Oh, Girl...

When I was in 7th grade my previous year's teacher signed my yearbook: "I hope someday you start dating boys as smart as you are." At the time I scoffed to myself thinking the only boy in our school that was as smart as I was was Luke, and I was not going to go out with Luke.

Luke looked like Harrison Ford. A resemblance that only got stronger through our high school years. When girls in my high school found out Luke and I had known each other since middle school they would ask me to introduce them. So yeah, he wouldn't have been a bad choice, but as I mentioned the resemblance to Harrison Ford you are realizing he was a brunette. And as any of the dark haired boys I did date can tell you as soon as a pretty blond walked by I was watching if not walking.

I did end up marrying a man who is smarter than I am in a lot of ways. Mrs. Penny would have been proud. He's also a pretty blond. Some things don't change.

But...the reason I was thinking of it is that it was radical advice back then. Especially in a Baptist school. Yes, I went to a Baptist school, my parents felt like theologically I was strong enough in my knowledge not to be swayed by their "wrong" teachings.

For those of you unfamiliar, I was raised Non Denominational Restoration Movement Christian. This is a branch of the Evangelical Protestant church that believes that the sects are all wrong, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, etc. and that it should only be Christian and only things that are explicitly in the Bible. And then also a few things that they believed were implied but don't ask us why we think those are true. Which is where I started to fall out with the church.

One of the big differences between Baptists and my church was ironically baptism. We believed in full immersion and nothing less, they believed you could be "baptized in the Word of God" basically just saying you believed Jesus was the Son of God and BOOM! Saved. And then on the other hand in a lot of ways Baptists were a little stricter.

And my friend Evie was Southern Baptist. Which is sort of like the difference between being a Jewish person who keeps kosher and follows the high holy days and being Ultra Orthodox Jewish. It's a lot.

I can remember going with her to youth group and just being amazed. First off they separated the boys and the girls. We only did that during the sections where they wanted to teach about dating and relationships. They needed to keep us separate so the girls could learn that we were responsible for our own desires AND the boys desires AND any grown men who might find us attractive AND we were also responsible for how the dating went AND how our future marriages were kept "alive"AND how the children were raised to be part of the faith AND how we needed to never act smarter than the boys because they should always feel like they are the best AND also while doing all of this work we needed to realize that we had no actual power just all of the responsibility and the boys were...I assume playing basketball?

But, yeah, in Evie's church boys and girls were always kept separate. The boys were learning how to be leaders and on this glorious day we were going to learn how to put on makeup. Yup. Learn to be pretty. And also not too smart. That was touched on as well. The overlap in our churches. Mine would NEVER tell us to wear makeup. Too tempting. But definitely we should learn to not always be first with the right answer. Boys liked it when they got to be smarter.

Until we started playing Bible Bowl and then we were allowed to OWN the boys on the other teams. Just not the boys on our own team. Which to be fair to me was fine because Joe was smart. National Merit Scholar finalist level of smart. Top three in his graduating class smart. I didn't have to pretend to let him answer first, and I could find joy when I did beat him to the answer because it was earned.

But my teacher was being very subversive and telling me to look for more. To find someone who was as smart as I was. Not that I should find someone smart. Or I should start dating smarter boys. But find a boy as smart as I was. The acknowledgment that I was the smart one in class (well, me and a few other girls, and good old Luke) and that I shouldn't be hiding it or dumbing it down. Subversive.

She was gone the next year.

Now, her husband was in the military and they were transferred but I still wonder if she felt free to write that down because she knew she was leaving or if she would have anyway.

I see a resurgence in this mentality now in the conservosphere. I'm sure it never went away in the more conservative churches. That shit is ingrained in the religion, but you are seeing it more and more in just common discourse. People talking about how men should be in charge and women should do pilates. Men should be the breadwinners and women should raise babies. A lot of babies. While also keeping it tight with pilates.

The only thing I hope is that some of the young women and girls in this area have someone in their lives who is willing to say, "Hey, look for more. Don't pretend to be dumb. Don't act like he's right when he's clearly not. And if you don't like pilates, for goodness sake don't do it."

If the current regime has its way it's going to become subversive to imply that women are capable of being equal to or even better than men. Trad wife life and all that bullshit.

In the early 80s Mrs. Penny was willing to put a small note of redirection in my yearbook. I hope that a lot of us out there are willing to steer another generation away from the hide your light instructions that seem to be taking hold.

Though it's fine if they still like pretty blonds.