What Women Want

While we are on the topic of abortion, let's side step to another "women's rights" issue and talk about birth control.  Most of the time you hear a dichotomy in conversations about birth control:

*Contraceptive hormones/devices vs. nothing

*Normal people vs. crazy Catholics

Every now and then there is an admission that such a things as "NFP" exists, although it is generally equated to "nothing," and every now and then there is an admission that some other crazy Christians join the Catholics.

And then I found these articles.   These two infinitely secular sources do not make an apologia for natural methods.  They simply point out that hormone-free methods of avoiding pregnancy might be something that women want.  The first article is less about what is being branded as "Fertility Awareness-Based Methods" (FABM) and more about the rejection of hormonal birth control:

[These women] buy organic kale and all-natural cleaning products, and so can’t quite get down with taking synthetic hormones every day... They’re sick of supposedly egalitarian relationships in which they bear the sole responsibility for staying baby-free.

The author's main point is actually the rise of the "pullout method," if such technique can be deemed a method of birth control, as a direct response to a rejection of the Pill.  The second article, a response to the first, is much more concerned with FAMB as a solution to this rejection:

Synthetic hormones come with side effects, condoms don’t feel great, intrauterine devices are kind of scary....surveys conducted by physicians at the University of Utah show that when natural fertility-awareness methods are described to women, 25 percent say they would strongly consider using one as their means of birth control. But thanks to its glaring image problem and a set of just-as-formidable infrastructural hindrances, ignorance of fertility awareness-based methods is widespread.

 This author goes on to explain that FABM is something that women want and do not have access to.  She blames two factors: 1) a branding image, where FABM is too closely associated with both the rhythm method (which it is not) and the Catholic Church (which has embraced a religious version); and 2) the fact that it does not bring money to the pockets of pharmaceutical companies.

I am always overjoyed to see discussions of this nature in the secular spheres.  One of the greatest harms the sexual revolution has done is kept women distanced from our bodies.  Medicine is learning so much about our bodies -- which are pretty amazing and complex -- but we are taught to reject these inner workings without even knowing what they are.

Regardless of your opinions on birth control, I think it should be fairly obvious that we have a right to know how our bodies work.  We can only make informed decisions on how to live our lives if we actually get information about ourselves.

The Space I Occupy

When feminism was a fun idea and before I pursued it in a haphazard academic fashion, I learned a fact that surprised me.  Men and women are taught to take up space differently.  Men are taught to sit, stand, move while taking up lots of space.  Women, on the other hand, are taught to be self-contained -- folded hands, legs, tucking in ourselves and our stuff.  If these two Google searches don't sufficiently demonstrate the difference, watch this video without sound, just paying attention to body language and posture.  Or, take a train ride during rush hour. Sit down next to a window and pay attention to how the people next to you sit.

This particular lesson stuck out to me because I remembered learning how to sit as a child.  I would sit in the most comfortable position -- which often involved on foot on the opposite leg's knee (this is a great way as a small child to hold a large book) or my legs spread in some other way.  I had to learn (rather reluctantly) to sit with my legs together, making myself compact.  Now, I am very talented at this.  It amazes me at times the difference in the amount of space the Captain and I take up in a church pew -- despite the fact that we are relatively the same size.  

All these musings are meant to lead up to this Upworthy video that wandered across my Facebook recently.  A young woman recited a bit of slam poetry that addresses how men and women take up space.  She spends much of her time discussing food, but I think it goes deeper than how much pizza we can eat:

Dating Advice for Men and Women

I'm going to take a slight risk with this post.  Recently, this blog about dating advice for men has been floating around Facebook.  And, men, read it.  Women, go ahead and read it too.  It is good dating advice for men.  But I want to offer a counterpoint to women, because, quite frankly, we don't always do things better than men do. So, with further ado,

Five Notes on Dating for the Ladies

1) Be clear.

If men need to be intentional, so do women. We often can get away with playing games, with blowing hot and cold, with sending mixed signals and misleading hints.  If we don't want guys equivocating, playing that pseudo-dating game, or defaulting into relationships, rather than straight-up asking us out, we've got to start straight-up answering.  Be honest with the men in your life, especially when they are being honest and vulnerable with you.

Part of the ability to be clear and honest comes from a deep self-knowledge.  How can you let someone else know what you want from a relationship, what you need in life, where you see yourself going through the year, unless you know can answer these questions?  How can you tell if someone shares your values and priorities, unless you can identify them for yourself?  The men I have seen be most hurt by women are wounded by women who don't know their own desires well enough.  For example, more than one man in my life has been told by a woman, "I don't want to date; I want to court/be courted" -- yet she could not tell him what she mean by "courtship."

We don't need to have it all figured out -- we none of us have it all figured out -- but we need enough to recognize ourselves in an internal mirror and communicate some of that image, so to speak.

2) Be rational.

That being said... be honest, but don't overdo the analysis.  I have two subpoints under this point 2).

a) Don't overtalk/overdiscuss it.  Yes, it is good to know where your relationship stands.  Sometimes this will require a DTR, depending on how the relationship started/progressed. But you don't need a DTR every day or every week, or even every month.  Let things grow and progress; let the relationship take its course.  You may need to reevaluate after a few months if it is not clear to you how things are progressing.  That's okay -- and it's okay to bring it up if you have a strong reason to think something has changed.  It just should not be an every single day discussion.

b) Don't overanalyze.  Some of the best advice on communication between the genders is simple arithmetic.  Men, when a lady speaks, take what you think she means, and multiply it by 3.  Ladies, when a man speaks, take what you think he means and divide it by 3.  Most things he says/does are not veiled hints, secret messages, or hidden meanings.  When he says he doesn't want to hang out tonight because his football team is playing and he wants to watch it with the boys, that does not mean he doesn't like you.  It doesn't mean he doesn't want to date you.  It doesn't even mean he's tired of you.  It simply means that he wants some beer and wings and to watch the Patriots play.  If your mind is going crazy over-analyzing things, you are going to have a hard time holding yourself to (2)(a).

3) Let him lead. 

If you have read anything on this blog (including that little bio of me on the side), you will have figured out that I am a self-professed feminist and a strong Polish woman.  That should tell you two things about number (3).  First, that I have a hard time writing it for fear of how some people may interpret it.  Second, that I don't mean look down and be a doormat.  I don't mean he has to make all the decisions or run your life.  In fact, stay away from those models!  Instead, find where and how he is a leader and affirm him in those areas.  Figure out intentionally how to incorporate these things into your relationship.

As a corollary: let him do those little chivalrous things that melt female hearts, but don't demand them!  This is a tricky balance to reach.  I had a couple of male friends who taught me something about the balance when I was too far on the other side.  They did things like run in front of me to open doors and flat-out refuse to go through lines before me.  Eventually, I learned to accept these gestures with grace, rather than rolled eyes. I also got to witness how this small, token affirmation of their masculinity helped them develop it in other ways.

On the other hand, many men are not taught to do these things, or are taught by the women in their lives NOT to do these things.  So judge a man by a greater picture of his heart than whether he takes the outside of the sidewalk.

4) Guard his eyes.

Okay, so guys were told to help guard our hearts.  Ladies, we have got to guard their eyes.  I tend to hate soapboxes on modesty and I am not going to tell you what to wear or how many inches below your neck your neckline should sit.  As I walk through the mall with my fiance, I find myself jokingly covering his eyes at times -- but only half-jokingly.  Because the fact is, I don't want him to see those parts of other ladies!  And as a general rule of thumb, the parts of other ladies that I don't want him to see are the parts of me he should not be seeing till we are married.  If I want him to entertain only pure thoughts about me, I need to be presenting myself in such a way that I encourage only pure thoughts.  It's not about blaming women for men's thoughts -- it's about love.  If I love him, I want to make it as easy as possible for him to keep his mind full of pure thoughts.

5) Girls struggle with lust too.

This is a direct answer to number 5 for men, on physical touch.

One day, I stumbled across a couple articles (I'm not sure that these were the ones, but they are good ones I found in retrospect) that focused on the fact that women struggle with physical desire. I was shocked at how freeing I found this point.  When we believe that we should not be having a particular struggle, there are two consequences: 1) we tend to deny that we are having that struggle, which leads us unable to combat it; and 2) we tend to think we are particularly alone and particularly awful for having that struggle. We are too often led to believe that lust is a struggle unique to men, that only men desire more physically than is allowable before marriage.  This is just not true.  We were born with the same original sin and the same concupiscent desires as men.  So ladies, read point number 5 for the men, and apply it to your own lives.  And maybe click the links in the first sentence.

Divorce and the Pill

Here's an interesting take on the Pill from a surprising source.  Scientific American seems to be claiming that the Pill leads to higher divorce rates.  Here's the two ways that happens, according to this article:

1) The Pill leads women to be attracted to men with major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes that are more similar, rather than less similar to their own.  Couples with similar MHC genes report less sexual satisfaction.  Less sexual satisfaction could contribute to divorce.

2) The Pill leads women to be attracted to men with major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes that are more similar, rather than less similar to their own. When a couple decides to have a baby, the woman goes off the Pill and finds herself less attracted to her husband, while simultaneously more attracted to other men.  This change in attraction could lead to divorce.

Let me put in a few disclaimers and explanatory notes here:

*Just because widespread use of the Pill might lead to a higher divorce rate, it does not necessarily follow that an individual woman should not use the Pill for contraceptive purposes.

*I think that (i.e. women should not use the Pill for contraceptive purposes) for other reasons.

*If there is a correlation between use of the Pill and divorce, it should be enough for most women to think twice about the decision to use hormonal contraception.  I don't want to be less attracted to my husband at the exact moment we want to have children.

*The changes in attraction from the use of hormonal contraception might be a social scientific explanation of divorce rates, but they are not an excuse for any individual divorce.  It might be harder to make a marriage work in these circumstances, but (barring abusive situations) divorce should simply not be an option.

The thing that interests me most about this article is that it comes from a source without a Christian bias. The point isn't to convince women not to use hormonal contraceptives, but to draw attention to an interesting scientific fact.  And whatever we disagree on, I think most people of good will agree that women should have all the facts before making decisions about the drugs we use.

We Need Feminism Because....

Lately, I've been antsy to start running again -- I stopped in June due to health issues and now that they are resolved, I am preparing to get back to it.  So it's not surprising that as I wander through the neighborhood that will be mine in November, I sometimes think about where I will run.

I haven't just been thinking about it -- I've also talked to my fiance, who lives there now, about running routes in his neighborhood.  The conversation went something like this:

"The running path down by the river -- is it safe?"
"I think your greatest danger is being hit by a bike." [Brief excursus about runners being hit by cyclists.] "I like running towards town better."
"Yeah, but I don't like running along main roads."
"There's a bridge over the highway so you won't get hit.  There are some roads back here too that might be good.  There's a big hill and lots of stairs that lead you to a park."
"That doesn't look like it'd be long enough.  I'll probably go by the path."
"I don't like it in the winter.  It's not very well lit."
[Moment of revelation for both of us: we are talking about different dangers.]
"Of course, I don't have the same concerns as a lady runner..."

I need feminism because my concerns when choosing a running path should not be dictated by my gender.  That conversation brought to mind this collection of students explaining why they need feminism.

Color Me Beautiful

I missed last week by a day -- oops.  Here's one of my favorite links in my "Blog Me" folder by way of apology.  It's part of  Dove's Real Beauty Campaign.  Imagine describing yourself to a sketch artist.  How accurate do you think the picture would be?  How much would it vary from a picture he would draw based on someone else's description?  That's what Dove did.

I love the idea, and I know the message hits a lot of young women in a place they need some comfort.  However, the rational, skeptical side of me wants to try it with men.  Do men see themselves differently than other people do?  We focus a lot of attention on women and body image.  I would love to see some evidence that (if) the gender-bias reflects a reality.

Rape Culture and the Christian Perspective

As a woman who is Catholic and identifies as a feminist, I reach some awkward discords at times, and one of the most glaring is simply that people use different languages.  When Catholics write about things, they write with a Catholic vocabulary and assume their readers share a knowledge base and a world-view that many people simply do not.  For example, I was listening to a speaker on Monday who based a "secular" claim on the fact that "what we do with our bodies means something."  He was going for something as simple as "sex means 'I love you,'" but even that cannot be taken for granted in dialogue.  

The same thing happens from the other perspective.  I find wonderful articles that use language I don't want to share, or terms such as "het/cis," which can be off-putting to a more conservative religious crowd.  I try to bridge the gap at times, but other people are better thinkers and more articulate writers than I am, so I really want to share their thoughts.

Then, every now and then, something like this appears.  It brings together issues like rape culture, feminism, porn, purity, sin, misogyny, and solutions -- but from a Christian perspective.  Take a read and let me know what you think.

A Parable of Apples

Before I end up on another feminist rant (I just found a Christian article about rape culture that will make it here soon), I want to take a moment to speak to a problem with feminist rants that a friend brought to my attention.  Hopefully, this is not a problem for men in my life, but it's important, so I am going to tell a story.   I may have told this story before, but this time, it's an allegory.

Last fall, I went apple picking with a group of grad students.  One of the kids with us reminded me of a character in a book I was reading, which was really awkward because I kept wanting to call him Sonny, which was not his name, and then I'd have to explain to him, "Oh, it's just that you remind me of a fictional character," making a great first impression. 

Sonny (not his real name) was from New York and didn't like apples.  (I promise, these two facts are related.)  He came for the pumpkin patch and the hay ride.  However, as we wandered through the apple orchard, he caught some enthusiasm from the rest of us and tried an apple.  And exclaimed, "I didn't know apples could taste like this!"  Having only ever eaten mushy, flavorless store-apples, he didn't know what an apple really was.  But when he found a real one, he liked it.

There is a danger in feminist rants to identify men with the mushy, flavorless store-apples and see the orchard-picked variety as the outliers, who are an exception to what men really are.  To define men and generalize masculinity by the negative choices that lead to the problems we see.  This approach leads us to devalue the honorable masculinity with which some men live their lives.  

No matter which is more common in our lives, the fact is that orchard apples are more truly apples than mushy, flavorless store-apples.  Men who live noble masculinity live it more truly than those who live the stunted version of masculinity (if it even can be called such) that leads to things like rape culture.  We as women need to make sure that as often as we attack the latter, we affirm the former and let the men we love know that they show us what it means to be a man.

What I Have Taught My Feminism, Part III

(Go do your catch-up reading if you've missed Part II!)

The discomfort of my feminism as I write that who I am as a woman makes no sense except in relation to man (and again as I type it, and again as I post it) is palpable.  I have, for years, been on a quest to find the true meaning of femininity.  As a good feminist, I set out to find the definition of woman without reference to man.  I found two extremes: defining woman by a certain cultural/historical set of behaviors and values or collapsing gender differences to create a false equivalency.  I was unsatisfied wherever I turned.  If we can define man without reference to woman, shouldn’t we be able to do the opposite?

When I read the beginning of JPII’s Theology of the Body, it hit me.  I’d been getting it backwards.  Man was defined in isolation, woman with reference to man.  I knew woman was misdefined, so surely the approach to defining her was wrong; I needed to imitate the definition of man.

But what if the definition of man was wrong too?  What if man only makes sense in reference to woman?  This is the claim I make: masculinity and femininity are mutually referential and only make sense in relationship with each other.  Bodily, this makes sense.  Our physical bodies anticipate the opposite as complement.  I propose, once more following JPII, that our physical bodies give exterior shape to our interior selves.

In this case, it does woman no wrong to explain who she is with reference to (and in contrast to) man; it does man no wrong to explain who he is with reference to (and in contrast to) woman.  Indeed, any attempt at an isolated definition will do an injustice to femininity or masculinity,  It cannot but be a reductive view.

Does this mean that I have reached a perfect understanding of femininity, which I can now fully explicate for you?  Alas, no.  That is still a work in progress (though I hope to continue talking around the question here for a while yet).  A lot more work and research are necessary before I get there.  I am, however, making progress in developing the proper framework for asking the question, which is necessary for finding the answer.  

What I Have Taught My Feminism, Part I

Now that you have done your assigned reading, it is time for the next chapter of Beth's feminist musings, "What I Have Taught My Feminism."

[Read the first series here.]

Now that I have begun, I might as well continue to develop a few more thoughts on vulnerability and gender. Again, I want to put these musings into a wider context; this time, “What I Have Taught My Feminism.” My feminism has taught me valuable lessons, but on occasion, I have had to instruct it, especially when I try to make it play nicely with my Church. There are two lessons in particular that I want to focus on, because of how crucial they are for correcting misunderstandings between my feminism and my Church.

First: Vulnerability is not a bad thing. The opposite assumption comes not just from my feminism, but from our society as a whole. And I am, as a stubbornly independent woman, perhaps particularly susceptible to it. As a basic, working definition I give, “the potentiality to be hurt.” It need not imply an actual being hurt: a newborn child, with the wisest, most doting parents, is extremely vulnerable. We don’t like vulnerability: it implies helplessness, weakness, and passivity. What about that sounds good?

The helplessness, I suppose, is part of the definition of vulnerability, but I mean to contend that the other two are not, or need not be. Vulnerability can be accompanied by an active strength, because it is can be primarily a factor of opennesss.

Or, to use the words of everyone’s favorite Polish Pope, it is about gift of self. The meaning of our humanity – of being a person – is the ability to make a gift of ourselves and to accept the gift of another. This is a huge starting point for his theology of the body. We are our bodies. In the beginning, this gift was safe because no one would think of harming another. Now, however, the gift involves risk – risk of exploitation or rejection. Thus gift of self = vulnerability. The catch is: gift of self = only true way to be a person. Vulnerability is intrinsic to our personhood and inescapable for our humanity.

Assigned Reading

... or rather viewing.  I don't watch things online -- I prefer to take in information through reading.  It goes at my own pace, allows me to skim, and doesn't make noises.  So this video sat in a perpetually opened tab for about two weeks before I watched it.  Now it's your turn: you need to see it as preparation for my next installment of "Beth the Feminist."  Oh, yeah, and it's a TED video, so it's good.  It's Brené Brown on "The Power of Vulnerability."

Gendered Thoughts, Part IV

Here's the fourth & final part.  I hope you enjoy the ending... There's another series coming soon with more about vulnerability and gender!

I am not yet willing to shift from the world of “is” to the world of “ought.”  I do want to note a scene the vulnerability-dynamic can draw.  A man and a woman stand face to face.  As a female body before a male body, she has a vulnerability that she cannot help and he cannot have.  However, he has just told her that he finds her fun and charming (not to mention pretty) and would love to take her out to dinner.  He has a vulnerability before her that she does not have – he has no idea what she thinks of him.  If she accepts him, both will have made an implicit agreement to accept and guard – at least to a limited extent – the vulnerability of the other.  He is guarding her physical vulnerability and she his emotional vulnerability.  This dynamic, though by no means the only one at play here, sets the stage in an interesting manner for “traditional” gender roles in marriage, where the husband provides materially for the family and the wife acts as emotional caretaker.  Often times, behavior that seems to fall to the other gender is constructed to fit the acting gender’s norm, a tendency that fascinated my sociologist self in undergrad.

Again, I do not wish to move from the realm of “is” to “ought” or to insist that any particular gendered interaction fits this perfectly, especially since it relies on purity of intention.  I also do not mean to imply that a marriage with “traditional” gender roles necessarily follows from the date scenario described before it.  I merely wish to explore these as interesting gender dynamics that are largely ignored, or, when discussed, inextricably conflated with other ideology.  

Thoughts on Gender, Part III

(To make sense of this, be sure to read parts one and two first.)

I’m not sure how to transition here from female vulnerability to male vulnerability.  Part of the trouble is that up till now I have been concerned with physical differences, and now I need to turn to social norms.

Social norms are always difficult to deal with, not the least because they tend to be amorphous and variable.  However, again simply based on my recent life, let me offer two norms in our society: malefold ask out femalefolk; malefolk propose to femalefolk.  I propose merely that this is the way, by and large, that things are done – not the way things have to be done or should be done.

Now I not something interesting: asking another person to go on a date with or to marry you puts you in a position of vulnerability.  (This assertion assumes that the other person is reasonably free to answer in the negative.  If refusal is not a viable option, this, of course, changes the power dynamic.)  In asking a woman out, a man says, “See?  I am an interesting person.  Please consider investing some time in me.”  Rejection can’t help but be personal – it is, in a small way a rejection of his person.  A marriage proposal all the more so.  I heard a young man describe his proposal as offering “everything” of himself and, on one knee, waiting to find out if it was enough. 

(Incidentally, this scenario illustrates why I dislike the pre-engagement decision that “we should get engaged.”  It’s like showing someone his Christmas gift and proceeding to wrap it anyway.  You don’t half-give gifts or commitments.  Either you are committed to marrying each other (engaged) or you are discerning (dating).  If you are both done discerning,  you need to be either engaged or broken up.)

This scenario (before my parenthetical aside) assumes that the man is seeking an actual relationship and not just a hook-up.  A relationship says, “I want to give myself to you.”  A hook-up says, “You will be fun for me.”  It is also complicated by the idea of the “waiting woman” – a common complaint that women are trapped sitting around waiting desperately to get asked out.  Doesn’t this change the dynamic?  Only if we assume that women need men to be complete – and I offer as a counterpart men who ask out dozens of women in a short span of time, yet do not find that any of them stick it out beyond a second or third date.  

Gendered Thoughts, Part II

If you haven't read Part I yet, go back and do that first.  It's short & I'll wait for you.  Ready...
...
...
...Okay.  Here's the next piece!


The gender-vulnerability-based fears that women have are heightened by two factors: negative masculine gender norms and instructions given to women. The “male” behavior associated with the patriarchy/ hegemonic masculinity/ rape culture (also, read this blog and links from this post; all these are distinct, yet present similar concepts of masculinity) teaches men to act in a way so as to objectify and degrade women. This lesson should not happen. Women are taught a different lesson: how not to place themselves in danger. While this lessons are not, in themselves, bad, they teach women an awareness of vulnerability – so that it is difficult to tell what fear is a response to male behavior and what fear is learned from these instructions. Either way, the fear is there and it is real.

Because of this dynamic, a healthy male-female relationship must include the communication, “I am not a threat to you.” My guess is that we have tons of social cues mean to communicate this message and that it happens subconsciously. Small things: tone of voice, word choice, posture, gestures, and physical proximity – along with things less subtle, from choice of meeting location to explicit words. I read an article recently wherein the author attributed this meaning to chivalry (read to the middle of the article; you are looking for Christina Hoff Sommers, but the whole thing is a good read). Thus, its gestures assure a woman that the man, who physically could harm her, has no intention to. Like a handshake, they guarantee that he comes in peace and respect.

(I can hear the protests now: “But men did not actually respect women more in the days of chivalry! Those were the days of misogyny and chauvinism!” Or those just the voices in my own head? Either way, I am toying with the hypothesis that this exact hypocrisy led to the eventual demise of chivalry. Women killed it because they recognized its lie. Perhaps – perhaps – if it actually communicated this reassurance, women would not mind it.)

I feel a need to interrupt myself to offer a disclaimer. Learned helplessness is, for a very good reason, a concern for feminists. I am starting to feel that I might sound like I am feeding into it. Let me be clear: women do not need to rely on men to “rescue” them and are capable, in a variety of ways, of protecting themselves without male cooperation. They just should not have to.

Gendered Thoughts, Part I

I recently started writing out a brief synthesis of gender-related thoughts that have been bouncing through my head lately.  Six pages later, I realized it would have to be more than one blog post.  Bits will appear in manageable chunks over the next few days.  I hope at least one of my faithful three readers enjoys reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I hope here to throw together into coherence some thoughts and ponderings I have had recently regarding gender relations and vulnerability. I will weave together several themes that have emerged in the past few months, in incidents, anecdotes, encounters, articles, and classes. It won’t be a fully developed system, but I hope it will be a consistent beginning of things. Please nitpick my assertions and my logic, so that I can see if this framework holds water and deserves to be developed.

Let me start with some initial premises, assumptions that will undergird my further thoughts.

1) First, I will be assuming that we all live gendered existences. I mean to leave out the question of which parts come from social constructs versus biological predispositions. No matter how gender is formed, we all live lives informed by how we do and experience gender. The vast majority of us live in the male-female/man-woman dichotomy and, although I recognize that exceptions exist, I will be working with a two gender system.

2) This gendered existence affects our daily lives and interpersonal interactions.

3) Women, based on their biological make-up, are physically more vulnerable in comparison to men and especially vis-à-vis men. This premise seems commonsensical to me, and I don’t have research to back it up, but if you want to challenge it, I will gladly go off questing for some. In other words, as a vast generalization, men pose more of a threat to women than women to men, physically.

4) Gender norms exist. I will be speaking about them in sweeping generalities. I realize that these generalities will have counter-examples; these examples do not prevent them from being norms. If I have misidentified or misrepresented a norm, please call me out on it. Just be sure you are certain of the definition of “norm” before you contest one. Then contest away.

Working with these basic ideas in mind, I propose: women, on a daily basis, experience a vulnerability that men do not. This particular experience informs how we live our lives and how we see the world. It colors our gendered interaction. This does not mean that women are, most of the time, in danger. (I leave that assessment to others to make.) It does mean that, as a rule, women experience a greater potentiality for being in danger than men do. Consider: a solitary female motorist stops to pick up a lone male hitch-hiker. For whom are you instinctively concerned? Why?

A Short Story about Childbirth

Today I presented my research on the ethics of maternal elective cesarean deliveries to some other theology students.  I enjoy exchanging knowledge with other students (part of the reason I love school and hated distance learning classes).  My favorite part came outside the official presentation and Q&A.

One writer worried that as the number of c-sections rises women will stop exchanging stories of normal childbirth and only have surgical stories to tell, which will increase feelings of incompetence surrounding birth.  Tonight, people told birth stories.  Hard births, easy births, regular births, surgical births, heroic births.  ("The sonogram missed a baby!  She gave birth -- after a past c-section -- to surprise twins, breach, by the side of the road!")  We still have stories.  Beautiful, diverse, empowering stories that women share -- and, tonight, men too.

Crazy Love

Facebook led me to this TED Talk today.  I don't really have anything to say about it, other than that you should watch:

Hello Again

About a week into Christmas break, I realized I hadn't posted anything on the faithful blog in a while, maybe a week.  I checked and realized that it had been closer to two.  And I didn't want to take time away from my reading (The Brothers Karamazov with Thom) or spending time with awesome Virginia people (too many to name) to give to the wonderful world of the interwebz.  So I embarked on an unannounced Christmas break hiatus.  And now, I have returned!  I might post stories from Christmas break.  I might not.  I haven't decided yet.

For now, I want to share something that appeared in my Facebook world this morning.  It is a short, encouraging piece about femininity and fitting into our female bodies and our female selves.

I read it at the perfect time -- after I read a Buzzfeed blurb bashing Taylor Swift as an anti-feminist.  That might appear later when my frustration has slowed from a boil to a simmer and I can put together more coherent thoughts than !!!adifha uar8wer7y893hefzduyf7igusitr!!!!!  WHY???? adhifahty f f8e6yr7yweh auify7aie!!!!!!!  Oh, the title is fairly catching as well -- here's the link again to "On Skinny Jeans, Daughters, and Singleness."

On Luminous Geckos

M ost of the time when I am on my soapboxes online -- here, Facebook, Pintrest -- I am on them because they are fun places to be.  Not that I see the problems as fun, but I like a good fight.  Sometimes, however, the problem part hits home, and I remember I am not passionate about these things because it is a good fight.  I am passionate because this is real.  It's the difference between a midnight bathroom debate about abortion with a hallmate who is swiftly becoming a best friend and standing outside a abortion facility praying for the scared women and the men who don't know another way to love them.

The abortion soapbox is made real every week in that way.  Today, I want to make the feminist soapbox real.  I have two quick reads to do so -- two of the best reads I've stumbled across (one through Julia and one by following links from Unequally Yoked) on this subject.

The first piece is an anecdote about a Luminuously Beautiful Woman and an Awkward Dude.  The second is a parable about a dog and a gecko to explain the concept of "male privilege."  Read these first -- they are good reads, I promise (though you will have to excuse the profanity).  All educated?  Good!

I have to admit, when I read the Luminous story, I stopped to try to figure out The Question, and I couldn't.  It bothered me for a bit until I fully processed the story and The Question -- and then I realized that I hadn't been able to figure out The Question, because I assumed the answer.  It didn't need to be asked.  As soon as Luminous started placing physical barriers (such as Dr. Glass) between herself and Awkward Dude, I realized that this guy was a serious threat to her safety.  We use emotional and social barriers to deal with awkward; we use physical barriers to deal with danger.

Hopefully you can see the connection between Luminous and the gecko.  I like both these pieces because they put into words what I had previously grasped intuitively and brought out explicitly what I have experienced but never crystallized into coherent thoughts.  They also show why, despite the substantial progress feminists have made since the early 1900s, more work is needed.

Yet Another HHS Update

I haven't posted about the HHS mandate recently, though believe you me it has been in the background or forefront of my mind.  I am both a beneficiary and a victim of Obamacare: I stayed on my father's policy later than would have been allowed, but now I am about to embark on my own healthcare voyage.  Because of the contraceptive mandate, my school has dropped student coverage, which was going to be my route.  In the wake of the elections, I've had a hard time not being depressed by the anti-life state of the nation.

Now, however, cases are starting to hit courts and courts are starting to give answers.  Here's an article about a Bible-publishing company who won their case... though I am sure it's not the end of the story for them.  And it's definitely not for others (such as Hobby Lobby) who lost and are appealing.  The rationale for decisions, based on the limited information from these two articles, seems to be that the courts want to exempt religious organizations but not religious employers (i.e. individuals) from providing contraception.