What Does It Mean To Be “Feminine”?

There is a great discussion going on about Mark Driscoll and the “chickified” male/church at the Jesus Creed. I’m running out the door so I’ll have to revisit topic, but I have blogged about  my concerns with similar thoughts on masculinity and femininity.

But controversy aside, I’m curious. I’m not sure who all of you are who read my blog, but I’d love to know how you would define, describe, live/seen lived out femininity? It can’t  be about lip gloss and twirly skirts, but sometimes we don’t push the conversation, the descriptors, the issues deeper than that, I’m afraid. What do you see in women that is a part of the image of God that is reflected uniquely in the feminine? Or is there such a thing? And does race and ethnicity play any role in how you’ve seen the feminine defined?

For you women, what about being a woman do you find joy or discomfort in? What about being a woman draws you closer to God or makes drawing closer to God more challenging?

The Balancing Act

Hollywood isn’t real life, but when real life (mine and the lives of the actors) and Hollywood converge it is great fodder for thinking and conversation. Peter and I can’t stop talking about last night’s date night movie, “Up in the Air”, starring Vera Farmiga and George Clooney.

IMBD’s movie description: With a job that has him traveling around the country firing people, Ryan Bingham leads an empty life out of a suitcase, until his company does the unexpected: ground him.

My oversimplified movie description: Ryan Bingham has a midlife crisis.

But I’m not so focused on Ryan Bingham (that’s for another post). What I am still thinking about is how I was drawn to Alex Goran, played by real-life mom and wife Vera Farmiga. Alex is a strong, confident, beautiful, sexy (but not slutty, for the most part), successful, intelligent business woman whose opening exchange with Ryan had me and Peter talking about power dynamics into the wee hours of the morning. (Peter and I really are a fun couple.)

Women have a different balancing act than men, especially in the corporate world, in terms of how they communicate through their words, body language and even the way they dress and carry their sexuality. Times are changing, but Equal Pay Day, when women finally catch up to what men earned the year before still isn’t until April 10, 2010. We’ve come a long way, but it’s still not a level playing field, which is in part why the length of the skirt, firmness of the handshake and awareness of the hair flipping matters. You  may not agree with the rules, but there are rules. Changing them means knowing them first.

As a Christian woman who works in the tension of a management position in a Christian missions organization, my concerns and thoughts on “dressing for success” can either be dismissed as being superficial and too concerned with “the world” or hijacked by important and related conversations about women’s roles, marriage and parenting (and then get into the messier conversations about whether or not a mom should get a paycheck for her work, whether or not a woman can lead other men over the age of 18, whether or not women can be women without tempting men) while ignoring the obvious truths. God gave all of us, men and women, more than one sense in which we interact with the world and, therefore, people. Sight gives us literal lenses through which we make judgments and assumptions. Hearing allows us to interpret tone and volume and pace. Even smells, touch and taste play into the ways we interact with one another and how that affects success and effectiveness. Again, understanding and awareness is not the same as agreement with said rules.

Successful women are often portrayed in both Hollywood and real life as the “byatch”. The stereotypes are easy: successful women essentially act like men but happen to have breasts or they are women who have used their breasts to gain access. Even in scripture we have to wrestle and understand the cultural norms and stereotypes of women as we interact with Ruth and Naomi, Queen Esther and even Mary the mother of Jesus along with the unnamed sinful woman and the woman at the well. When Bible teachers and trainers are asked to teach on leadership, where do they turn? I turn to those women.

I digress.

The reality is a balancing act of trying to embrace our leadership, our femininity, our voice alone and alongside men. Personally I struggle and am confused when colleagues describe me as being “motherly” and describe other male colleagues as “pastoral”. I don’t want to be overly vain and concerned about my appearance but I’m not going to pretend that my appearance doesn’t matter to others or myself.

Which is why I found Alex as a character fascinating. Alex, from what little we know, is neither a man with breasts or a “byatch”. When the younger female character Natalie Keener, played by Anna Kendrick, is in crisis Alex listens and speaks frankly without cattiness. Alex is a woman who has, in some sense, arrived in the corporate world and in midlife, unlike the younger Natalie. Alex was a woman comfortable with her sexuality, success and choices and Natalie was still struggling to figure out what her choices would be, how she would view success and how her gender would play into those choices.

Twenty years ago I was Natalie, and I suspect I would not have resonated with the movie or the characters in the same way, which is why I say go watch “Up in the Air”. Hollywood gave me 109 minutes of entertainment and lots about reality – past, present and future – to think about.

Back When I Was a Little Girl Football Commercials Were About Beer and Boobs, Not Babies

Is nothing sacred anymore?

With the exception of one Super Bowl in the 80s, I’ve generally looked at Super Bowl Sunday as an excuse to eat chips and watch the commercials. During the regular season, football commercials tend to bore me. I am not interested in drugs to treat ED, and nothing, not even watching boobs (the fake version on women as well as the foolish male version) will convince me that one beer is better than the other. Super Bowl Sunday ups the ante on the commercials by charging tons more for airtime. Over the years there have been some great commercials that often entertained more than the action on the field.

So imagine my surprise over the stink brewing over a commercial set to run featuring football darling Tim Tebow and his mother Pam Tebow. The link is thanks to a colleague, and I have to agree with him and the writer of the Washington Post column,  Sally Jenkins. You may fiercely disagree with the message of and the values (and pocketbook) behind the commercial, but as a woman I am a bit frustrated and disappointed.

Critics point to the pro-life message as being inappropriate. Really? You may disagree with it, but how is it inappropriate? The commercial is running during a game in which very strong, grown men tackle each other, sometimes to the point of injury, while boisterous fans, some in various stages of inebriated behavior, scream encouraging words using colorful language while grown women wear clothing small enough for small girls shake their pom poms in order to create team spirit. Yes, let’s talk about what is inappropriate and question where our values are.

And apparently there is a flurry of investigative reporting happening as well because questions are being raised about whether or not Pam Tebow’s story is true. (She got pregnant in 1987 while on a Christian mission in the Philippines and got sick. Doctors told her that the pregnancy was risky, but she chose to go through with the pregnancy.) Some headlines are declaring Tebow’s story a “falsehood”. Have those writers and critics taken a look at some of the boobs (male and female) out there? There is plenty of falsehood to go around. Buying expensive but really cool shoes won’t make you cool, but that falsehood is what sells those shoes. My goodness, advertising wants you to buy into a falsehood – if you buy this product you will be happier, more attractive, more successful, more this and that.

Apparently a few of the organizations taking issue with the Tebows and their commercial are launching their own response because the best response to an inappropriate commercial is to create another one? I never imagined Super Bowl Sunday would become part of the pro-life/pro-abortion conversation because when I was a little girl football was about the game, the beer and the boobs.

Solution? Suggestions? Should CBS pull the ad? Do you find the idea behind the commercial offensive and inappropriate? And do you really think the Saints will reign victorious?

The Ultra-thin Pad

I still can’t believe that no one pulled the R & D folks at Apple aside and suggested a different name for the latest in the “i” family  – iPad.

I’ve seen several threads on friends’ FB pages and the Mad TV clip that predates the real iPad. One comment read “my mind didn’t even go in that direction”. I’m not sure what direction that would be, but my mind goes that direction every month. It’s called menstruation. Yes, every month until the good Lord and my hormones say enough is enough. Really? No one in the know at Apple played word association and made the connection? Does this point to the absence or type of influence women have over there in Apple land? What say you?

On the other hand, is it that big of a deal? So what if the ultra-thin iPad makes me and many other men and women think of a maxi pad. Surely they could have come up with a better, cooler name, but perhaps all of the nervous laughter and joking has less to do with associating a cool, sleek, over-priced techno toy with a feminine hygiene product than our culture’s inability to reconcile it’s obsession with sexuality and appropriate comfort with all things sexual, including menstruation and pads of all kinds.

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