I get that she's trying to be clever. She looks like a nice person. Why didn't anyone tell her she's not a piece of candy though?
The comments on facebook (it was posted on Feminists United) struck me as interesting. One of them was that it struck them as shaming. The other was that this young woman had been taught to think of herself as a sex object. Her value lay in what she gave men, in this case, a 'wrapped candy'.
I think this has to stop. Before anybody starts hating on Muslims, Christians and Jews do it too. I remember in high school everybody was so obsessed with virginity that there were campaigns over it. Promise rings were the thing---for women. The boys didn't wear them. No one gave a shit how much sexual experience they acquired. People signed chastity pledges. Like God was obsessed with sex or a lack of it outside marriage. There's a lot of pressure on teenagers about sex. To have it, to not have it, to try it with a person of the opposite sex before someone "decides" they're gay.
It's a ridiculous obsession, really, and it has less to do with God than a lot of things. I understand that teenage pregnancy is a life changing, education limiting, and dangerous thing, I do. I get it. Our society has our kids going to school and putting off regular adult life long after their bodies tell them it's time to start being adults. We're fighting a losing battle though and it's costing our girls something very valuable. Something Christianity introduced women to in the first place.
Their sense of self as something other than a sex object. A sense of self that that puts their personhood over their reproductive capabilities. A sense of self that means that they are more than something to present to a man some day so he can be the first one to fuck it.
Galatians 3:28 NASThere is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female ; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Are you happy? This subject made me proof text something...
But I'm right. I'm more than a sex object. I matter more, in Christ, than what I do or do not do with my junk. Don't get me wrong, sexual morality matters. It just doesn't matter more than people. It doesn't matter so much that women need to think of themselves as an unwrapped piece of CANDY...
You know what you do with candy? You eat it. You eat it and then you shit it out. That's what we're teaching our girls to see themselves as. Think about it.
Christ didn't engage in slut shaming and neither should we. Early Christianity popularized the thinking of women as humans, age equity in marriage, and valuing of women's gifts in a religious setting. We've done a lot to set ourselves back over the last 2,000 years. Can we stop obsessing over virginity?
It's dehumanizing and stupid.
You want your daughter to stay not -pregant long enough to get a bachelor's degree? Make sure she understands how her own body works. Make sure she has access to birth control. Make sure she knows how to use it. Make sure she respects herself enough insist on loving the person she's making love to---even if she's going to sleep with someone before you'd like her to. Teach her she's more than candy. Infinitely more.
I'm not candy, sweetie.
No comments:
Post a Comment