At age 27, I signed up for swim lessons. It took lots of time on Google and perusing swimming schedules and I never did find a group class for adults just learning to swim. Instead, I shelled out $80 for a private instructor. I'm still terrible at the breaststroke and breathing often enough, but I can swim. Actually, I can swim pretty well.
I never learned to swim as a child in part because there wasn't anyone to teach me. Going swimming was also a big deal; pools were few and far between. Giant water parks were hours away. The primary reason that I never learned to swim, though, was that I am female and swimming requires a swimsuit. Those two things were incompatible. By about age 10--that magical age of puberty and accountability--swimsuits were frowned upon by my family. They were immodest. The need for modesty was somehow tied to being Christian, though I don't remember how.
My always chubby but always female body was always carefully guarded, especially in church. Prior to age 20, I had worn pants to church exactly once in my life. There are still Sunday mornings when I pull on a pair of dress pants and there's a quick thought, "Wow, I'm wearing pants to church." In some ways, that's a bigger deal than standing in a pulpit each Sunday. I was not required to cover my head in worship, but that was not uncommon in the area where I grew up. Youth events, even those with wild games, often required skirts for modesty's sake. My hair was very, very long until I was in middle school. Again, that age of accountability thing. By then, I could decide for myself if short hair on a woman is sinful or not. Overall, my family was of the opinion women could have short hair as long as no one was trying to pass for a man. There are biblical prescriptions to go with that as well.
My stories could go on and on. My stories are mild, though, in comparison to others. Teenage girls were discouraged from seeking medical care, especially from a gynecologist, since "no man would want to touch you after that." A friend who dared to purchase colored underwear her first year of college was dragged home since it was clear she had become promiscuous. The colored underwear was burned in a brushfire.
Churches, especially conservative churches, have made a habit of policing women's bodies--clothing, hairstyles, makeup to what they do with those bodies, especially anything that might end in a pregnant body. It's damaging in so many ways. Women learn not only to hate their bodies, but to fear them. Often, they are not taught how to care for their bodies or seek medical care. They're often reduced to only bodies. They learn, from a very young age, that being female means I'm someone the church has to worry about--the kind of worry mixed with fear of this thing in their midst. As is often the unspoken goal, they learn to hide themselves on the margins of the church and all public life.
You might guess by now this has something to do with Hobby Lobby and the recent ruling by the Supreme Court. I disagree with it for all kinds of reasons, but know this: it points to a far bigger problem in our world that has been fed by churches. We keep saying over and over and over that women's bodies are dangerous. They are dangerous when they tempt roving eyes. They are dangerous when they're pregnant, unavoidable evidence of sex. They are dangerous if they are not pure. And, of course, they should always be pretty.
And yes, all of that is lurking behind a corporation claiming religious exemption all the way up to the Supreme Court. There's no easy fix for centuries of treating women as second class citizens; it's clear we're not done yet.
Maybe, just maybe, the Church can lead the way instead of trying to tug things backward. Maybe--if the Church can learn to love our daughters and sisters, bodies and all.
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