SO I work in a church world. I'm also highly judgmental, apparently. Here are my observations though about women who tend to be clergy.
1. Some style of chili bowl cut--
Sometimes it's shorter, sometimes a little longer, ofter MUCH more manly than our former first lady (but I wasn't sure what to google in order to find the precise picture.) Why do you have men"s haircuts? You are indeed not a man. Notice the lady in the top picture that is in the royal blue. Prime example.2. Sensible shoes. Notice the picture above again. There is a plethora of not flats/not heels going on in the clergy world. They are often a nude color and have a one inch semi chunky heel.
This is generally not an attractive color. Plus, it's ugly. Plus, just wear some cute flats.
3. A love of the long sheeth dress.
It is typically complete with flowers. It typically shows no shape and may be paired with a men's blazer. Why oh WHY can we not celebrate our differences? Our femininity? Wax our brows? Not wear a butt cut if we have long shapeless hair? Not get the bowl cut? Not wear sensible shoes?
I mean, I get that it's hard to be a female in that world... that you have to compete with men, that you try not to appear to be different--but we are.
I'm just sayin', people might come to church more if you grew out your hair, got a nice suit, maybe put on some lipgloss, and wore some rockin' shoes. It might be shallow, but it might save the world.
4 comments:
You are a genius. I love this post.
The shapeless dress with the blazer is the worst to me. Do you want to wear a blazer or do you want to wear a dress? At some point you're going to have to decide... And please try to avoid having shoulder pads in both garments...
Couple of thoughts:
1. I go with shapeless sheath dresses whenever possible so I don't have to worry about sucking in my significant gut when worrying about the million of other things going on in my brain - whose anniversary it is, who I pissed off at the last trustees meeting, what the hell I'm going to teach in the next 1/2 hour, etc., etc.
2. I think a lot of us women who have had to fight/push our way into ministry are ambivalent about our femaleness, and thus our femininity. When you are constantly told that women can't do this or that, you run the risk of internalizing some of it. Kind of like the stereotypical angry black man shooting themselves in the foot with self-hate. So we try not to be feminine, sometimes unconciously.
3. I think it also is partly due to the general clergy lack-of-taking-care-of-oneself. Same reason most clergy are overweight and the men tend to carry a non-alcoholic beer gut. We don't think we are important enough to take the time (or money) to buy a dress that helps us look cute. Or paint our toenails. But I'm not talking about myself. ;)
Let's talk about throwing poop some more.
Ew, I see mom-jeans, too!
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