Soooo...oh, tying in to yesterday, the No Longer Quivering blog had an incredible article on it that I just had to bring attention to (I'll give it a rest after this, I promise) called "Crushing Daisies: Ways in Which Patriarchal Fundamentalism Harms its Children Part 2: The Little House on the Prairie Fashion Club" (click here for the full article). What a mouthful. In it the author includes a section on what her daughter told her were the effects of the modest dress code enforced while they were living Quiverfull...ly. Quiverfully? While they were Quivering.
"One day, some months after we’d come out, my then-17-year-old daughter K reminded me how damaged she had felt by this over-emphasis. She told me that in her view it had three significant effects – none of which I had intended to convey. For one, she grew to have an abiding disrespect for men and boys who apparently couldn’t keep their minds away from her private parts. K says she felt disgusted at male weakness and their apparent obsession with all things sexual. For years she struggled even to imagine enjoying a healthy partnership with a man.
In addition to helping us spot like-minded families in a crowd, dressing as we did had served, conveniently, to keep a distance between us and ‘the world’. K tells me that, even though she ended up going to school for grades 11 and 12, and is now happily managing university, for a long time she felt 16 years behind the eight ball when with her peers. Dress and other conservative choices we made kept my kids from engaging with their own culture. In an effort to follow the advice of patriarchal teachers such as Jonathan Lindvall we ‘dared to shelter’ our kids from many things that would help them function in a 21st world.
Finally, and perhaps most disturbing is that K says she grew up believing that there was something very wrong with her body. Having to hide herself away under a veritable mountain of denim, and promptly being admonished when any bits weren’t properly covered left her confused and, she says, appalled at her own foulness. She tells me that, before she even came to the dreadful realisation that God planned a very limited range of life choices for her, she knew she hated it that he had made her a girl. It’s impossible not to connect the dots and see this as a factor in K’s subsequent fight with Anorexia Nervosa."
Wow. WOW. All the hours spent watching 19 (...18...17...) Kids and Counting and marveling at those poor little J Duggar girls it never occurred to me- I mean, I never even considered for a second-
I don't know, I considered myself sensitive to that sort of thing having been through it myself, but it never occurred to me how DAMAGING the clothes are. I mean, regardless of how damaging the rest of it must be, the strictly enforced modest dress code never even crossed my mind. I suppose it's because the Duggars seem so happy all the time. I dress modestly- I'm no Duggar but I do, generally, cover up. It's self-imposed, though, is the difference. And, really, a decent portion of the reason why is I do absolutely despise my body. If I don't want to see it like this, surely no one else does, right? So if the outside influence is overwhelmingly "I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOUR BODY" Of course that's how it's going to manifest to a young girl. Or, rather, some young girls...most?...anyway, it seems so logical now that I'm a little embarrassed I didn't think of it earlier.
I did, though, grab on to that first part...sort of. The one about men being so sex obsessed...but the thought came in regards to burqas...but not the prairie dresses or the Duggars.
...I think Jim Bob might be gay. You know, like those "cured" religious homosexuals? Yeah. Just saying. It's a theory of mine.
Anyway.
The universe may actually be against this blog. It might be. Point being that the day I started it I wasn't feeling well because a storm was coming- little did I know that it was a series of intense storms that have been coming and going EVERY DAY since I started this blog...um...4 days ago? Whatever. The point is, there's nasty storms here and I don't feel well.
Herbert gives lovely massages, and while I could surely use one, I don't see him very often. We live six blogs away from each other and I see him maybe once a month...sigh...don't go for the smart ones, girls, they're always too busy. At some point I'll explain more about Herbert, he's an interesting fellow.
Oh, another from mental_floss for you: Monkey Business. Scientists taught monkeys how to use "money" in exchange for food. The most interesting part of the article, the most interesting part of the experiment, is a little note at the end (the implication of that being, I think, that scientists concentrate too heavily on the experiment they're doing and not enough on the...I don't want to say consequences, let's say..."periphery". They don't focus enough on the "periphery".) that THE MONKEYS EXCHANGED MONEY FOR SEX. Hello! Scientists, hello! Ignore the economics of grapes and Jello and gambling (further experiments they performed), AND LOOK AT THE MONKEY HOOKERS. That's fucking amazing, pardon the pun and French. No wonder they call it the oldest profession in the world- they teach monkeys to use money and BAM! Prostitution.
I find that awesome.
Why do I always end up finishing these before I go to sleep? At least today it's for a nap. Mixing things up a bit.
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