I was browsing through my childhood diary again this week and I came across this gem. I drew this when I was 11 years old. It is clear from the picture that my perception of beauty was already twisted.
The red head with curly hair and a curvy frame was deemed "ugly" and the extremely thin girl with straight hair and giant lips is "almost prity." Imagine my horror as I grew up into a body similar to that of my "ugly" redheaded drawing.
Fundimentalist doctrine teaches that a woman's body is somthing to be ashamed of and hidden. It teaches that womanhood is synonymous with frailty and china-doll perfection. I believe that fundamentalist doctrine devastates a girl's ability to love and respect her body.
I also found it ironic that the "ugly" one is wearing an apron. I mean if she's not attractive enough to get a man with her looks, she'd better be able to cook or she's basically worthless. Ugh.
I remember sitting in some of the sermons at my sister's former church, and the pastor ranting about how he felt that women who didn't fit his idea of being a perfect weight after marrying were "abandoning their responsibility to their husbands".
ReplyDeleteThe cruel ironies of that statement is that he never said the same about husbands that gained weight after marriage, and that the church didn't believe in birth control, so women would have on average 6 children, so obviously after that many pregnancies, the weight is going to be next to impossible to lose.
Her church was part of the Independent Fundamental Baptist organization, it sounds like your upbringing was quite similar, unfortunately.
What triggers me is as a pastor whem God says the body should not be mattered but the spirit and all he cares is the perfect weight. I hope he explains that to God as a pastor.
DeleteI have another idea about what you could have been feeling when you drew that picture. The women on the left according to how you (we ;) ) were raised would be considered worldly, and the women on the right better because she is wearing an apron, no makeup, and a hairband representing someone who is a homemaker, wife ect. Maybe you were letting out your feelings about who you secretly wanted to be and it was the "worldly" type not the homey good wife....
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