Author Archive
Jenny Rae Armstrong
Patriarchy, Pop Culture, and Pornography
Saturday, May 5th, 2012
Several years ago, I read “The DaVinci Code” to see what all the fuss was about. It was nothing special—a fast-paced novel with interesting, if inaccurate, historical details woven in—but one line still stands out to me. The leading lady recalls a conversation she had with her grandfather as a child, about the film “The Last Temptation of Christ.” “Would it be so bad if Jesus had a girlfriend?” the old man asks her.
“YES!” I wanted to shout. “Yes, creepy cultic dude, it would be horrible if Jesus had a girlfriend.” I can’t remember the characters names, or most of the details of the story, but that simple question still startles and horrifies me. Here’s why.
Going There: Another Take on the Orphan Crisis
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
It’s been just over two years since a magnitude 7 earthquake hit Haiti, killing more than a quarter of a million people and leaving thousands of children orphaned, overwhelming a nation already in crisis. Kristen Howerton, who has adopted from Haiti and was in the country when the earthquake struck, wrote a great, heartbreaking post on “Rage Against the Mini Van” about the state of adoption in Haiti two years later. Thousands of children are languishing in orphanages, not because no one is willing to adopt them, but because of administrative red tape.
The Girl Who Cried Wolf, and Other Myths
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011
You can’t go online lately without hearing about hearing about Herman Cain and the allegations of sexual harassment haunting his campaign. Those posts inevitably make me wince—not the articles themselves, but the comments crowded beneath them like protestors punching hand-scrawled signs in the air, screaming at the “other side.” Now, before you get all riled up, this article is not about Herman Cain. It’s about those comments. Specifically, it’s about the Christian community’s response to women who accuse men of sexual impropriety.
You’d think that Christians would be very interested in standing up for a woman’s dignity. After all, don’t most Christian books about gender teach that it’s a man’s role todefend women? But all too often, the evangelical response to men’s shameful shenanigans, especially when nothing physical has taken place, has been a sort of snide, “boys will be boys” affirmation of male virility. High fives all around, while the woman, mortified, slinks back into the shadows. I mean, what did she expect, trading the safety of the kitchen for the wild and wooly “man’s world”?
A Woman’s Plea for Peace
Thursday, October 27th, 2011
“100 years ago, almost all casualties in war were men in uniform. Today, the majority are women and children.”
So began the PBS documentary “Women, War & Peace.” I steeled myself on the futon, stroking the feathery hair of my youngest, who had fallen asleep with his head on my lap. For the next hour, I listened to tales of unimaginable horror, underscored by the soft sound of my son’s breathing.
It has been lifetimes since a war was waged on American soil, and attacks on our nation have been blessedly isolated. Most of us cannot begin to fathom the daily horrors of living in a war zone, and it impacts our thoughts on foreign policy. But I remember. Vaguely, and clouded over by a thick veil of privilege, but still. War was unspeakably ugly, seen through the eyes of an eight-year-old girl.
Liberia, the Nobel Peace Prize, and Me
Saturday, October 15th, 2011
Last Friday, three women were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their commitment to women’s rights. Two of those women, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, were from Liberia, the country I called home for most of my elementary school years.
I haven’t stopped grinning since I heard the news. See, it was in Liberia that I first witnessed the true ugliness of gender injustice, first understood that a tiny seed of pride and superiority dropped into the heart of a man would blossom not into a sheltering tree, but into an ugly, invasive weed that choked the life out of everything around it.
My “Damascus road” experience happened when I was nine years old, peering out the window of our second-story apartment in Monrovia. Just outside our gate, a woman was curled up on her side under a palm tree, worn tee-shirt stretched thin across her torso as she shielded her head with her dusty black arms, her lappa-clad knees tucked close to her chest. The man kicking her wore camouflage, and had a government-issued machine gun slung over his shoulder. Continue Reading »
