can be carried out with joy and neither anxiety on the one hand nor resentment on the other.

[http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/09/30/the-feminine-mystique-at-50/]

"For men, having children is a career advantage. For women, it’s a career killer"

"In the Ivory Tower, Men Only": yep.

"Evolution of a Feminist Daughter "

This article, "Evolution of a Feminist Daughter" was published a number of years ago by Rebecca Walker. I remember reading it back then, perhaps in particular because I'd recently read The Color Purple and was interested in Alice Walker. (Actually, that may even be the reason I found the article in the first place...)

But it floated up again and I once again found it fascinating. So, if you haven't read enough articles regarding feminism, motherhood, racism, gender, etc., here's another that I consider a "must read":

“Mine is the first generation of women to grow up thinking of children as optional,” Ms. Walker writes in the new book. “We learned that children were not to be pursued at the expense of anything else. A graduate degree in economics, for example, or a life of renunciation, devoted to a Hindu mystic.” 

Children, she writes, “smelled of betrayal and a lack of appreciation for the progress made on behalf of women’s liberation.”

[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/fashion/18walker.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all&]

Mourning Maiden Names

I very much identify with this:

I lost something today. Something valuable to me. 

I suppose that is not right, as I know where it went, and in fact it was I who gave it away. And willingly. But it feels like a loss... My husband does not see it as a loss. For him, it is gain. It is a symbol of all the gains we have made together, all the struggles we have overcome, and our brand new commitment to each other. 

And I agree. For all those things are true. But when I look at that new piece of plastic, with those two words that separately are familiar and now, put together, look strange. I miss the old combination.

[http://apracticalwedding.com/2013/05/mourning-your-maiden-name]

Male/female Frendships

Fascinating article! I was going to pull out a few quotes, but I started copying too many. So just go read it.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/opinion/sunday/a-man-a-woman-just-friends.html]

"Dear Pastor: From a black female congregant"

Recently, Trillia Newbell wrote a letter about being an African American woman in a (predominantly) white congregation. She organized her thoughts by topic, covering "Culture," "Boys," "Interaction," and "Femininity." You should go read it.

But I wanted to highlight this quote as well:

I grew up being told that I have to work triple as hard because I am black and then triple that because I am female. So, that’s what I did. I grew wanting to be Oprah but “better”. Because of the socio-economic position of many blacks this need to be driven is ingrained in us. And if we have opportunities like I did, we best take advantage of them. Many of the black females I ran with in college went on to be doctors, lawyers, etc. I was looked down upon by a research professor when I expressed my desire to stop grad school and do the internship with my church college ministry Volunteers For Christ. See, I was forfeiting all that the civil rights leaders had worked so hard for me to be able to do- I had gotten into law school and wasn’t going to go.

Be patient with young black females as God moves in their hearts to teach them about biblical femininity. I didn’t jump on the idea of submitting to a man. Why in the world would I? I definitely didn’t jump at the idea of biblical femininity and being “busy at home”. Though I realize “being busy at home” looks different in every home, before I understood this it looked like: wife, mom, and house-cleaner. It wasn’t all that appealing until I got to know people and saw their home and the beauty in it. But, it took time for God to reveal His Word and His heart to me. And now in marriage, because God has been so very gracious to me, I can/do submit, and even to a white man. I also love to be home with my children. This is a miracle that only God could do in my heart. I had to (and continue to) fight not only the world, not only feminist thoughts, but a culture that would say I sold out.

[http://www.wogmagazine.com/2012/03/dearpastorfromablackfemalecongregant/]

"Women aren’t Fish and Men aren’t Bicycles"

In the seventies, Gloria Steinem famously quipped, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” Then she and the rest of her feminist buddies set about to convince us of this idea. Sadly, we swallowed the bait. And now a whole generation of girls is being raised to believe that men are inconsequential, and that women can make it just fine without them.

On the surface, the slogan seems to encourage a girl to develop a healthy self-respect and avoid getting enmeshed in dependent relationships. But there’s an underlying message here. The slogan insinuates that men are inferior, and that they are expendable. It fosters an unhealthy, independent, a-woman-needs-a-man-like-a-fish-needs-a-bicycle, type of attitude.

[http://www.girlsgonewise.com/women-arent-fish-and-men-arent-bicycles/]

Feminism From My Google Reader

Over the last month or two a number of blog posts have popped up pertaining to issues of feminism. Here's a sampling:

"I Am Not a Girl..." by Elizabeth Esther

"Why Women Need Each Other" by Elizabeth Esther

"Feminist Homemaker" on A Practical Wedding

"What Feminism Isn't" on Rachel Held Evan's blog

"Thirteen Things That Make Me A Lousy Feminist" by Rachel Held Evans

"What Makes Women Good?" by Lauren Nicole Dubinsky

"Slaves to Sex" on Good Woman Project

If the world were 100 people...

...this is how it would break down. Wow. (And these stats are from 2006, so they're pretty recent. And, if you look at the scholarship it's pretty reliable.)

If the World were 100 PEOPLE:
50 would be female
50 would be male
26 would be children
There would be 74 adults,
8 of whom would be 65 and older
There would be:
60 Asians
15 Africans
14 people from the Americas
11 Europeans
33 Christians
22 Muslims
14 Hindus
7 Buddhists
12 people who practice other religions
12 people who would not be aligned with a religion
12 would speak Chinese
5 would speak Spanish
5 would speak English
3 would speak Arabic
3 would speak Hindi
3 would speak Bengali
3 would speak Portuguese
2 would speak Russian
2 would speak Japanese
62 would speak other languages
83 would be able to read and write; 17 would not
7 would have a college degree
22 would own or share a computer
77 people would have a place to shelter them
from the wind and the rain, but 23 would not
1 would be dying of starvation
15 would be undernourished
21 would be overweight
87 would have access to safe drinking water
13 would have have no clean, safe water to drink