I am not Bella Swan.

[deird1]

I read an article by Donald Miller, and now I want to hit things.


It was a two-part article, which can basically be summarised as follows:
Part 1 - "Girls! Stop being sluts and then you'll have a great love story!"
Part 2 - "Men! Get a good career, man-up, find a girl, and write her love story for her!"

(No, I am not exaggerating. At all.)


While there are a number of things I could rant about in this - such as repeated uses of "slutty", dividing people into "girls" and "men", and the implication that women should be valued entirely by how much sex they haven't had - the bit that is actually annoying me the most is this:

Be willing to suffer: What this means for you is that your love story needs to have a lot of lonely crying in it. Believe it or not, there will come a day when a man will fall madly in love with you and you will have the honor of sitting down with him one special night to explain that, while you weren’t perfect, you turned down plenty of guys and and cried yourself to sleep hoping somebody would come around and treat you with respect. He will be honored by this, and he will love you and feel humbled. If he doesn’t have the same story, he will feel intensely convicted and unworthy. You’ll really be giving him the foundation he needs to love your heart.

Uh-huh. Apparently, what makes me a desirable wife is having spent night after night sobbing into my pillow, wishing to be loved, until that glorious day when the man of my dreams strode in to take charge and write my love story, at which point I flung myself into his arms, weeping uncontrollably, and clutched at his manly arms, begging, "Never ever leave me! You will fulfil my every dream! YOU ARE THE ONE I'VE WAITED FOR!", eyes still reddened from the long sorrowful evenings of huddling into my quilt and wishing that the man who would bring my life meaning would hurry up and bring it already...

Call me crazy, but I'd think that having a fulfilling life regardless of my single status (in which writing music, learning languages, performing in plays, helping friends, going to barbecues, and babysitting nephews will be regular occurences) is much more attractive than making the highlight of my week crying myself to sleep. And even if it isn't more attractive, I'd rather do it anyway, because it's much more fun.



Dear Donald Miller,
You suck.
Sincerely, Me.
(PS - Before you decide to give the world pompous advice on the perfect marriage, maybe you'd like to wait until you've actually gotten married? Just an idea.)

Comments

[velvetwhip]

He was being satirical, right? Right? RIGHT?????



Gabrielle

[deird1]

Apparently not. :(

Really horrifying, especially since I tend to like Miller's writing...

[snickfic]

So, uh, presumably he doesn't give the men this same advice?

I wouldn't have expected this kind of thing from Miller. I haven't read much by him, but I had the impression he was more progressive (for lack of a better word) and less hardcore conservative.

[deird1]

Here's a slightly longer summary of Part 2 (made up entirely of quotes from the actual article):

- Men were not designed to have love stories “happen to them” as much as they were designed to “make a love story happen to a woman.”

- Women do like bad guys for a period of time. Usually, this lasts between the ages of 18 to about 24. The reason is simple. Their bodies are looking for somebody who is strong enough to defend their offspring, and they mistake strength for, well, the general characteristics of a jerk. But, as she gets a little older, a woman’s chemistry begins to change and she enters into a more mature understanding of strength.

- Have you ever noticed that ancient paintings of women always have them draped over a bed or a couch, arms outstretched in rest? And yet the guys are yielding a sword or riding a horse or captaining a ship. That’s because men were designed to work.

- Is she seductive? Stay away. Is she nagging? Stay away. Is she sexually promiscuous? Stay away.

(According to Part 1, women with "slutty pasts" will be loved by their husbands out of "charity", and nothing more.)


Yep, still fuming...

[snickfic]

I have no words.

[snickfic]

Also, I would like to say that advice like "Make him work for it" went a long way toward me totally screwing up my first relationship. Because "Don't make it easy on him" means "Don't tell him how much you like him" which leads to "Don't be honest" which results in total communication breakdown.

And I like how he tries to let us all down easy about how marriage sex isn't as exciting as hook-up sex.

And:

And stop using alcohol as an excuse. Nobody gets drunk and accidentally sleeps with a hamster. You know what you’re doing, drunk or not, so cut it out.

And

A woman wants a man who is confident, who knows where he is going, and knows exactly where she fits into his life.

Yep. Right next to his Mustang. And

The book of Proverbs was primarily written to men

So which books were written to us? Maybe just those few verses in Ephesians, huh?

Okay. I believe I've been sufficiently enraged for one evening.

[vass]

He keeps saying 'designed' and backing it up with cultural artifacts, and from one culture at that (also, he doesn't know what 'ancient' means.) I realise this guy presumably believes in Intelligent Design and everything, but how does he think human culture is evidence one way or another? Back in actual ancient times, some people sacrificed babies to Moloch, and I'm certain he doesn't think they were 'designed' to do that. If he means 'because it says so in the Bible' then he should cite the Bible, not a secondary source.

[lirazel]

Waaaah? And I generally like him so much! Admittedly, I liked Searching for God Knows What better than Blue Like Jazz, and I never actually read Through Painted Desserts, but I sobbed/laughed my way through To Own a Dragon and it had nothing to do with my life!

Dammit.

[deird1]

IKR??

I'm aghast. And still needing to vent.

[lirazel]

I just don't get it? I have known some really, really soppy romantic guys and some girls who really, really don't have time for this sort of thing. Do people not think about all those people who don't fit into these gender norms? And how they have to feel? I get really annoyed with this sort of thing because honestly the Bible was really progressive for its time period: David was the man after God's own heart, but he was SUPER EMOTIONAL and always crying and writing angsty poetry (I mean, it's gorgeous, 'cuz the Psalms are awesome, but so much of it is angsty poetry!) and dancing in his underwear and having sappy times with his BFF. And Jesus is always hanging out with the prostitutes and such. I just don't feel like the Bible puts a huge amount of value on women's sexuality as opposed to men's. I really don't. I feel like there's as many times of men getting in trouble for sexual misconduct in the Bible as women. And there's loads more examples of people getting in trouble for not worshipping correctly or lying or something than there is sexual stuff, honestly. It's just one of those cases that's so clearly influenced by culture and the church just can't see it.

Basically: if that's your doctrine, teach people to be abstinent before marriage and pure in mind. But teach people that and acknowledge that it's harder for some and easier for others, but don't make it about gender, because it's really, really not. And then move on to all the other things that are really important, like taking care of the poor and being kind and loving our enemies and such. This is really not that difficult, church.

[snickfic]

Basically: if that's your doctrine, teach people to be abstinent before marriage and pure in mind. But teach people that and acknowledge that it's harder for some and easier for others, but don't make it about gender, because it's really, really not.

Exactly. I've been sort of amused to realize that I and radical feminists are in vehement agreement that men's and women's sexual activities should not be judged differently and that they should both be held to the same standard. It's just that radical feminists and I disagree on which standard this should be. :)

It's weird, but I never noticed the difference growing up in the church. Maybe I never paid attention? I never got the impression from my youth group leaders that guys having premarital sex was any less harmful or wrong than girls having premarital sex. I'm pretty much have had to have the dichotomy spelled out to me as an adult - by Gabs, for starters, in some of her feminism posts - and at first I was completely mystified. Really? People really view these two things differently?

Maybe I'm just fortunate. Score another one for homeschooling.

[deird1]

Exactly. I've been sort of amused to realize that I and radical feminists are in vehement agreement that men's and women's sexual activities should not be judged differently and that they should both be held to the same standard. It's just that radical feminists and I disagree on which standard this should be. :)

Heh. Exactly.


(You were homeschooled? *never knew*)

[snickfic]

(You were homeschooled? *never knew*)

All the way through tenth grade. I spent two years at a public school and then went on to a two-year college.

[lirazel]

Exactly what you're saying.

It's just that radical feminists and I disagree on which standard this should be. :)

Yup! I've often said that feminists were right in fighting back against the double standard of women's and men's sexuality, but that instead of trying to hold men to the same higher standard as women, they decided to hold women to the same low standard as men, which was the opposite of what they should have done, alas.

My family was really good about the lack of difference as well--my guy cousins were treated the same as my girl cousins and my sister and I. It wasn't until I was a teenager and started interacting with a wider variety of people that I noticed the difference. But it's definitely true--you'd be positively shocked at all the crazy books out there, and then there's that whole purity ball thing which freaks me out.

Ha! Yes indeed!

[eilowyn1]

Basically: if that's your doctrine, teach people to be abstinent before marriage and pure in mind. But teach people that and acknowledge that it's harder for some and easier for others, but don't make it about gender, because it's really, really not.

This, exactly.

[lirazel]

:D

[next_to_normal]

Pffft. I don't know what you're so upset about. I've taken to crying myself to sleep every night and it has CHANGED MY LIFE. I'm still single, kinda depressed, and possibly dehydrated, but I AM PREPARING MYSELF FOR LOVE, OKAY?

You'll be sorry someday! You're gonna look back and be like, "Man, I wish I had CRIED MOAR."

[deird1]

Hee! You make me grin. :)

[aerintine]

*snerk* You made me chuckle.

You're on the right track, and I just know there's a man out there who's guiding his steed straight for you, and Your Love Story he has already lovingly penned on the corner of his dinner napkin. It's only slightly rumpled from being tucked into his shining armor. You'll be so grateful to him for completing you you'll barely even notice the wrinkles.

[next_to_normal]

YOU COMPLETE ME, NAPKIN MAN!!!

[smurasaki]

Whut?

Can he please crawl back into whatever cave he crawled out of? The sooner, the better?

[aerintine]

I... have no words.

[curiouswombat]

Good grief! I don't want to just hit things - I want to go and hit this man - hard. Hopefully until he cries into his lonely pillow - when I will tell him it's good for him and keeping him in touch with his feminine side...

And you will have to imagine either my WFT penguins or my Granny Weatherwax icon attached to this post. Or my Charlie Brown one - or even my Lucy from Peanuts one!

[lutamira]

Good lord. Guy has a hit book and thinks he can tell the world how it should work. This sounds an awful lot like that John Eldridge crap that was going around a while ago - Wild at Heart and the truly disastrous Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul. Both books had basically this same message to this - men are active and adventurous and the best way to be happy if you are a woman is to wait quietly at home, practicing virtue and keeping things spotless until the man of your dreams comes along. Miller sounds, if possible, even more offensive.

PS - Before you decide to give the world pompous advice on the perfect marriage, maybe you like to wait until you've actually gotten married? Just an idea

And I spilled my tea 'cause I laughed too hard.