Her Body
Marg asks, "Why use a female image that has been so obviously photoshopped when this book is about how accurate portrayals of women in the Bible have been obscured by patriarchal and cultural expectations?" In the original image, the body of the woman on the cover is visible from halo to hipbones. I did not want her to be sexualized and requested the book designer tear the image to obscure most of her body. From the feedback I have received, it seems there is no way to present a woman's body that is not seen as sexual. Barnes and Noble will not carry the book in the religion department of their store because, the buyer for the religion section is reluctant to put a naked woman in her religion section. I walked through Barnes and Noble and took pictures of book covers that displayed much more of a woman's body than my book cover. Granted, not in the religion section.
Living In A Woman's Body
The photoshop question never accrued to me. I see in her the image of my younger blond haired, blue eyed self. She is the image of me living in a woman's body that is, "obscured by patriarchal and cultural expectations." A body that is never thin enough, or never has big enough breasts and is always in danger of being exploited. That is just my experience. A Unitarian Universalist minister shared her experience of growing up with big breasts and the, "patriarchal and cultural expectations" that resulted from having breasts that were too big.
Women's Bodies
Patriarchy is not comfortable with woman's bodies, not on display for public consumption. A good example is the ruccus over breast feeding mothers. Patriarchy is not comfortable with women's bodies that do not conform to current standards of beauty. A woman's body my be praised for the curve of her breast but not the curve of her belly. Bellys should be flat. Patriarchy is not comfortable with women's bodies that are not controlled by someone other than the woman herself. I Googled, "Number of laws regulating women's bodies." The first statistic I got is that in the first quarter of 2013 Republicans pushed 700 new laws to regulate women's bodies. littlegreenfootballs.com/.../298529_Republicans_P...
I see my younger self in this cover, praying and bleeding and longing for things to be different.
Yes!!! I can't express in words what all that I feel about this book. It is more than just another book in the religious section. And it is about much more than just equal rights for women. It speaks to the very heart of what is happening now spiritually, with the ending of the patriarchal era and the manifestation of Oneness of All by the restoring of the Sacred Feminine to the Sacred Masculine. Mother-Father God within each of us.
ReplyDelete