education

Friday Challenge: Guess The Year

398 Comments

These sheets were handed out to an SFL reader while she was taking the course MI308: Ministry Mates, as course which is “designed to teach the young lady how to be an effective mate to a husband who is in full time ministry.”

The challenge today is simple: guess what year these handouts were given. The winner gets bragging rights and an honorary doctorate of Guessology.

Answer: By some strange coincidence the first answer was also the correct answer. This particular copy was handed out around 2003. However, it looks like some people report having seen it even more recently than that. Thanks for playing, everyone!

398 thoughts on “Friday Challenge: Guess The Year”

    2. Speaking of which, I’m trying to figure out the difference between “slide back into place” and “reach backward with buttocks.”

      Anybody have a clue?

      Actually, I know that some sideshow artistes have perfected the technique of picking things up with their gluteus maximi, but since I can’t do that, it never even occurred to me to try to reach something with my buttocks.

      1. Judging from the illustrations, all women are supposed to sit on hard chairs that allow for such sliding, as opposed to lazy, comfy, cushioned chairs that require “snaking.” (God forbid we have any snaking going on in any chairs.)

        1. Snaking is a close relative of twerking, hence the desire of godly, feminine ladies to avoid it.

        2. Maybe the men should be the ones sitting on hard chairs and not “snaking” around because it seems like there are ENOUGH IFB pastors that are “snaking around with 16-year-old girls”!

    2. Wow, I totally forgot to come back and check on this.

      First comment AND correct answer – I should have bought a lottery ticket that day too.

      I don’t really have any explanation for why I guessed 2003 other than it just felt right.

  3. I will guess they were handed out to her last week. So 2013.

    And a double dose of shame on women who sprawl in chairs!!

      1. The book creeped me out, big time. And the less said about the movie the better. It gave me nightmares.

  4. My guess would be Hyles Anderson College, and I’ll bet you that these were put out back in the 70s and are still handed out today.

    Bob

      1. More specifically 1972…not-so-coincidentally the same year HAC was founded and The Stepford Wives was released. I think Pope Jack I got most of his inspiration for how ladies should act/behave from Ira Levin.

  8. I remember those same handouts from my Home Ec class at Fundy High in Florida. I believe the year was 1984, but those are probably still in circulation! 🙂

  9. I’m guessing 1995.

    On the list I was interested to see “a ladylike reserve” listed as a feminine quality, yet immediately afterwards, on the unfeminine side, was listed “false sophistication.” So you have to be reserved and classy and ladylike, yet you can’t be “too” sophisticated.

    There’s a lot of pressure on women to be perfect — even how she sits in a chair is judged.

  10. It has to be earlier than 2005 because that’s when they were handed out to us in youth group. Funny thing, the boys never got one about their masculinity because I’m pretty sure our youth pastor was gay and way more into fashion than any girl I’ve ever met. It would explain a LOT if he ever came out. Like the repressed anger that he would take out on us by telling us we dressed like whores…….

    1. That just means it was before 2005. If it’s still being given out, it could have been last week.

      I vote 2010 🙂

    2. By inference, anything that destroys femininity enhances masculinity. So just read the left-hand column of the first page! 😆

        1. You’ll need it for when you cross-dress to be a woman in a fundy skit. Darrell posted a video about that a while back.

        2. It’s just a matter of time before a drag queen adopts the persona of fundy preacher’s wife.

        4. Cross dressing in fundy skits? Back in my youth, I remember a number of skits that we weren’t allowed to do because we didn’t have the right ratio of boys to girls – cross dressing was strictly forbidden (Deuteronomy 22:5, baby!).

          That would be a fabulous element to put a fundy skit parody over the top: all the women would be guys performing as drag queens, and all the men would be women performing as drag kings. It would be awesome!

  11. The blank-faced figure demonstrating how to sit down properly actually HAS no buttocks! Look at that side profile. Good grief. Also, the way she’s sitting makes her look like a robot, especially with her knees facing one direction while her face looks out toward the reader.

    Actually, if I had anyone here in the house with me, I’d like to mock the “proper” way to sit down because they way it’s drawn looks quite stiff.

    1. True, the figures in those drawing have no discernible buttocks. That must make it painful to sit.

        2. Correction: Weird Al (Yankovic).

          “Big Al’s” is a Canadian mail-order pet supply company.

        4. Yes, Clara, you’re right– apparently it was misattributed on YouTube.
          MC Sampler it is.
          What’s the world coming to when you can’t believe random stuff on the Internet?

    2. I wonder if they allow their women to sit down naked? I’d like to see that pamphlet.

    3. PW, I remember sitting it chapel at Bob Jones and marveling at the DOW and assistant DOW and how they could sit, well, pretty much like those blank-faced sketches. That would be ’92-’96. So Baker and Barker? Anyway, also before I dozed off, which I did with abandon since a male friend said, “he won’t all out a girl to wake up.”

  12. Any time from 1969 until now. Fundamentalism is frozen in time, so these sheets could easily be handed out today at places like HAC or one of its pod schools.

    I wonder which book of the Bible tells us that we must walk with strides of two-foot length, or where sitting down smoothly is designated as righteous behavior.

    2. It’s in the Fundy Talmud, which is never written down, just communicated from the pulpits on a weekly basis. “Whitewashed tombs” indeed.

    3. Didn’t women (and men) recline around the table? Was it a “Queenly reclining position”?

  13. Based on the drawing, it looks like the proper way for a woman to walk is to keep her arms down by her sides — like the woman in Elaine’s office on Seinfeld who wouldn’t swing her arms.

    2. I was thinking that the first picture of the woman walking showed “vitality” and the last one was walking with “false sophistication”. 😉

  14. In the early 70’s at the FundyU, we didn’t get the handout, but we did receive the contents directly from the president’s wife. I still remember the talk. I can still see her sitting there demonstrating… I best be moving on now.

  15. These appear to have been first produced on a typewriter. The hairstyles seem to be late 50’s for the top sheet or very early 60’s for the stick figures on the bottom sheet.

    Based on that, my guess is they are still being handed out in Fundy U.

        1. My tongue is out at you, Uncle W. 👿

          The color’s really closer to pale fuchsia.
          But I love the word “puce,” and opportunities to say it are few and far between.

        2. Out of curiosity, do you use the original German pronunciation of fuchsia (fook-sya) or the more accepted English pronunciation (fyew-sha), BG?

          I like the German one, myself. Gets lots of 😯 from people!

        3. I don’t even know what color puce is. FWIW, I’m a woman who is perpetually apronless. If I wear an apron will that make me know what puce is?

          Puke, OTOH, I’m quite familiar with.

        4. “Fyoo-sha,” unless I’m speaking German.
          I don’t think Americans (rather, that subset of Americans who even know what fuchsia is) would know what I was talking about if I said “fook-sia.”

          Fuchsia, the flower, was named for one Leonhart Fuchs, a 16th-century German physician/botanist.
          Here’s a picture I found of Dr. Fuchs:
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Renaissance_C14_F%C3%BCllmaurer_Leonhart_Fuchs.jpg

          The German surname “Fuchs” is pronounced about like you’d think, although I knew an American with this name who preferred to prounounce it “Fox” (which is, in fact, the English name of the animal Germans call “fuchs”).

  16. This had me raging inside my head at misogynists everywhere. Until I read the hover text. Now I’m laughing inside my head.

    2. I actually prefer a woman who reaches backwards with her buttocks.

      That ought to bring the rage back. 😎

  18. I think the slouching girl in the bottom right illustration looks like she might have been drinking some liquor. I know it makes me sit like that.
    Thanks to the first sheet I now know that she is not a lady due to her drinking and her posture.

    2. Aha, Apathetic, you have hit upon it!!! Slouching gives the “appearance of evil” by making you look drunk!!!

  19. I am almost positive that I saw this as a child in the early- to mid-eighties … I distinctly remember the instructions on how not to sit. No idea how or why my mom would have had a copy of this though, as she never attended Bible college. Perhaps someone in our church saw a lack in her (or my?) training and wanted to “help”.

      1. Does anyone else remember the ‘God’s Woman’ seminars run in the 70s and 80s? There’s a huge section in it that looks like this stuff- including instructions on color. (Apparently my fondness for Orange, red, and yellow is more than a little suspect, The fact that I’m ginger and look fabulous in those colors doesn’t help. Apparently beige is more acceptable.) I purged my closet at one point, but found I had nothing to wear that I _liked_. Why is it that comfort and wearability doesn’t factor in?

        1. I think comfort rates low on the scale of importance to them because comfort appeals to the body and why should we coddle our sinful flesh?

  20. Point of inquiry:
    How does one even go about swishing one’s knees noisily?
    In all my life I have never thought of a woman “boy, she has loud knees”. I will carefully watch and listen for this sin in the future.

    1. Good for you for being careful of “knee swishers.” They are a very terrible group!!

      Swishers=sluts

    2. Swishy legs are generally a result of the awkward combination of larger thighs and pantyhose.

      2. Well if they didn’t have the flabby appearance then they wouldn’t have the swishy knees.

        Note I’m sending these to my wife, I am so sleeping on the couch tonight. 😈 2 years ago she probably would have thought I was serious.

      2. Inflatable pilots can’t see a dern thing.

        And animated karate dogs like Hong Kong Phooey can’t understand swishing.

        Gentlemen please…. 🙄

    4. By wearing evil corduroy trousers. A proper skirt-wearer would never make swishy noises.

    5. It is funny that it says “knees”, when it really means “thighs”. That swishing sound is indeed from a combination of larger thighs and pantyhose (personal experience here). They probably didn’t want to say “thighs”, though, because that’s too risque, so they settled for knees.

      This reminds my of my fundy high school when they wanted to prohibit the length of slits in skirts, which were very popular in the 80’s. They didn’t want to say “slit” in the student handbook because it was too risque of a word for them. So the rule prohibited “openings” in the bottom of a skirt that went above the knee. Which makes no sense at all, since the very definition of a skirt is a garment that has an opening on the bottom.

      2. Another cruel example of branding mere anatomical accidents as deliberate sin. Even when I was socially acceptably thin, I swished when I walked due to not having the desirable thigh gap. Well, I swished on Sundays. The rest of the week I dressed for what I was actually doing, such as climbing up and down cliffs.

        I wonder if the people who wrote this (a) thought that saying “thigh” would be too suggestive and (b) knew that some people find the whisper of pantyhose under a skirt extremely sexy.

        1. Okay, I read the sheets more closely and got spitting mad.

          “A bulky, flabby body.” I cannot find a way to respond as I would like that isn’t obscene. I stood head and shoulders above my agemates for years. I had big broad shoulders and big broad hips, supported by a big broad skeleton that simply would not fit into trim little dresses even when I was socially acceptably thin. I had big hands with long piano player’s fingers and big long feet with long toes that have been permanently bent by being forced into the limited shoe sizes then available to girls in my little town. And when I reached puberty, I grew big breasts which, although they did not technically qualify as “flab,” were anything but “trim.” May the people who write these horrible things have boils in every fold in their bodies for leading girls who happen to look like I did to think that they are bad just for existing!

        2. You had me at “I grew big breasts”.

          Wish I could grow big breasts. I would have a garden full of them. But alas, I do not have a green thumb.

        3. Believe me, constantly being followed by leering boys who make juggling motions with their hands when the teacher isn’t looking is not worth the so-called benefits of having very noticeable breasts at a young age. I remember the day I realized that to the boys I had grown up with, I was no longer a person; I was just a clown with a cunt.

          At least I didn’t go to the kind of school that would brand me as a sinner for my inability to find a trim and neat garment that would nevertheless shroud me like a potato sack.

  21. I know many fundies who would consider none of the ladies depicted truly feminine because their hair wasn’t long enough. None of the proper ladies have hair that even touches their shoulders.

    1. Hair to the butt the primary aspiration of many young fundie girls at my church. Some of their hair looked so ratty with split ends but BLESS GAWD they got them a hair covernin HEYMEN!

    2. Yup. And can you imagine the shrieks when my friend Sally joined the National Guard and had her hair cut short for Basic? You’d have though she was caught french-kissing Anton LaVey in public!

    3. Yep…I grew up with the ‘if long hair is a glory, then grow it as long as possible, because that means more glory’ logic. I nervously cut my hair inch by inch through the years, because I just wasn’t born with beautiful, thick locks. I cut it well above my shoulders not long ago, and got a head shake from a former pastor. He actually looked at my hair and shook his head. I am 30 years old, but I felt 15 at that moment. 🙄

  22. Like others have said, I’m sure this originated decades ago, but I’d guess it’s still being handed out some places today.

    But enough of that…I’m trying to figure out how to swish my knees noisily. :mrgreen:

    2. If you are old enough, they can crunch pretty loudly. When the weather’s damp, mine tend to sound like a bowl of Rice Krispies.

      1. 😆 Who said aging stinks? I have flippin’ Rice Krispies knees to look forward to! W00t!

  23. This looks like something that could just as easily have come out of the cult that is Bill Gothard / ATI / IBLP. Maybe it’s the line drawings and typewriter font…

    Next Friday, I’d like to see the version for the men. 😀

    2. The version for men would tell you real men cross their legs with the ankle on the knee. Only women, sissies, Europeans, and homos cross the leg at the knee.
      That was teaching received at Fundy High, circa ’70s. Heard multiple times in chapel services. Then we would have some visiting preacher sit the wrong way in chapel leaving no doubt he wasn’t a “real man”.

      1. That belief was around when I was in high school (mid-1970s). For a while, I was careful not to cross my legs at the knee. But that ankle-on-the-thigh sitting posture is pretty uncomfortable. So I stopped worrying about sitting “like a man.”

        1. Yes, it can be uncomfortable, especially since in my mid-forties I severely injured both ankles. I still, out of habit, cross them the old way. I then have trouble walking when they “lock up” on me.

          I figure if how I cross my legs is the final test of my manhood, I failed somewhere long before I sat down.

        2. OMG! I thought I was just the only one that found that ankle on the thigh thing extremely uncomfortable & useless!

          I don’t really care for crossing my legs at all, but at most ankle over ankle is the most leg crossing I do. I’m much more of a leg sprawl guy.

    3. It’s not from Bill Gothard. I know this because he has his own charts and these aren’t those. His charts are all about how a woman MUST have FIVE things that draw attention to her “countenance.” Thus, the late 1980s – early 1990s ATI “look” where all the woman had (1) big poufy hair, (2) earrings, (3) a big bow around their neck, (4) cosmetics (that was the required term in ATI, NEVER “make-up”) and (5) A SMILE!!!

      He also has charts about “eye traps” which are areas that slutty women use in their attire to draw a man’s attention away from their countenance. Eye traps include slits, “crotched garments” (wish I was making that term up, but I’m not), lace, anything that shows a smidge of cleavage, open-toed shoes, etc. We had to look at illustrations of women and circle all the eye-traps. Not sure how that was supposed to help me, as a young man, NOT lust, but whatever.

      Another set of charts explained how to use the proper coloring for one’s skin tone. I forget what all it said, but I remember that red and orange hair colors were only acceptable if one had “olive” skin. A “Wisdom Booklet” exercise had you get out crayons and group them in sets matching the correct color palettes for various skin types.

      1. So the proper Gothard/ATI woman wears CROTCHLESS garments? 😯

        And that’s more ladylike how?

      4. I humbly bow before your extensive ATI knowledge, Deacon’s Son.

        For those not in the know, remember that Bill Gothard is an old man who has never been married. Evidently, that didn’t stop him from spending way too much time thinking about women’s private parts (either that or he needs to come out of the closet and get his fashion sensibilities up to date).

        1. I humbly bow before Deacon’s Son’s knowledge of all things fundy and his stories.

          SFL could be renamed Stuff Deacon’s Son Lived Through And Is Still Sane Enough To Laugh At It.

      5. Your last paragraph made me think of something that has absolutely nothing to do with this post…having your “colors done” by some company I’ve forgotten the name of, and then being grouped by the seasons. So, as an “emerald summer,” I can only wear certain colors and use certain colors of make-up (which they conveniently sell…).

        Anyone else remember this?

        1. Somewhat, back in the early ’80s. I was a Winter, as I looked good in black, still do. 🙂

        2. Oh, yeah, I remember that “What season are you?” schtick with the colors.

          I think I was a “winter,” although I may be remembering that wrong.

        3. My mom thought I was a Winter, and Dad liked my hair dark (yes, I colored it to please him). Mind, I have ivory skin, lots of freckles, auburn hair, and brown eyes. Winter colors make me look like I died but haven’t had the good grace to lie down somewhere. But put me in moss green or persimmon, and I look fantastic.

          My daughters both have dark brown hair and brown/hazel eyes, and look best in Winter colors. My son has strawberry blond hair, blue eyes, and a shocking red beard. He looks good in Spring colors.

          My sweetheart has salt-and-pepper (used to be darkdarkdark brown) hair, green eyes, and very pale pink skin. He looks best in Summer to soft Winter colors (especially soft navy, burgundy, and forest green). And he prefers those colors around him. We’ve already had some ‘discussions’ about my need for fiery colors around me…

      6. When I first read this, I thought I saw “crocheted” garments. Those could definitely be eye-traps.

      7. Deacon’s Son, I actually snorted out loud when I read your comment about having to look at picture of women and circle the eye traps. I agree with you in being truly baffled about how that was supposed to HELP you as a young man. Such madness exists in the pharasaical world of the fundies.

        1. The thing is, a few of us would have completed the exercise with nary a lustful thought… and, sadly, we’d have thought that we’d attained a higher level of sanctification, because the women’s “eye traps” didn’t catch our eyes. 😳

        2. Well, first time we did them I was six. So I didn’t have much lust in my heart at that time. But we came back to them later on.

          Another exercise we did around the same time was called “See People as Jesus Would See Them” where we had to go to a mall and write down notes about people and how their outward appearances showed what sin problems they might have. I still remember one note I diligently wrote in my “Wisdom Booklet” about a “woman trying to look rich with a gold-colored purse.”

        3. How the eff is that “seeing ppl like Jesus would”????

          I feel like any given single day in Deacon’s Son’s adolescence would have enough “wtf” in it to fill a book!

  24. Before we left our IFB, they had a Sunday school thing where they split the men and women up. Pastor’s wife taught the women’s class; and of course, pastor “preached” the men’s class (he never taught — he just preached).

    The gist of the ladies’ Sunday school class — how to be a 1950s wife for your husband minus the martini in hand, but children all lined up at the door, cleaned, and smiling waiting to greet Daddy when he came home from his hard day at work. One Sunday morning, there was a “how a little make up can make you look so much nicer for your husband”.

    Needless to say, that was the last time I went to Sunday school! I couldn’t believe that these women were sitting there listening to and accepting this garbage. If you just love your husband, you’ll try to be the best wife you can be for him and visa versa!

    1. I fail at that. When the hubs gets home, my 2 year old and I are usually hiding to see how long it takes him to find us. Then there are shrieks and giggles when he does. My lo loves it.

      2. My favorite is when my daughter jumps into the car as soon as I open the door and plays with the blinkers, wipers, flashers, etc. for awhile before going inside. It sure is nice to come home to that.

        And then get in the car the next morning, turning the key and having everything start up at once… 😎

    2. I don’t have to “teach” my kids to line up to welcome me home. If you love your kids you don’t have to tell them to love back. They hear your car driving up in the driveway and they come running out the front door.

      Of course giving them a cookie before dinner without mom knowing doesn’t hurt either. I still have a little fundie bus worker in me.

  26. I’m going to say 1957, although I have no idea how they got a picture of Harry Potter back in 1957?

  27. As a woman in her forties, am I allowed to dress in older styles or am I supposed to still wear “girlish, youthful” clothes in order to be feminine?

    2. Not “older” styles, but “older, daring styles.”

      Anyone have any clue why, at the time this document was first drafted, “older” was associated with “daring.” Was it just the “vintage” movement associated with hipsters in the 1970s?

      My mother used to get all these raggedy Christian ladies magazines like “Crown With Silver” and “Beautiful Womanhood” and “I Totally Submit To My Husband Even Though I Spend All My Time Publishing This Magazine” (item: there was an actual scandal in which on of the magazines was closed down because the editor’s husband told her to stop – good example of doing the right thing for the wrong reason!!). One of them devoted an entire issue to excoriating the “red hat” movement among older women because this was perceived as older women “getting to do what they want” and this was bad, for some reason that I do not at this time recall.

      1. I seem to recall that short skirts briefly went out of fashion in the late 1970s. Could miniskirts be what they mean by “older, daring styles”?

        1. I assumed by “older, daring styles” they meant Flapper style from the ’20s. Evil shortened skirts and bobbed hair listening/dancing to jazz.

      2. Yeah, right. 😛 I’m 49 next month, and I wear whatever hat I damn well please, red or not! (I am careful to tastefully match it to my outfit though… :mrgreen: )

  28. I saw something like this in the late 80’s. It wasn’t exactly like this but it was training to us guys of what to look for in a woman.

    I remember hearing if she slouches then she will be overweight, and lazy housewife. If that was true, the Fundies should have an easy handle on America’s obesity problem.

    Seems like they have a lot of slouching going on.

    2. Conversely, if you wear a corset, you’ll lose weight, I guess.

      Maybe true if the corset is so tight you can’t swallow.

  30. I’d like to see someone try to prove a causal relationship between “destroyed femininity”, and any of the things on the left, or vice versa on the right side.

    I don’t even want to think about how they try to quantify “destroyed femininity” or “increased femininity”.

  31. I totally got 15 “nonlady” points. Ha!!!

    And while I was taught to sit knees dropped, ankles crossed to the side — mustn’t cross legs! Unladylike! — I was also taught to smooth my skirt down as I sat to keep it from riding up or wrinkling, both sins worthy of eternal damnation.

    1. I’m very confused by the attempt to dissuade women from straightening their skirts/dresses when they sit. That’s inviting not only wrinkling, but some eyefuls*, I thought.

      *fundy eyeful being dress rising 6″ above ankle

      1. I think the reason is that the “feminine” lady won’t want to draw attention to her derrière as she sits. Because you know that will cause any man behind her to lust and then she’ll be responsible for his slow glide into sin…

        1. Yes, well some ladies — ahem — happen to have derrieres that draw attention all by themselves.

        5. We were told in my fundy high school to have loose fitting skirts so as not to draw attention to our “back porches.” It was everything I could do not to guffaw.

  32. Well, I’m feeling rather sluggish today. Is it unfeminine even if it is due to my infection riddled respiratory system and the antibiotics intended to fix it? Or is it unfeminine to get sick at all?

  34. The characters remind me of Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi. I bet if a fundy saw them and didn’t know them they’d show favor to Portia and damn Ellen for her “boyishness”. Just a thought…..

  35. My guess? 1999. I had a speech teacher at BJU who instructed us very carefully in the proper way of sitting; apparently it’s bad for your breathing to cross your legs. This was a a great hardship for me since I have short legs and need to cross them to be comfortable.

    In any case, a thought: In the Victorian period, there was a resurgence of medieval thought, including the idea of courtly romance, that women were inherently holier and could draw men’s attention heavenwards (True, in the Middle Ages this belief co-existed with the belief that adultery was necessary for true love; the Victorians tried to forget that part). So when I see handouts like this, it’s obvious that fundamentalism takes its standards, not from the Bible per se, but from Victorianism, which was gradually fading as fundamentalism was coming into its own, in the early part of the 1900s.

    1. When my wife was at Bob Jones, she took the women class from Mrs. Sumbot Turner (or however her name was spelled). After we were married, we were watching Mona Lisa Smile (a good film for recovering fundies to watch, btw) and when we got to the scene where Marcia Harden is giving the “marriage lectures” at her home with a chart called “how to cross and uncross your legs” my wife started cracking up and said they used that SAME chart at BJU!!

    2. Something my mother told me:

      “They gave us charm lessons in school [about 60-70 years ago] in which we were told that crossing your legs at the knees is sexy, but crossing your legs at the ankles is ladylike. So, of course, we all started crossing our legs at the knees, and we all ended up with vaircose veins.”

    3. They got more than that from the Victorians.

      Real medieval women owned property, ran businesses, defended castles, fought on horseback, and even pounded hot iron on anvils. Social-climbing Victorians wrote their own ideas about showing off one’s wealth by having a wife who did nothing into the history of their ancestors. They chose to reproduce only those illustrations and texts that did not disagree with their ideals.

      And then the fundies came along and swallowed it all.

      1. I’ve heard of Medieval women doing all of the above except fighting on horseback (not counting Joan of Arc). Was that really common in the Middle Ages?

        2. Yes, it depended on the time and place. By and large–big span of time, entire continent, grain of salt–women did not march to battle as such, although the camp followers* were often female. But women did take up arms. There are period, non-symbolic illustrations of a sort of all-female home guard mounted on horseback fighting in the streets against the invaders.

          *Nowadays this is usually interpreted “prostitute,” but actually the camp followers did things that paid staff do now, such as laundry, cooking, repairs to clothing and gear, and even a little rough doctoring. Often the camp followers were married to soldiers in the army. There were also prostitutes.

    4. Somewhat to the contrary, women in medieval Europe were thought of in the Eve vs Virgin dichotomy, and more often than not were described as foul temptresses, etc. The Virgin was pure, nuns were usually pure, little girls- especially martyrs- were usually thought of as pure. There is a great deal of our modern rape culture that owes it’s beginnings to medieval theology. If a man falls into lust, it isn’t his fault- it’s the woman’s fault, whether she knows it or not. The theologians Origen and Jerome were especially bad about this, and as much as I like him, Aquinas was too. And let’s not even start with Augustine…

      The Victorians actually bought into a lot of that mindset too- the holy women being the sainted mothers and wives, and the other end being the wanton women- actresses, dancers, courtesans, etc. Anyone who used her body to make her living was suspect. The desire to keep women in the home, and under close watch- not so much protected against outside harm, but kept from straying…

      I’m not sure how much has changed. We just use different language now.

      1. However, this seems to have been a preacher thing, and therefore often preached in Latin. The vernacular classes may or may not have thought that way. First-hand evidence tends toward mostly not. If you study the marginalia in illustrated manuscripts produced by monastics, many of them didn’t think that way either. 🙂

  36. My guess of when these handouts originated would be the 1970s. Look at the style dress the “feminine” girl is wearing on the first page. I’m sure many of us “older” ex-fundy women wore one like it back in the day.

    But when did the reader get it? I can’t play this round – I have no idea.

  38. So feminininity means you are a skinny-fat waif incapable of nursing infants. How does this ideal fit with the casserole culture? Seems like my dad was a little off-base outlawing barbies. Barbie has a much more realistic body image than the mysoginist who came up with this.

    1. Haha. My extreme-fundy dad told my sisters they could keep their barbies as long as they didn’t leave them lying around the house naked. (Our pastor didn’t preach against barbies – his wife bought them for his granddaughters all the time.) After about 15 warnings on this issue, including one memorable incident when a naked Barbie fell out of the door of our van in the church parking lot, my dad came home tired and grumpy one day only to be greeted by a tiny naked lady lying spread-eagle on the entry-way rug. That was the last straw and they all went in the trash the next day. 😀

      1. I have to say — it was much easier growing up Catholic! Barbie dolls weren’t an issue and Halloween wasn’t an issue!

        You went to confession on Saturday so you were right with God for Sunday and well, then came Monday — back to life again!

        1. My dad was raised Catholic as well. I have often thought that there is something about the IFB that seems to attract Catholics. I think part of it has to do with the fact that the IFB still gives you a sense of “the rules” but with a lessened feeling of putting your eternal soul at risk. But, perhaps I am maligning Catholics with that comment.

        2. I have to agree with you Deacon’s Son — the switch from Catholism to IFB — the rules were different, but there were “rules”.

          The great part of switching was that security blanket of know that I was saved. In Catholism, you spend your entire life paying and praying your loved ones out of purgatory!

      3. I was never that much into Barbies, but my sister was. And my older daughter didn’t care for them but my younger daughter was bananas for Barbie.

        Two things: 1) stepping on a Barbie shoe one the way to the loo in the night is just as bad as stepping on a Lego. @#%$^@&!!! And 2) I came home from classes one day and found that my daughter was having a Barbie hot tub party in the bathroom- a half-dozen naked Barbies were in the sink, along with a My Little Pony. The guy I was dating thought it was hilarious. He didn’t have to unclog the sink afterwards…

  39. When it was written and when it was distributed are 2 different things. Written in the 60’s. Still handed out today. Because God’s standards do not change. Gag.

  40. Top list, 4th item on the left, becoming “cheap”.

    Shouldn’t a potential Ministry Mateâ„¢ want to be cheap. Afterall, her partner probably works for the equivalent of $7.50 per hr.

  41. The styles (hair & dress) seem to be from the 1960s, but the Christian School movement really got going in the 1970s.

    It has a kind of HAC feel to it; they started offering a degree in Marriage and Motherhood later on.

    Anyway… this looks pretty old, so I’m guessing it was recent so as to fool us. I’ll go for 2012.

      2. The pink paper is the not-so-subtle hint that pink is for women. I JUST THOUGHT OF AN IDEA TO MAKE LOTS OF MONEY!!! I am going to start an IFB “ministry” where I travel around to churches and sell his and her KJV Bibles. The women’s KJV will be printed on pink paper with a delicate fragrance.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p_NkHeqwIM

        1. The men’s KJVs will be made of studded black leather with a Harley logo, and the paper will smell like bacon.

    1. Uh oh! 😯

      From the reviews:

      As with the Christian Charm Course for girls, this has liberal views and needs correction from the leader guiding the young man learning these things.

        1. As liberal as the helping of casserole on the man of gawd’s plate!

          Wait, that analogy doesn’t really work. Oh, snap. 😮

    2. I like it that the first section is written entirely in limerick form. I’m hoping the chapter on “Understanding Sex Morality” will be a villanelle.

      1. I had one with a daisy wheel. Loved that little thing, took it with me when I went back to school. But they quit making the ink ribbon cartridges, so it went to Goodwill.

    2. Not to be confused with Gaudí, who likely would want no part of this. (He did design a decidedly non-fundy Catholic church, but it’s a cool place to visit)

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