Pants: Still a scandal in 2012.

1 Samantha 16:7
7 But the Lady said unto Samantha, Look not on her appearance, or on the manner of her attire ... for the Lady seeth not as mortals seeth; for mortals looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lady looketh on the heart.

You know, I've seen women wear pants to church numerous times over the years.  It hasn't been often, but it has happened.  When I was young, it always surprised me but I never commented.  The women always looked appropriate and put together.  Granted, I live in a very liberal area of the US that has a reputation for bucking tradition and the ward I grew up in was very loving and open, but the prevailing winds within the Mormon community have still leaned heavily to skirts and dresses.  However, pants were not looked down upon, to the best of my knowledge, beyond a few surprised expressions before everyone got on with their day.  Investigators and new members have generally been given a pass to wear whatever they want or have.

That being said, you wouldn't think this event would cause much of a ruckus, but the Event page on Facebook has been slammed by many orthodox members of the Church (and some random non-member trolls) for being disrespectful, sinful, daring to suggest that women are treated unequally, etc etc etc.  Because once you're in and experienced (and Heaven help you if you're a lifer and you should "know better") your free pass goes away?  God suddenly starts caring so much more about what you're wearing... even though we know that God very specifically does not look at the outside.

It calls to mind the many modesty lessons I've been given over the years in which some variation of this question was posed: Would you be ashamed by your clothes if the Lord came back and you had to bow before him?

No.  No I would not.  Not in a turtleneck.  Not in a V-neck.  Not in a skirt.  Not in pants.  Not naked as the day I was born.  Never unless my heart was out of place, and not even then because I know that is why I have a Savior who loves me enough never to shame me.  Instead, he suffered and died for me, to cover me with His grace and make Him and I at-one.  Where there is God-like love, there is no shame; Where there is shame, there is no God-like love.

Therefore, I'm going to wear pants to church on Sunday and speak as my father's High Council companion about the spirit of Christmas and radical love.

Every act of defiance against the violence of patriarchy (rape, assault, devaluation, misogeny, etc.) is an act of the Wild Woman.

One reason why patriarchy is evil

Trigger warning: Rape.
"...by their fruits ye shall know them."  From the mouth of the Son of God himself.

I was reading my book-with-the-socially-unacceptable-title a few days back.  The author spends a particular amount of time on the subject of rape--her mother's story that instigated the book, why it happens, the repercussions in women's lives, etc--and I started thinking about the why, thus to come to this conclusion:  Rape is a a fruit of patriarchy, malevolent and benevolent both.  Malevolent patriarchy simply doesn't give a crap; it loves rape as a tool of war and it doesn't care when else it happens, because hey... it's just a woman.  (Or a homosexual.  Or a child.  Or an old person.  Or a prisoner.  For my purposes, I will focus on male-female rape.)

Benevolent patriarchy is hardly better; it still makes women inferior to men, no matter that we're good and sweet and worthy to be lifted up on a pedestal... but we are not to be leaders or choosers or counselors or acters.  Not really.  Also, benevolent patriarchy doesn't often say that rape is a bad thing to do; in my experience, it's spoken almost universally as something to be prevented by potential victims, not an act to be responsibly avoided by potential perpetrators.

"Women are the guardians of virtue."
"You should know better than to walk alone at night."
"Any woman that's dressed like that is pretty much asking for it."  (My own father said these words to my face.)
"Men can't help themselves when they see the female form.  They're more visual than women."
"Dear girls,
Dressing immodestly is like rolling in the mud.  You'll get attention, but mostly from pigs.
Sincerely,
Real Men"

Thank you, Real Men, for admitting that you are so shallow that you no longer care about the worth of a woman's soul or honor the validity of her thoughts, feelings, opinions, or life experiences if she's wearing a tank top instead of a t-shirt, and for abandoning all those immodest trollops to the attentions of pigs and/or rapists.  Your honesty and moral integrity is refreshing.  You are an inspiration to us all, Real Men!

It is easier for patriarchy to focus on on the outward issues of getting women not to dress in a way that "can get them raped", victim blaming if they do get raped, and absolving the perpetrators of rape (No, really, men are practically incapable of controling their thoughts if there's a boob in the vicinity!) than for it to turn the lens inward and focus on rooting out its own inner corruption.  Rape is a fruit of patriarchy.

Rape--the utter desecration and defilement of the most sacred of human rights: bodily and sexual autonomy, choice, respect, and safety--is a fruit of a system that inherently diminishes the Feminine simply for the lack of a penis.

And that, my friends, is just one horrible and excellent reason why patriarchy is evil.

P.S.:  I am very aware that there are scads of men out there who--while perhaps otherwise patriarchal--would never in a million years commit, condone, tolerate, or excuse rape, a fact for which I am grateful.   I give a virtual high-five to any man who feels the seething rage that rape deserves.  In this post I am not addressing the facts of individual men, but rather the culture of patriarchy--the reign of men/fathers--as a whole, and its systemic tolerance of rape and rape culture.

Eternal perspectives

I have two things to talk about: My Mom, and men.

Mom

The way I miss her isn't the way I thought I'd miss her.  I went to visit her grave tonight for the first time since her memorial............. has it only been three weeks?  Damn.  It feels... longer.  Much longer.  And that's the thing.  It's like I've entered a new life since her death.  Rather than living a singular life in which there is now this gaping, unfilled hole left left behind in the mortal absence of my mother, another lifetime began in which she simply isn't physically present.

It's a little like moving away from home.  The memories of home are still with you when you move away, you still love it, it's still the root of everything you do and everything you are and ever will be; but you are in another place now, and in effect, another time.  You have another purpose, and while you will always and forever love your home, this new space you're in is the right space to be.  There's a feeling of being homesick, of thinking back on the life that was, but being present in the life that is.

I think that's why I haven't been feeling as devastated as I had anticipated.  As a family, we released Mom, because it was the right thing to do and the right time for her to go.  We told her it was okay.  There's no sense of unfinished business: nothing left unsaid, nothing left undone, no injustice in her passing.  She completed her purpose on this Earth, and it was okay.

Granted, I am loudly sobbing and crying my eyes out as I'm typing this, but I'm also laughing at myself a little because I am typing while I'm wailing loud enough to make me glad my nearest neighbors are a few hundred yards away.  It's just release.  I'm super practical when it comes to letting it out, and even though I likely sound to the world like I'm an emotional mess, it's mostly physical.  Inside, I'm pretty peaceful.  And now I'm done crying.  It just needed to get out.

(Tangent: Mom's buried next to a guy that was in my class in high school who died in a car accident between our Junior and Senior years.  Always wear your seat belts.  Just saying.)

Men


A large part of my reason for being a feminist is a strong belief and hope for equality.  When I find this running up against the strong cultural dogma of male superiority in Mormonism  (however benevolent its stewardship may supposed to be) it puts me in some dismay about the eternal order of things as we're presented with them.

I have a really big, freaking problem thinking that two equally worthy, covenant-making-and-keeping people, bound together for eternity would be bound to being anything but equivalent to each other for eternity.  If it's not so, I have to look forward to eternity as Second in Command, instead of Co-Captain.  Eternity.  Forever.  Without end.  Never, ever, ever ending second citizenship.


How is that just?  How is that good?  How can that be acceptable and justifiable based upon the relative femininity or masculinity of an individual if all are alike unto God and God is no respecter of persons?  How can being (a beloved and cherished) Second for the rest of all out-of-time be okay?  It cannot.  It cannot be okay.  A man wouldn't stand for that being his lot, yet it's an implied expectation from the women.  Such a concept deeply, deeply disturbs me, to think that I could bust my butt through this super critical mortal probation we're all in, perhaps even out-righteous my Hypothetical Husband, and still end up as the Silent Partner, the Heavenly Mother that never talks to Her children and whom Her children are discouraged from addressing.  I find that idea incredibly unappealing, and it puts me in a position to wonder whether the effort is worthwhile if I have no guarantee of autonomy and personal worth outside the man I'm married to, forever.  This a big scary question for a woman who has been pretty dang invested in aiming for goddesshood her entire life.  So I have to think that we really just don't have the whole picture yet, that there's more, that the equality of the sexes will be seen as a central point of eternal doctrine at some time in the future, may Heaven make it soon.

But what if... what if I'm wrong.  What if God moves in (to me) truly mind-boggling and seemingly hypocritical, unjust, mysterious ways and eternity is sexist?  What if being more feminine than masculine lands you a spot just behind the shoulder of your more masculine eternal companion, to be protected and shielded and effectively silenced because you're somehow more sacred than anything else?  It's an idea that sickens me to my stomach, and the only way I can conceive of it being a tolerable system is if I could find a man who would not treat me as anything but an equal.  Where any "head"ship would be in token only, and irrelevant in practice.  If he must have the title, he can have the title, but that's all I could tolerate.  If I had to. If that's really the eternal order of things.

I don't think it is, though.  It just doesn't make sense.