I want to send my readers to another blog. I've been reading this guy for a while now...I'm curious, what do you think of SAM's post?
3 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Okay, I'll bite. I think that SAM's post demonstrates a marked ignorance of women in our society today. First, I recognize that it is impossible to speak in generalizations about our society as a whole regarding ANYTHING. I think that is where much of his problem is: he is no doubt speaking from his very limited personal experience, and extrapolating that to all of society. I am really at a loss to think of any examples in society at large or particularly the workplace where a woman would be told to tone down the emphasis on her beauty. I suppose there might be the odd example here and there, but my experience in the workplace has not been such. If anything, I would think it more likely that a woman in upper management would be pressured to look her absolute best. I know at my place of work, whether they feel pressured or not, the women in highly visible administrative or manegerial positions dress to emphasize their looks.
Second, I could point you to blogs written by married women who are emotionally suffering because when they first married, they were anorexic and fit society's (and their husbands) stereotype of "beautiful". Now, many years and children down the road, they are no longer underweight and have won the battle against anorexia, but are struggling with depression and self image because their husbands find them less attractive at their current weight. I should add that these women have normal BMI's. These women ARE beautiful--it shows in their writing, and their husbands greatly injure them.
Esther gets a book in the Bible not because she was beautiful but because of what she DID with her beauty and the power it gave her. She was courageous and humble and very shrewd. Would SAM praise Helen of Troy or Cleopatra in similar ways? Or Delilah? They also possessed legendary beauty and certainly didn't mind being "shown off" by their consorts.
I don't mean to say that a husband shouldn't find his wife beautiful or feel proud when they go out and she looks particularly stunning. But his love and pride in her has to be rooted in something much deeper than her looks or he treats her like a possession and will deeply hurt her when she loses that stunning beauty--not necessarily intentionally hurt her, but she will know and will be hurt all the same.
This SAM really puzzles me. I think he must travel in very, very different circles to think that women are discouraged from showing off their beauty, or husbands discouraged from showing off beautiful wives. I would ask him to talk to women struggling with bulimia and anorexia to see if they were discouraged from showing off their beauty. Or to stroll down the makeup ailse of any department store. Or watch TV. Or visit any Victoria's Secret. Need I go on?
Also, let's remember what beauty is: it's either something you get through great genes or (to varying degrees) something you work very hard to achieve. For a woman, this means a lot of time spent focusing on maintaining the proper weight (not necessarily a healthy weight), time and money spent on finding the right clothes or the right hairstyle or the right makeup or the right plastic surgeon. I'm not condemning these women for their choices (I have certainly spent time doing some of the above), but is all this time and focus on the self praiseworthy? For my own part, I doubt my time spent finding the "right" outfit was time well spent. Is having good genes praiseworthy?
Perhaps in his own circle his argument holds more weight, if it's one in which women are looked down upon for emphasizing their beauty or men for feeling pride or awe in their beautiful wives. But whatever world he lives in is not like much of America where beauty is overemphasized at the price of women's self worth.
I would add that just because something happened in the Bible, doesn't make it condoned or recommended for everyone. The term that bothers me the most is "showing off." Mdog's right. That's something you do with a sports car - that's the purpose of a sports car. Now, I'd be glad to have a beautiful women riding in my sports car, and I may certainly appreciate her beauty, but the whole attitude of "look what I've got" is definately not biblical wether it refers to the sports car or the woman.
That said, I don't think there's anything wrong with appreciating the beauty of anything - cars, women, trees, etc. There's this amazing act of creating that went into sculpting everything we see, and that should be appreciated and not unduly hidden under a tarp. SAM may live in a certain religious world where women (and perhaps sports cars) are pushed to hide the beauty God has given them by trying to look less attractive than they are - kind of Amish-style. I don't think this is any better than struggling to maintain an image of perfection. It's still creating some false-self in hopes of acheiving personal gain.
3 comments:
Okay, I'll bite. I think that SAM's post demonstrates a marked ignorance of women in our society today. First, I recognize that it is impossible to speak in generalizations about our society as a whole regarding ANYTHING. I think that is where much of his problem is: he is no doubt speaking from his very limited personal experience, and extrapolating that to all of society. I am really at a loss to think of any examples in society at large or particularly the workplace where a woman would be told to tone down the emphasis on her beauty. I suppose there might be the odd example here and there, but my experience in the workplace has not been such. If anything, I would think it more likely that a woman in upper management would be pressured to look her absolute best. I know at my place of work, whether they feel pressured or not, the women in highly visible administrative or manegerial positions dress to emphasize their looks.
Second, I could point you to blogs written by married women who are emotionally suffering because when they first married, they were anorexic and fit society's (and their husbands) stereotype of "beautiful". Now, many years and children down the road, they are no longer underweight and have won the battle against anorexia, but are struggling with depression and self image because their husbands find them less attractive at their current weight. I should add that these women have normal BMI's. These women ARE beautiful--it shows in their writing, and their husbands greatly injure them.
Esther gets a book in the Bible not because she was beautiful but because of what she DID with her beauty and the power it gave her. She was courageous and humble and very shrewd. Would SAM praise Helen of Troy or Cleopatra in similar ways? Or Delilah? They also possessed legendary beauty and certainly didn't mind being "shown off" by their consorts.
I don't mean to say that a husband shouldn't find his wife beautiful or feel proud when they go out and she looks particularly stunning. But his love and pride in her has to be rooted in something much deeper than her looks or he treats her like a possession and will deeply hurt her when she loses that stunning beauty--not necessarily intentionally hurt her, but she will know and will be hurt all the same.
This SAM really puzzles me. I think he must travel in very, very different circles to think that women are discouraged from showing off their beauty, or husbands discouraged from showing off beautiful wives. I would ask him to talk to women struggling with bulimia and anorexia to see if they were discouraged from showing off their beauty. Or to stroll down the makeup ailse of any department store. Or watch TV. Or visit any Victoria's Secret. Need I go on?
Also, let's remember what beauty is: it's either something you get through great genes or (to varying degrees) something you work very hard to achieve. For a woman, this means a lot of time spent focusing on maintaining the proper weight (not necessarily a healthy weight), time and money spent on finding the right clothes or the right hairstyle or the right makeup or the right plastic surgeon. I'm not condemning these women for their choices (I have certainly spent time doing some of the above), but is all this time and focus on the self praiseworthy? For my own part, I doubt my time spent finding the "right" outfit was time well spent. Is having good genes praiseworthy?
Perhaps in his own circle his argument holds more weight, if it's one in which women are looked down upon for emphasizing their beauty or men for feeling pride or awe in their beautiful wives. But whatever world he lives in is not like much of America where beauty is overemphasized at the price of women's self worth.
hmmm. i'm not sure this comment will show up over there, so i'm posting it here:
are you serious?
we are not sports cars to be shown off or trophies to be paraded around with pride.
just because something has been done "for thousands of years" does not make it okay.
the pressure for women to be "beautiful" is alive and well. if you only REALLY knew.
I would add that just because something happened in the Bible, doesn't make it condoned or recommended for everyone. The term that bothers me the most is "showing off." Mdog's right. That's something you do with a sports car - that's the purpose of a sports car. Now, I'd be glad to have a beautiful women riding in my sports car, and I may certainly appreciate her beauty, but the whole attitude of "look what I've got" is definately not biblical wether it refers to the sports car or the woman.
That said, I don't think there's anything wrong with appreciating the beauty of anything - cars, women, trees, etc. There's this amazing act of creating that went into sculpting everything we see, and that should be appreciated and not unduly hidden under a tarp. SAM may live in a certain religious world where women (and perhaps sports cars) are pushed to hide the beauty God has given them by trying to look less attractive than they are - kind of Amish-style. I don't think this is any better than struggling to maintain an image of perfection. It's still creating some false-self in hopes of acheiving personal gain.
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