A conversation was started at Conversation At The Edge about women’s conferences, which was picked up at Church Rater, and continued on Emerging women. The statement was made by Rachel that she would rather have a root canal than go to a woman’s conference.
Sadly, if it’s a Christian woman’s event, I’ll take the root canal. I will do anything to avoid going to a women’s retreat or other event that is focused on large groups of women claiming to follow Jesus. It actually became a bit of a running joke at my last church. Who can get Jamie to go to a women’s retreat? (By the way, no one did).
I do not go to Christian women’s events. Why? Because they tend to be stuffy, pretentious and empty. Also, because I can’t pretend that long. AND because the phrase “Bless Your Heart” makes me want to run screaming headlong into an oncoming semi. There seems to be so much pretending and posturing. Women often talk about “men trying to prove themselves”, but women are so much worse. Only we don’t talk about how buff we are, or who has the biggest balls. We try to be the “sweetest” (on the outside), or the “most tender” (who can cry the most), or the best wife (I serve a 5 course meal every night), or the best mother (I home school all 29 of my children). We never get angry. We don’t talk about sex. Our biggest struggle is “wanting to feel closer to Jea-sus” (insert southern accent here).
The saddest part of this is that I do go to non-Christian women’s events, and like them. I enjoy being around women. I go to an annual conference that has some 300 women attending. It is a blast. We learn, we laugh and we dance. There is a group of women that I have been getting together with 2 times a year for the last 9 years. In that mix, there are Christians, pagans and atheists. We are on a board of directors for a not-for-profit organization that works in the maternal health field. We work, argue, laugh and sometimes cry together. At the end of the day, it’s real.
I’ve often wondered why I so look forward to these non-Christian conferences and meetings, yet will run the other direction when there is a church related women’s event. It’s clearly not because I don’t like being around women. The posturing and pretending are definitely a problem for me. I also feel that I don’t fit in with the stereotype of what a “Christian Woman” is supposed to look like. I’m too opinionated. My humor is too sarcastic. I’m too loud. I’m too frank.
I’m just too. Too much.
So until something changes, I’ll just be taking my frank, opinionated, loud, sarcastic self in for a root canal.
(Just so you know, I was up all night with my daughter at the ER, so my edit button isn’t functioning at it’s highest capacity)
addendum: Rachel, of the original root canal comment has furthered our discussion on her blog. It is well worth the read.
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