In a storefront in Iraq stand three mannequins wearing fashionable clothes. Over their heads is the latest style from Mosul -- sheer black bags. They are covered to demonstrate how real women should dress. As the Islamic State takes over they are implementing a form of extreme Muslim law which forbids a woman to show her face in public.
Granted, on American streets we have one extreme -- women who bare all. We need a little more modesty here. But how far should we take it?
The Islamic State would have a woman cover legs, arms, face. It would be nice if a woman would cover her eyes as well. Doesn't a woman use her eyes to seduce a man? Well, of course she does. But she needs to see, right? In their kindness, some extremist Muslims make a way to prevent women from stumbling in the street. They keep women locked away at home. Forced modesty. That's the best way, lest a woman be a temptation to a man in public.
Oh, the evils of religious extremes. In most places in the West, we don't see these rules. But we hear echoes of it whenever someone asks a rape victim, "Well, what were you wearing that led a man to do this?"
Even so, maybe I should shut up and be thankful for all the rights I have compared to women in Iraq. But look at America. Every time a victim is blamed, every time the culture says a woman is ugly -- sin is involved. And there is no sin small enough to ignore. I will not shut up.
Let's not close our eyes to it. Take off the veil. Sheer black head bags are SO last year.
It ended with questions about anger and injustice. It started with an article about journalism. The writer said one of a journalist's duties is to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
What do I have to be angry about? Do I suffer from injustice? My life is comfortable. I have plenty to eat, a roof over my head, healthy kids who go to good schools. I have a husband with a job. (I'm glad to have the husband. Also glad he has a job.) Maybe I need some affliction in my life.
Can anger be an affliction? I get angry when our culture tells women and girls that their value lies in how they look. Culture encourages men to see women as objects for their pleasure. If this thinking is not checked, it leads to eating disorders, strip clubs, and human trafficking. It ends in suffering. That should make us angry.
Anger is dangerous because it can cause harm. But could a lack of righteous anger cause even more harm? If women and girls are abused and objectified and we don't get angry, nothing will change. Anger is an energizer.
Jesus was famously angry when people turned the temple courts into a place for thievery instead of prayer. He even used a whip! What kind of Savior uses a whip? I guess the kind who gets angry when a sacred place is profaned. In a sense a woman's body is sacred because it's God's creation. Our culture profanes it. What are we doing with our anger over this? Stifling it because it might cause us to sin? Smothering it because it could make others uncomfortable? The biblical prophets constantly preached about justice. Where's our temple, and are we ready to make whips?
This is the kind of blog post I don't know how to handle. Is God telling me to act? How? What do you think?
It's like middle school never ended. Those are hard years -- sixth, seventh, eighth grade. It can start earlier, but middle school is infamous for being a place where kids hone their cruelty skills. Cliques form or tighten. If you don't look right, life can be miserable. Too tall, too short, fat, skinny. Your acne is bad, or you don't even need a bra when other girls are wearing a C cup. Or you matured early and got unwanted attention from boys who pointed and told jokes at your expense.
If you're honest, maybe you have to admit that occasionally you joined in the attacks on others to mask your insecurity.
Our culture is like never-ending middle school. Only it's more sophisticated when you're an adult. Sleek magazines tell you that you could be beautiful if you only bought this or that. It can be more complicated, especially if you appear to be overweight. Sit down to eat a burger in public and strangers glare at you, as if to say, "For goodness' sake, have a salad."
I've caught myself thinking the same things. But what do I know about that woman's life? What if that burger is a rare treat? What if she's been to doctors who can't figure out why she can't lose weight? More to the point, maybe I should mind my own business.
I need to stop criticizing when I don't know the facts. Forces in the media are already piling on. I don't want to be part of that clique. Maybe I should graduate from middle school.
Suzanne Fields is a syndicated columnist who writes about culture and politics. Recently, she addressed modesty, our sex-saturated culture and its effect on children and teens.
"Adult fashion trends affect the way little girls see themselves," she wrote. Raise your hand if you're the parent of an elementary-age girl and you have trouble finding modest, non-sexy clothing for your child. Me, too. Moreover, girls are encouraged to say, with a dose of sass, "Don't tell us what we can wear. Tell the boys to stop staring."
Frankly, I intend to do both. I'll tell my daughter what she may and may not wear. And I'll tell my fifteen-year-old son not to stare at young women.
I agreed with Fields right up to the end of her article. She encouraged "a little feminine modesty to engender male restraint." I'm a writer, and something about that phrase bothered me. One little word stuck in my craw.
Engender means to produce, to give rise to. Fields implied that feminine modesty produces male restraint. And that males cannot restrain themselves if women are immodest. Both statements are false. Many modestly dressed women have been raped. And men are not knuckle-dragging Neanderthals at the mercy of testosterone.
Now, as the mother of a teenage boy, I do have a request for teen girls. Please don't dress immodestly and make his struggle more difficult than it has to be. For that matter, girls, respect yourselves enough to dress modestly. But it's not up to the girls to create restraint in my son. It's his responsibility to restrain himself.
This wording matters. It's an important distinction because without it we start down a road that can end with the question, "What did you do to get yourself raped?"
How do we avoid that road? Remember this.
1. Words matter.
2. So does modesty.
3. So does restraint.
Oh, and one more for my kids. As far as words go, I will keep proofreading so that you can write better papers. Roll your eyes all you want, but I will be picky. Fewer comma splices in the world: a noble goal.
Anorexia and bulimia are two mental illnesses associated with body image. In my case the disease was obsessive-compulsive disorder. A person with OCD cannot stop thinking about something or performing some action. Sometimes my thoughts were about body image, and sometimes they were about other issues.
Normal thought involves the movement of chemicals between brain neurons. In OCD, the movement is interrupted, so the person thinks the same thoughts again and again. When my OCD was uncontrolled, I would analyze a question for an hour, stuck in a mental loop. When it struck me that this was illogical, another part of my brain said, "But I should be analyzing this. It's the moral thing to do." So it was not as simple as telling myself to move on.
Everyone analyzes things. Many people are concerned about their weight. But mental illness -- whether OCD, an eating disorder, or another illness like schizophrenia -- takes a normal way of thinking and turns up the volume, so to speak, far past a healthy level.
Mental illnesses are physical diseases. We should treat victims the same way we treat other ill people. We would never say to a cancer patient, "Just control your thinking and you'll get well." Or worse, "If you trusted God, you wouldn't be sick."
When my OCD was at its worst, it was like being wrapped in chains, trapped inside the prison of my own thoughts. God used the care of my family and the expertise of a psychiatrist to free me. We should follow Jesus and extend compassion to victims of mental illness. Then, as Matthew 25 records, one day Jesus will say, "I was sick and in prison, and you visited me."
I'm ashamed of it, really. Ashamed of one part of my body, because I've been told all my life it's unacceptable. I have a small, dainty nose. Embarrassing, right? Maybe I should get a nose job. For years I've seen pictures in magazines of women with big, beautiful, bulbous noses. I know some women with small ones get plastic surgery for enlargement. But how could I write this blog if I got a nose job? Not that I'm against all cosmetic procedures. But it's been a personal struggle, and it would be admitting defeat to have surgery.
Meanwhile, my brain is still brainwashed. I walk down the street and look at other women's noses. If a woman's nose is small like mine, I feel better. If her nose is big and bulbous, I feel worse. It's hit or miss.
I confess, I have gone to the Internet for affirmation. I google, "beautiful small noses," and "men who prefer small noses." Tonight I was trying to text some friends for support. They have dainty noses, too, so they know the struggle. But every time I tried to send the message, my phone gave me an error message. I wondered, can God block cell signals to get our attention? Sheesh, if God can heal the sick and raise the dead, a cell signal is small potatoes.
Sometimes God's answer to pleas for help is, "Yes, I thought you'd never ask." Maybe I'm at that point. Well, go right ahead, Lord, but I've struggled with this for a long time, and I don't know what you're going to try that I have not attempted. Yet, it feels right to ask you for help. I guess it's ridiculous that I've gone everywhere else but to you. So unbrainwash my brain. I'm asking because I need help. I'm giving You the nose job. Get it? Okay, sorry. Just tell me what the next step is.
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What about you? Have you ever asked God into your personal body image fight? What happened?
Is wearing a bikini sinful? Well, what's sexier -- a breast or an ankle? A rear end or a bare leg? Long flowing hair or a knee?
That depends on where and when you are. During times when women wore only long dresses, the sight of a woman's shapely ankle was enough to give a man fits. Today in parts of some African nations, it's normal for women to be bare-breasted in public.
A few days ago I posted a link to a video in which a woman decried the immodesty in U.S. culture. I think she would say wearing a bikini is sinful. She insisted our overexposure was encouraging men to see women as objects. But perhaps she has it backwards. If men were regularly exposed to women's breasts, for example, maybe those parts would lose their allure. After all, topless beaches in Europe are not orgies, are they? (Never been to a European beach, myself.)
Ironically, topless beaches might be less sexually arousing than American beaches. Could the tease of a bikini be more interesting than two bare breasts?
A week ago I was drawn by the argument of those who said, "Wearing a bikini is a sin." I thought, "Yep, showing that much skin is just too much stimulation for men. By definition it's immodest." But by whose definition? Today I wonder if calling a bikini sinful is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Modesty codes are complicated and vary widely. For now I'm suspending judgment on midriff-baring suits. But the really skimpy bikinis . . . I don't know. Maybe it depends on which continent you're sunbathing on. In any case, the American Academy of Dermatology and I suggest the amount of fabric in your suit and the amount of sunscreen you apply should be inversely proportional. If you've ever had a sunburn, you know why.
