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Post by arietty on Dec 28, 2009 19:11:57 GMT -5
The strength of character and commitment of a husband to be faithful to his wife has absolutely nothing to do with her looks and everything to do with what kind of person he is. The type of man who is unfaithful to his "frumpy" wife and feels entitled to take young, "tight" (oh, how I hate that descriptor) women to bed against his marriage vows is the kind of man who fundamentally lacks respect for women. You can't see your wife as a person and think of her only as a worn-out carcass. You can't see that younger woman as a person and think of her as a nice firm ass. Sorry. That kind of thinking does not need to be justified or explained, as in pennygirl's post, because it's inherently misogynistic and dehumanizing (but I repeat myself). This is so true. It's two sides of the same coin, treating a woman like a hunk of flesh that either pleases you in appearance of doesn't. It is a well worn meme that all men are like this ("men are visual creatures blah blah..") It IS all about what kind of person the man is and not about what his wife or younger women look like. That is what determines who strays. No it's not the wife's fault because she has put on weight and it's not the young single woman's fault because her dress style shows a lot of skin. It's HIS fault and responsibility. I have known many QF families and among them there are men who adore their wives and don't have a smidgen of seeing them as "tubs of lard". With the ones who are demeaning they are abusive people in the first place and would have been demeaning IMHO regardless of what their wife looked like. I know in my situation after 6 kids I dieted and exercised and ended up looking extremely good in the conventional sense.. and that did not make my abusive husband like me one whit more. He was just as demeaning. You can't fix another person by fixing yourself. There are some genuinely good men in the QF movement (sometimes it was their wife who was attracted to it and pushed for their family to go that way in the first place). The theology and the system is inherently abusive and it attracts abusers but that doesn't mean every couple ticks all these boxes we are examining here on NLQ.
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kate
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Post by kate on Dec 28, 2009 19:52:49 GMT -5
Vyckie,
I am always inspired and amazed at your insights into your involvement in QF/P. And you look fantastic in the photo - good for you for allowing yourself to express your physical beauty!
I have only had two pregnancies - one miscarriage and one that produced my son - and I know it changed by body forever. I cannot imagine what 6+ would have done to me. You are right that in spite of the wear and tear your body experienced, our bodies are amazing, Godly creations, and they deserve to be revered and cared for. Not abused and procreated into submission.
I am halfway through Kathryn's book and have found a way to read it more objectively. Your posts on NLQ really help me to wrap my mind around this philosphy.
While I have never followed Quiverfull I was involved from an early age in Campus Crusade for Christ which I know was and is a proponent of QF/P. But I was never exposed to the QF/P philosphy and I wonder why. I got involved in Young Life in high school which was a more open minded group that CCC. I guess this is one reason I am fascinated by QF/P and want to understand it. I wonder if I had been exposed to it, would I have followed it.
The posts here by all are so insightful and really put the theory in perspective. Thanks to all of you for sharing your stories, thoughts and feelings. I am looking forward to catching up on all of the posts I missed this last month contending with the flu at my house.
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kate
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Post by kate on Dec 28, 2009 20:18:17 GMT -5
Anyone ever heard of Hathor the Cow Goddess? Really great cartoons and commentary on breastfeeding.
ashmeadskernal, I love what you have said here. I should share that I was anorexic at 19 and while I have long since gotten over the physical issues, I know that I am still at the mercy of our societies mercy when it comes to my self image and self perception. I recently came to the conclusion that I have my grandmother on my dad's side figure. I am short and round and really, I like that about myself. I would like to be in better shape but I work on that. I don't really need to be smaller anymore. And its funny after my illness and the terror my parents experienced at my loss of weight - 81 lbs at 19! - they now make subtle little jabs at my eating, which is in no way excessive. But I don't starve myself - been there, done that! - and I never will again. I am a size 14 and I am totally okay with it. I am round and curvy with a mommy belly and I am proud of it! It cracks me up when my dad makes comments about how much I eat - wonder where I got some of my impetus to diet down to a size 0! He is totally clueless as to his complicity in my illness!
I can say with authority that being really thin and petite does NOT get you love or respect or jobs or money, and it especially does NOT get you self-esteem.
Our society is really screwed up when it comes to this subject and talking about it like this is really helpful and useful. Feminism never really addressed the body image issue effectively and its high time it did. The beauty/fashion/advertising industry is one of the most oppressive when it comes to women. We rail on in this country about women in the middle east and how they are so oppressed by Islam - and in many societies there they are - but we rarely question the oppression we experience everyday at the hands of our media.
Funny, I thought cows were sacred? And lard sure does taste good... [/quote]
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Post by philosophia on Dec 29, 2009 15:27:40 GMT -5
To stray off topic slightly, I am amazed that there are any women who have the endurance to remain in the QF system for long. As I recall, the quintessence of all of that 70s pop-psychology (which is still with us in the self-help section of your local bookstore), was that you can't really love someone else until you learn to love yourself. A similar analogy--perhaps not the best but effective--was that we should consider ourselves like buckets: you can give of yourself only so long until you need to be filled (fulfilled) in your own right. From reading this and earlier posts, I have yet to come upon any effort in the QF movement to either encourage women to love themselves on an emotional level (be that their bodies or otherwise), or to seek to fulfill themselves on a psychological level. The movement in many ways seems to say to women, you are little more than vessels. So to add, "and you're an unattractive vessel at that," is to add insult to . . . injury insidious degredation. Kudos to all of you for having simply survived long enough to get out. I believe it will take me several years to learn to love myself. When I try, I still have a guilt reaction. We need de-programming. One reason these blogs are so valuable to XQF is that so many people (such as yourself) are granting us permission to love ourselves. Last week Journey and I had a discussion about the fact that the weight of "authority" in our lives is something difficult to break, and we almost need "permission" to relieve ourselves from difficult situations or to treat ourselves well. (From someone outside of ourselves we can view as an authority until we gain more confidence!)
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Post by susan on Jan 11, 2010 14:53:47 GMT -5
Vyckie and Tapati - you are both just gorgeous!
What gets me about this whole patriarchy-mindset, is how women aren't supposed to care about themselves -- but they nevertheless ARE supposed to bend over backward to please their husbands.
So, if the husband is griping about the wife's extra pounds, I'm imagining that the "Above Rubies" ladies would tell her that she needs to cut back on her eating even if she is hungry, right?
Kind of like how my grandmother's twin sister breathed a sigh of relief after her abusive husband died. Finally, when she was around 80, she was free to let her hair go gray.
So ... if the husband doesn't want the wife to improve her appearance, she has to submit even if she went gray at 27 and would like to color her hair. But if the husband can't stand gray hair, then a wife who gets to 60 or 70 and decides that she feels ready to be an old lady now, can't just let her hair go grey --
Cause it's all about what her man wants. I do understand that when two people love each other, there's a natural desire to want to learn what's most pleasing to your lover, and to wear the things they like the best, and so on.
But love also makes us want our loved one to feel accepted just as they are. So, love should keep both husbands and wives from setting hard or impossible standards for one-another's appearance.
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