Wonderful Women Of The World
Posted by Michelle Moquin on August 30th, 2014
Good morning!
I am so tired of women being blamed for being sexually assaulted by men, when women are the victims. I am also tired of men making it a woman’s responsibility to make sure that what she is wearing isn’t too sexy, revealing, suggestive…you finish the sentence, to help them control their thoughts. Wha’at?? Why is it men want to control everything else in this world, but they somehow don’t want to control their own thoughts, or can’t, when it comes to seeing a woman dressed in a particular way?
Well…girls are getting tired of it too and deciding to fight back. Here’s the write from Think Progress.
Mormon Student Fights Back Against BYU’s ‘Slut Shaming’ Stance On Women’s Sexuality
Keli Byers, a sophomore at Brigham Young University, is fed up with the Mormon church’s approach to women’s sexuality. And she’s fighting back in a big way: By publishing her complaints in Cosmopolitan, a magazine that’s become infamous for its coverage of sex.
Students who attend BYU — which describes itself as seeking to provide an education “in an atmosphere consistent with the ideals and principles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” — have to adhere to a strict student conduct code that requires them to “live a chaste and virtuous life.” The school bans students from engaging in sexual activity, as well as requires women to adhere to a strict dress code. The young adults who break those agreements could face expulsion from the institution.
But not everyone is happy about those policies on campus. “The Church doesn’t see women as equal to men and how BYU is slut-shaming,” Byers’ piece explains. “The school’s honor code forces women to dress modestly — no skirts above the knee — supposedly to help men control their thoughts.”
According to Byers, the emphasis on sexual purity is particularly problematic within the larger context of the church’s approach to chastity. Byers describes growing up learning that women who become sexually active are dirty and used, like a chewed up piece of gum. Then, when she was sexually assaulted as a teenager, she was essentially blamed for the incident and banned from church for a month. “I was punished because a man had touched me,” Byers recounts.
Once Byers got to BYU, she joined an unaffiliated student group calledYoung Mormon Feminists, which ultimately helped her process some of her feelings about her sexuality and her relationship to the church. She says “the group helped me reclaim my sexuality and realize my sexual assault wasn’t my fault.”
Byers’ comments echo similar statements from another Mormon woman, Elizabeth Smart, who became a household name after she was kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home and held in captivity for nine months. Smart made national headlines last year when she said that growing up with a focus on abstinence made her feel like being sexually assaulted was her fault. She recounted a similar story about being told that girls who aren’t virgins are like chewed gum, and noted that she “felt so dirty and so filthy” after she was raped. Smart has continued to speak out about how our society shames victims of sexual assault.
Although Byers and Smart were both raised within the Mormon church, however, their experiences aren’t necessarily unique to the young woman who are part of that faith community. Other conservative Christian denominations have similar approaches to sexuality and chastity, and it’s very common for young girls to take “purity pledges” to commit to remaining abstinent until marriage. These messages are also reinforced in many of our public schools. Across the country, abstinence-only education courses teach kids thatsex makes them dirty.
Those lessons are imparted to both boys and girls, but the emphasis on purity ends up having bigger consequences for women, who are expected to bear most of the burden for avoiding tempting men. Byers is among several young women who have been starting to push back against these societal attitudes. Across the United States and Canada, students are demanding an end to “slut shaming” dress codesand abstinence classes that police women’s bodies to prevent them from distracting their male peers.
These types of clashes have particularly coming to a head within Mormonism lately. Feminists have been fighting to expand women’s role in the church, which doesn’t currently allow women to be ordained or take on leadership roles that aren’t primarily “supportive” to men’s work. As part of those efforts, some women are pushing back against the church’s traditional dress codes and gender roles by wearing pants to religious services.
“Talking about this could get me in trouble, but I want to start a discussion about changing an honor code that hurts women,” Byers concludes. “I’d rather be judged and scrutinized than silenced and shamed.”
*****
To think that some people were comfortable to vote for a creep with this cult as his religion for POTUS. They claimed to be devout christians, yet to defeat a black man they got in bed with a religion that says the man gets a whole planet of women to impregnate after death. That certainly beats a lousy 75 virgins by any count.
Big kudos and courage to Byers and Smart. Let’s HOPE they will continue to get their message heard and heeded by young girls around the country.
Thoughts? Blog me.
James: I couldn’t agree with you more. We have young girls like Mo’ne taking on the boys and proving that she can not only hang with the best, but be the best. Good, clean, fun, and a great example of teamwork, and camaraderie.
Then swing over to the other side where you have a young girl learning how to fire an automatic weapon for God knows what reason because I certainly don’t have one. When I heard this story, I was speechless. So many questions flew through my mind. The first being, “What the hell were parents thinking when they put an Uzi in a child’s hands?” And then…”Who the hell thinks it is a good idea to teach a 9-year old to shoot an Uzi?” I am baffled, and beyond words. All I can say is this is absolutely sickening.
We need more young girls like Mo’ne Davis to be an inspiration to other young girls. She’s an inspiration to me. It is stories like hers that keeps me pushing for the women and girls on this planet to take their equality and get ahead and prosper. It is girls like Mo’ne that give me HOPE, because believe me, as much as I try to stay neutral and not let my emotions get the best of me, they sometimes do.
Readers: We are living in a world that is so polarized right now with both ends of the extremes being seen. Currently we have women wanting to be seen for more than their bodies…or at least for who they really are without being photo-shopped to perfection (That’s a nod to you, Celia – thanks for posting your comment). We have women shouting no to inequality, female injustices and stereotypes, and to sexual objectification in the media.
And then you take one look at the women in the music industry who couldn’t be more undressed and provocative, sending the message that their talent alone isn’t enough and they have to shed almost everything, baring almost all, to make it big. Some talent isn’t enough, so to compete they do what ever they can to get ahead, and make the big money. Unfortunately, it pushes those that do have talent to do the same…and there we have this perpetuating throughout the industry in a never ending cycle. Have you seen the music video “Anaconda?“! I think this says it all.
And now we have the reality show “Dating Naked.” Really. (Thanks Henry for posting.) I caught a clip of this awhile ago and I just couldn’t believe the BS that spewed to justify dating naked. Do you think a woman came up with this idea? Pretty soon porn will be a reality show, and no doubt some women will be lined up to be on that show. Women are just buying into the drift that men perpetuate.
If we believe that men hold sacred and value, what isn’t just given openly and easily to others (like Steve Harvey’s book), then women are doing it all wrong by showing it all and giving it all up. Were buying into the drift that we need to do this to get ahead or to get a man. Harvey says it all – Men will do and say what they need to, to get laid, but if you do so before the vetted 90 days, you won’t be around after that – he’ll be onto the next. And coming from a man, I believe he’s right.
You may judge me for feeling this way about women in the media. You may say that they have very right do what they do and flaunt what they wish. And they do. But I respect my body. What I have to offer is sacred between myself and those I chose to share it with, and not for everyone and anyone to see and enjoy. To me there is beauty in the mystery and excitement of the unknown. If we just let the entire world see all of our beauty, what is left to the imagination and the anticipation of that special person we intend to share it with? If we don’t value ourselves, why would we expect men to?
I HOPE for more women to realize that we’re sending out mixed signals with our polarizing actions. I look forward to seeing women in the media take back their bodies and claim them as sacred. To realize their beauty and worth and present them to the world as such.
When women stop competing with each other and learn to support each other, then we will see real change for women.
I HOPE everyone is enjoying the 3-day holiday!
xo
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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August 30th, 2014 at 7:30 pm
I couldn’t get in to say. LOVED your write Michelle. You spoke my thoughts exactly.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:40 pm
“Byers’s push for more feminist ideals at BYU is not shared by students, who believe she shouldn’t have attended a religious university if she didn’t want religious ideas pushed upon her.”
These are the dumb as a box of works idiots that make up the majority of the white females in America. Until the demographics change, females will have to wait for change.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:41 pm
Let me get this straight, Keli, you’re upset that you paid money to attend a private school with an “honor code”, and that you had to obey the thing you paid for and said you would obey? Makes perfect sense.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:42 pm
Sexual promiscuity should be shamed. In fact there isn’t enough shaming going on these days.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:43 pm
Keli, Private school, private rules. There are plenty of other options out there.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:43 pm
She really does look like a Sandra Fluke wannabe. She signs up to go to a religious school that goes against what she believes. Sounds like she did it deliberately. Maybe she thinks she’ll get famous.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:44 pm
A couple of things, here. First, the LDS Church is not a “sponsor” of BYU like the Jesuits “sponsor” Gonzaga University in Spokane. The LDS Church owns the school, lock, stock and barrel. They write the rules and no one–NO ONE–who is LDS doesn’t understand what is expected of you when you step foot onto that campus (and BYU-Idaho & BYU-Hawaii).
Second, Mormons aren’t like a lot of other faiths. Go find 10 Catholic universities and they are going to vary significantly. Catholic University in DC is nothing like Gonazaga. They are sects (divisions?) within the religion that believe different things, and for them that’s okay. But the Mormon faith (full disclosure: I was born Muslim, raised an atheist and am today LDS) isn’t like that. Walk into a Chapel in Salt Lake City or Tokyo Japan and it’s all the same. If you don’t believe what the church teaches then you aren’t really an active member.
As a Mormon teenager, you know that you shouldn’t 1) use profanity, 2) use drugs, 3) use tobacco and 4) not only don’t have sex, you don’t go much farther than a kiss. If you don’t like it, or can’t follow the rules, then when you turn 18 you leave. You don’t find a Mormon who says, “I’m Mormon but I smoke” or “Yeah, I’m Mormon but I enjoy a cocktail.” It just doesn’t happen (at least publicly).
God bless those who disagree or choose to live a sexual lifestyle. But you are going to be ostracized from the LDS community because we raise our kids not to do those things and we don’t want them hanging out with kids who do. It’s not personal, do what you’d like but don’t make my children be part of it.
Since joining the LDS Church 30 years ago (and I was an avid smoker and drinker), I have not been in a setting of any kind where people were doing either of those things. I don’t know anyone who does.
If this girl is currently at BYU, her life is about to change, and I’m guessing she did all these things for the fame. She saw Sandra Fluke earn a lot of money going around the nation giving speeches for free birth control. I’m guessing in a few months, she will be on the college circuit, telling fellow college students, “Don’t let anyone take away your right to have sex! It’s a right and it’s fun. It’s time for the LDS Church to come into the 21st Century.”
Well, you should see the corporations and governmental agencies come onto the BYU campus and recruit for sensitive positions. They love BYU grads (members and non-members alike) because they are less likely to have skeletons in their closet, less likely to be blackmailed and far more patriotic than at other schools.
This young lady is just another within her generation that instead of being willing to follow rules that were agreed to, wants the rules changed so they don’t have to follow them. Sad.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:45 pm
Reginald#3:
So you can’t work to change something if you pay for it? How would shareholders feel about that arrangement?
It seems like, in the capitalist culture, that the only way you have a “right” to even ask for change is if you have paid your share.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:46 pm
Apparently she is a wanna-be loser like Sandra Fluke. Maybe Obama will call her when BYU tells her to take a hike.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:47 pm
They sign an Honor Code before ever attending. They know what they are getting into before ever arriving. If they don’t like the Honor Code, they should attend another university where they would feel more comfortable.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:48 pm
The young lady in question and I disagree that the “code” as written is, in fact, honorable. If you believe that something is dishonorable, is not your duty, as honorable person, to fight against that?
Honor is not what someone else tells you it is. It is being true to your own internal belief system, and applying those beliefs in your life. I believe this young lady is far more honorable than the code itself.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:50 pm
Well Aldofo#11, have I got good news for you. God said it in the BIBLE plain and simple. Why should a young woman go to a religious college and try to change THEM.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:55 pm
Wetback, since she can’t obey the rules she promised to abide by before she started attending. She won’t be attending BYU. Much like paying admission to a show house …
The price of admission does not give you the right to not obey the owners rules on the premises. She will be kicked out and “good riddance” to her and her silly “the rules weren’t written for me attitude”
Or course this maybe a concept that you Adolfo and the rest of your ilk can’t see.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:56 pm
JD#8, Well, you have part of the truth on your side about “paying”. BYU heavily subsidizes one’s education… think “scholarship”. You’re benefiting in a capitalistic system on money that did not come out of of your pockets, and you’re biting the proverbial hand that feeds you.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:57 pm
JD#8, You are so damn stupid that I know you’re a freaky liberal–likely a faggot.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:58 pm
JD#8, That is not the definition of honor, but, in a world where the paradigm is heavily inform by post-modernism and its dirty mistress: subjectivism, you think you can make up “honor” on the spot and that it is subjective to your own individual views.
August 30th, 2014 at 7:59 pm
Rodger#15, Brilliant commentary!! Are you doing your thesis on faggots? What a rigorous academic environment the University of Mississippi must be.
August 30th, 2014 at 8:00 pm
JD#8, Take a look at this as Contract law. She signed a contract stating she would abide by certain standards. Now she wants to change the contract AFTER she signed it. Negotiations to change the contract occur before you sign not after.
Personally, she sounds like she is a screaming idiot. It appears that she went there just because she wanted to make a fuss. I truly doubt she had any intention of following the policy.
August 30th, 2014 at 8:01 pm
Monk#14, So what? I simply don’t understand the thought process here. The young lady feels a policy at her college is demeaning and derogatory and is working to change it. You can disagree with her assessment, but it is clear that it is well within her rights to do so.
August 30th, 2014 at 8:02 pm
JD#8, She can disagree with the Honor Code from the outside.
August 30th, 2014 at 8:08 pm
Michelle, you have exposed the elephant in the room. A university devoted to teaching an absolutely ridiculous religious concept. One made up by a bigamist, Polygamist, thief, pedophile and murderer who himself was murdered for other crimes.
This is the guy their god selected to present his “golden tablets” to. The affinity to gold is the only thing that says the truth about this cult designed to provide ignorant and willing females to itty bitty dick men.
August 30th, 2014 at 8:09 pm
Sounds like JD is one of those “male feminists”. Sad.
August 30th, 2014 at 8:50 pm
Practically every cult has at least 3 characteristics that can tell the careful observer that something is not quite right with what they are preaching.
I. A cult will put something on equal footing with their god. In Christianity, Jesus Christ is God, Lord of all, the only source of salvation.
A. But a Christian cult will have a ritual that is equal to Christ, or it will have a leader that is equal to Christ.
B. In other words, even if it acknowledges Christ as Savior, it will say that you need something else before you can get into heaven.
C. Cults teach that salvation comes through Christ, plus their little unique way.
D. They may make Him coequal with their religious teachers or with certain great men of history.
The quickest way to recognize a Christian cult is by its treatment of Jesus.
II. A cult will frequently attempt to instill fear into their followers.
A. The followers are taught constantly that salvation comes only through the cult.
B. “If you leave us, you will lose your salvation,” they say.
III. The third area has to do with the exaltation of the leader of the cult. Cults often center around a man who is trying to gain power, money, or influence from manipulating people.
A. In Christianity a true leader who serves Jesus Christ has one goal, and that is to exalt and manifest Jesus.
B. When someone says he has unique insight into God or is the special one that God has anointed to reach the world, you are dealing with cultic behavior.
———————————————-
Lets. Look at how Mormonism stacks up against these 3 characteristics.
WHAT DO MORMONS BELIEVE?
They believe that an angel named Moroni left some gold tablets in upstate New York and that these tablets were discovered by a man named Joseph Smith.
From these tablets, Joseph Smith “translated” the Book of Mormon, which is the foundation upon which Mormonism is built.
Mormons also consider two other books, Doctrine and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price, to be divinely inspired.
Mormonism differs from biblical Christianity in several areas. Mormons do not believe, for example, that salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Mormons must work their way to heaven. (B. R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City:1958), p. 191.)
Mormonism teaches that God is not the only deity and that we all have the potential of becoming gods. (Ibid., p. 576.) (Remember that Satan’s fall came about because he wanted to be like God.)
God, according to Mormons, is not just Spirit but has “a body of flesh and bones as tangible as a man’s.” (Doctrine and Covenants, 130:22.)
They teach, “As we are, he was. As he is, we shall become.” (Joseph Smith, “The King Follett Discourse,” p. 9.)
There has been constant revision of Mormon doctrine over the years, as church leaders have changed their minds on a number of subjects including polygamy, which was once sanctioned by the church.
In summary, the Mormon church is a male dominated bastion, that has made many of its top people very wealthy. But when it comes to spiritual matters, the Mormons are a cult that herds women like cows and uses made up crap to dumb women down so they can use them as sex toys.
August 30th, 2014 at 9:18 pm
Okay, enough is enough. If anyone has any questions regarding the Mormon faith they want answered, just ask me here in the comments section, and I will give you heathens a definitive answer.
August 30th, 2014 at 9:23 pm
Okay Martha#24, explain this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HSlbuli7HM
August 30th, 2014 at 9:33 pm
WOW! I just finished watching that 6 minute video. That is some stuff that needs the Zen Lill touch.
Only she could explain it so that the Mormons don’t come off as complete idiots. Zen Lill has compassion for even the idiots.
My opinion is it’s a great religion if you are a man. As Michelle said. You get a whole lot more than 75 stinking virgins. You get your own planet to fuck the idiot women on them forever.
The Best part is they get to see only one dick, your tiny pencil dick. Please help me out Zen Lill.
August 30th, 2014 at 9:36 pm
Only God knows what a bunch of pedophile polygamists will believe. But that video was just sick. I’m like you Michelle.
My race was just plain racist to back a man that practiced that pathetic shit.
August 30th, 2014 at 9:37 pm
I saw the video. I think that man hating bitches could find something wrong with the religion.
Me, I’m going to be a Mormon.
August 30th, 2014 at 10:00 pm
One of my friends is an ex mormon. She sent me this 42 minute video. It has the cartoon but it goes deeper and shows how the recruitment process works.
August 30th, 2014 at 10:00 pm
Sorry I forgot to include the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WNLt1FeyZI
August 30th, 2014 at 10:02 pm
Oh, don’t you love how gold is always what god uses. I guess their god is just as greedy as they are.
August 30th, 2014 at 10:23 pm
Just skip to 25 minutes into this video and watch those stupid white women argue that their men had to practice polygamy on earth in order to become gods.
Dumb as Dirt!.
August 30th, 2014 at 10:30 pm
One of the requirements is there should be blood atonement (murder) if you are an apostate or you marry a nigger.
They must be a cult, though shedding nigger blood is okay with me.
August 30th, 2014 at 10:45 pm
George,Wn#33, if I had 5 minutes with you, you would go to your grave loving this black woman.
Also although I recommended watching the 42 minute video understand that I don’t agree with the commentator’s attempt to convert the listener to his version of Christianity because as we all know if the south is the “Bible Belt,” no OTW or white woman need worry about Hell.