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Post by sargassosea on Nov 3, 2009 6:55:10 GMT -5
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Post by grandmalou on Nov 3, 2009 7:11:35 GMT -5
Yepper, that would do it, Erika...attention grabbers, I mean. Thank you for this post! Bless your heart, you have been through some stuff! Whoa...I have curtains like your skirt photo in my living room. Not purple, but beige and brown. Oy, vey! My ex used to play witih my head a lot by constantly criticizing what I wore...bright colors..."You sure do like to call attention to yourself, don't you?" Drab colors..."You look like something the dog drug in today..." Gag me!
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calulu
Junior Member
Posts: 76
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Post by calulu on Nov 3, 2009 7:13:18 GMT -5
Wow, that's the same conclusion I came to recently about those jumpers and floor length skirts. It's a type of pride that makes the patriarchal people dress like that, not modesty nor humility. I kept one of each because I loved the fabric. Big mistake. I wore the skirt recently and it was an interesting experiment in how people treated me very differently.
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Post by jasmine on Nov 3, 2009 10:03:17 GMT -5
You know what's funny is I've been reading blogs by conservative homeschoolers and QF's for years, and though they won't admit it, it IS all about standing out and looking different. I've read numerous times about how the way they dress is a "witness for Christ." About how someone complimented them on the way their family looked, or said something about how the little girls "look like sweet little ladies" rather than the way modernly dressed girls look today.
Another interesting thing I've noticed is that these conservative, modestly dressed dresses/skirts only moms will report that men treat them so differently now that they are dressing like True Christians. Men smile at them, they get doors held open for them, or are offered help to carry packages or groceries. REALLY?? Because I wear jeans and fitted sweaters or tee's nearly every day of my life (and sinful tank tops during the summer) and I have men smilig at me and opening doors too. I actually think if I started wearing the dresses and skirts I see these women wearing I'd be getting smirks, not smiles. And besides, why is it so important to them that other men are treating them differently? That's not a very modest mindset, is it?
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Post by belinda on Nov 3, 2009 10:50:32 GMT -5
It's gone now*, but there was an ex-veiling Christian blog that an ex-Muslim lady used to guest post on and she had a really good post about six or seven months ago called "Covering for the Lord, to be Seen by All" about how the "plain / modest" dress groups really aren't that plain or modest at all. Her theory was the same - they want to be noticed and they get off on it.
For us (Muslims), it's about sexual modesty, not modest in terms of being unnoticeable. Even the Quran says that you should be known as a Muslim woman, so that justifies men telling us to dress like total freaks and suffer the weather while they wear normal clothes. So sometimes we would complain about "Why can't people just let us be," but really the whole thing is that "When you wear the veil, it lets people see Islam and you're representing Islam every time you go outside," and all that. A lot of Muslim women who wear hijab take a lot of pride in that, but then again, they're told to. It's about arrogance and feeling superior.
A lot of Muslims really love the veiling Christian & Jewish stuff, and I've seen on some of those "modest dressing" sites they will get inspiration from Islamic clothing stores.
*Being an ex-Muslim blogger or hosting one apparently means suffering death threats and I guess the host of that blog got tired of them.
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Post by amyrose on Nov 3, 2009 14:42:28 GMT -5
So many things done in the Fundamentalist/Evangelical sub-culture are for attention. And it was never called "attention" in my experience; it was called "opportunity to witness". And it was very much about pride, too, because it all made them feel set apart and special and kind of important. They could point out what good Christians they were. It always reminded me of the passage in the Gospels about not fasting like the hypocrites by looking sad and hungry and drawing everyone's attention to your fast. In the evangelical communities I was around, everyone was constantly drawing attention to some action or sacrifice. One of my favorite examples was a dear friend from college telling me how she went to a staff picnic her first year of teaching and "got to witness" there because the hostess offered her a beer. Instead of saying "no, thank you" like a normal person, she loudly announced that she did not drink beer because as a Christian she did not believe in drinking alcohol. She was extremely proud of that incident.
(To be fair, I think if I reminded her of it today--now that she attends a Methodist church and believes one's religion is a private choice--she would probably be mortified by her earnestly bragging young self, even though she still doesn't drink alcohol).
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Post by stampinmama on Nov 4, 2009 8:29:39 GMT -5
Yepper, that would do it, Erika...attention grabbers, I mean. Thank you for this post! Bless your heart, you have been through some stuff! Whoa...I have curtains like your skirt photo in my living room. Not purple, but beige and brown. Oy, vey! Grandma- That's actually a picture that Vyckie added into the post and not one of mine. I only wish I had something that stylish and nice back then. haha! We weren't allowed to wear anything that form fitting. It had to be baggy. ugh. No showing off those curves....I would be accountable for making a man lust after me if I dressed in something that close fitting.
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Post by stampinmama on Nov 4, 2009 8:35:12 GMT -5
Jasmine - YES! you are so right! So many of those blogs and families talk about how people approached them because of their clothes and old them about how nice their family looks, etc. etc. Isn't the whole point of being modest and humble to NOT bring attention to yourselves? But yet they write and talk about it just to make sure everyone knows about it.
I want to hand these people pins that say, "National Humble Society. Honorary Member." Sad thing is, most of them would probably wear them without a second thought!
And I also have guys smile at me and open doors for me. And not just men of the older generation (that grew up doing this for their mothers and grandmothers), but modern men of today. I had a guy tip his hat recently to me and then turn around, tell me I had a beautiful smile and asked for my number. I flashed my wedding band and told him I was flattered but married. He was so embarrassed.
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Post by stampinmama on Nov 4, 2009 8:36:46 GMT -5
So many things done in the Fundamentalist/Evangelical sub-culture are for attention. And it was never called "attention" in my experience; it was called "opportunity to witness". And it was very much about pride, too, because it all made them feel set apart and special and kind of important. They could point out what good Christians they were. It's very much an attitude of superiority. I recently asked my mom about some of those years and she admitted that the way we lived and the way we dressed made her feel better, more godly and more superior than those that weren't doing what we were.
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Post by grandmalou on Nov 4, 2009 9:30:14 GMT -5
Yepper, that would do it, Erika...attention grabbers, I mean. Thank you for this post! Bless your heart, you have been through some stuff! Whoa...I have curtains like your skirt photo in my living room. Not purple, but beige and brown. Oy, vey! Grandma- That's actually a picture that Vyckie added into the post and not one of mine. I only wish I had something that stylish and nice back then. haha! We weren't allowed to wear anything that form fitting. It had to be baggy. ugh. No showing off those curves....I would be accountable for making a man lust after me if I dressed in something that close fitting. Oh, Erika! I really didn't recognize that skirt! LOL... You know, it just hit me that 'back in the day' my sweet little grandmother used to wear dresses ALL the time, always covered with a pretty, frilly apron she had made from flour sacks! But the whole thing, judging from old photos, made her look quite stylish, showed off her girlish figure, etc. And some of those 'flour sack' aprons were pretty floral prints! Can you imagine a QF/P glomming onto a bunch of old flour sacks and making 'sack dresses' out of them? Now they could ALL truly look like old BAGS! Oh, SHUT UP, Lou Ann! LOL ;D ;D ;D
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Post by cereselle on Nov 5, 2009 11:56:08 GMT -5
Hee, sack dresses. I actually have a bunch of vintage flour sacks that I'm going to turn into dresses someday! I love vintage style, and I thought it'd be neat to have a flour sack dress made with actual flour sacks.
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