Even Kishiria sometimes wears a dress.
Jun. 27th, 2008 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lady_kishiriaToday I'm wearing an ankle length denim skirt. You know what? It's dang comfy. I can run for the bus in it and everything. You know what's the only thing I don't like about it?
It makes me look like one of those Christian modesty/femininity ladies.
I've been ranting on and off about how these ladies are crackpots, but never come up with a seamless explanation for why they drive me up a wall as much as they do. A large part of it of course is how THEY live this way and demand we must ALL live this way. Then they complain about straw-woman feminists who they allege want to practically make being a homemaker or wearing a dress illegal. They're too dumb and brainwashed to realize that they're doing the exact same thing, but on the right not on the left.
Next comes the "perpetual child" side of things. Even though I have renounced and denounced Candy of http://myblessedhome.blogspot.com, I cannot fault her when it comes to saying, "Look, we can't use our femininity to make excuses for being weak or ruled by emotion." She's a nut otherwise, but she does have it correct there. On the other hand we have Colleen Hammond at http://colleenhammond.blogspot.com saying things like, "It's sure complicated being a woman. It must be all those hormones." Then she goes on to say that women shouldn't play sports (muscles are not attractive), wear pants (those are male garments), work outside the home, or anything that would give a woman a place in the world as anything but a perpetual minor.
Finally there's http://lily-maiden.blogspot.com who earned my ire in her next-to-latest post by saying that my rough language compromised her g-rated blog. (For the record I said "boob".) She's 20, home-schooled, still lives with mom and dad, doesn't have a paying job beyond giving violin lessons, and dresses in this weird Little House on the Prairie style--except that Ma Ingalls and the girls dressed to be able to work outside. Claire and her sisters go on camping trips with their family and sit patiently at the campsite while "the boys" do all the hiking and rock climbing. Mustn't be unfeminine, you know! Her whole blog is a freak show; no self-respecting dude is going to show any interest once it's clear she's not allowed to date. She won't meet a husband in college because college "isn't in the Lord's plans for her". I do wonder what will happen when her parents die and she's left with no skills, experience, or idea on how to function in the real world. And I thought *I* was raised like a veal!
Claire's clothes (she does a series of photos of how she dresses) brings me to my last point which is on how all these ladies idealize a past that never was. Notice how many of them feature pictures of Victorian or Edwardian ladies doing leisurely things like reading, gardening and sewing. They think this illustrates how things used to be in a more genteel time.
What are they smoking? Only a miniscule number of women ever lived like that! The rest were working on farms or in factories, owning perhaps two dresses, labouring away 12 hour days, six days a week! Sitting around being a pretty lady was a distant fantasy, since few would actually own a book or a garden.
They say they feel sorry for women like me. I say to them, grow up.
Femininity is a ROLE. It's a role that some play more comfortably than others; I am not very comfortable with it but I'll put it on for fun once in a while. I think the world would be boring if all women were clones of me--something I wish the Christian Ladies would learn to be able to say.
It makes me look like one of those Christian modesty/femininity ladies.
I've been ranting on and off about how these ladies are crackpots, but never come up with a seamless explanation for why they drive me up a wall as much as they do. A large part of it of course is how THEY live this way and demand we must ALL live this way. Then they complain about straw-woman feminists who they allege want to practically make being a homemaker or wearing a dress illegal. They're too dumb and brainwashed to realize that they're doing the exact same thing, but on the right not on the left.
Next comes the "perpetual child" side of things. Even though I have renounced and denounced Candy of http://myblessedhome.blogspot.com, I cannot fault her when it comes to saying, "Look, we can't use our femininity to make excuses for being weak or ruled by emotion." She's a nut otherwise, but she does have it correct there. On the other hand we have Colleen Hammond at http://colleenhammond.blogspot.com saying things like, "It's sure complicated being a woman. It must be all those hormones." Then she goes on to say that women shouldn't play sports (muscles are not attractive), wear pants (those are male garments), work outside the home, or anything that would give a woman a place in the world as anything but a perpetual minor.
Finally there's http://lily-maiden.blogspot.com who earned my ire in her next-to-latest post by saying that my rough language compromised her g-rated blog. (For the record I said "boob".) She's 20, home-schooled, still lives with mom and dad, doesn't have a paying job beyond giving violin lessons, and dresses in this weird Little House on the Prairie style--except that Ma Ingalls and the girls dressed to be able to work outside. Claire and her sisters go on camping trips with their family and sit patiently at the campsite while "the boys" do all the hiking and rock climbing. Mustn't be unfeminine, you know! Her whole blog is a freak show; no self-respecting dude is going to show any interest once it's clear she's not allowed to date. She won't meet a husband in college because college "isn't in the Lord's plans for her". I do wonder what will happen when her parents die and she's left with no skills, experience, or idea on how to function in the real world. And I thought *I* was raised like a veal!
Claire's clothes (she does a series of photos of how she dresses) brings me to my last point which is on how all these ladies idealize a past that never was. Notice how many of them feature pictures of Victorian or Edwardian ladies doing leisurely things like reading, gardening and sewing. They think this illustrates how things used to be in a more genteel time.
What are they smoking? Only a miniscule number of women ever lived like that! The rest were working on farms or in factories, owning perhaps two dresses, labouring away 12 hour days, six days a week! Sitting around being a pretty lady was a distant fantasy, since few would actually own a book or a garden.
They say they feel sorry for women like me. I say to them, grow up.
Femininity is a ROLE. It's a role that some play more comfortably than others; I am not very comfortable with it but I'll put it on for fun once in a while. I think the world would be boring if all women were clones of me--something I wish the Christian Ladies would learn to be able to say.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-28 07:56 pm (UTC)A friend of a friend dresses in full Victorian garb almost all the time, but she also works for one of the big tech companies out here. (That's how she can afford to dress that way...) She *chooses* to dress that way because she likes it, not because it's something someone else has told her she must do. (And most of her clothes I believe are either vintage or handmade reproductions.)
Sad thing is, I'm sure there are men out there, who'd think the people like the lily maiden chick are a dream come true.