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(Technical glitch--this should have appeared on Monday, but it didn't for some reason. So here it is a day late...)
It's been awhile since we've touched on the Practical Issues for Godly Women series, but there was one more area I wanted to explore before we closed out the series--and that is financial savvy. If we take the Proverbs 31 woman only as our reference, we would find that she is not only a shrewd consumer, she is also a solid investor. That's the part of the puzzle I think is often missing for younger women. It's often taken for granted that women can shop, but what about how we save?
There are many reasons why women as a group don't earn as much as men. One (very good!) reason is that we often have different timetables and priorities for our lives. We juggle career options to accommodate bearing and rearing children, caring for elderly parents, helping a husband study for a new career or launch a business, or even going abroad and serving as a missionary or on a church-planting team. For another reason, we often choose careers that aren't as technically demanding or physically grueling (I'm speaking in the aggregate here) and thus aren't as well paid. But still we tend to spend more than men in terms of health care, personal grooming, clothing, and so on. And we tend to live longer, needing retirement income for many more years than men do on average.
That's why we need to mentor young women in their finances and help them to establish patterns of saving as soon as they have money passing through their hands. Time can be on their side if they start saving early.
What undermines saving is the siren call of the credit card--it lures us all. That's why I recommend parents or mentors sit down with young adults to watch and discuss the award-winning documentary, Maxed Out. It's a disturbing exposé of the credit industry, told in an engaging and well-crafted manner. Having said that, though, I will tell you to be prepared with the remote control to zip through two scenes. The first is the comedian in front of the red curtain. He says some funny things early on but then gets very vulgar. He doesn't add anything to the storyline, so you can just zip through him every time you see him. The second scene is in a pawn shop, where the owner heads to a DVD collection. Zip right there for a few seconds. Those people aren't pawning their Disney movies, I can tell you that much.
The reason why I want every young adult (especially young women) to see this documentary is because they need to be savvy about how they are the hottest target for credit card companies. College students in particular are the most in-demand -- and mounting debt has been the reason for some very sad endings among a few college students. (Please note that suicide is also mentioned on this documentary.) That said, it's not as melodramatic as you might think. In the end, it's both sad and highly informative to see how greed corrupts on both sides.
Finally, here's a cost-saving tip: If you have Netflix, you can actually watch it online for no additional cost. It is one of the films that's available on-demand for Netflix subscribers. Big chunks of it are also on YouTube.
It's been interesting to read the responses to the Sanger except from my forthcoming book. I didn't expect the conversation to be so focused on the issue of birth control. But then with only an excerpt, you all wouldn't know why I brought up her up, anyway.
To clarify, Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World attempts to explain why our culture has certain assumptions and ideas about womanhood and how we arrived at them. Then I want to compare and contrast this with what the Bible teaches on these subjects. My point in bringing up Sanger is to show how her commitment to eugenics shaped 20th-century conversations about children and motherhood. This is from a chapter titled, "The Mommy Wars," which is not so much about the ongoing media discussion about stay-at-home mothers or working mothers, but about the spiritual and ideological opposition to motherhood and children. It follows a chapter about how the home was denigrated through 19th-century changes and first-wave feminism. When the home was devalued, so was the woman who worked there. And when the woman was devalued, it wasn't long before her offspring were seen as a hindrance, too. (This is a broad generalization so that you can follow the arc of these two chapters.)
I don't quibble with Sanger's observation that numerous pregnancies can be very hard on a woman's body or that poor families with many children can suffer tremendous financial hardship. But right observation does not always lead to right interpretation. Sanger saw poor health, poverty, sin, anger, abuse, and numerous other challenges and her interpretation was that the "unwanted" children were the root problem or that some people shouldn't breed at all. Thus, she was able to make the outrageous statement that “the most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” That is the farthest thing from mercy! But her thinking has influenced our culture. Therefore, contraception is not the issue of contention in this chapter. (Abortifacients, however, are. We need to clearly distinguish between prevention and abortion.) What this chapter addresses is why children are disposable--seen as anything ranging from inconveniences to parasites--instead of received as gifts from God.
Because of the comments on this post and the cross-conversations I've read in the blogosphere, I thought it would be helpful to post the preface of Radical Womanhood for the sake of clarity. This is the unedited version, but I think it will illuminate why I am writing this book.
One day I walked into a church as a brand-new Christian. I was 30. Becoming a Christian was the very last thing this party girl expected to happen so close to her 30th birthday, but God had gotten my attention then and I knew I was supposed to be in a church pronto.
So there I was, lost in the land of Church Ladies—women wearing floral prints and long skirts, holding a baby on each hip, and happy to be homemakers. I’m sure I was gawking like a tourist at a zoo. I’m sure they were tempted to gawk back, too, for I was an obvious newbie. I was the brash, single professional woman far more familiar with the latest issue of Cosmopolitan magazine and the alternative music scene than I was with the Bible or any hymns or praise choruses.
How well I remember those first months of culture shock in that church. As a new Christian, I had an entirely new worldview to process and evaluate: People were actually reading the Bible! And believing it! They talked about relationships and roles so differently from anything I had ever heard before. Part of me wanted to run away, and part of me was greatly intrigued.
I’ve never forgotten what that experience was like. That’s why I wrote this book. I wrote it for my 30-year-old self, the woman who needed to understand why all she had been taught in college and read in the media often led to a dead end, and why the Bible—with its "antiquated ideas" about so many things—seemed to inspire joy and peace. I hope these pages will also save numerous readers a few years of asking “why?” and learning lessons the hard way, as I did.
More importantly, I wrote this book for the girls I addressed many years later at a regional conference for college students. Trying to gauge their understanding of the various items I was referencing, I asked for a show of hands as I mentioned people or events in my message.
“How many of you have heard of the suffrage movement?” A few hands went up. “How about Betty Friedan? Gloria Steinem?” Again, only a sprinkling of raised hands. “Simone de Beauvoir or Paul Sartres?” Maybe one hand. Way in the back.
“What about the Proverbs 31 woman?” To my surprise, again, only a few hands shot up at this Christian conference.
“Okay, then. Well, how many of you are children of divorce?” More than half of the room raised their hands.
At that point, I realized I was talking to a generation living with the fallout of seismic cultural change, but they didn’t know what had happened! (They also didn’t know what was in the Bible—an alarming thought for a Christian event, though not entirely unexpected for so many new believers.) Seeing their need, I set aside my speaking notes and began to address them with passion. I explained to them what the previous few generations had done to change the definition of a woman. I talked to them about all that they had inherited—both benefits and the detriments. I talked to them about what the Bible had to say on these matters. And then I challenged them to discern the lures, reject the lies, and grasp what true liberation really is. I encouraged them to be radically different, to live as biblically savvy women in the modern world.
When it was over, many of them came forward to say this information was all brand new to them. “Why hasn’t anyone ever told us this before?” they asked.
I hope some of them find this book one day so they can know more than what I could explain in only one hour. I want them to understand what is truly radical about being a woman in the image of God.
I'm in the final stages of writing this book. Many of you have told me you are praying for me. I greatly appreciate that! (So does my editor!) I need wisdom, humility, and stamina to complete this project. Even as woman who earned her women's studies certificate in college (making me a certified feminist prior to my conversion!), I have learned a lot about the movement I once heartily embraced. I've also been reminded once again that feminists are not the real enemy, for we do not war against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces of evil (Eph. 6:12). Plus, intellectual honesty demands that we acknowledge the limited benefits that have come from the various women's movements, such as the right to vote, be paid equal wages, and own property. Therefore, I'm not trying to create an "us vs. them" polemic with this book. I want to engage the claims and examine the ideologies of feminism, but in the end, I want to remember that I am doing so as an object of mercy. For Scripture reminds me that I was once an enemy of God, but now I have been reconciled to Him through the death of His Son (Ro. 5:10). Amen and hallelujah!
Amazingly enough, Radical Womanhood is available for pre-order on Amazon. So if you'd like, you can place an order today and pressure me place a vote of confidence that I'll finish it on time and for the glory of God! The comments function is open for further feedback. . .
Fortified by a hot cup of tea and cheered by sticky toffee pudding (in honor of the event), the Janeites all scrunched together to watch the conclusion of Sense and Sensibility on PBS last night. For myself, these are a precious few hours of relaxation while on book deadline, and any foolishness with Miss Austen's novels is judged most severely.
That said, the Janeites gave Sense and Sensibility a passing nod of approval. There were some odd moments (the dueling dream sequence--??), some bizarre photography (Marianne's fever sequence was rather disturbing), and poor editing (Elinor is called into the drawing room to see Col. Brandon and is instead is seen giving a disconnected bit of news to Edward Ferrars). We also failed to feel much sympathy for Col. Brandon, despite his outstanding chivalry and character. His restrained passion was reined back so far as to be faintly noticed. And Miss Steele just seems disconnected and silly, rather 
than deliciously conniving as she was portrayed in the 1995 version. Nevertheless, there was no teacup-rattling mad dash for the remote in this installment, which the Janeites roundly applauded.
If you haven't had your fill, you can check out the Sense and Sensibility: Behind the Scenes video on the PBS website to watch more about this film.
(Another book chapter finished! Yay! Here's an unedited excerpt that ties in with the current focus on abortion. I look forward to your feedback. I've opened the comments function; comments are moderated.)
Margaret Sanger was the founder of the modern birth control movement and a vocal proponent of eugenics—the theory of race improvement that was the cornerstone of Nazi Germany. Sanger believed that all evils stemmed from large families, especially large families of those she deemed as unfit. As she wrote in her 1920 book, Woman and the New Race, “The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
I can’t even fathom saying such a thing, but Sanger’s personal history undoubtedly influenced her thinking. She was born in 1879 in Corning, New York, the sixth of eleven surviving children. Her father was a stonemason and a supporter of radical socialist causes. Sanger’s mother succumbed to tuberculosis at 49. Sanger later said the strain of 18 pregnancies was what broke her mother’s health.
Sanger went on to study nursing and married in 1902. Her first pregnancy was a difficult one that landed her in a sanitarium for her confinement and recovery. But she regained her health and gave birth to two more children. In 1910, she began to work as a midwife and home nurse on the Lower East Side of New York City. A year later, she joined a radical labor movement and participated in several labor strikes.
By 1912, Sanger began writing a series of articles on female sexuality and contraception in the socialist publication, The Call, in bold defiance of then-current law against the dissemination of information on sexually transmitted diseases and contraception. Two years later, separated from her husband whom she would later divorce, she founded the monthly magazine, Woman Rebel, under the slogan, “No gods; no masters!” In 1914, she fled to Europe after she was indicted for violating U.S. postal obscenity laws. But two years later, having avoided imprisonment, she was back in the U.S. to open the nation’s first birth control clinic, in Brooklyn, New York. After ten days of operation, she was arrested and jailed. The trial made her a national figure, and handed doctors the right to prescribe birth control advice.
In 1921, Sanger organized the American Birth Control League, which later became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. For Sanger, the birth control movement was founded on two goals: limiting the reproduction of the “unfit” and challenging Christian teaching by creating a “new morality.” She campaigned against women “with staggering rapidity” breeding “those numberless, undesired children who become the clogs and the destroyers of civilization.” Sanger’s scorched-earth writing left no one guessing about her views:
While unknowingly laying the foundations of tyrannies and providing the human tinder for racial conflagrations, woman was also unknowingly creating slums, filling asylums with insane, and institutions with other defectives. She was replenishing the ranks of the prostitutes, furnishing grist for the criminal courts and inmates for prisons. Had she planned deliberately to achieve this tragic total of human waste and misery, she could hardly have done it more effectively.
[T]he most urgent problem to-day is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective. Possibly drastic and Spartan methods may be forced upon American society if it continues complacently to encourage the chance and chaotic breeding that has resulted from our stupid, cruel sentimentalism.
She was equally as caustic about Christianity and the Bible’s teaching on sexuality:
Let it be realized that this creation of new sex ideals is a challenge to the church. Being a challenge to the church, it is also, in less degree, a challenge to the state. The woman who takes a fearless stand for the incoming sex ideals must expect to be assailed by reactionaries of every kind. Imperialists and exploiters will fight hardest in the open, but the ecclesiastic will fight longest in the dark. He understands the situation best of all; he knows what reaction he has to fear from the morals of women who have attained liberty. For, be it repeated, the church has always known and feared the spiritual potentialities of woman’s freedom.
When women have raised the standards of sex ideals and purged the human mind of its unclean conception of sex, the fountain of the race will have been cleansed. Mothers will bring forth, in purity and in joy, a race that is morally and spiritually free.
I think it’s safe to say that with the perspective of nearly a century of hindsight, we have hardly attained a cleansed human race that is morally and spiritually free. To expect this kind of salvation from women is unwise, unbiblical, and downright impossible. As we will see in a following chapter, women did not manage to raise the sex standard—in fact, third-wave feminism gave rise to the feminine “raunch culture” we live in today. Yet, Sanger was so confident about the fruits of birth control and the new race that she predicted exactly the opposite of what has come to pass:
When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become the foundation of a new race. There will be no killing of babies in the womb by abortion, nor through neglect in foundling homes, nor will there be infanticide. . . .
The relentless efforts of reactionary authority to suppress the message of birth control and of voluntary motherhood are futile. The powers of reaction cannot now prevent the feminine spirit from breaking its bonds. When the last fetter falls the evils that have resulted from the suppression of woman’s will to freedom will pass. Child slavery, prostitution, feeblemindedness, physical deterioration, hunger, oppression and war will disappear from the earth. . . . When the womb becomes fruitful through the desire of an aspiring love, another Newton will come forth to unlock further the secrets of the earth and the stars. There will come a Plato who will be understood, a Socrates who will drink no hemlock, and a Jesus who will not die upon the cross. (emphasis added)
God forbid. God forbid!
I type that quote with tears on my cheeks. Without the cross, we are doomed. There is no hope of a new heavens and a new earth, free from the effects of the fall, without the atonement of our sinless Savior. There is no hope for mercy to triumph over judgment unless it be at the foot of that cross. There is no hope for “child slavery, prostitution, feeblemindedness, physical deterioration, hunger, oppression and war to disappear from the earth” if the Father’s righteous anger against these terrible sins is not satisfied. Where would justice be in the universe if such sins go overlooked? No, on the contrary, our only hope is the cross! If Jesus had not been obedient to this plan of salvation, who could possibly be our mediator?
And who could possibly atone for the slaughter that eventually arose from this “new morality”?
Margaret Sanger lived to see the development of the first birth control pill in 1960—something she had worked toward. She died in 1966, the year the Johnson administration incorporated “family planning” into its foreign policy and domestic health and social welfare programs of the United States. Her life bridged the first and second waves of feminism, but her philosophies were the booster rocket for the most profound effects of second-wave feminism.
Carolyn McCulley: Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World
This is my second book, from Moody Publishers. You can check out some excerpts and blog posts from when I was writing this book by clicking on the Radical Womanhood: The Book category. Or you can watch a four-minute mini-documentary about the history of feminism that introduces the book.
No Appetite for Noise
Ah, I feel so much better knowing that it's not just me. Other people find dining out to be very stressful these days, too.
It's not because of rising prices or rising calories counts. It's because of the rising noise levels in restaurants. People can't hear each other and the strain of conducting a conversation drains all the pleasure out of eating out. So it was with HUGE satisfaction that I read last Sunday's Washington Post magazine article by restaurant critic Tom Sietsema, "No Appetite for Noise." Here are some interesting excerpts:
It definitely is! I make a habit of asking restaurants to turn down the blaring music or lower the TV volume near me. But I also avoid certain restaurants because the noise level is unnerving. So this raises an important point. Since this article confirms what I've long suspected--noise is on the increase--we have to ask ourselves is the fellowship or outreach we expect over a restaurant table really going to occur? Obviously there are times when you go out to a place because you really love the food and maybe deep conversation isn't a priority. But most of us go out because there's someone we want to spend time with over food--a new neighbor, a colleague, a friend from church or school, family members. If we're strategically investing time in these relationships, will a noisy restaurant undermine that purpose?
It's another reason that opening our homes to offer hospitality and good cheer is so important. When we practice hospitality (Romans 12:13), we are honoring Scripture, providing the ambiance for relationships to grow, and giving our hurting ears some rest in this noisy world.
UPDATE: I received some contributions with good ideas for hospitality and negotiating restaurants, so I've added those for everyone's benefit.
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