When I saw that article in the NYT, my first thought was, yes, she does look oppressed to me and the only thing she’s missing is a big ole gold cross pointing to her cleavage. That’s exactly what oppressed looked like to me, growing up in the rural US South: a body that doesn’t seem to really belong to the woman but is policed and curated for the judgement of others rather than one’s own pleasure. One of the biggest cons the conservative Christian church pulled was convincing white girls and women that they were not oppressed because they were “allowed” to dress a certain way or do certain things that those “other women” were “not allowed” to do. I never could figure out why they didn’t see the problem was that the “allowing” or “not allowing” was always the choice of men.
When I saw that article in the NYT, my first thought was, yes, she does look oppressed to me and the only thing she’s missing is a big ole gold cross pointing to her cleavage. That’s exactly what oppressed looked like to me, growing up in the rural US South: a body that doesn’t seem to really belong to the woman but is policed and curated for the judgement of others rather than one’s own pleasure. One of the biggest cons the conservative Christian church pulled was convincing white girls and women that they were not oppressed because they were “allowed” to dress a certain way or do certain things that those “other women” were “not allowed” to do. I never could figure out why they didn’t see the problem was that the “allowing” or “not allowing” was always the choice of men.
Absolutely! Exactly that!
Terrific essay.
Thank you!