I thought the article by Marianne Grano was lots of fun. Here’s me enjoying it. 
I love how Grano busts on the frumpy female minister hairstyle and calls it “The Don’t-Think-of-Me-as-a-Woman-Think-of-Me-as-a-Pastor haircut.” I love that she understands the judgment being leveled at her and how she calls out the church for, in PeaceBang’s words, projecting an image unconsciously rather than consciously. Have I not been harping on this for five years now? Yes, I have! Avoiding style is not a statement on behalf of anything very meaningful, it is an ugly and uncreative response to vanity-phobia. Get over it, Church and clergy! Developing a personal aesthetic of presence is work we are way behind in doing. Lord save us from our cheeziness and frumpiness!
Today I was heading into the mall to pick up a few things when I saw a startling creature sitting outside having a cigarette with a friend. He was flamboyant and fabulous, a 20-something kid with a fake tan, boldly arched black eyebrows and a face and neck studded with bright blue diamond rhinestone piercings. His tongue was also pierced. I stopped to chat with him and his friend and to compliment him on his look. We talked about self-expression and I told these young ‘uns that their generation gave me hope. “You are going to be the generation that does it,” I said. “You are going to be the ones to insist that we give up this insane constriction, repression, dowdiness and conformity. You’re going to be the ones to ridicule homophobia for the hateful stupidity that it is and finally move us forward as human beings who aren’t obsessed with labels and categories.”
As I reflect on the deep work we did last week in Louisville and particularly our conversations about the Church’s history of sexualized violence against bodies in its quest to completely dominate society in the name of God, I start to make connections between the ways that clergy encourage each other to present as drab, sexless, frumpy, unthreatening people and the bullying of the gay 8th grader in the halls of the local junior high. It’s all activity on the continuum of social pressure to conform, part of that ongoing patriarchal project to control self-expression by violent means if necessary, and part of society’s disapproval of beauty and self-confidence as expressed by those who aren’t supposed to think of themselves as beautiful. You know, because “beautiful” might somehow connect to strength, vibrancy and power and we just can’t HAVE that among religious leaders (whom society wishes to remain neutered and frumpy so they can treat us with as much respect and attention as a family treats doddering old Auntie Alice in the nursing home).
Oh, PeaceBang must be getting excited because her sentence are getting longer and longer! SO verbose.
Remember I said in Louisville, “In the beginning was the Word. The Church is therefore a very wordy institution. And now the Church is living in a visual era of the image. What will the Church do?”
Catch up with the times, one hopes!
One of your wrote in the comment that Grano’s use of the term “the girlfriends” turned you off on a visceral level. Me, too. I still think the article is terrific but I did not like the “girlfriends” thing because it reminded me of chick flicks that promote cliched, shallow representations of women and women’s friendship. Clergy image is not a girlfriend issue but an everyone issue: male, female, transgendered, old, young, everyone. I have girlfriends, but my clergy colleagues are not “girlfriends.” The other thing that caught my eye and flabbergasted me in the article was part of the blurb for a book that Marianne Grano collaborated on that said the book would offer advice to young clergywomen on style and dating, and “what to do when they’re ready to quit.”
Ready to quit!!? Yikes. That phrase was way too reminiscent of the old 1950’s guides to style that suggested that young women go to college until they caught a guy, at which point they could safely abandon all pretense of pursuing higher education. I’m sure the blurb just needs an editor, but it still gave me a deep shock.
At any rate, loved the article and love the continuing conversation. Cheers, dears.
I think perhaps “what to do when they’re ready to quit” is about hanging in there when things get rough, rather than “here’s how you move on when you’re tired of ministry.”
I’ve read the book, and “what to do whey you’re ready to quit” is exactly what Gina said–what to do when you want to quit ministry because it seems too difficult.
More comments on this at Episcopal Café.
Re: girlfriend — I think it has been adopted from African American women who address other women as “girlfriend.” I wonder about using it as co-opting, but like the reclaiming of “girl” which has often been used to infantalize us. Sort of as “gay” has been reclaimed.
We have “girls’ night out” group at church – I go back and forth about the name. But then we also have a men’s group called “the Altar Boys.”
Keep on with calling us all away from our frumpiness. “go girl”
I really responded to the style/matter piece. As women we have been relegated to objects and taught that how we look is what matters. The reactionary training to this has been so intense for me that I cringe when I compliment another woman on a great blouse or a really cute necklace – oh, did I just objective her? Of course I also am known to compliment on a cool tie or a catchy tshirt slogan for my male parishioners. I think the author hits it right on the nail with the distinction between those of us reduced to ‘matter’ and ‘style’ and the privledged group accorded the accolades of ‘mind’ and ‘substance.’ And I also think as ministers of the incarnate Christ and witnesses to the Creator God who proclaimed all thing good, one of our tasks is to be a reminder that both mind and matter are sacred, beloved by God. Thanks for letting my share my thought about the ariticle.
And with all this, still thinking of your comment in L’vl about how we “preach about heaven but look like hell.” And it think it all works into the lectionary text for the week — the banquet. . .and being “clothed” for the celebration. . .are we really ready for good news. . .are we really ready to celebrate?!?!?
I liked the article and had the same reaction to the title–that it pandered to other poppy kind of titles. However, after working with several ministers in publishing I know that often the publisher or the editor choses the title and you can sometimes get very little say, so I don’t really hold that against her.
The part I did have a problem with is the “hey if you want to not shave your legs, that’s fine use it as a teaching moment”. Um no.
I’ve enjoyed the whole book (the chapter excerpted here is a bit longer in the full book) — it really does make me feel like I’m talking to some of my seminary girlfriends… women my age with whom who I became best friends in seminary (dancing, drinking, dating, dreaming) but who unfortunately are now a day’s drive away. I have a very different relationship with them than I do with my clergywomen “colleagues” here in my judicatory.
So for me the title is okay because it both reflects my experience and the overall tone of the book… but what I *don’t* like is that I’m a bit embarrassed to put the title down on my “What Books Have You Read This Year” list for my (male) district superintendent.
Just a note on the title — as someone who once enjoyed a monthly lunch with all of the authors and a few others young clergy women, they submitted a different title and the publisher changed it.
I haven’t yet read the book (I’ve just started a new call), but I’m happy to report that these women are fantastic in person, too!
As a proud “girlfriend” of the girlfriends, I am happy to find this conversation happening at all. I was once a very stylish, hip and young pastor. I still am, except that at 35 weeks pregnant and still working in the church, I feel much less stylish and much more “about to pop.” The information given in the chapter and the book itself reflects many issues particular to young women serving in ministry. However, I think many of the issues that the authors raised do apply to everyone who lives in a visual age. Except for, of course, the white male pastor married to a wonderful woman who has born him 2 children or more. For the rest of us the church is drastically changing.