I weep for the future of the world

When you're an LDS teenage young woman you get told lots of good stuff. A few things I learned from my dear Young Women leaders:

You need to be getting 3-5 servings of dairy per day to prepare your bodies for childbearing

(They should have been telling me to save up for the egg-freezing procedure.)

You should go to Ricks (then a 2-yr LDS college, now BYU-Idaho) or the LDS Business College for a semester or two. It'll make you a better mother, and then you can type up your husband's papers for him.

(I applied to a real school instead. But I had to keep quiet about it because when people found out that's where I'd applied they got all concerned like they didn't want me to get my hopes up: "Well, you know, Rick's is really good too." I wanted to say, "I'm sure it is. And I'm sure your kids will be very happy there. But see, I'm actually smart." And humble.)

You should dress modestly because your body is a temple and it's how you show respect for yourself. And also because it's your fault if boys can't even control their thoughts when they look at you and then they go home and become porn addicts and serial masturbators.

(Yes on the first thing, and I will kick in the teeth of any man who tells me it's my fault he can't keep his mind out of the gutter. Go hum a hymn, you porn-looker.)

Note: Those bits of advice were not necessarily in the lesson manuals. Although it wouldn't surprise me if they were. Those things are so dated and simplistic and culturally narrow that it's not even funny. If anyone here has connections in the Church Curriculum department, y'all need to get on that. Stat.

BUT.

But.

One thing that those dear women spent hours and hours trying to drill into us is the concept that we are precious and loved daughters of God, that we have unlimited potential and important contributions to make to the world, and that there is more to life than teenage angst and worries about whether or not we're pretty or popular enough.

One phrase we had memorized was, "I am of infinite worth, with my own divine mission, which I will strive to fulfill."

Last Sunday in Relief Society I was intrigued to see the teacher write that phrase on the board. She said that she'd been told to pick the topic for the lesson (which, sorry, is so not the rules) and she really wanted to discuss the concept of individual worth.

I thought, "Okay. This could be really interesting. Let's see if we discuss this differently than the way we thought of it back when we were teenagers. Because we've grown and learned some things since then."

Only, as it turns out? Not so much true.

She opened by asking what are some influences that make us as women doubt our worth. A couple of girls mentioned the media, and how it gives us these unreal standards of beauty that we compare ourselves to.

I raised my hand and said that there are a lot of differing expectations out there for what makes a woman successful and worthy, even from well-meaning sources, and so we have to be pretty strong in figuring out with the Lord what His plan is for us and then sticking to that plan without worrying about what other people expect.

Then some more girls made comments about the whole "we don't feel pretty enough."

And then some more girls continued on that theme.

So I'm looking around and wondering when we're going to move on to something different, (like the "with our own divine mission, which we will strive to fulfill") only we never did. And The Pretty was All Anyone Talked About. And the more I thought about what I was hearing the more disturbed I became. In this group of about 75+ women--women in their 20s who are attractive, talented, and educated--all anyone talked about was how they don't feel pretty enough. And what they can do to feel pretty. And what makes them not feel pretty. And how if they're a daughter of God then that makes them pretty so they know they should stop worrying but it's hard.

One right-thinking girl tried to get us back on track by saying, "I think it's important for us to remember that there's a lot more to us than just what we look like. We've got a lot of other things going on in our lives as well." It was like she hadn't said anything.

I just wanted to stand up on my chair and shout, "Wait, what the crap is this? Is this really what you women are worrying about? Seriously?" I mean, I thought you come to this point after high school where you come to terms with that fact that the way you look is just the way you look. Sure, you can dress better, work out, stop doing those hideous bubble bangs that some women still inexplicably hang on to, and maybe address your eyebrows in some way, but that's pretty much where it ends. And then you move on.

Also, what does pretty have to do with having infinite worth? It has nothing to do with it! Pretty does not equal worthy! Pretty is one incredibly small and temporary facet of who you are. So if these women, who have been told from Day 1 that there is more to them than how they look and that what they have to offer is not defined by how pretty they are, and that their lives have meaning and purpose, if these women don't actually believe that then I'm not sure what else can be done. I'm not sure that anyone can say anything that would make them just accept themselves and move on and start thinking about the things that really matter.

And it's not that these girls are shallow, because I don't think they are. It was just alarming to see this dam of insecurities burst. I don't if it's because we're all still single and some girls are worried that The Pretty is part of that, and that maybe if they tried harder or dieted more then they would somehow deserve to find a nice guy. Except I think if you spent the first 30 years of your life worrying about whether you're pretty enough, getting married isn't going to just make all that go away overnight.

From conversations I've had with other girls since that lesson, I know I wasn't the only one who was disturbed. But in the face of this overwhelming thing I don't think anyone wanted to be the one to say, "You know what? This is silly. Let's move on." Because then they might just get turned on as a pretty girl who can't understand what the others are going through.

Also? Right now in our 20s, this is basically as good as it gets, looks-wise. It's all downhill and alpha-hydroxy acids from here on out. As my sister Jenny wisely said, "You go tell those girls to go home, get in front of the mirror, and take a picture of their boobs. And then treasure that picture, because they'll never look that good again."

I'm asking for a few minutes next week so I can do just that.

Posted in: being a Mormon,dating or not so much