He won't buy the cow if you give the milk away for free

If you grew up in the South it's not unlikely that you heard this at some point.  It could have been on TV or in that famous Georgia Satellites song, or even more likely from an authority figure as you grew up.  For those of you that aren't familiar with the phrase let me break it down for you.  It's said in relation to waiting for marriage to have sex.  If you give the male sex before he marries you then he has no reason to marry you.  In the metaphor you as a girl are the cow to be sold, but if you give him your milk aka your sex then he won't want to buy you.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Parents without even thinking about it are comparing their girls to cows.  They are suggesting that they are a commodity to be sold.

Now, I'm not saying most people think of their daughters like this.  Most people mean well when they say something like this.  What they are trying to say is that you shouldn't let yourself be taken advantage of and that you should wait until marriage for sex.  I'm not going to get into a debate about the second part of that, but the first part is good advice.  The problem is when they want to give that advice they fall back to what their parents told them, who fell back to what their parents told them and so on.  All the while none of them take the time to think about what the words really mean.  They don't think about the phrase turning their daughter into property.  They don't think about the possibility of someone marrying her who just wants the sex and doesn't see her as a person.  They don't think of her taking to it heart and tying her worth to her sex.

So how do we make this better?  We think about what we are saying.  If you want to teach your daughter to not let herself be taken advantage of I applaud you.  Tell her that, don't compare her to property.  Tell her that not everyone is honest and that she needs to be sure before she trusts people.  Tell her that even if she is sure some people will still trick her and that's ok because it happens to us all.  Tell her to not be afraid though because even if sometimes it works out wrong when it works out right it's worth all the wrong steps.

If you want to teach her to abstain until she's married then teach her that.  Don't teach her that as a way to trick men into marrying her.  Don't teach her that as a men won't want to marry you if you don't.  That all goes back to women as property and their virginity being an important part of dominance.  If you are part of a religion that believes waiting until marriage is the right thing to do then teach them that.  Not that they need to do so to manipulate men, but because your religion says that this is an important religious rite that happens in the confines of marriage.  If you are just worried that she is too young then tell her that.  Tell her that you are worried that she may have trouble telling when someone is sincere or not and handling the potential consequences.  Just don't teach her that her only value in a relationship is the sex she can provide. 

There are so many ways to teach your daughters to respect themselves.  So many ways you can tell them to be careful without telling them to shut down.  So many ways you can ask them to wait until some later time.  You don't need to make your daughters into property to be bought and sold for the price of their virginity.  Think about the things you say instead of just repeating them because your parents said them.

Why Write on Religion, Feminism, and Controversy?

Growing up I saw the world through rose colored glasses.  Sexism, racism, and religious discriminations were things relegated to the history books.  Occasionally I'd see something that fit one of those categories, but I'd pass it off as an isolated incident or I'd make an excuse for what it wasn't really what it looked like.  In my mind people were just being too sensitive.  Then I stopped being Christian in the South.  Suddenly I was a target.  I wasn't Wicken but many of my friends were.  I saw what we all went through.  Religious discrimination was real, but I still had my blinders about the other 2. 

Fast forward almost 20 years and I have a Masters Degree in Religious Studies.  I've worked for most of that time.  I've seen more and more of the effects of racism and sexism on the people around me.  I can't continue to imagine it's not there.  I can't continue to pretend that well meaning things that were taught to me growing up don't perpetuate it.  I can't continue to pretend that it's just an isolated incident here and there.  I can't continue to believe that it's only malicious.  Much of it is people that were taught these behaviours that they don't even realize perpetuate it.

This blog is me working through those realizations.  This blog is a space where I want to talk about the things that I was taught that perpetuate the way things are.   I want to stop pretending that our culture doesn't have these flaws and instead drag them out into the light to look at.  I want to think about the things we say without realizing how they can be interpreted.  I want to consider ways that we can make things better. 

Mechanics

I need new tires.  It doesn't sound like much.  After all everyone who owns a car needs new tires from time to time.  It's something that I always dread though.  Not just because tires are expensive, but because I'm female.  In fact I often buy tires online so that I don't actually have to deal with any people because of the trouble I've had in the past as a female wanting to buy new tires.  Since I have a Costco membership that gives me cash back I decided that this year I would bit the bullet and talk to a real person about tires.

I went into the shop with the list of tires that I was interested in.  The gentleman behind the counter looked at my list and pulled up his prices for the tires I was looking at on Tire Rack.  He couldn't beat any of the prices.  Then unlike almost everyone I've asked for tires before he asked me why I liked those tires.  He listened to my answer and then proceed to offer me another tire that he thought would be better.  When he talked about that tire he talked about how it compared to the ones I was looking at in the features that I was interested in.  In other words he treated me like an intelligent person, who had done their research, and knew what they were looking for.  I was immensely grateful.  I was also extremely frustrated.  I shouldn't have to feel grateful for being treated with respect.  Let me share with you some stories from my past though to show you why this was so different and that that is a problem.

Long ago when I was first starting out my grandmother let me have her car.  The tires were bad and I went to the Firestone where I lived for new tires.  I bought the cheapest tires they had because that was all that I could afford.  While I was there they did their free inspection on my car.  They then came back to me with over $1,000 worth of work that needed to be done on my car.  They told me that without the work my car was not safe to drive.  I called my grandmother in tears.  I knew she didn't have the money to help me, but I didn't know what else to do.  She told me to take it to her mechanic.  She said that he was cheaper and that he would look it over and help me figure out what I needed to do right now and what could wait until I had a little more money.  I took him the list and he went over my car.  None of it needed to be done.

More recently I purchased a sports car.  It was the first time I'd ever owned a sports car and I lived in Wisconsin at the time.  At the time I worked as a delivery driver so I drove a lot in all kinds of conditions.  As such I decided that winter tires would be a necessity.  I found some that I liked on Tire Rack and did the research on them, but at this point I'd never bought tires online before.  I decided to check with the dealership that I had been referred to for work on my car.  After keeping me waiting for an hour they told me that there were no winter tires for my vehicle and offered me all season tires that they sold.  They didn't say they didn't carry them, but that they didn't exist for me car.

Not long after the winter tire incident I stopped in at a shop that I had been delivering sandwiches to.  I asked them for a specific set of tires to see if they could beat the price online.  They didn't even look.  Instead of the high end performance tires I asked for he tried to sell me low end all non performance tires.  He pointed out how long the tread life was on them.  He pointed out how they were the tires that he put on his mom's car.  I wanted to yell at him, but as I was there delivering food and just asked on my way out I had to stay professional.  I was tempted to ask him next time he came in and ordered the high calorie Italian sandwich if he would prefer our honey mustard chicken.  After all it did have just a fraction of the calories of the one he was ordering.  I suspect he wouldn't have been very happy.

These are just some of the stories that I have.  Finding someone to work on my car without ripping me off or treating me like a child is a constant struggle.  I've had so many mechanics do things that didn't need to be done or change the price after the work was done refusing to honor the quote I was given.  Things that I never see happen to my boyfriend or the men in my life.  I and I suspect many women have a history of such bad interactions with these kinds of places that being treated with the basic respect any customer should receive stands out.  This is a problem. 

Dressing to Prevent Sexual Harassment

I want you to imagine for a moment that you are at a park.  A young boy sits on the platform to a piece of playground equipment.  He’s wearing nice pants and a button up shirt.  He’s just sitting there reading and minding his own business when another boy comes over to him.  Instead of sitting down or saying “hi” this other boy pushes him off the platform.  He skins his knees and hands.  His book is torn.  He’s crying as the parents of both children come running.  Now imagine if the parents of the boy that did the pushing said, “well we’ll punish our child, but really yours shouldn’t have made himself such a target.  I mean what did he expect to happen dressed that way?” Then imagine the parents of the hurt boy instead of responding with rage responding with, “Well yeah, but we’re trying to let him be himself and he really likes those shirts and prefers reading to football.  Maybe after this he’ll see and stop making himself such a target.”  It seems ridiculous, but it’s what women face.

The year is 2017 and Congresswoman Bernice Johnson just said that “you can have behaviors that appear to be inviting. It can be interpreted as such. That’s the responsibility, I think, of the female.” (Scott, E. 2017) The problem with this statement is that despite the fact that it’s not true, it’s widely believed. Women are taught from a young age that what people do to them is their fault. Yes she did go on to say that despite her feelings on shared responsibility “criminals need to be held accountable for their actions.”(Scott, E. 2017) How though are we to hold criminals responsible for their actions when women are being told that it’s their fault. No matter how much you tell women to come forward if they believe that it was their fault or just a misunderstanding then they won’t. This is toxic and needs to change.

If a woman is sexually assaulted it does not matter if she is wearing sweatpants, a modest pants suite, a miniskirt, or nude.  It is not her responsibility to dress in a way that will control the urges of the men around her.  It is the responsibility of the man to control his urges and react in a way that is appropriate.  There are several steps that I believe we need to take in order to change this toxic culture.

We need to stop having school dress codes that target girls more than boys.  As an example we need to stop telling them that they can’t show their shoulders because it is distracting to the boys.  I’m not saying that we need to let people go to school in just thongs, but if you want people to keep their shoulders covered in school give a reason that isn’t “well boys can’t control themselves.”  Don’t tell girls, “you can’t do this because it distracts the boys.”  Tell them “you can’t do this because we are trying to follow a professional way of dressing and currently this is what is accepted in the work environment.”  Admit that in time it may or may not change.  Own the fact that it’s an arbitrary convention.  Don’t tell them it’s because they are too distracting to the boys.  If that is the only reason that something is against the rules then the boys not the girls are the ones that should be addressed and taught how to control themselves.  

Then you need to make the same changes at school and in church.  I’m certain my parents didn’t mean to teach me that the behavior of boys was my fault, but they did.  Skirts that were shorter than they approved, shirts that showed my stomach, and tight clothes were all things that they would comment on.  They let me wear them occasionally even though they disapproved, but it was always with warnings about how boys might react and I’ve seen worse.  I’ve seen religious organizations tell women they must dress modestly lest they lead men to sin.  I’ve seen religious organizations ask the woman to admit that she led her rapist astray with the clothing she was wearing.  We need to stop focusing on teaching women how to dress in order to keep men from assaulting them and focus on teaching men how not to assault women no matter how they are dressed.

I don’t know how many more ways to say it, but our culture needs to stop telling women that they way they dress is responsible for the things men do to them.  It needs to stop teaching boys that what they do to women is a reaction to how they dress and not their fault.  Women do not need to take partial responsibility for harassment and assault that happens to them.  Men need to take full responsibility for how they treat the women around them.  Men need to understand that just because a woman “dresses like a slut” does not mean that she wants his attention.  They need to learn that when a woman says “no” it is not just her playing hard to get and wanting him to try harder.  

References:
Scott, E. (2017, October 19) A Texas congresswoman said women are just as responsible for preventing sexual assault. The Washington Post, Retrieved from Washingtonpost.com

On #Me Too

I've seen a lot of stories in relation to the "Me Too" that has been trending.  I've seen a lot of people tell stories that they may not have told before.  I've seen commonalities in those stories that I hadn't thought of before.  I've told my story and had to deal with emotions that it's dredged up.  I've realized that even now with my added experience I'm still worried that the man in question will read it and be upset with me, and that makes me upset.  I shouldn't care what he thinks.

My story took place when I was working tech support in my early 20s.  It was the first non food service or retail job I'd had.  I still had medical issues from a long run of Mono that hadn't been appropriately diagnosed.  It was a job that wasn't too physically stressful for my recovering body.  It was a job that I was good at.  From early on I was giving the Mac training classes despite the fact that I was a front line agent.  I was often tasked with moving around the floor and answering questions that other agents had rather than taking calls.  Then I was offered a promotion to tier 2.  Tier 2 was the agents that one would talk to when the front line agents couldn't figure out what was wrong or it was too complicated for what they were allowed to do.

I was happy with my promotion.  It wasn't much extra money, but it was a consistent schedule instead of a changing schedule.  Knowing from week to week what I would be working was a huge perk for me.  Unfortunately it also came with a supervisor that had no respect for women.  He enjoyed having his "girls" work for him.  He would say inappropriate things to us.  He would look at me in ways that made me uncomfortable.  At one point he even instituted an associate of the month award that came with lunch on him.  It was the most awkward lunch of my life.  The next month no one heard about the award again.  It wasn't subtle and other people had to see what was going on.

For my part I made excuses.  I told people that it didn't bother me.  It was just words and he never tried to get physica so it was alright.  The truth of the matter is that even though it was just words it wasn't alright.  Despite the fact that I was very good at my job I found myself questioning if I received the promotion because I deserved it, or if it was just because I was a girl.  I'm not responsible for what he did, but I wish I had had the tools then that I have now to deal with it.  Instead of making excuses and lying about it being alright I should have gone to HR.  People in the department would have backed me up if I had, but I was young and afraid.  I thought that I would lose my job if I went to HR.  I now know that even though that's not impossible, with the witnesses that I had it would have been unlikely.  I didn't know that then though.  All I knew then was that I had rent to pay and that was more important than my dignity.  That was more important than feeling proud of my job.  Even though women aren't responsible for what other people do, they need to be given the tools at an early age to handle these things if they happen.

Banning the Burqa

In the west any time we see a country require women wear the burqa there is a collective rage that passes through the community.  How dare they oppress women in such a way?  How dare they remove her agency like she is just a thing to be dressed by them?  She should pick out her own clothes.  Then any time a Western country such as France decide to ban the wearing of the burqa or Australia considers the banning of the burqa there is a collective cheer that rises up from the same people.  They are saving women from oppression.  No longer will their male relatives be able to force them to dress as they see fit.  All they have to do to save these women is to tell them what they can and cannot wear.  

People argue that this removal of agency is necessary.  They say that even if the law allows for women to make their own choices, that they are indoctrinated from a young age, pressured by their male relatives into dressing as they see fit whether they legally have to or not.  This is the only way to save them.  Though they don’t say it this way they are saying that we have to do this because the women in question can’t be trusted to chose correctly while the society they grew up in pressures them to chose incorrectly.  Perhaps they are right.  Perhaps women cannot be trusted to buck society and do what is “best” for themselves.  If this is the case I respectfully request that we add a few more items to the list.

1 piece swimsuits and swimsuits that include a skirt.  Both of these items are left over from a bygone time when it was considered indecent for a women to show her midsection or upper legs in public.  We’ve accepted that that is the archaic past and moved on to 2 piece swimsuits as the norm, unless of course your body doesn’t fit the ideals of beauty.  If you are over a size 12 you are pressured to wear a 1 piece suite because your body is not good enough for a 2 piece suite.  We teach our young girls that thinness is the measure of beauty and if they can’t live up to it they need to cover themselves up.  If we are going to ban things that are detrimental to the women who are pressured into them by society this would be an excellent addition.  

Long skirts and high necked long sleeve blouses.  This is almost universally the uniform of Fundamentalist Evangelicals.  The women dress this way because it is unseemly, some go even so far as to say a sin, to tempt men with their bodies.  They must cover themselves so that men are not led astray of the true teaching.  While at it they must be submissive and meek.  They are taught these values from the time they are children.  They are unable to throw this way of dressing and the life that goes with it to the side without an outside force telling them they must.

Alternately we could accept that women are under constant pressure from all sides concerning what they should or should not wear.  Cover too much and you are a prude.  Fail to cover enough and you are a slut.  Of course you can’t forget that it’s all in the eye of the beholder and that some of what you wear will be one to some and the other to a different group.  We are told that if we are over a certain size we should dress in a certain way because our bodies aren’t good enough.  We are told that if what we are wearing isn’t attractive we just aren’t trying.  We are told that if what we are wearing is too attractive we are asking for it.  What we need is ways to tell girls from a young age that all those voices telling them what to wear and not wear are not the important ones.  The important ones are the ones that come from within.