Women Are Scary (and other lessons modesty culture teaches men)

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by Jonathan

I am sad.

I live in Southeast Asia, and there’s a “massage parlor” a few blocks down the street. In fact, there are several. “$2.50” is what the sign reads. And then there are the KTVs (“karaoke bars”) with rows of plastic chairs holding property: young women in skimpy cocktail dresses waiting for clients. Several of them within a mile of my house. One’s called Dubai, one’s called Las Vegas, and one’s simply called J. I know the names because they’re on the main streets. They’re not hidden.

I see it everywhere: men trampling women.

And then I get on my computer and read about Ashley Madison and Josh Duggar, and my worlds collide. I grew up under the same teachings as Josh. Same home school group. Same emphasis on modesty and purity and playing the violin.

But my parents weren’t “all in.” I was much more into it than they were, actually. As a young teenager, I was upset because my dad wouldn’t sell his dental practice so we could move into the country to be more holy. I stopped listening to “rock music” and even left a Christian concert once out of my strong conviction. My parents stayed.

My parents still took us to the (agh!) public pool, but when I decided that was too dangerous for me, I recused myself from that den of iniquity.

So yes, I did grow up under the same teachings. Sort of. But because we had friends outside of the movement, and because my parents were very loving and “too compromising,” I was spared much of the devastation.

It’s from this vantage point that I’d like to speak about modesty culture.

I lot of people talk about modesty. A lot of people talk about purity. I never have. But I can’t take it any more; I must talk about it, and so I will. I will talk about the lessons I believe modesty culture teaches men. This is not about Josh Duggar specifically, although the current news cycle certainly has made me think a bit more deeply about this topic.

Also, I have daughters. And sons.
I have a bunch of younger sisters. And brothers.
I have a wife.
That makes this all very, very personal.

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What modesty culture teaches men: Lesson 1 — Women Are Scary

All of them. All the time. Yes, you should “treat them like sisters,” but really, you should be terrified of them. They could “reduce your life to a loaf of bread.” It’s really best to domesticate them. We don’t want any wild and free women roaming the countryside, luring unsuspecting holy men.

Women are powerful, a force to be reckoned with, and if you’re not careful, they will ruin you. That’s why women need to dress modestly, cover their power.

So be cautious. Keep them at a distance, lest you be snared.

The result? Men who are scared to interact with half of the human population. Men who must look at the dirt when a woman walks by instead of looking her in the eye. That cannot be right. These men grow up so scared of women they never develop healthy relationships with any of them; they don’t actually get to know a girl as a co-equal member of the human race.

 

What modesty culture teaches men: Lesson 2 — Men have a responsibility to not look, but women have MORE responsibility to not be looked at.

I grew up learning of the guy’s responsibility to not look, and that’s great, but what I really heard A LOT about was the girl’s responsibility to not be looked at. Practically speaking, this is just really stupid. And it’s offensive, because it’s basically saying that guys can’t help themselves and we need women to save us from our own animalistic urges. “Please, ladies, put this blanket on.”

Seriously, men? Give it up and guard your own heart. Not.Her.Job. You cannot blame your lust on a woman. Ever. Period. If you walk down the street by her house late at night and “fall into temptation,” that’s on you, man. I don’t care what she was wearing or if she came after you buck naked. Man up and run away.

Furthermore, let’s assume for a second that EVERY.CHRISTIAN.WOMAN on the planet agrees to dress modestly (however you define it) in order to help you stay pure, what are you going to do about the rest of them? The ones who don’t know Jesus and don’t care about “protecting your heart”? The ones Jesus still calls you to love and serve?

Modesty culture shifts blame; I’d like to shift it back.

Because I can’t really imagine Jesus saying, “Don’t lust, but if she’s really hot and she’s not wearing much, then I totally get it. And really, if she’s pretty at all and is walking in front of you, it’s not really all your fault. She doesn’t follow me or care about you, but she should know better than to dress like that. I’ll assign her some of your guilt. Carry on.”

 

Women Are People Too

So much of modesty culture dehumanizes women. It reduces their complexity and unique personhood to their sexuality. In an effort to guard sexuality, it actually makes it ALL ABOUT SEXUALITY. In our strong reaction to the “sexualization of our culture,” we’ve done a pretty good job of turning women into sex objects. And our men have lost the ability to have healthy, close relationships with real women.

But women are people too. Image bearers. They have their own voices, their own relationships with the Father, their own hopes and dreams.

And actual prostitutes? Turns out, they’re people too. In fact, as he often does, Jesus comes along and ups the ante by HANGING OUT WITH THEM. Oh my! How could he do that and stay pure? Wasn’t he afraid his disciples would follow his example, hang out with “bad people,” and fall miserably into the abyss of sexual sin? I don’t think so.

In fact, I believe Jesus wasn’t afraid of the “bad people” because he saw their humanity. And he knew that their humanity desperately needed his divinity. To love people is to be with people. And people don’t always follow the rules or dress appropriately.

If we can’t figure out how to deal with that, we’re going to have a heck of a hard time sharing Jesus with folks who don’t know him and act like it.

And that just might be the saddest thing of all.

A Prayer For My Third Culture Kids

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Earlier this week I shared my expat parenting philosophy on Velvet Ashes. Today I’m linking up with The Grove on Velvet Ashes with a prayer for my TCKs. ~Elizabeth

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I remember reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond together and feeling such a kinship with the main character Kit. She’d lived a life of privilege with her wealthy English grandfather on the island of Barbados, but when he died, she discovered his large debts. In order to pay them all, she then sold all his belongings.

After that she didn’t know what else to do, so she booked a passage to New England, where some of her Puritan relatives lived. Her cousins’ conservative lifestyle and religious customs were completely alien to her. When the ship docked on the shores of Connecticut, Kit realized “There was something strange about this country of America, something that they all seemed to share and understand and she did not” — a TCK moment if ever I saw one.

Kit suffers intense culture shock. She’s already grieving the loss of her grandfather, and she now doesn’t fit into Puritan culture. In some ways she’s even rejected by the community. She doesn’t understand their religion or their worldview, and friends are hard to find. Her uncle is particularly cold towards her, and she’s never performed such difficult, backbreaking labor before. New England winters are brutally cold and long. She misses leisurely tropical island life in Barbados: the heat, the sunshine, swimming in the ocean, her grandfather’s extensive secular library.

But she grows to love her extended family. She even grows to love the beautiful fields nearby. Towards the end of the book, Kit attends a wedding. She thinks about how she doesn’t fit in in New England, even though she loves the people and the place: “An almost intolerable loneliness wrapped Kit away from the joyous crowd. She was filled with a restlessness she could not understand. What was it that plagued her with this longing to turn back?”

wbbShe had previously decided to return to Barbados and search for work there, but as she continues reflecting on both her old life and her new life, she realizes she can’t go back to the way life was with her wealthy grandfather. Her two cousins have both fallen in love, and she realizes that she has as well — only the man she loved wasn’t a Puritan permanently rooted to the Connecticut soil. He was a sailor, a migratory man, a man of good character, a free spirit like herself. And he loved her back. “Home” for her would be anywhere he was. Marrying him would mean continually traveling between Barbados and Connecticut, always on the move, but always with him. Literally, and not just figuratively, she was going to live in the In Between.

Our Sonlight curriculum chose this novel for its relation to the Salem Witch Trials in early American history, but for me it turned out to be a metaphor for the life of the TCK. Crossing cultures, never completely identifying with one culture, never fully belonging, always grieving a loss of some sort, but needing, so desperately needing, someone to love, care for, and understand her. So with that story in mind, I offer this prayer:

 

My child, I’m well aware that in this life, not everyone gets married.

But should you happen to marry, first and foremost I pray you will marry a fellow lover of Jesus.

And then — oh then I pray you will marry someone who feels at home in the In Between spaces, who knows how to live in the margins of life, who’s comfortable crossing over and blending in, even if never quite fully.

I pray you will marry someone with a wide view of the world, who doesn’t think you’re crazy for your wide view, either.

I pray you will marry someone who looks to God for full identity and belonging, someone who will understand your need to do so as well.

I pray you will marry someone who understands the pain of separation and of goodbyes, someone who shares your yearning for heaven.

I pray you will marry someone who understands that love is the best kind of medicine for a hurting heart and who knows how to give it.

That person doesn’t have to be a TCK, though they might be. Your Papa isn’t a TCK, but he understands loss and living in the fringe. He understands love and nuance.

So I pray for you to experience what I have experienced myself: that your heart will be fully understood and accepted, fully loved and wanted, fully celebrated and cared for.

I pray you will have many years of adventure together, tasting of a perfect heaven here on a very imperfect earth, each year growing ever closer to our God and to each other.

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That Lane is Your Lane, This Lane is My Lane

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To the tune of This Land is My Land, sort of.

Lyrics:
That lane is your lane
This lane is my lane
Does it really matter
You have the right of way

You have a big car
I’m so much less than
You flashed your lights first
Please go ahead

You drive a Lexus
I drive a Honda
You have rank
So dasvedanya

You’re more important
Jesus still loves you
So I’ll just move now
And let you through

That lane is your lane
This lane is my lane
Does it really matter
I might just go insane

You have a big car
I need my therapist
You flashed your lights first
I feel so miffed

You drive a Lexus
I drive a Honda
You have rank
So dasvedanya

You’re more important
Jesus still loves you
So I’ll just move now
And let you through

What I Want to Give My TCKs {Velvet Ashes}

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by Elizabeth

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I didn’t know how hard it would be to parent Third Culture Kids. I assumed that my own TCK upbringing would make it easier; I was only partially correct. While it’s true that we share common feelings and experiences, and that my kids enjoy hearing stories from my own TCKhood, I didn’t foresee the way living overseas would duplicate the pain of my youth. The grief of constant goodbyes, the temporariness of our community, the missing of friends and family back “home” – all these things deplete me.

I didn’t know I’d need to juggle my own complicated emotions at the same time as my children’s. It’s hard for me not to outlaw my own emotions, so it takes conscious effort to give my kids the time and space they need to grieve and mourn their own losses. I want to find the silver lining too soon, to rush too fast to a happy ending. It’s hard not to swoop in prematurely in an attempt to ease their pain.

So in times of emotional distress, I actually tell myself to shut up. Then I open my arms and give them space to cry. I open my ears and give them time to speak. I want to give them a safe place to express themselves and to process their own emotions. I don’t do this perfectly by any means, but it is my heart’s desire nonetheless.

There’s something else I want to give my TCKs, and that’s privacy. I’ve chosen a very public profession; my children, however, have not. They may go wherever I go and live wherever I live, but they didn’t choose to live a public life the way I did. Perhaps when they’re grown, they will. I don’t know. I only know I want to give them the luxury of choosing it for themselves.

Not too long after moving to Cambodia, I decided to keep my children’s lives and struggles offline. I pulled back from sharing things about them on social media, and I focused on telling my own stories, and not theirs, on my blog. I’m guided by my own mother’s example in this. Some of you know I struggled with an eating disorder as a teenager. I’m open about it now, but I would have been mortified if my mom had shared it publicly then, and I’m thankful for the way she protected my privacy.

I’m absolutely in love with my TCKs. They’re amazing — so amazing, in fact, that they deserve to grow up out of the public eye. They’re public enough as it is. That doesn’t mean I’ll never tell a story about homeschooling or family life, or share photos from a vacation or outing. But it does mean that, especially as they grow older and barrel towards upper elementary and middle school, I try not to post private details about their lives. It means I think carefully before sharing about them, and that in any public discourse, you’ll find me honoring them by accentuating the positive rather than the negative.

None of this means I don’t have trusted real-life people to whom I turn for prayer and parenting advice, because I do. And it doesn’t mean we don’t have a sending organization and a sending church that are checking up on us and making sure that our whole family is thriving, because we’re blessed to have both. And it most certainly doesn’t mean we don’t celebrate our children and their hilarious antics with our family and friends. Because we do! That’s one of my favorite parts of family life, in fact, and we have a private Facebook messaging group for our closest family and friends just so we can share their sweet words and funny stories across the continents.

I love these words from fellow blogger and overseas worker Lindsey Lautsbaugh: “If people want to share their good news on Facebook and bad news in person, what’s it to you? That actually sounds pretty healthy to me. ’Keeping it real’ does not need to be an occasional #hashtag. If I see only people’s success and not their struggle, failure, and fights with their kids, then I assume someone else gets the privilege of seeing those glorious moments. Someone else gets to gently say, ‘Let your children live to see another day, walls can be re-painted.’ Someone else gets to say, ‘Call the counselor, and I’ll babysit for you and your husband tonight.’ Another friend gets to challenge our tendency to hide our weaknesses and struggles.”

In saying all this, I recognize that different families do things differently. Some families may be more comfortable sharing their kids’ stories publicly – and I don’t judge that. All I want to do today is share my own personal parenting philosophy: I respect your right to feel your feelings, and I respect your right to keep those feelings private. Those are the things I want to give my TCKs.

Originally published here; reprinted with permission.

Our Journey to Finding Joy in Marriage (and the things we lost along the way)

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by Elizabeth

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We were in a diner eating pizza. The young couple sitting across the table from us had just asked us how we’ve sustained the joy of our relationship over the years. I wasn’t exactly expecting that question, so my first answer was pretty simple: we spend a lot of time together. Talking, dreaming, laughing, debriefing. Companionship and intimacy require time, and lots of it.

When we were first married, we retreated together to cheap lawn chairs overlooking bushes that barely shielded us from the highway on the other side. We walked all over that university town, in all kinds of weather, for our date nights. We might walk to the library for a free movie and share an order of breadsticks from Papa John’s, where even with the sauces, our meal totaled a mere $3.69.

Later we added children, and enough disposable income for Jonathan to buy me a porch swing. We’d sit in that thing and talk while our children played. At night, we’d tuck them into bed and sneak back out to talk some more, with hot chocolate or bug spray as our companions, depending on the weather.

Even after losing both the yard and the porch swing in our move to Cambodia, we found a way to escape together. We’d head up to our roof and sit in bamboo chairs (with bug spray as our definite companion), watch the city skyline, and share soul secrets. These days you’d be more likely to find us sipping coffee at our kitchen table, the kitchen door conveniently locked behind us.

But the more I pondered this young couple’s question about joy in marriage, and the more I traced our marital history over the years, the more I realized that finding joy was about losing things too. On the journey to find joy in marriage, we’ve shed some surprising baggage.

Who’s in charge here??

I went into marriage spouting ideals of male headship. My husband Jonathan would be in charge and make the final decisions, and I, as the wife, would submit. In any disagreement, his opinion would count for more. We thought we believed that premise, and because we didn’t have a lot of conflict, we thought we were pretty good at following it.

In real life, however, I don’t think we ever actually practiced male headship (or what is sometimes called complementarianism, a term I didn’t know at the time). We thought we did, because we loved God and wanted to obey His Word. And male headship is what the Bible instructs, right??

But Jonathan never pulled the “I’m in charge” card on me. Never. Not even once. Not even when he felt led overseas and I didn’t. I put pressure on myself to submit to his call, but it never came from him.

A little premarital advice from my mom

Growing up, I watched my mom honoring her husband, and she taught me to do the same. When it came to practical advice, though, she focused on “talking things out.” She told me that in her marriage to my dad, if one of them cared about something more — whoever it was — they went with that. The next time it might be different, and that was ok, because nobody was keeping track. She said if they didn’t agree, they just kept talking until they did agree. Practically speaking, my mom and dad were on equal terms in their marriage.

One day my mom told me about a conversation with some other Army wives. One of the women turned to my mom and told her that she must really love her husband. Mom was a bit confused; she hadn’t been raving about how wonderful Dad was or how much she loved him. But something in the way she talked about him (or not talked about him, as the case may have been) spoke her love loud and clear to those fellow Army wives.

Now I know that the type of marriage my mom was describing follows the mutual submission outlined in Ephesians 5:21: Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Now I know that people call this type of relationship “egalitarian.” But it’s almost as if back then, we had no vocabulary for the Biblical marriage conversation.

The priesthood of all believers

Even in the early days of our marriage, whenever we needed to make a big decision, Jonathan and I would always pray together. We assumed that God would impress the same thing on our hearts, and that we would be united in both seeking God and obeying Him.

Looking back now, I can see that the path to egalitarianism begins with the priesthood of all believers. We went into marriage saying we believed in male headship, yet in decision-making, we fully expected God to speak to both of us. We believed we could, and would, both hear from God, and that God would say the same thing to both of us. Blame it on the Experiencing God craze of the 1990’s if you want, but this is how we approached God from the very beginning of our marriage.

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Love and Respect??

Several years into our marriage I heard about the idea of “Love and Respect,” which claims that a woman’s biggest need is to be loved by her husband and that a man’s biggest need is to be respected by his wife. That seemed like good, solid, Biblical advice. In our marriage I felt loved, my husband felt respected, and we were happy. “Hmm,” I thought, “love and respect must be the key to marital happiness.”

Then I read the book (which is a long one for being built on the foundation of only one verse). About halfway through, I had to put it down. It was so tedious I couldn’t finish it. How many more stories and examples could there be?? The book seemed to be repeating itself.

Besides, I felt like something was missing. I need my thoughts, ideas, and intellect valued: I need respect. Almost as much as love. And my husband needs love, perhaps more than respect. He can’t survive without my compassion, empathy, and listening ears.

(In all fairness to the author of these ideas, he has elsewhere stated that men and women need both love and respect, though in differing amounts. It’s just that I didn’t get that impression from reading his book or from watching his videos.)

Lest you get the wrong idea here, let me make one thing clear: I deeply respect my husband. I value his opinions and consult him on everything. I turn to him for counsel, guidance, and perspective. I trust his advice and regularly defer to him in decision-making. He most certainly has my respect.

But for him, although my respect is nice, if I did not also care about his feelings, his dreams, and his deepest longings, and if I did not tenderly take care of him, he would shrivel up and die (his words, not mine). He needs my open-hearted love. And if he loved and cared for my deepest hurts and feelings, but did not also value my gifts and abilities, I’d be crushed. In fact, if I didn’t have his respect, I wouldn’t actually feel loved by him.

Receiving only love or only respect isn’t good enough for Jonathan and me. We need both love and respect. The teaching of “Love and Respect” was a nice start, but for us, it didn’t go far enough. As a wife, yes, I respect my husband, and as a husband, yes, Jonathan loves his wife. It’s in the Bible; it’s good. But God isn’t going to be offended if wives also love their husbands, and husbands also respect their wives.

In the book of Ephesians, Paul was improving upon the pagan hierarchies of the day. Neither Paul nor Jesus – who demonstrated both love and respect for women repeatedly in the Gospels – is going to be upset if we take these instructions that much further, if we add more love and respect, and more imago dei, to our relationships. On the contrary, I think it pleases Him.

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“A marriage where either partner cannot love or respect the other can hardly be agreeable, to either party.” — Jane Bennett in Pride and Prejudice (Sorry, just had to get my Austen on for a minute.)

Encountering Jesus as healer

The more I considered this young couple’s question, the more I kept coming back to the same answer: emotional healing. Emotional healing is what happens when Jesus walks into our pain and binds up the wounds of our hearts. Emotional healing is what draws us closer to each other than ever before.

It’s what enables us to answer Karen Carpenter’s velvet-voiced, pain-tinged question: “Why do we go on hurting each other, making each other cry, hurting each other, without ever knowing why?” Emotional healing shows us both why we hurt each other and also, how to stop hurting each other.

Pursuing emotional wholeness is a journey Jonathan and I have been on for four years now. And though we walk together, our paths look different. The healing Jonathan needed came in the form of expressing long-hidden grief. For me, it meant beginning to feel long-hidden feelings.

For both of us, the path to healing has trodden straight through pain, but it’s been worth it, for the healing we’ve found has deepened our intimacy and intensified our joy.  

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Celebrating 15 years of marriage

Perhaps the honeymoon should have worn off by now, but it hasn’t. We have more joy and intimacy after 15 years of the “daily grind” than we ever dreamed possible.

Along the way, we’ve shed strict interpretations of gender roles and lost deep emotional wounds. In their place, we’ve welcomed emotional healing and embraced mutual love and respect.

We are co-heirs with Christ and co-leaders in our home. We lead each other closer to Jesus, closer to love, closer to wholeness. We give each other space to grow, and we say the hard truth to each other, too.

This is what our Joy looks like.

Related:
A Prayer for Marriage
The Purpose of Marriage is Not to Make You Holy
Marriage as confinement or freedom: notes from a wedding