Romantic Comedies: When Stalking Has a Happy Ending (from The Atlantic) / Men Who Mistake Platonic Friendliness For Flirting – So Annoying

Romantic Comedies: When Stalking Has a Happy Ending (from The Atlantic)

Some people confuse what this article from The Atlantic terms “persistent pursuing” with courtship. That is, men do it all the time, and some women, due to Hollywood Rom Coms, have been conditioned to view this as normal, romantic behavior.

May I add another related issue: men who mistake platonic chit chat with flirting?

That drives me up the wall. It’s one reason I am usually loathe to enter into pleasantries with men I don’t know when I’m in stores or sitting around in waiting rooms, because many men mistake idle, polite banter for,

• “Oooh, this lady is into me, she is warm for my form, she wants to marry me and make babies with me, I am one sexy beast, grrrrr.”

So these men ask for your phone number or they get all flirty back. And you, the woman, are like, “I did NOT send this dude any sexy signals, where is this coming from?”

No, dude, my romantic interest is only in your imagination. (Duran Duran (Link): sang of this very concept.)

Me saying stuff like, “Wow, some crazy weather we’ve been having lately, huh?” as we’re sitting in Wal-Mart’s auto care center waiting for our tires to be rotated is not me hitting on you.

Me hitting on you, men of the world, consists of me putting one hand behind my head, one hand on a jutted out hip, head tilted back, eyes narrowly parted, and me saying something (in a seductive sounding, cat like purr), like, “Hey there big boy, you come here all alone? Mama likes what she sees! May I have your phone number? Are you free for a date this Saturday?”

Think (Link): this.

Yes, (Link): this is what a woman who is flirting with you looks like, the facial expression and mannerisms.

About men who refuse to take “no” for an answer from a woman they are interested in, who confuse pursuing with stalking: other than entitlement, I wonder if what drives some of these men is a sense that they HATE to be alone and MUST have a romantic partner to “complete them.”

I know this sort of thinking is very common among a lot of women. I think secular society (and Christian culture) does try to convince people there is no way they can be whole and happy single. There is a lot of pressure on people to pair up and date or marry.

Culture (especially through movies and TV shows) and churches need to stop sending this bogus message that there is something wrong, flawed, or second class about being single as an adult.

There is no disgrace in being single. I understand if you are single and lonely and pine for a significant other how hard it can be at times, but you are okay on your own.

You are not some loser or in-complete if you don’t have a mate, contrary to the messages Christians and Hollywood like to send us all.

(Link):  Romantic Comedies: When Stalking Has a Happy Ending by Julie Beck

Excerpts:

Overly persistent pursuit is a staple of movie love stories, but a new study shows that it could normalize some troubling behaviors.

…Reasonable people know that rom-coms aren’t what love is really like, just as reasonable people know that porn is not what sex is really like. But these movies still create an image of romance that leaks into the atmosphere and may subtly shape people’s perceptions and expectations of love.

One troubling way they may do that is by making stalking behaviors seem like a normal part of romance, according to (Link): a new study by Julia Lippman, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of communication studies at the University of Michigan.

…[Lipman says] “Indeed, they may be seen as reflecting one of the great cultural myths of romantic love: that no matter how big the obstacle, love will conquer all.”

The website TV Tropes, which tracks, wiki-style, frequently-used narrative devices—not just on TV, but in all kinds of fiction—has a page for this. It’s aptly titled (Link): “Stalking Is Love.”Lippman files stalking under the broader umbrella of “persistent pursuit,” which can also encompass “more benign and even positively regarded behaviors such as some types of romantic courtship,” she writes.

A Dating Video in Light of Being Equally Yoked Teaching

A Dating Video in Light of Being Equally Yoked Teaching

Facebook group  SCCL (Stuff Christian Culture Likes) posted a link to this video a few days back

• (Link): SCCL post about video
• (Link): The video on You Tube  –  How Christian Guys Describe a Godly Girl

I’ve watched the video, but I didn’t pay close attention to it. Several of the guys mentioned they wanted a “girl” who would be servant-minded – what, so they can serve these guys, bring them their beer and slippers when they get home from work? Bleh and puke.

Some of the guys in the video also mentioned wanting a girl who “dresses modestly.”

Someone on SCCL named, Elizabeth Burger, typed up a transcript of the video:

Transcript complete (typed by E. Burger):

[Three or Four Young Christian men speaking:]

I define a godly girl as a girl who is wholeheartedly pursuing God with her life.
A godly girl, to me, really understands that being a wife and a mother is an extremely high calling.

So to me, a godly girl is a girl who loves the Lord with all her heart and wants to serve Him.
To me, a godly girl is someone who is patient.

To me the most attractive thing about a girl is that she is really selfless.
I really admire when girls dress modestly.

I really admire a girl who is content with where God has her in life.
I admire a girl who has love for people.
I really admire a girl who is respectful towards her parents and is kind to her siblings.
Some character qualities that I really appreciate in a girl are selflessness, and a girl who is kind.

I admire a girl who gets outside of herself and invests in the lives of others.
I know a girl who really prioritizes God in her life. Every morning she talks with the Lord through prayer and reads her Bible and really just yearns to hear from the Lord.

Christian Gender Complementarians, Target Removing Gender Store Signs, Women and Motorcycles, Social Science Doesn’t Confirm that Men Are From Mars / Women From Venus

Christian Gender Complementarians, Target Removing Gender Store Signs, Women and Motorcycles, Social Science Doesn’t Confirm that Men Are From Mars / Women From Venus

I discussed on an older post how, since girlhood, I have really liked motorcycles and still do. I was a tom boy when I was a kid.

I was not into most girly hobbies, but my mother, who was a traditional Christian, tried to pique my interest in girly things by buying me dolls when I was a little girl.

My mother later relented a bit and bought me Evel Knievel toys. I was a big fan of Evel Knievel back in the day, and I loved motorcycles.

Evel Knievel

I still maintain an interest in motorcycles but have never owned one. I was also into other people, things, or hobbies that were considered more boyish.

Should you wonder: I am a heterosexual woman who does not act or look “butch.” I can wear jeans with chucks and turn around and look damn stunning in short skirts and high heels the next. Men flirt with me and ask me out on dates.

Me being interested in motorcycles and things considered boyish since childhood did not result in me becoming terribly unfeminine or a lesbian.

I mention this because I think one reason some Christians assume if they can make little boys and girls adhere to narrow parameters of what they consider “manly” and “womanly” (which is almost always built on secular cultural stereotypes), that they can keep kids from becoming homosexual later in life.

I’ve written a little bit more about some of these subjects in an older post here:

• (Link): Southern Baptist’s New Sexist “Biblical Woman” Site – Attitudes in Total Face Palm of a Site One Reason Among Many This Unmarried and Childless Woman Is Saying Toodle-Oo to Christianity 

I have discussed before how the conservative, gender Christian gender complementarian approach to gender has been a big turn-off to me, and how it’s one factor of many that makes it difficult to remain in the Christian faith.

Though I will say that Christians who teach and promote Christian gender egalitarianism are a source of encouragement, such as (Link): Christians For Biblical Equality, or (Link): these guys.

I was raised as a gender complementarian – both my parents are Christians who are into traditional gender roles, and my mother encouraged me to be a typical girly girl. (My mother has since passed away.)

For years and years, I felt and believed that the Bible does endorse the Christian gender complementarian view, as is promoted by CBMW (Christians for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood organization. They have a web site. I hesitate to link to their site from my blog. I really hate linking to their site).

As I grew older, I began suspecting that GC (gender complementarianism) is not true, based upon a closer look at the biblical text itself, which has examples in both Old and New Testaments of women, with God’s stamp of approval, leading and teaching men and killing men. I later totally abandoned the GC perspective.

I still remain a right wing, socially conservative, Republican-voting individual who is, by and large, on board with traditional values. Therefore, and contrary to what GCs fear and promote, jettisoning their position on gender is not a slippery slope; it does not always or necessarily turn a person into a liberal, a Democrat, pro-choicer, or a militant secular feminist.

Several days ago, some writer at CBMW, Grant Castleberry,  wrote a paper about how Target stores are removing signage that says “Boys” and “Girls” from their toy sections. Here is a link to that page, hosted on CBMW:

• (Link): Missing the Target (hosted on CBMW site)

There were several rebuttals to this CBMW post (most of these written by Christians), such as:

(Link):  Target Is Not Trying to Destroy Gender by Laura Turner

(Link):  Why is the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Targeting My Kids? by Tim Fall

(I have disagreed with Tim Fall on a previous topic, but he’s a good egg, and I agree with him more often than not. I certainly agree with him on this Target story)

(Link):  I’m a woman, and God created me to do math and build robots

(Link):   Bigots Lose It Over Target’s Boy Toy Policy by S. Allen

Excerpts:

• Target’s move toward gender-neutral toy aisles has us celebrating. But some unhappy people are threatening to boycott the store.
• …And after (Link): Breitbart falsely reported that Target would be “getting rid of the words ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ on clothing” in addition to toys, many on Facebook are under the impression that the company will be removing all gender-based signs from its stores. The original post made it clear that keeping gender-based signage for apparel sections “makes sense” due to “fit and sizing differences.” Target has since (Link): reiterated to several customers: “We are not making any changes to our Men’s, Women’s, Boys’, Girls’, or Baby sections.”
• …“I have news for [Target] and for everyone else,” he wrote. “God created two different genders.”
• Fox & Friends found (Link): a psychotherapist who said that the decision went “overboard” and implied that children might “question what their gender is” if they were taken into a Target store without gender-based signage. The caption on the segment: “‘Sign’ of the Times.” Nothing like some light Second Coming humor to kick off your morning.
• (Link): Blaze contributor and self-declared “professional truth sayer” Mike Walsh blamed Target’s decision on “a few hypersensitive, hyperliberal parents” in a provocative post headlined, “Yes, Target, I Do Want My Daughter to Conform to Her Gender.”
• Wrote Walsh: “I won’t attempt to defend every gender stereotype or ‘gender norm,’ but I do subscribe to the radical theory that boys and girls are different and distinct from one another in complex, concrete, and important ways, and many of the dreaded ‘norms’ are, well, normal and biological.”
• Walsh conveniently lays bare the fundamental internal contradiction in the anti-Target outcry: If gender is a universal, biological, and God-ordained constant, then why do children need cultural reinforcement from a retail chain to figure it out? In the bizarro world of far-right logic, gender is at once the strongest force on the planet and the most fragile.
• The God of Genesis may have created male and female but unless Target puts these words on signs for action figures and Barbie dolls, all of His hard work will be undone.
• The protests seem to be motivated by the paradoxical fear that children will grow up genderless without Target’s help even though their biology should supposedly guide them into pink and blue aisles without any intervention.
• But Target is not attacking gender itself, only the outdated idea that girls and boys should play with certain shapes and colors of molded plastic and not others.

Similar Views of Women Between Christian Gender Complmentarians and Islamic Group ISIS

Similar Views of Women Between Christian Gender Complmentarians and Islamic Group ISIS

Today, Feb 9, 2015, Facebook group SCCL posted a link to this:

(Link):  Who Said it? The Gospel Coalition, ISIS, and Gender Roles (by Tyler Tully, published Feb 9, 2015)

I find this interesting, because a few days ago, I tweeted a link to a news story about the ISIS manifesto for women saying something like, “this sounds very similar to what Christian gender complementarians believe about women too.”

Let me see if I can find that Tweet. Yes, here it is, from February 7, 2015:

ISIS' plans for girls Sounds like Christian Gender Complementarianists' http://t.co/8txNfaUc1d #CBMW #GenderRoles #Sexism

— sololoner (@sololoner2) February 8, 2015

Here are some links about the ISIS manifesto that were obtained by Western media:

This is from The Daily Mail:

(Link):  Married at NINE and brainwashed into thinking beauty parlours are the work of the devil: ISIS manifesto aimed at recruiting women reveals the misery they can expect to endure

This is from The Christian Post:

(Link): ISIS’ All-Female Manifesto Tells 9-Year-Old Girls to Marry Jihadis; Women to Be Hidden Inside ‘Cell in the House’

Excerpts from The Daily Mail article – note that some of the attitudes about women, gender, marriage, sexuality and purity are similar to what Christian gender complementarians teach:

• ISIS report details life of extreme oppression faced by women joining ISIS 
• Women are forced into life of cooking, cleaning and childbearing for jihadis
• All-female police force said it is fine for adult men to marry girls aged nine 
• Al-Khansa Brigade insists that all ‘pure’ females should be married by 16
• Beauty salons and shops selling fashionable clothing are also condemned as satanic in the group’s ‘manifesto’ for women living under ISIS

• Militants working for ISIS’ all-female police force in Syria have released a manifesto on the role of women – claiming children as young as nine should be encouraged to get married and condemning beauty parlours as the work of the devil.

  The chilling document, titled ‘Women in the Islamic State’, demands women live a completely ‘sedentary’ lifestyle and that their role in life should be primarily to remain ‘hidden and veiled’ and at the service of men, who are described as their masters.

  The manifesto urges ‘pure’ females to ensure they are married by 16, ‘while they are still young and active’, but insists that children as young as nine can ‘legitimately’ marry adult men.

  It goes on to state that beauty parlours and shops selling fashionable clothes must not be tolerated as they are both instruments of the devil designed to encourage women to spend vast amounts of money to change God’s design.

  The document is the first of its kind to be released by ISIS’ all-female Al-Khansa Brigade and while it claims not to have been written or approved by ISIS’ leadership, it provides a disturbing look at the way women living under the terror group’s barbaric regime can expect to be viewed and treated.

• The document was originally released by the Al-Khansa Brigade last month but as it was written in Arabic, it failed to make an impact on Western ISIS jihadis or supporters. To avoid the crucial information being lost to English-language terror experts, the counter-extremism think tank Quilliam has now fully translated the manifesto and released its own analysis of its contents.

  In stark contradiction to the way life under the rule of ISIS is portrayed on social media, the document explains that the primary duty of Western women who join the terror group is to marry a jihadi, then spend their life cooking, cleaning and raising a family.

• It suggests that young Western women who spend their time online boasting of leading an exciting and fulfilling lifestyle under the rule of ISIS are lying, possibly under pressure from the group’s leadership who want to encourage a greater number of women to travel to Syria and marry fighters.

  The document describes how women in the once relatively Westernised Syrian city of Raqqa are now ‘liberated’ by laws demanding they are fully covered in public, as it prevents their ‘humiliation’.

I refer you again to

(Link):  Who Said it? The Gospel Coalition, ISIS, and Gender Roles (by Tyler Tully, published Feb 9, 2015)

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Related

(Link): Extremist Muslims Like Family Values Too – Muslims are joining ISIS / ISIL (extremist Islamic group) because they believe it supports “Family Values” – When Christianity and Islam sound alike

(Link): Duck Dynasty TV Show Star and Conservative Christian Phil Robertson Says Men Should Marry Girls ‘when they are 15 or 16’

(Link):  Southern Baptists Pushing Early Marriage, Baby Making – Iranians Pushing Mandatory Motherhood – When Christians Sound Like Muslims

(Link): Why Christians Need To Stress Spiritual Family Over the Nuclear Family – People with no flesh and blood relations including Muslims who Convert to Christianity – Also: First World, White, Rich People Problems

(Link): Modesty Teachings – When Mormons Sound like Christians and Gender Complementarians

(Link): Mormons and Christians Make Family, Marriage, Having Children Into Idols

(Link):  Islamic Group ISIS Stones Women To Death For Not Being Virgins

(Link):  Christianity Should Be Able To Work Regardless of Culture, Childed or Marital Status / Article: Unlike in the 1950s, there is no ‘typical’ U.S. family today by B. Shulte

(Link): Hypocrisy of Left Wingers and Atheists and the #NotAll Hash Tag or “Not All” Rhetoric