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!
One thing I heard about crossing your legs at the knees is that it restricts blood circulation and/or may cause varicose veins. I’ll admit that even 40 years later I still don’t do the knee cross very much, partly with this in mind. Don’t know how true it is, but it’s not the worst advice. 😕
So what exactly is the correlation between how long your hair is and how is smells, feels or is styled?
While handouts like these might still be given out in Christian school today, I don’t believe they originated in the Christian community. I went to public schools in the ’60s and ’70s, and I remember being taught this information then. In fact, I remember having classes at home with my mother, who had several books on manners, etc.
Which makes it all the more interesting that a certain sect of Christianity is so invested in upholding the secular mores of a particular era of time — even though the rest of the world has moved on.
That, in fact, would rather seem to be the raison d’être for many fundamentalists.
That’s exactly what I thought. Conservative Christians seem to slouch toward Gomorrah about twenty years later than the rest of the world.
Sodom we all know, but can anyone let me know what “gomorrahmy” is? 😛
I think it’s somethings Irish.
As in,
“Faith and Gomorrah!”
hors d’eouvres = ordervs
raison d’être = raisin dirt 😀
That is one of the frustrating things about Christian biblical gender complementarians (some of whom are Southern Baptist, Neo Calvinist, etc, and not just IFB), is that they reject Christian gender egalitarianism ( 💡 about Christian gender egalitarians) on the faulty basis that egalitarians supposedly read secular feminism/views in to the Bible (they of course have a few other reasons but that is one of them).
They themselves have done that very thing, by reading secular American culture of the 1950s (some groups use pre- Civil War American culture) into the biblical text.
Gender complementarians assume secular American roles for women (i.e., all women are expected to marry and/or have children (though some stay single their whole lives), and stay at home, while husband goes off to work each day to an office) is what the Bible calls for women to do in present day America.
Some of the women in the Bible – even the women God approved of – did not always meet biblical gender complementarian ideals.
Some of the women in the Bible led men and women (eg. Deborah), were childless, were single, killed enemy combatants (see the story of Jael), and/or worked outside the home / owned their own businesses.
Our pastor used to always throw in the guilt trip that if women had to work it was because the men didn’t budget well enough!
I remember my mom telling me that when she was in (Catholic) school (late 50s, early 60s), they wouldn’t let one of the mothers in the building to pick up her kids- because she was wearing pants!
When I lived in another state, the only nearby Christian school was run by a Hyles-affiliated church. They didn’t want any moms getting out of their cars when they dropped off or picked up their kids if the moms were wearing pants. This frustrated a friend of mine because she was on her way to work; pants were part of her required clothes there. This was the late 1990s.
That pamphlet should be called “how to make sure you have no sex appeal”. Or, “how to remind potential suitors of their mother”.
I immediately recognized this from the “Christian Charm” student workbook (by Emily Hunter, still available on Amazon, although the cover has been updated). It was given to me in the late 70s, maybe early 80s.
Oh man, I remembered that, too! I did it in the early 90s, but it still had the older cover then. Wow. Just wow.
Same! 6th grade, private Baptist school! 1979-1980 or so.
This has been the most enjoyable SFL post for me. 😀 Thanks so much, everyone, for the great comments.
I did a little hunting and found the obituary of the original author, Emily Perkins Hunter, 1919-2012. She self-published the original “Christian Charm School” in 1967.
1967 would be a good date for writing a book intended to give Girls These Days a whup upside the head. The advice to worry about your full skirts flipping up when you sat was ten years out of date even then, of course.
http://obits.oregonlive.com/obituaries/oregon/obituary.aspx?n=emily-perkins-hunter&pid=157433624
1967 was the same year this was a Top 10 hit (I must say, Grace Slick does have good posture in this clip):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0
And her attire would put to shame many wimmin folk I witnessed at BJU during my years there.
B.R.O.
Vespers.
That’s what comes to mind. I wonder if it would check?
And her hair is perfect!
Ah, she must have been drinking a pina colada at Trader Vics! 😎
Ahoooo! 😈
‘Peoples’ Church’, eh? Just across the river from me, and IIRC, it’s Assemblies of God. Which would fit in with what I remember. We got that same stuff in the 70s.
Also interesting that they’re being printed out of Harvest House. Harvest House is in Eugene OR, and i actually applied for a job there, back in… ’99 I think. Made it to the second cut, but failed the fundyer-than-thou test. They wanted me to swear that I would live my personal-off hours-and private life according to their standards. If I was applying for a church job, maybe. But for an editing position? Are you kidding? Dude, when I’m out that door, my life is *MINE*.
I was never a good fundy, pente or non.
By the hand-out’s definition, men should exhibit the following qualities in order to be “manly”:
Bulky and flabby, sluggish, unkept, wear revealing clothes and gawdy make-up, over-display themselves in dress, dead-pan faces, stained fingers, smoking and drinking, tell off-color jokes, read smutty books, walk in an ungainly way, slouch and sprawl, be loud, rapsy, and gravely at the same time, use slangy expressions and profanity, engage in malicious gossip, quarrelsome spirit, explosive and domineering, boisterous and rowdy, hold grudges, dishonorable, cheap, pessimistic, conceited, vain, and unchaste.
YET WITH ALL THESE YOU MUST HAVE GREAT FALSE SOPHISTICATION! These are (apparently) the marks of true fundy manhood. How do you measure up, men of SFL? 😀
The second walking posture looks like she’s creeping, just about to go full-blown “Yellow Wallpaper” insane… I think I ran into a few purple-print ditto sheets of very similar subject matter tucked away in church books, except without the edifying illustrations.
So young women who don’t have the right posture and the right walk are shamed for not being feminine enough (and thus not spiritual), yet all their lives these same young women were taught to be ashamed of their bodies. How can you walk confidently, shoulders back, head raised, if you’re embarrassed about your bust or if you feel that you’re too tall to be the adorable little doll that seemed to often be the model of feminine perfection?
If we slouch, it’s because we were not taught to be proud of our bodies but to see our bodies as evil or embarrassing.
YES!!
“Stand up straight – shoulders back, head high, bottom tucked.”
(stage whisper) “Excuse me, but the way you’re standing is drawing too much attention to your bosoms. Could you, um, relax your shoulders a bit, please?”
(hushed tone) “I thought you should know, your bottom jiggles when you walk. Until you lose some weight, you need to walk more sedately so the men don’t stare.”
(confidentially) “Kreine, I think you need to practice walking with a book on your head. Young ladies don’t bounce from place to place; they walk in a sedate & refined manner.”
I had posture problems as a kid, & I had to learn to stand & sit properly. Then, I had to unlearn it all when puberty took over. I remember as an 11 year old having men from church (including the creep-tastic, a little bruising won’t hurt pastor) stare at my developing chest. It was disconcerting, but what made it worse was my mom insisting I begin wearing a bra all the time so “the men won’t stare.” Really? If I saw a guy staring at my 11 year old daughter, I’d call him a perv & tell him to ogle elsewhere, not shame my girl into wearing uncomfortable undergarments.
Oh, and then these shamed girls are supposed to grow up into modest, sedate women who can flip a switch on their wedding nights & transform into a sex goddess with all the prowess of a high-end escort. Because it totally works that way.
😳 Perhaps I said too much.
Nah, what you said was perfect.
You gave concrete example of the power of shaming words on young girls growing up. It’s an incredible burden to blame girls for their bodies WHICH THEY DID NOT CHOSE!
And you’re quite right at how girls who are embarrassed about their bodies are supposed to become serenely confident and poised women who ALSO are supposed to be an eager sexual partner for their husbands.
@ Kreine, Dr. Jezebel
Nah, you didn’t say too much. You hit the nail on the head.
There are many contradictions in conservative Christianity, not just with IFBs, but with Southern Baptists, and others.
We single ladies are told stuff like men are visual, so we better sex it up (get in to shape, wear make- up, wear appealing clothing, and have long hair, and so on) if we want to attract a man (boyfriend or husband). But then.
But then. We are also told NOT to ‘sex it up’, because it might cause a brother in Christ to stumble. We get the modesty lectures and modesty articles as well.
I have not yet figured out how I am to look sexy and not look sexy at the same time.
I also cannot figure out why Christians suspect single women of being Jezebels tarts (so married people in churches constantly warn men and women not to be alone with each other – because we single women have huge sexual appetites and have sex all over the place), but,
Married women apparently have to be cajoled in to “putting out more” for their husbands, because every sermon I’ve ever heard has a preacher telling the married women it’s their duty to satisfy their spouses (it sounds like these ladies stop having sex with their husbands, and the preacher is trying to convince them to start doing it again).
So I take from this that conservative Christians think that single Christian women are over sexed bimbos, but once we marry, we become totally disinterested in sex.
IRONICALLY Frisbee — the Jezebels in our church were MARRIED women! There were 2 of them that hit on my husband. The second one was the pastor’s daughter’s MOTHER-IN-LAW (yea, she was a divorcee — twice divorced). This woman also had an illegitimate son while married to her first husband. She cleaned one of our “sister churches”, and she was having an affair with the pastor of that church and got pregnant. Well, after divorce #2, she kept asking for prayer for more cleaning jobs so we thought we’d help her out. Well, the ground rule to her cleaning for us was she was not to come before 8 a.m. because that was when my husband left for work. Well, long story short, one morning I got a frantic call from my husband. He was sitting at the kitchen table when she showed up in shorty Daisy Duke shorts and started talking about how her 2nd husband used to make her watch porn with him. At that point, my husband got up, put his shoes on, grabbed his stuff, and called me from the car. Our pastor who is now related to this woman by marriage, when we confront him on this, tells us to LIE to her and terminate her that way rather than confronting the truth! AND WE — still wanting to be good little IFB followers said, “o.k. Preacher. You know best” and lied to this woman to fire her!
Frisbee, sexy & unsexy at the same time is exactly the message that’s given!
Also, isn’t it…um, offensive (awkward, inappropriate, etc.) for a pastor to insert himself into the sexual dynamics of his congregation by admonishing (only) the women to put out more?
And finally, who wants to have sex with someone who’s only doing it out of a sense of duty? Show of hands? Anyone?
Another thought: maybe if Fundies stopped harping on the “wives submit” theme, women would be comfortable enough to speak up in the bedroom & tell their husbands what works & what doesn’t. Maybe so many Fundy women avoid sex (from the sounds of things) because the guys don’t know what they’re doing & aren’t willing to take instruction from wimmin.
-Dr. Jezebel, sex therapist 😉
These are actually pages from an entire book. I read it cover to cover in the mid80s. I am pretty sure my Mom got it used somewhere and that it was originally published in the 60s. I loved it when I was little and practiced walking correctly all the time! It’s such a flashback to see these pages lol
#4 – “Dainty”???
Have you seen how many huge, fat-a**ed fundies there are?
But since their bodies are a “temple” – they would NEVER smoke!!!
So where’s the flyer that teaches men to be gentlemen?
I totally remember these! In 1976 – 1977 I was in 5th & 6th grade and we had “Charm Class” These were pages from the book.
🙄
^ This was at an A.C.E. School owned by an IFB Church
My friends Mother told me as a teenager in the 1950’s girls weren’t allowed to wear pants, only skirts or dresses ( and this is in minus 30 degree Canadian winters ). And the only makeup she was allowed to wear was lipstick and concealer.