In general, I find myself hating women’s ministries. I know that sounds odd because I love being a woman, and I’m a Christian, and I write a blog about being a Christian woman (or try to). But sadly, this is true. Every time I try to get involved in one, either the cynic in me wells up and can’t stop making fun of the cheese or I get frustrated at how squeaky clean it all is. Every women’s Bible study, ministry event I’ve been a part of has been warm, fuzzy, flowery, and so often centered on being mothers and wives because let’s face it, in the Christian world that is a woman’s highest calling. Don’t get me wrong, I love being married, and I look forward to being a mom, and I think mom’s deserve more praise and love than they get, but what about the rest of women out there. What about the women who are called to be single and therefore will never be mothers in the traditional biological sense? What about the women who aren’t big fans of kids but still love Jesus?

I always feel like an outsider after I leave a women’s ministry/Bible study. I’m married, yes, but I’m not a mother yet, and I haven’t decided 100 percent if I want to go that route with my life. Sometimes I feel my life would be perfectly wonderful just me, John and our dog. I’m the girl who is extremely passionate about her career. I’m getting my Master’s degree in the hopes that when I do start on the career path, I’ll be able to skip a few levels. I look forward to the day when I’ll have my own office, heck, even my own cubicle would get me excited. I love going to work and getting a paycheck and what I love even more is that my future career (if anyone will hire me after this graduate degree is complete) is that its something I’m passionate about and love doing anyway. I don’t get the sense that any of the other women at these things feel the same way. Most of the conversation is about how to deal with the stress that comes from being the caregiver of your family, how draining it is to be sacrificing all the time, which is completely valid and things I feel too. But what about the difficulties of being a woman in a man’s world, the struggle to find the balance in being a working mom, the frustration of being over-30, still single and how your mother is not okay with that even though you are? When do we get to talk about that?

Even though all those are points of frustration, I think the most aggravating thing about women’s ministries are the fact that they are the hub of church faking-it. Everywhere I turn I see those plastic smiles that scream “Everything’s Leave-It-to-Beaver fantastic here! I have everything under control all the time! My house is always clean like a picture in a magazine!” Either I’m a complete failure as a woman, but that is not how my life is. My life is messy, not train wreck messy, but everyday life messy, and I don’t even have kids yet. I can’t imagine all these mothers have it all together all the time. To me church should be a safe place for people to let it out that they don’t have it all together, but church is one of those places that we shove all of our messes under the bed and into the closet no one ever opens. No one really cares what you answer when they ask, “How are you?” during meet-and-greet time Sunday morning. And women are experts at faking it. Now maybe, I’m wrong. Maybe I’ve never stuck around long enough for these women in these ministries to let their guards down and pull out their messes, and that would be my fault. However, I’ve been seeped in the church my whole life, so I don’t think I’m wrong here.

If you know of a women’s ministry that does let women relax and be authentic, please let me know so I can move there and be a part of it.

Scrubs is one of my all-time favorite shows, and as I was watching a rerun, I was thinking about what I was watching. Elliot Reed was struggling with the fact that the lab work she requests always takes longer than the male doctors in the hospital. Jordan and Carla tell her that the best way for her to level the playing field between her and the boys is to use her sexuality to get what she needs with winks and lingering innocent touches. Elliot masters this ability and enjoys getting what she wants when she wants it. Elliot is also up for winning a fellowship at the hospital and has her interview coming up. She cuts in a line to get a soda (using her feminine charm) and takes the last one. The man she cuts is her interviewer. He mutters to himself, “If the rest of the women who work in this hospital are like her, she’s not getting that fellowship.”

I can’t help but feel conflicted in this situation. It seems fair with how off-kilter work environments can be that women should be able to use every tool in their arsenals to get a fair chance. On the other hand, doesn’t that completely undermine what we really want, to be valued, respected, and rewarded for our intelligence, talents, and abilities? Isn’t that completely disrespecting ourselves? But when we can’t get recognized for those higher values, what are we supposed to do? Just lie around and pray for some man or a lucky woman in power to come around who will notice and give us an opportunity?

What’s a girl to do? Is there an amount of using your feminine wiles that is appropriate? If that line exists, where is it? Lend me your thoughts. Do you have any answers to these questions?

I happened to be up early enough this morning and with time to kill before work so I flipped on the Today Show. A report caught my attention and immediately made me think of this blog. I have to know what you think of this. Read the full report here and then comment and tell me what’s going on in your head. There’s also an article in this month’s Marie Claire that you can read here.

Apparently, there are over 2 million women in America are non-custodial mothers. These are women who have gotten divorced and relinquish physical custody to the father. Now, I don’t want this to become a discussion about divorce, but I do think it’s interesting the stigma attached to women who do decide to allow their ex-husbands physical custody of the children. At first I was shocked and appalled, but then, I started to understand why a person’s initial reaction to that mother would be to judge. After being entrenched in a social idea that women should always have custody, that women should always be the primary caregiver, it’s hard for some to wrap their minds around the idea that a mother who loves her children (because all the mothers mentioned in this story seem like loving, involved mothers) would be willing to hand over physical custody, but why is it not an outrage for a dad who loves his children to give up custody? It’s becoming more and more acceptable for a dad to be the primary caregiver (whether the couple is still together or not), but on the other side of the coin, women are still being stigmatized when they give up their socially accepted role.

Sorry for the impromptu hiatus. Keeping up with such a specific topical blog is difficult. Who knew it would be so hard? Of course, slacking on your relationship with God will also hinder a blog with a spiritual foundation. Plus, I’m going to graduate school and have been devoting most of my Internet presence to building up my new more general blog with my good friend Ash, tea@elevensies.

Enough excuses though! Let’s get back into the action. Yesterday, I had an interesting moment that reminded me of the feministic charge I used to feel growing up. Working on the shipment team at Old Navy, as I have done since starting work there a year ago, I was unloading a truck full of boxes of clothes. Most of the shipment team had already taken loads of clothes to the sales floor to start placing them, leaving two people scanning boxes into the computer, one person sorting the contents of boxes, and two of us (one being me and the other being a guy) removing boxes from the truck and stacking them throughout the back room. The boxes were heavy, but I’ve unloaded heavier with no problems. When one of guys (new to the shipment team, it was his first day unloading the truck) from the sales floor came back for another load, one of the girls scanning boxes, yelled at him to take my place so I didn’t have to unload heavy boxes. Now, I know I’m only 110 lbs, but I know what I’m doing and like I said, have lifted boxes heavier higher than the ones I was unloading yesterday. Also, like I said, he was completely lost unloading the truck which is why we sent him out to the sales floor. I hollered back to the girl, “I’ve got it!” The other guys laughed, and I continued to unload the truck. All of it. And guess what? I wasn’t even sore the next day.

What this incident made me realize is how long its been since I’ve felt that surge of girl power. I’ve struggled a long time being married to a man’s man with how feminism works in a marriage. It’s not that my husband is a sexist. He isn’t. He doesn’t keep me from pursuing my dreams at all. In fact, he believes in them more than I do sometimes. But I do the majority of the cleaning, cooking. I let him open doors for me. Sure, I can open my own doors, and he is capapble of cleaning, and he often grills for our summer dinners. I do the majority of the cooking and cleaning because he works full-time, and I don’t so I have more time than he does. Plus, I like cooking. I let him open doors and do heavy lifting because he loves me, and it’s more important to let him show his love and respect in this way than me to make a statement. This marriage is a marriage of mutual respect. I haven’t had to bring out the girl power in a year. It’s been nice, but it was nice to remember that it’s still needed.

Of course, I’m not trying to blow this incident out of proportion. I know it was minor and silly, but it was a flicker of girl power that I hadn’t felt in a while, and it felt good to do something that someone didn’t think I could because I was a “weak” girl.

Has anyone else noticed the declining view of men in media? It seems to me that the image of men, especially in television ads that the American man has been reduced to a stupid, lazy, incompetent ape, undeserving of the bold, intelligent, self-sufficient beautiful women they are often paired with. All of this is done in the name of making us laugh. I think this is a response to the stereotype that men are really just the figureheads of families, but the women really control everything.While some of this may be based in a silly but true seed of truth, the fact that the only commercials to show men not being idiots are ads selling men hygiene products is sad.

The answer to gender equality is not turning the tables. I’m all for strong, intelligent, beautiful women who can take care of themselves, but how can these women expect to find smart, funny, considerate men in this world when the culture of our media perpetuates this less-than-satisfactory image of the American man. I’m not asserting that we do away with the caricature. I think it’s funny, but it is overdone. Let’s tone it down a bit and get some more positive images out there. And ladies, let’s have the grace not to cry sexism when those positive images do make it on the scene.

I abandoned my husband during Sunday School at our new church to start attending a women’s only class. We’re doing this study by Susan Andringa called The Esteemed Journey: Discovering Your Full Worth in Christ. We’re only in the second week so its a little too soon to judge, but so far, I’m not impressed. It’s nothing against the people who picked it or Susan Andringa, but so far it’s not giving me tangible ways to deal with my burdens that its making me confront.

The good thing from this class has been the people in it. Since moving to a new town, it’s been difficult to meet people, especially other Christian women. I had forgotten what I had been missing out on. Just being in the same room and talking with other Christian ladies for an hour each week has acted as Red Bull for my soul.

Ladies, we need each other. We need to hang out, talk, support and pray for each other. Women were not supposed to live in isolation. We were supposed to be there for each other. You won’t know how important it is until they are no longer there.

eve.redefined has been around for a whole stinkin year! I can’t believe it! This is crazy. It went by wicked fast. I didn’t blog every week, to my shame, but I hope to do better, just as I hope and strive to do a lot of things better than just getting by. But enough about me, let’s talk more about this blog and where it’s been and where it hopes to head.

I looked back over the last year’s post, numbered some where in the thirties, and I noticed that we’ve covered a lot of content in the many different posts. There are Biblical devotional posts, a book review, posts inspired by pop culture and news, posts that tried to challenge you to think and open some discussion about women’s issues. All this has been great, especially when a posts gets people chattin it up in the comments section (which is always so smart and respectful, thank you!).

Lately, however, it’s been less about the Bible and more about whatever pops into my pretty little head, which I don’t think is necessarily a bad thing. I just wish what popped into my head was more Biblically based. But maybe there’s nothing to worry about because I believe God can speak to use through different media than just the Bible alone. Thoughts?

In the coming year of eve.redefined I would like to read my Bible more so hopefully my posts would be coming through a more Biblical lens, but I do like the potpourri path we’re headed down. I want guest writers. Ladies (and I suppose gentlemen, if I have any manly readers), if you have an idea for a post, write it, comment, and I’ll give you an e-mail address so I can post it!

A year later, we’re still here and still trying to encourage women to be all they can be in Christ.

Much love–Char

Recently, I was confronted by some fellow feminists ranting about people calling them Mrs. Whatever. I found this odd since they had in fact taken their husbands’ last names.  When it comes to titles I can understand someone being offended by not being referred to as Dr., Colonel, President, whatever.  I can even understand married women who have not taken their husbands’ name being ticked at people calling them Mrs. Whatever, but in this woman had chosen to take her husband’s name and still was offended when people called her Mrs. Whatever. What’s that all about?

I think when a woman gets married it is compeletely up to her what she does with her last name.  She can keep hers, take his, hyphenate it, whatever. I chose to take my husband’s last name for a number of reasons.  Personally, I knew myself, and I knew I might struggle with the whole “leaving my family to make a family with him” concept because I’m very close to my family.  I felt that by changing my name I would be making a very real statement that John (and now our puppy Roskoe) is my new immediate family.  I think taking his name helps me see more tangibly that we have become one in Christ.  It’s a physical proclamation of that fact.  And then there’s the much more superficial reason that I had always since I was in middle school been looking forward to finding out what my new name would be.

I cannot lie though. When it came down to it, changing my name was surprisingly traumatic. When I held my new driver’s liscence in my hand, my eyes grew wide.  I had never seen my new name in official government print before.  Sure I had doodled the new signature in my Intercultrual Communication notes, but this was official.  I was this new person.  It became even more jarring when I filled out the paperwork to change my name on my social security card. I left that office thinking that in 10-15 days I would no longer exists.  The person I had been for 21 years was going to be gone.  Now, I know that government records of my old self don’t show that I “disappeared.” I know that it simply shows that I got married and took my husband’s name.  Even though it sounded crazy in my head, I couldn’t help but feeling like I was losing a part of myself.

I came to my senses. It’s gotten easier with time.  I can sign it now without forgetting how to spell it.  I can say it without pausing to think, “Now what’s my last name again?” It still gets me that I’m at the beginning of the alphabet on the roll sheet in class instead of in the middle.  When other people say it or I see it in print somewhere else, I have to double-take. Maybe someday, it will be the other way around.

P.S. At one point in our engagement John suggested that I hyphenate my name since my family is so important to me. I thought that was so sweet, but I decided against it because I didn’t want a long ridiculous mouthful of a last name.

With Barack Obama becoming the first Black president, I’ve been wondering what it must be like to be an African American today.  What does that feel like?  Do you feel anything?  Judging by all the emotion and excitement, I’m guessing yes.  I wonder what it will be like for me if a woman is every elected president.  I’m not going to make the leap that women have ever suffered as much as African Americans, but it’s been a similar journey, I think. Both minorities were disenfranchised.  Both have been considered property at some point in history instead of human beings. Both have had an uphill battle to gain respect and equality in society and the workforce.  Both have had to beat against a glass ceiling.  An African American has broken through the ultimate glass ceiling, the White House, and people everywhere have rejoiced at the acheivement for America.  I’ve heard so many African Americans on the news say things like “People always say you can do anything with your life if you just try, but now I believe and my kids can believe that it’s really possible.”

With all this floating around, I just started wondering, will I feel something similar if I get to see a woman sit behind that desk in the Oval Office?

Why at major universities is Women’s Studies always directly linked to the GLBTQ organization?  Why do these two seem attached at the hip?

This link makes me sad.