Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Please Pass the Tie-Dye

• Posted by Hannah at 9:33 AM
• 7 Comments

It’s 1965. For the past several years, women have thrown out their lipstick, hairspray and unblushingly ditched their deodorant. Welcome to the era of flip-flops, hippie headbands and feminism.

Oh, wait. Sorry, about that. I was just having a retro moment. In all seriousness—I think I had an excuse. There seems to be a muddled vibe over beauty now, just as in the psychedelic 60’s. (Not that I was there, of course. I am indeed a 90’s girl.) Now, the questions seem to roll like this: “If God made us all fearfully and wonderfully made, why dress up?” “Why wear makeup?” “Why wear matching socks?” The thoughts have begun to sound slightly vintage, no?

A friend once asked me how I could still wear makeup, considering what I believed about beauty. My brain sputtered and backfired like a 1966 Volkswagen van, trying to formulate a response. Truth be told, I think I must’ve miscommunicated myself if she somehow thought I was against outward appearances.

Makeup and pretty clothes have their place; what I believe is that their place shouldn’t be in our priorities. We are easily confused on what real beauty is—thinking that it’s our face or our clothes. We (speaking mostly from experience with myself) are easily dragged into an obsessive-mindset, where beauty becomes the qualifier for things to be “good,” and “valuable.” We tend to judge a clam by its grainy little shell and forget completely the pearl inside. We tend to be narcissists.

Of course, tossing out makeup, fashion, shoes, hairbrushes, and earrings altogether will not fix the problem. While you’re free to do so if you want, the operative word is “free.” We have no hard and fast rules on fashion, because it’s not the source of the problem--our own human depravity is.

A change of attitude is what’s needed, not so much a style overhaul or a campaign against hygiene. To see external beauty as it really is, as a nice-but-temporal thing, would be a more radical change than we might suspect. There's no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater--or the deodorant either.

Labels: beauty, feminism

Thursday, September 11, 2008

“It Was God Who Made Us Different”

• Posted by Hannah at 10:00 AM
• 4 Comments

Labels: femininity, feminism

Thursday, July 24, 2008

• Posted by Hannah at 6:57 AM
• 6 Comments

Meg had restlessness deep in her soul, and it peeked out as she sat swinging her legs under her chair and played with the ice cream in her bowl. “I just don’t know. The whole submission and calling to be a wife and mother thing—just doesn’t seem to be enough. I want to do something really useful and satisfying with my life. I want to see the world, to live and to do something worthwhile with myself.” Her clear bright eyes shone as she rambled on about her dreams of living in Europe and being a freelance writer and photographer, free to do as she pleased with her life without the chains of family and husband to confine her. “After all,” she rationalized, “I don’t think I know a guy I could stand to have as a husband.” I ate my ice cream slowly, nodding and listening and pondering on what she said. I had some of the same dreams myself, but I wondered if she was sailing toward them guided by different stars from the ones I knew so well. Her heart and her dreams did not seem wrong in the least by the world’s standards, but compared with the rich ideals laid out in Scripture, they were grasping at wind and empty of much more than selfishness.

Kara was just the opposite of Meg. When I first met her, I was delighted to meet a girl so old-fashioned and feminine. I hoped I’d find a kindred spirit in this sweet girl. However, my heart grew increasingly perplexed by her. Smart and sweet, she ought to have been active in the church and community, using her time to hone her skills as a math tutor and to serve children in the area. Loving children and quite capable of being a dear friend and an encouragement to everyone, I expected her to be married early on. But time crept on and she saw her twenty-fourth birthday come and go, and was still very single, living at home and helping her mom with chores about the house and reading novels in her free time. I sometimes wanted to weep after talking to her. How much of her life has she frittered away as she sought to be the ideal, dutiful daughter and wait patiently for Prince Charming to approach her dad and whisk her away into “real life” and that perfect home of her own?

These girls, and others like them, have driven me on a chase through the woodsy hills and dales of theology, God’s Word, and my own heart and mind. What is the biblical definition of femininity, and which of these girls’ views is the right one? I’d read some on this topic, but certainly not extensively. However, I do believe that God has laid forth in His Word clear principles for what defines biblical femininity that can help us sort through the cultural clutter and sin nature to get at the root of what it means to be a woman, made in the image of God and living to the fullest a live submitted to Him for His glory. Let’s seek out this definition together, shall we? And let’s try to stalk down how God intended for us to apply that definition of biblical femininity to where we are now—as young women just stepping forth into adulthood, blinking in the burst of sunlight that is the realization that we’ve left girlhood behind and the wondering what that might mean in the nitty gritty of everyday living.

First, though, let’s try to lay down our assumptions and presuppositions in the dust at the wayside. There are many definitions of femininity thrown at us today—the highly educated, in-your-face businesswoman who demands perfect equality, the half-naked glamour queen on glossy grocery store magazine racks, the gentle, mousey Victorian lady with lowered eyes, the soccer mom with screaming kids and a to-do list longer than her minivan, the damsel humming to herself in a lonely tower as she waits patiently for her prince to ride up the hill and bring her away to a golden palace with diamond sunbursts. All of these are crooked distortions of what God intended woman to be, and we must forget them as we seek out His original intent for us. He did not mean for a woman to be a spineless, mindless “angel of the house” with little use but to look pretty and encourage morality. Nor did He purpose for His daughters to be domineering and independent creatures that only differ from men in their anatomy. Far from it. He made us to be beautiful and good and to bring glory to Him. But what does that look like?

Take a walk with me through the pages of the Word and the writings of wise saints, and let’s find out.


Hännah Schlaudt is a nineteen year old sophomore at Grove City College, where she is pursuing a double major in English and Christian Thought. She can most often be found seated beneath a tree with a book in hand. While she dislikes hop scotch, she does admit to a penchant for the Lindy Hop, which she does in between games of frisbee. Her writing can also be found at www.forthrightfixation.com.

Read Part Two of Hännah's series here.

Labels: femininity, feminism

Friday, January 04, 2008

Becoming Jane

• Posted by Hannah at 10:20 AM
• 2 Comments

At one time, a very average little girl lived on a very average little street in an average little town in the United States. We will call her, “Jane.” Jane was born with talents, strengths and weaknesses, much like other children. However, unlike other children, Jane had no parents.
It’s not that they never existed. She had them at one time. But the day she decided she didn’t like the rules they gave or the broccoli her mother served at dinner, Jane quit the family. She wanted to decide for herself who she would be.

Jane decided to treat her friends the same way. Although Jane managed to make friends with her talents and personality, she rarely was asked to play hide and seek or jump rope because she’d never adhere to the rules. She preferred to make her own.

Years passed and Jane grew. When she was a woman, she was very much the same as when a child (except a bigger version.) While as a child her main rebellion was concerning broccoli, as an adult Jane revolted at the idea of abiding by the laws set by God. Jane wanted to decide for herself, as always. The older she grew, the more headstrong and demanding she became.
One day, as Jane sat in church, she heard the pastor speak of God having different, specific designs for men and women. She learned that God had created her with a certain purpose in His mind. This angered Jane. It was yet another set of rules she’d have to dodge. Jane ditched church and decided that if the Bible contained such restrictive rules for women, it must not be true. Orthodoxy, to her, was extremist. The only religion she followed devoutly was the adoration of herself.

This was the way Jane lived every moment of her life. She never married when she fell in love, because she knew marriage involved submission. (More rules.) When she was pregnant, she refused to be chained to motherhood, so she aborted her child. (More rules.) Finally, one day, she found that she wasn’t happy to be female.

So Jane forgot she was, which was actually what she was trying to do all along.

Jane is, sadly, a true story. She’s a personification of the feminist movement, through which every woman has been encouraged to become a Jane.

If there is one thing that Jane despises, it is orthodoxy. The idea that there are Biblical roles for women, and that God really instated them, is a dagger driving at the heart of Jane’s philosophy. Unadulterated Biblical truth is her kryptonite. She can’t stand absolutes.

Having seen much of Jane in myself, I am on the verge of making a very politically incorrect absolute statement: There’s no place like home. The statement (albeit cliché) is ever so true. Even for organizationally-challenged (I.e. naturally sloppy) people like me, a tidy, cozy home in which God is held at the very center, is something to savor.

I’m not the only one. However uniquely individual women have been designed, with varying arrays of talents, I believe unshakingly that every woman was created to love the home. There was a woman Carole Mayhall wrote of in her book, Come Walk With Me, who emanated this love: A missionary wife who traveled constantly with her husband in the bush, migrating from hut to hut, she had no steady house. Yet it was so much a part of her identity to make a comforting environment, that everywhere she went, she carried a set of silver candle sticks. She’d set them on her makeshift table in an effort to turn every hut she lived in into a home.
Like the missionary wife, all women have the capability to cultivate homes that are refuges, nurturing godliness. Although it may not be a woman’s only calling, she is told by Scripture to fulfill this task. (See Proverbs 31 and Titus 2.)

In the midst of a culture radically adverse to any sort of distinction between men and women, my persuasion is a part of a minority (and a minor minority at that). George Bernard Shaw, a bitingly agnostic socialist wrote, “Home is the girl’s prison and the woman’s workhouse.” Thus is the common perception of homemaking. (Jane wears the quote like a t-shirt…in fact, it may be on a t-shirt.)

To an extent, I agree with Shaw; the home can certainly be a prison and workhouse. Likewise, any kind of rules concerning a woman’s nature can be seen as imprisonment-- from one perspective.

From where Jane is standing, the home doesn’t look like all that and a bag of chips because work is tiresome and rules plead for obedience. But the grass is always greener on the side of disobedience, until we reach that side and look back at the lush plants where we were. With a right, Biblical perspective, knowing full well the freedom that comes with obedience, home is less a cage than a stage to display God’s glory.

I like what Touchstone, the wise court jester in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, observed about contentment. Upon arriving wearily to the forest of Arden, he declared, “Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was at home, I was in a better place: but travellers must be content.” Only when we find our identities in the locations God places us do we discover contentment.

Labels: Biblical womanhood, contentment, femininity, feminism, obedience

Friday, April 20, 2007

Ignition

• Posted by Hannah at 8:33 PM
• 1 Comments

What turns a quirky fashion statement into a fad? And what transforms a fad into something timeless? What causes a book to reach the bestseller’s list, while other equally well-written books gather dust on library shelves? From feminism to yoga, activities and ideals once held only by fringe radicals have become the norm. We all would like to know: Why and how?

Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, attempts to answer these questions. Gladwell writes of the Hush Puppies, once a little-known shoe brand that inexplicably gained worldwide recognition:

“In the case of the Hush Puppies, the great mystery is how those shoes went from something worn by a few fashion-forward downtown Manhattan hipsters to being sold in malls across the country. What was the connection between the East Village and Middle America? The Law of the Few says the answer is that one of these exceptional people found out about the trend, and through social connections and energy and enthusiasm and personality spread the word about Hush Puppies.”

What caused the Hush Puppy fad? According to Gladwell, it was surprisingly simple: a small number of people actively spread the word.

In the 1960’s and 70’s, a new wave of feminism swept over America. This wasn’t your grandmother’s “Votes for Women” campaign. This movement threw orthodoxy out the window. Men were labeled “oppressors” and feminism became known as the “women’s liberation movement.” The movement redefined womanhood and pushed Biblical perspective into the shadows. It was unconventional and extreme--and it transformed North America.

Yet, like the Hush Puppies’ rise to stardom, the feminist movement’s success was not due to political action or protest marches. Its success can be traced to a group of people who simply spread the word.

In 1968, film editor and feminist Kathie Sarachild brought a new strategy to light. The best way to promote feminism, she found, was to form “consciousness-raising groups.” Small groups women would gather together for annual meetings in which they would each share experiences of “oppression” and discuss common difficulties they faced. One scholar noted, “Feminists agreed that consciousness-raising, or ‘speaking bitterness,’ was the most potent, effective tool in the mobilization of the feminist movement.” (Mary Kassian, The Feminist Mistake)

This should be no surprise. In Proverbs 12:18, Solomon speaks of the tongue’s power: “Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Here, Solomon ranks words with an instrument of war. What more piercing weapon exists than the tongue? When it has taken thousands of soldiers to change cities into minefields, fewer words have changed the face of empires.

Yet there is one factor that pulls an ideology into popularity which researchers often miss; ultimately all is controlled to the One causes mouths to open and shut. He is the One who allows a movement (however temporarily) to ignite or fade into the footnotes of history.

While feminism may be a dominant philosophy of our time, in the end “…the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom He will.” (Daniel 4:32) Perhaps I may live to see this ideology discarded as a new “ism” claims the spotlight, but at the closing of the day, His Word will prevail.

What ignites a dream into a movement, and a movement into a revolution? Feminist researcher Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” I would add that all changes have occurred only because God allowed them---and He always has the last word.

Labels: Biblical womanhood, culture, feminism, worldview

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