I’ve been mulling over the next installment of my slow and meandering series on Feminism and the Church. Many interruptions of illness, busyness, Ash Wednesday, Catechesis Formation Weekends, and fun internet dustups have waylaid me. Plus, I haven’t had time to read much, which always disarranges my thoughts. But the ongoing arguments about the video of all those sorority girls lewdly dancing in strangely ornamented trousers to a song many feel is inappropriate, both because of its sexual content and for its belonging to a different community of people who perhaps didn’t want a lot of white sorority girls to take it for themselves, helped me identify another thread in the tightly bound ball of perturbation over women, sex, gender, the church, the home, and the general sense of everything being worn out and weary.
That thread is the one about self-forgetfulness. For, in considering what a woman might do or not do in the church or in the home—which, incidentally, is the same kind of problem that men have, though manifested perhaps differently—there has to be the possibility of getting lost in the task and the experience, in the worship and in the work.
But first, here is the video (click to go to X) which I showed my college-aged daughter yesterday. “Why aren’t you out there enjoying yourself?” I joked. “Because I have self-respect,” she shot back and stalked off with her pile of books.
A number of points fascinate me about this video. Sure, the dancing is not very interesting and doesn’t make these young people look at all attractive. And yes, they probably have imbibed too much alcohol or other kinds of substances. But there is something about it that inclines towards essentials. Observe, for example, that the young ladies are all together doing one thing. They all know the dance. They’re all dressed the same way. Not one of them appears to be embarrassed.
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