Was just mentioning to John Carriere the other day:
JC: I just don't understand the frumpiness that seems to grip so many of the young orthodox Catholic women of today...
1982 drab turtle-necked nun-chic with a single dab of ill-chosen colour in the middle of her squinty, tight-lipped pucker.
HJW: One of the things that I'm most fed up with about conservative catholicism is the pervasive styleless-frumpiness-as-moral-virtue meme that runs through it. You meet so many of these hags parading around in wretched flowered turtleneck t-shirts and polyester skirts with sneakers blathering on about their brilliant and horribly maladjusted homeschooled children...
It's like a variant on the anti-intellectualism that parades itself as the moral high ground in the pro-life movement. It just makes you want to quote Aristotle in front of them even more. Same with the shapless-plaid-jumper people. Makes you want to invest in a Balenciaga suit and silk stockings. It's a shame you never met me in the winter. I have the most gorgeous black wool coat from the 50's that I wear with a BIG fur collar and a very expensive black hat. Scares the hell out of the pro-lifers. Makes me look very glamourous in a kind of New York socialite-as-murderess way. I just need a long cigarette holder and a pair of stilletto heels I'm ready for the next national pro-life conference.
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Oh, right, and homeschooling mothers of 8 are supposed to spend days at a time looking through thrift stores for stylish garments, which will somehow magically fit them in the 7th month.
Well, there's always a burka.
Your trouble, dear Hilary, is that you live on the wrong side of the pond. All the women here (and the men too) are very stylish dressers (when they choose to dress up that is,) and the women that attend Mass on Sunday at San Gregorio are nothing like what you describe.
Ouch. You would hate our trad ranchero parties. The liquor wouldn't help either. I'd probably find you sulking out back tormenting the cats.
It's hard to deal with morning sickness when you've got all that fabric in the way.
I put my finger on why this bothers me SO MUCH.
If a woman is dowdy, it's because her husband is mean to her and is failing in his duty to support her. If a young girl is dowdy, it's because her father was absent and failed in his duty to protect her.
Look at these young ladies:
http://visionarydaughters.com/return-of-the-daughters/
They wear make-up and pluck their eyebrows. They're also living at home with their fathers. I don't think these things are unrelated.
When I lived in SF, I wore skirts to my ankles and a neckline to my chin and I even *covered my hair* because in SF, if a bad man starts to hassle a woman in public no one will come to her aid. Extreme dowdiness is protective. It makes you invisible. When I was in Southeast Asia, this was completely unnecessary. It had everything to do with the behavior of men and their willingness to protect me from harm and nothing at all to do with a personal desire to look frumpy.
I don't think most women do this with full awareness but I guarantee you if those dowdy homeschooling mothers' awful husbands were struck by lightning and they got a nice insurance settlement, the first thing they'd do is get their hair done.
Funny what people pick up on.
That is, I didn't think me griping about ugly chicks was quite the stuff of, like, inspired social comment.
Now, with Kathy Shaihoweverthehellit'sspelled posting it, I may even dare to dream that Mark Steyn is reading (however truncatedly).
It's about time, I say.
My homeschooled kids quote Monty Python, Scarface and SpongeBob. The first two unknowingly, so far. On balance, I'd have to say Catholic homeschoolers are better adjusted than their fundy counterparts. Especially the Ezzofied.
But, yeah, a lot of the pinched evangelicalism has rubbed off on the Catholics, leaving way too much 19th Century Presbyterian Schoolmarm amongst my folk.
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