It was my first time traveling in a par-
ticular country where sexual harassment
of foreign women was not uncommon.
Our group wanted to respect the customs
of modesty for women in this country, so
even though it was quite hot during that
season, we wore clothing that completely
covered our arms and legs. Nevertheless,
the harassment occurred.
I have always found prayer to be reli-
able in addressing challenges, so I turned
to God. I wanted to understand more fully
the purity of all women and men – a qual-
ity that’s within everyone’s real identity as
God’s spiritual idea, or child. In the Bible’s
book of Genesis, we read, “Male and female
created he them” (1:27).
This helped me see that all of God’s
children include all the masculine and fem-
inine qualities of our Father-Mother God by
virtue of being God’s complete reflection
or expression. There’s no conflict between
these qualities. In “Science and Health with
Key to the Scriptures,” Christian Science dis-
coverer Mary Baker Eddy describes man (a
generic term for all of God’s children) in part
as “the compound idea of God, includingall right ideas;... that which has not a single
quality underived from Deity” (p. 475).
I was so reassured by this view that
God’s pure and perfect creation includes
everyone. Since we reflect Him, our real
identity is Godlike, as holy as God is holy
and as valued by each other as completely
as God values all His, Her, sons and daugh-
ters. This gave me a conviction that even if
someone isn’t being re-
spectful or appropriate,
there is a solid basis for
a change in course and
hope for progress.
Within a day, my prayers were put to
the test. A young woman in our group had
gone to purchase a blouse, but while the
shop owner was measuring her, he had
made some sexual comments that so up-
set her she left shaking in fear. The next day
she told me what had happened and asked
if I would go with her to pick up the blouse.
Part of me wanted to simply tag along
to help her feel safe, but as I held to my
prayers from earlier, something in me knew
that I needed to speak up to challenge
the man’s misconception of womanhood.
I needed to have the courage of my spiri-
tual convictions that the correct message
would be heard in a way that would bless,
because as the children of God, infiniteLove and Truth, we are all inherently recep-
tive to truth and love.
When we entered the shop, at first I hes-
itated to say anything, but then quietly and
firmly I told the man that what he had said
to my friend had upset her greatly. Then I
said: “We are here visiting your country be-
cause we love your people and the beauty
of your culture, and we want to understand
you better. But we also
hope you will learn to un-
derstand us better, and
we want you to know that
we are good women who
deserve your respect and honor as much as
your wives and daughters do.”
The man looked right at my friend
and apologized for what he had said. He
thanked her for coming back to pay for the
blouse. And we left on good terms.
While I don’t know what broader impact
this experience may have had on the man,
to me it illustrates how each individual can
be a part of forwarding progress in how we
think of both women and men. We can all
take a mental stand for the expression of
universal womanhood and manhood in all
of us – the right of everyone everywhere to
express strength, goodness, and purity. Be-
cause that is how we are made!- Susan Booth Mack Snipes
Universal
womanhood
A CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
PERSPECTIVEWhen plump was a pleasing word
Recently, I finished a route in the
rock climbing gym and someone
said to me, “That’s pretty stout!” I was
confused and maybe a little insulted. Was
he, out of the blue, calling me fat?
My reaction had a lot to do
with how fraught the issue of
“fat” is in American society
today. On one hand, we have
very negative attitudes about
it. Obesity is considered a
grave health concern, and
standards of beauty skew very
much toward the thin. But on the other,
there is a growing “body positive” move-
ment that encourages people of all sizes
to see their bodies as beautiful.
The word thick, which we looked at
last week, goes along with this move-
ment; it is a wholly positive term that cel-
ebrates “bigger” bodies. Fa t, in contrast,
is a word that is inherently stigmatizing.
A commonly accepted historical
narrative holds that in the past, fatness
was culturally appreciated. It was a
sign that you were healthy and wealthy
enough to eat three meals a day. It was
only at the turn of the 20th century that
a high enough proportion
of Westerners had so much
food that thinness resulting
from self-denial became the
standard of beauty.
Do the terms we used
in the past to talk about “fat-
ness” support this story?
In the 19th century, doctors advocat-
ed “plumpness.” Dr. T.C. Duncan’s 1878
guide, “How to Be Plump,” describes this
state as beneficial both to one’s health
and to one’s looks and is filled with ad-
vice about how to “get fleshy.”
Plumpness, though, was a state of
moderation. If you got too fleshy, you be-
came corpulent, and this was considered
to be unhealthy and unattractive.The word fat itself combined these
dual senses from its very first uses. A
13th-century historian praised King Hen-
ry I, describing him as a “fair man ... and
fat also,” while the ideal early medieval
woman was “fat, tender, and beautiful.”
Yet fatness was also moralized, associat-
ed with the sin of gluttony.
As these words show, we have always
been of two minds about fatness. In the
20th century, though, its positive as-
pects largely dropped out of the picture.
The body positive activists who fight
“fat-shaming” are in a way restoring the
balance we have lost.
As for stout, I had forgotten that it
isn’t just a negative term for “short and
fat.” It also means “brave,” “determined,”
“strong,” and “vigorous,” as in “a stout
defense.” King Henry I could have been
stout as well as fat. Among climbers, a
stout route is a tough one. It was a com-
pliment. rBy Melissa Mohr