From Barbies To Boys To Jesus: The Truth About Womanhood

It's apparent that women and men struggle with many things in the college culture. From the way we dress to the way we interact on Facebook. Camara Bensinger opens her heart, story, and what Jesus has opened her eyes to, while giving us an understanding that in everything we do, we must glorify The Father. Today is part 1 and 2, while part 3 and 4 will be put up on Thursday.

PART 1

Hosea 2:7,13
7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now…
13 she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the LORD.

From the first Barbie to the first bra to the first boy friend, young women unconsciously develop the foundations of their femininity. Despite the given love and freedom from our Creator, we are generally predisposed and occupied by the expectations and demands of our brutal culture. In our desperate attempt to fill our emptiness, the practice of giving ourselves away physically and emotionally has become an ancient pastime. Instead of bringing our brokenness to the altar of our Lord, we sacrifice our dignity and shove aside our lineage as beloved daughters of God. In the midst of such mess, Jesus awaits our surrender. My own battle with my body and my identity has made way for the insurmountable atonement of Jesus to be glorified.

Like most women, I am both a victim and perpetrator of my circumstances. In one moment, I am blameless for the emotional scars of being involuntarily objectified as a woman in my culture. In another moment, I am the one to blame when I make the male species my nameless toys to amuse my craving for love and attention. The origins of my brokenness reside on memory lane. For me, high school was a time of trials. Every girl’s body was developing into its own. Because I am naturally athletic, the curves and muscles of my body became undeniable. I was particularly dissatisfied with my legs, arms, and my hair. My insecurity continued to sky rocket as I compared myself to my peers and the women on television. The shorts and skirts of girls were getting shorter and shorter, while the shirts were getting thinner. Victoria Secret undergarments were not staying a secret when worn under see-through shirts and pants. In high school, it seemed that the quickest way to get attention and affirmation was to either wear less clothing or to be more distinguishable through having savvy fashion sense. The competition between girls was fierce. We were all blood thirsty for companionship and recognition from the opposite sex, as well as each other. We were unaware that our desire for boys was just a masquerade, covering a God given need for love and wholeness. At this time, the hormones of boys were going crazy, spurring curiosity for their female counterparts. They were being trained to believe that manhood was manifested in sexual conquest, so they were grateful for how generous girls were with their bodies.

At the beginning of my sophomore year, I caught the interest of a senior guy. Immediately, I was attracted to his charm and sense of humor, but his interest in me, intensified my hunger for an affirmation of my worth. We started dating, but I began to notice that keeping him required some work. Other girls were constantly after him and he had a wandering eye. Apparently I was behind and lacking in his standard of beauty. He would tell me, “You have man-arms and legs.” or “Straighten your hair more.” Most of all he’d say, “I wish you’d dress a little sexier for me.” After years of investing in him emotionally, physically, and mentally, I threw in the towel. At the beginning of college, I was deeply wounded and bitter. At the expense of my male peers, I teased and toyed with a few by using reckless words, and immodest attire. I now see that it was a sad attempt to try to redeem the control and dignity I had given away to my ex boy friend. Thankfully, my antics came to a halt when I met the man who has loved me all along, Jesus. Through an intimate relationship with him, I’ve discovered the equal love that he has for both women and men. My story full of mistakes, twists, turns, and brokenness was just condensed into a nutshell, but I know that many other women have a similar story. It is not only applicable for high school girls, but also for college women.

No matter what age, all women have a desire to be loved, valued, and needed. We long to be listened to and for our words and deepest thoughts to have a lasting impact on our listeners. We want affirmation that we matter. We long for someone to be trustworthy enough to see us exposed; “flaws and all.” We hope for that person to love the secret self that we have nurtured our entire life. Men have similar desires that are projected in different forms. Uniquely, women tend to place greater importance on what they hear and feel. In contrast, men hold their sense of sight to higher importance. When their eyes catch a glimpse of something visually pleasing, they are motivated to indulge in fantasy and strive towards physical contact with what they see. There is no denying that men have their own spiritual, physical, and emotional giants to battle. Reducing women to trophies and vessels of pleasure is inexcusable in the eyes of God. It is also inexcusable for women to seduce men or seek attention, orchestrated by desires such as control, and false affirmation. Women continue to play an equal part in the destruction of themselves and those around them. Understanding the inner most struggles and follies of men are a vital puzzle piece to creating the possibility of sharing Jesus with them. However, in this moment, I’d like to use this blog post to have an ongoing dialogue with women who long to have Jesus as the center piece of their lives. For women, this struggle with identity, worth, and body image is unavoidable.

PART 2

“Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? -You should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you.” -Malcolm X

Women, despite all attempts to protect ourselves, we are immersed in a culture that doesn’t value self respect, purity, or integrity. We are in a culture that encourages us to know one another sexually before we know one another intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Dating has become a youthful ritual of having sex first, and shaking hands later. Men are encouraged to be heartless, detached bachelors, while the media assures that they will continue to salivate over women. Women are treated as a man’s accessory, which is both inferior and consumable. It is confirmed in movies, advertising, pornography, sports, politics, and fashion. Women are fed mixed messages. “Don’t be too light, but don’t be too dark. Don’t be too thick, but don’t be too thin. Don’t be too boring, but don’t be too crazy. Don’t be too stupid, but don’t be too intelligent.” Women are hindered by our culture’s attempt to keep us in line with its degrading standards. Women are mistaken for commodities that can be bought, sold, traded, or disposed. We are reduced to being rated physically, on a scale of 1 to 10.

For many of us, our Facebooks hold public evidence of us questioning our worth. Have you ever noticed how so many women use a continuous string of self portraits as a default picture for their Facebook? Each woman becomes a supposed model and a supposed photographer simultaneously. Some default photos are a self portrait with provocative clothing, bathing suits, or suggestive poses. Others are less suggestive and more oriented by longing facial expressions. Each picture may be slightly different, but behind the lens of each camera lives a similar motive. Often times, the motive is vanity, loneliness, insecurity, and emptiness. Ultimately, the photos reveal that we are wrestling with a shyness of our worth. The underlying statement of these photos silently scream, “Look at me and how beautiful I am. My body and facial features appear flawless here so that you can see me at my best. Or at least, confirm to me that I am beautiful and desirable. Am I good enough to be wanted? Am I cute? Confirm my worth by leaving an encouraging comment or ‘Liking’ the picture.” When we do this, we not only reveal a shyness of our worth, but we also become a part of the world’s advertisements that display women as consumable products.

I also find it interesting and telling that we spend time praising and aspiring to the beauty of celebrity women. We rant, rave, and envy women like Reese Witherspoon, Angelina Jolie, Penelope Cruz, Frieda Pinto, Beyonce, and Halle Berry. We ask ourselves, “If I could look like anyone, who would I want to look like?” We ask ourselves this question without considering that much of their praise and worldly beauty actually comes from the accumulation of photographic manipulation, plastic surgery, dental surgery, hair stylists, makeup artists, personal trainers, fashion stylists, nutritionists, and light specialists. These celebrity women cave under the pressure to be eye candy, just as we do. In reality, their appearance in the magazines and on the big screen is far from their unaltered and natural appearance. Although they would look differently without all the extra professional alteration, they would still be beautifully matchless and wanted in the eyes of God. Considering all of this, is it really fair or healthy to claim these women as the epitome of beauty, let alone idolize their appearance? Just like them, we are pressured to fix our shortcomings through surgery, eating disorders, excessive exercising, tanning, bleaching, and purchases from shopping excursions. Self hatred of ourselves looms over so many of our thoughts and stains the truth of the mirror. The real comical irony is that the world is entirely wrong.

More than any other type of makeover, we need a spiritual makeover. We need the truth of Jesus to wash every lie, question, and wound. He mourns with us through the pain, pressure, and prejudice we live in. While the world tries to put a cheap price on us, the price at which Jesus bought us is the only bid worthy of our acceptance (1 Corinthians 6:20). As women, we should rejoice. We need not anxiously await and beg for the earthly boyfriend or husband of our dreams until we remember our first true love. We must acknowledge that we have an eternal husband in Jesus. We are his lovely bride. Our body and spirit are “betrothed to him in righteousness, justice, love, and compassion (Hosea 2:19).” Fulfillment, wholeness, and love do not reside outside of an intimate relationship with him. Whether you are single or taken, Jesus is man enough for you. Thankfully, we also find an eternal father in God. A perfect, holy, just, and loving God created us and fathers us. He is so perfect that he is incapable of mistake. He doesn’t make rough drafts or errors. As women, we constantly wallow over our desire to revise and alter our bodies and personalities. We treat our bodies as if they can be tailor made to our liking. By doing this, we not only hurt ourselves, but we call God imperfect. We were all created in his image (Genesis 1:26). Just being born, alive, and created, guarantees our inheritance and birthright to be of worth and to have an identity. We are given the limitless capacity for love, beauty, wisdom, and sacrifice because that compresses the character of God himself. I pray that we would know that we are matchless to the only One that matters, the Lord. Let’s not be critical of God’s craftsmanship. Our meager minds and the world’s perverted ways betray us. Our bodies and our Creator take no part in betraying us. Let’s be thankful for our bodies and treat them as a Holy Temple for the Lord to dwell in (1 Corinthians 6:19).

TO BE CONTINUED...