Category: women (Page 2 of 2)

Who wears short shorts?

June 20, 2014 / Michele Minehart

Packing for 4 for any length of time can be quite an event. While I am quite practiced at it and each child has a bag and they even help me gather the necessary items, I have found the best approach to be to pack on a grid: types of clothes in a line for each kid.

And while I check and double check, invariably someone arrives without a swimsuit, underwear or seasonally appropriate shirts. I’ve accepted it as my lot in life .

So when I dug through 3 baskets full of clean clothes and couldn’t find a single pair of shorts for Baby M, frustration arose. Digging, digging. Aha! Yes. When he ends up without pants, it will be a surprise, not because nothing is clean.

Then I realized they weren’t his shorts. They belong to the (nearly) 3-year-old daughter.

On the right: Girls size 3t. On the left: Boys size 6-9 months.

I’ve realized that these shorts were, well, short. Most of them are. Frustratingly so. Both of my girls have more than a pair of shorts that don’t pass the fingertip rule.

My problem is a little bit the lack of modest options for my 3 – THREE – year old. But the other problem is the double standard. The clothes makers are cutting the same pattern for my 3-year-old girl as my 6-9 month old son. (In actuality, he’s a year old, but apparently quite the scrawny guy.)

The shorts I folded for my oldest boy when he was 3 were distinctly bigger than his infant sister’s. Why is this not the case for the girls in comparison to the infant brother?

Part of the solution is me – and you – the consumer. We buy it and therefore it continues. It’s a known economic fact that companies rarely continue product lines that sit on the shelf year after year. So solution #1 is to stop buying short shorts.

This incident is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my internal struggle to talk about bodies and sexuality and standards, especially with my girls. (Note: I’m quite careful that the boys hear the same message, but they generally have to think very little about what they wear.) How do we explain differences, some that are anatomical and some that are socially-driven? Why do we expect certain things from boys and girls? Quite clearly, we’re different, only one of the genders can carry a baby on the inside. But how does that translate into how we look at our bodies and then dress them?

This morning H Boy asked if he could go to swimming lessons in just his trunks, without his sun shirt, and I agreed. So, of course, Miss M asked if she could go bottoms-only. I told her no and, as expected, she wanted to know why. It didn’t make sense in her head: boys boobies and girls boobies at this point look pretty much the same. Why is one person’s expected to be covered? (My response was that I wasn’t sure, but I thought it was related to girls being able to feed babies with their boobies. Which is not helpful because I think it’s completely appropriate to feed babies in plain view. I’m discrete when I nurse, but your discomfort with my breast is not a reflection of me or my hungry child, it’s an indication of your view of breasts.)

Teaching modesty is a struggle for me right now. I don’t believe short shorts are advantageous to anyone in our society and while I want my girls (and boys) to be free to express themselves through their fashion, I’m not sure short shorts express anything noble except to say “ASS”. Honestly. What else do short shorts say? Am I missing something? I don’t believe the girls choose the short shorts because they advertise their sexuality, but I do believe they wear them because they’re available. It’s what they know.

Oh, dear reader, we’re in for a journey on this one. Stay tuned.

Shave me the effort

June 18, 2014 / Michele Minehart

My sister once told me if she could choose any time and place to visit, it would be my Grandma Mary’s farm growing up. She had some great stories. Like when she rode home with her older sister, Glenna, after play practice and Glenna was “sweet on” the boy driving (note: I believe they were in a horse and buggy) and that boy put his arm around Glenna. Incredulous, as soon as they got home, Grandma Mary told her dad. When she went upstairs to dress for bed, Glenna came in her room to tell her, “don’t you dare tell dad that boy put his arm around me!” And apparently Grandma Mary just nodded and ducked under the covers.

Who wouldn’t want to see that play out? Or at least ride in a horse and buggy and watch the play. Or see Glenna’s face when the boy made his move.

Sports fans probably choose to experience events like watching Jackie Robinson get his first hit in the MLB. History buffs might return to some defining moment of a great war. (I’d love to hear in the comments what moment you would choose).

I would go back to the very first person who decided to take a razor to her legs. I would bust into her bathroom before that Schick got too close and beg for a second thought. This decision has the power to change the image of beauty and it will require a lot of time spent in the shower, I would say.

Why do we think we're better off shaving?

Thanks Betsssy for capturing this moment originally as not many put pictures of shaving legs up for a CC license.

At some point in our collective history women had hair on their legs. They accepted it as part of the curse and blessing of being a homo sapiens, along with walking upright and opposable thumbs. And then some woman, probably not in her most glorious of moments, thought, “if we take the hair off these legs, they’ll be smooth.” Why did she consider this as an option? What led her to this silky smooth discovery? What, exactly, was the problem hairiness, like all the other mammals?

Little did she know what would happen just two days (or, as is the case for some of us, 2 hours) later. STUBBLE. Oh, you can always let it grow back. <- LIE. The itching. She didn’t account for the itching.

Not to mention the nicks and cuts involved. I remember the day of my junior prom laying on the floor with my foot elevated on the couch because I had gashed my ankle to the point of gushing. I have yet to shave around the area where the foot bone connects to the shin bone without drawing blood. One would think that after 15 years of practice that I would improve my technique.

It gets worse. Years later, this misdemeanor evolves into “the brazilian.”. (WHAT THE?! Seriously people, what kind of person under the guise of genius inflicts such pain on other people? I’ve not undergone such a procedure but I can’t even write about the idea without wincing).

A quick googling will give you all kinds of interesting reading on the great shave, but does not provide me a date and place to stop this atrocity when a time-traveling Delorian arrives at my door. Until the interwebs produce more accurate research, I will stand with this gal in blaming the fashion industry. First, they sell us new and more revealing dresses, then they sell us a pink razor to make the look more appealing.

While we’re on the topic, then, I would like to call on the carpet the pointless act of making ourselves more tan and painting the nails of our extremities. Now a few niche markets make bazillions by inducing upon me time-sucking and sometimes painful tasks.

Sometimes, it really is a lot of work to be so beautiful, isn’t it?

At the King’s table

September 11, 2012 / Michele Minehart

Added to the list of things I love: teachings on classic Bible stories that reveal new insights about context, specifically culture. Shane Hipps never disappoints. As he was retelling the story of Daniel, I thought to myself, “I’ve heard this before. Except not about Daniel.” I had to wrack my brain a little but it finally came to mind: Esther. I’m completely enamored by her story, a slight little obsession. I think it’s my love of a good spa and her year of basically living in one.

I began to mull over the similarities of the stories. It became too large to track and my Bible Geek self resorted to an excel spreadsheet.

No seriously. (And my last 2 friends will suddenly be “busy” on all Saturday nights).

After the forbidden worshiping, the stories begin to diverge and distinct differences rise to the top. Daniel stands firm and makes a statement. He boldly tells the King that his God can rescue him but if he doesn’t, God is no less powerful. Off to the lion’s den he goes as a testament of his allegiance.

In stark contrast to Daniel’s defiance we find Esther. Making dinner. Twice. Then she slips in that she’d really like her people to be rescued from the grip of looming death. Pretty please? If it were mere slavery, I wouldn’t bother you with such a matter.

A real scholar can provide insight into Biblical storytelling and narrative and how it powerfully spoke to the audience through both form and function, but I have none of those insights. I’m guessing these stories are similar for a reason. I believe that the commonalities reveal something about its nature. However, the distinct divergence from commonalities leaves me to question, as I’ve been doing with much of scripture, “What makes this remarkable? What does the different twist to this story reveal about the nature of God?”

I’m still in hypothesis-forming mode, but key to the story is when Uncle Mordi tells Esther, “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time is this?” (Emphasis mine. Singing it to the chorus of one of my favorite Helvetica is for Lovers songs).

Position. In the King’s house. Power and favor and loyalty and heritage and belonging and exiling and what does it mean to be faithful to God in this? What do we believe God’s faithfulness looks like?

I wonder if Esther’s hospitable approach had anything to do with the fact she was a woman. A young girl, at that. I wonder if a Daniel-inspired rebellion simply lived outside the bounds of possibility thanks to a culture that gave women such little status (read the first chapter and see how King Xerxes believed in a disposable nature of women). But at such a time as this, God can and will use any willing follower. Heroes of faith don’t only arise from the strong and strapping young gentlemen like Daniel, though he needs commended. The lowly, the least of these*, aren’t excluded from Kingdom work.

And kingdom work doesn’t just pick up a few stones or enter a den of lions. Kingdom work also makes dinner. It reminds the world that She’s beautiful and can be trusted.

Daniel and Esther remind me that there’s more than one way to convince a king. We can fight power with power and win. Or we can fight power with humility and win. God isn’t beyond any method; he just needs a willing heart to invade. He’s looking for a home for His spirit and how that seeps into the world around us cannot be controlled or reduced to a formula. God will move and he will save and he will do it through willing participants, asking them to pick up and use whatever tool is sitting next to them at the moment.

*Esther was also an orphan, a noted group within the “least of these”

Category: women (Page 2 of 2)

Who wears short shorts?

Shave me the effort

At the King’s table

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