The Self-Esteem Sandwich

Body image is on my mind, in case you couldn't tell.

I was on the phone with a man the other day--one that I greatly admire and think is more or less made of awesome and I-wish-I-were-more-like-you--and we've had some great phone conversations before, but that one just felt a little... flat.  Maybe my fault, maybe his, maybe both, maybe neither, maybe I interrupted him doing something (in which case, I'm glad he took the amount of time he did out of what he was doing), maybe he was distracted... doesn't matter.  It was shortish and inconclusive in the realm of "Hey, so when do you want to get together?" and I felt like a complete doofus who can't communicate with the Y-chromosome portion of the species to save my life after we hung up.  Not my finest moment.  (Then I got to whine about it to a friend afterwards to distract her from her own man-woes, so that worked out okay.)  And, as so very often happens, it got me thinking.  There might've been a nudge/shove from Dryad involved, too.

Anyway, I was finally able to verbalize something I've known about myself for a while but hadn't found the right visual for it.  Usually, I think of self-esteem as one whole entity.

Kinda like one of these. (Buy a tree here)

There's seeds of doubt or confidence at the core of it, and then the flesh is either good or bad, juicy or dry, healthy or rotten.  That model never really satisfied me, though, and I finally figured out why.  My personal self-esteem looks something more like this.

On top we find a fine, strong, lovely layer of good feelings about self and healthy attitudes.  This is my smile, my laugh, my kindness to others, my encouragement, my Feminista, my "I am a good person to be around and know"ness.

On the bottom, we find a fine, strong, lovely layer of "I am a daughter of God and Goddess", divine nature, individual worth, core values, and a relative confidence that I have a right to be in the world, that I have a purpose, gifts, things to share and contribute to humanity: my "I am a good person to have exist."

And in the middle is a thick, brown, sticky layer of "What are you, why are you here, and why would anyone want you?" that leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

This is echoed in the conscious realization that the physical traits for which I do get complimented are all peripheral: hair, eyes, face, hands, feet... eyebrows.  (Seriously, people love my eyebrows.)  I have never, ever, ever been told by a reliable, male source that my body is beautiful.  I've been called sexy by guys on dating sites, and at that point it doesn't feel like a compliment.  I am unable to take it as a compliment;  it feels objectifying because they don't know me.  I can't or won't trust it, and I'm automatically suspicious of any man that says it.

Hell of a rock and a hard place situation, isn't it?  I know I'm awesome, but I only know that on the top and bottom.  The mush in the middle is hard to swallow, and there's precious little Mother's Milk with which to wash it down and tell me I'm good all the way through.

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.

Waxing poetic.

Just a couple apples falling from the brain tree this evening...

Chivalry is dead--so let it lie.

And let male feminists arise.

~ ~ ~

Goddess give me the strength not to socialize my daughters to be "nice".  Strong, kind, fair-minded, responsible, compassionate, and just, yes; but never "nice".  Nice makes you a doormat, even when you're being wronged.  Nice doesn't make a fuss when a fuss needs to be made.  Nice makes you doubt your better judgment and squash your intuition because others might be inconvenienced by your truth.  Nice does not a heroine make.

Phoenix

Last week, I recorded a podcast episode for Daughters of Mormonism.  In it I talked a fair amount about a relationship I've alluded to here in past posts, and in context of that episode being aired soon (the 17th, to be exact) (Edit: link) I'd like to take the time to fill out the story.  My hope is that anyone who hears my experience will learn from it and either use that knowledge for themselves or to help someone else.  These things can and do happen everywhere, something I didn't fully realize until they happened to me..

What follows is the "abbreviated" version of my story, and the events discussed are intensely personal and sensitive.  Nearly eight years later, I still deal with many of these memories on a regular basis.  I hesitated for over a week before deciding to post.  I ask you to please be respectful of what it took for me to write this down and share it publicly.  If you don't want to read the account of an abusive relationship, you can skip this post.  There's much to say after the jump.

I should probably get over it

I have just one very clear memory of being told, though in not so many words, "There is no power in women."

I was in an Institute class back in 2005.  I believe we were discussing the story of Eden, and something in the conversation--probably related to Eve--prompted me to comment about how in the relationship I had left the year before, my ex-fiance had treated me in such a way that he denied my rights and power as a woman.  I didn't want to go into much detail over the abuses that had been laid upon me, the unrighteous dominion he had attempted to enforce, and the downright criminal acts he had committed against me.  (Those are stories for another day, another post.)  The subject was still raw and vivid in my mind, and much of it was too personal to air at that time.

I've never forgotten the look on the teacher's face as I said that, though.  It was that "I hate to disagree with you, but I can't endorse what you're saying."

"I'm a woman, too, but men are the leaders."

"He may have been doing it poorly, but men have the authority."

"I sympathize with your pain, but women have no authority.  We have no rights to power."

I can understand the somewhat awkward position my statement put her in as an instructor, particularly in a setting involving her responsibility to teach the traditional story of Eden in a prescribed manner, but that look.  That look.  That look that said she was scrambling in her head for what to say to keep the discussion from getting too dangerous, too blasphemous, too feminist.  To keep it from deviating too far toward addressing the inequalities women are subjected to on a daily basis, or addressing the uncomfortable reality that abuse of all kinds can be and is perpetrated by members of the Church, just as it is in every human society or culture.  That wasn't the point of the lesson, after all.

I don't remember what she said exactly, but I remember how it translated; Of course men should respect and honor women, but as women, we have no power of our own.

It makes me cringe just to write that sentence, just as my heart withered a little inside me when it happened.  I love and respect this woman to this day, but in that moment, our sisterhood was betrayed.  Our solidarity as women was dented a little bit.  She stood up for patriarchy and her lesson material, instead of hearing what I was saying and acknowledging that what I did explain of what my ex did was wrong.  She did not stand with me, and she denied an opportunity for the class to expand themselves.

I know it's a small thing, and I know I will forgive her.  Like the title says, I need to get over it.  Now that I'm acknowledging that feeling and recognizing it for what it is, I finally can work on it.  I can dampen, silence the echoing words, "Women have no power."  I knew it was a falsehood then.  My heart rebelled against the very idea.  I know it even better now.  Women have tremendous power... but that's another post, too.