Here is some good stuff from "Screwtape Letters" by CS Lewis. The speaker is a demon, telling one of his little demon buddies how best to tempt humans:
"We now teach men to like women whose bodies are scarcely distinguishable from those of boys. Since this is a kind of beauty more transitory than most, we aggravate the female's chronic horror of growing old and render her less willing and less able to bear children ... the figures in popular art are falsely drawn ... they appear firmer and more slender and more boyish than nature allows a full grown woman to be ... as a result, we are directing the desires of men to something which does not exist -- making the role of the eye in sexuality more and more important and at the same time making its demands more and more impossible."
I, as a 21-year-old woman, am deeply feeling the consequences of this. Just a few days ago, I was in the middle of a conversation where several girls (really awesome ones, I might add) were talking about their relative skinniness, and they were throwing around jean sizes like 0 and 2. How is that supposed to make a size 6 or 8 feel? Turns out, I have a butt ... and hips ... and thighs. Why shouldn't I? Why is the "standard" so small when the standard woman is not?
I know young women as a whole suffer the consequences of this unrealistic standard ... Baylor has one of the nation's highest rates of anorexia and bulimia. I feel significantly more attractive while I am wearing man clothes and sweating in Philly than I do on some of my best days here. I love Baylor, but the atmosphere is toxic when it comes to this issue.
I just needed to vent about that ... and I need to let the Lord's thoughts on me dictate my self-understanding.
1 comment:
so far, love the screwtape letters by the way :)
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