It Costs More To Be A Woman

In response to the article: Why It Costs More To Be A Woman (click on the title to jump to the article.) I have written the following:

I have been lamenting lately the same thing, not an angry lament, more of a weary, this-is-how-the-world-is lament. I know these things are true and I don't like it, but what are you doing to do about it?

I rarely succumb to the temptation to purchase razors made "for women", as the cost per each is egregious. I find the cost of antiperspirants in general to be outrageous, but the smell of stale sweat coming from my armpits is not desirable, so I cough it up, though I have done trial and error until I only buy what works for me.

I have cut men and women's hair. The time factor is negligible. A man may be a little less fussy about the cut, though many men today are more fussy than ever, but there is the neck shaving and sometimes a facial shave as well. The justification is bogus. The services that take time are actually included in the price whether they are used or not. I mean I often shampoo my own hair because I sometimes have allergic reactions to shampoos. If it is a nice day out, the hairdresser may not fully style my hair, though that is included in the price at most places. Some, the ones that do ala carte services, are also the ones that seem to charge virtually the same whether you are male or female. In these places, I've had good and bad haircuts. The lady cutting my hair at Great Clips in Colorado Springs gave me about the best haircuts of my life. My most recent on at Great Clips in MD? The reviews aren't so good.

Many things are ridiculously expensive for women. I will happily use men's antiperspirant as long as it doesn't SMELL like a man. I can't wear their shirts without major tailoring and it is impossible to wear their jeans. My husband can get his jeans at Sam's Club for $13. The cut is standard and the denim is heavy. These jeans are a far better bargain than what is currently sold in any local store in the woman's department. Without my consent or approval, someone made the decision to eliminate heavyweight denim jeans with sturdy construction, in favor of "stretch denim", which is far less practical, lasts about a third as long, and costs the same as the old jeans I prefer. Where may I go to purchase the jeans I loved? I may have them custom made, or buy them through a catalog, now at least 2-3 times the cost of the jeans I bought a few years back. But my husband can buy his for $13.

Don't get me started on decent dressy work trousers. Again, try to find any made of a high quality sturdy material with a nice hand at ANY price made for a woman. But my husband can walk into any Ross or Marshalls and find a nice trouser for under $20 near any day of the week.

Can someone explain why I have to pay over $30 for a decent bra? Is making a bra some feat of engineering with construction so ingenious as to make it a difficult proposition? No. I used to work in a lingerie factory, and while I was never privy to the price points and manufacturing costs, I can assure you that they are in no way an expensive garment to manufacture.

At $30+ each, I must spend a minimum of $210 simply to have enough for a week. And are these garments long-lasting? According to the fitter in the lingerie department, none of these garments are designed to last more than 6 months. Nor can they hold up under normal laundry conditions. No, they must be hand-laundered and hung to dry, else they face an early extinction. If I want pretty or lacy or the latest sexy style, they are even more flimsily constructed and cost even more. Hooray.

There are some justifications for some of these price differences. A woman's tailoring is often a bit more detailed, a couple of darts or seams that a man's equivalent will not have, but otherwise, two identical items should have reasonably identical prices, right? What is the cost to put in a dart and a fitted seam? It doesn't take substantially longer, and should not justify the price difference.

When I was younger, I lived in a small town and it had a store with clothing for young men and a rack of clothing I can only call rodeo queen attire. I purchased men's jeans to fit my hips and took in 6 inches off the waist. I am no longer comfortable doing those kinds of alterations, as I am much more conscious of the quality of tailoring than I was in those days, and my own tailoring does not meet my standards.

Don't even get me started on hose.

I guess my point is that it costs to be a woman. Some men seem to think that women are frivolous or poor negotiators and pat themselves on the back for it, but what do you do when your dry cleaner charges an extra dollar each to dry clean your shirts? They all do it, and complaining hasn't yet gotten them to drop their prices. They very snottily talk about how difficult they are to press. Oh really? Seems like the equipment isn't made properly then. I dislike ironing, but find it no more difficult or time-consuming to iron my shirts than it does to iron my husband's.

It isn't the cut, because I can bring in a boxy women's blazer and get charged more for it than a man's Italian cut blazer, which surely is more difficult to handle than mine.

Oh, I'm not going to win any debate here, nor am I stating any new thing. But it isn't because women are poor negotiators. It is because certain things are expected of us that are NOT expected of a man. In one job it was not-so-subtly suggested that I should wear makeup for a professional appearance. At the time I was not having skin problems, and was always neatly and professionally attired and well-groomed. I did not then, nor do I now see the point of covering my skin with a load of expensive makeup that clogs my pores and causes me to break out, nor did I see the point of spending $50 a month on my nails as the other women in the office did.

If it is okay for John Doe to come in with a fresh-scrubbed face, neatly combed hair and a nice suit on, then that should work for me as well. I'm not manly, nor am I trying to make some feminist point, but I do sometimes resent that while I make far less than a man, my life costs more. Not because I am frivolous, but because the simple things in life are, for women, more expensive.

If I were to tell my husband he was required to spend $210 every six months on underwear, he would flip out. Why do these manufacturers and retailers DARE to charge this for me? So, what really am I to do about these things? Nothing I can do really, except make the wisest and most frugal decisions possible, and occasionally rant about the cost of being a woman.

And there were no needy persons among them...

I have been vocal lately about how inadequate the church seems to be in meeting the needs of those in our midst. I was distraught and angry when I heard about a woman whose life has fallen apart when her husband suffered a massive stroke after he was laid off and without health insurance. She is underemployed, has young children, is visiting her husband each day in the nursing home where he requires round the clock care and is totally incapacitated. She is losing her home, the utilities are on final notice and her health is in jeopardy due to the stress of it all.

I asked you and I asked me, where is the church in this? It seems to me that we should be gathering together and saying what do we do about _______? We should be opening our pockets, someone should be stepping up to help her find the assistance she needs, or opening their home to her and to her children, bringing them meals, serving them in any way we can.

As I sat pondering and upset with how the church is not doing it's job, it occurred to me that I AM the church. It is MY job. And I realized that I needed to take 1/2 of the money I have been saving toward a new camera and give it to this woman. Do not praise me. It was not easy. There is a part of me that says that maybe I should have given all of it. I don't know. But I do know that what I gave I was SUPPOSED to give.

And now I am asking you, dear readers, to consider how we might, as the church, reach out to this woman. I am asking you to pass along this post and let people know that they may contact me if they wish to give to help this woman as she tries to survive until the various charities that she is applying for help with decide if they are going to help her. I have been openly critical of the church, but I know that the people of the church love God and love others. Sometimes we are blind and selfish and need someone to just point out the hurting among us.

The need is real, and the need is urgent. This woman needs to know the love of Christ in a tangible way. Let's not tell her be warmed and filled.

I am selling prints of the photos I am showing here to raise money to help. At least half of all funds (after printing expenses) are going to help this woman. Make no mistake, there is no tax write-off. NONE. But I'm asking people to step up and help.

















5x7 prints $15/ea
8x10 prints $22/ea
Matting and framing available. Contact me for pricing.

If you are interested, please comment below, or if you have my personal email or phone number, you may check in that way, but please mention ACTS 4 PHOTOS in your comment or email subject line. Thank you.

Back to forgiveness

Sometimes the people I most need to forgive are the last one's I WANT to forgive. They are the least deserving. They don't acknowledge their wrongdoing; they don't ask for forgiveness. As we all are supposed to know, these are the very people we need to forgive. Jesus died for us while we were still in our sins. He came to earth for people who had no idea they were doing something wrong, and for those who knew and did it anyway. He forgave me when I did not ask, he paid the price when I willfully sinned. His actions, his forgiveness is not based on my feeling badly enough, or understanding the depths of my own depravity, or even acknowledging the level of pain I brought upon him. I am incapable of grasping the weight of sins I caused him to bear. But he forgave, and so must I.

I must use him as my example, to forgive what has been done to me, for the sake of the love he has shown me. And when I cannot forgive, I simply need ask him to help me, to show me, to teach me to forgive. I ask him to show me my tormentor through his eyes, and I see them through the lens of love and compassion that I may not have on my own.

I am humbled and repentant when I see the one I will not forgive through HIS eyes. When the Spirit reveals to me the hardness in my own heart, my heart begins to melt and I weep.

I long for the day when forgiveness pours out of me. I long for the day when I diminish and Christ increases to the point where his reaction is mine. Where his heart rules my heart. When mercy is my first thought. When pity moves me and when I cannot hate my fellow man.

Oh how I wish I were there. But God isn't finished with me...He will continue the work he has begun.

Rotten little playground bastard.

I despise fibromyalgia. This morning I woke up because of pain so severe that in my dreams I couldn't move one leg. When I woke it took me quite some time to convince myself that despite the pain I could move anyway. FM is a freakin' bastard. It's that kid on the playground that lays in wait for you to get involved in something then jumps out and hits your legs out from under you with a bat. You try to forget, but he never leaves, never really goes away.

Penny-wise

I received an email today from the salesperson who sold me my 97 Yukon. "It's been a year!" it trumpeted, and went on to ask for my future and referral business. I wrote the following reply:

It HAS been a year. We no longer have the Yukon as the mechanical needs were so extensive I'm writing it off as lesson learned. Only buy a vehicle that a trusted mechanic has looked at. Do NOT allow your better judgment to be shushed because someone tells you that the reason for the low, low price is to get people through the door to look at other vehicles. No, the reason for the low, low price is that there are major flaws with the vehicle. Not that I'm blaming anyone but myself. I should have listened to that voice in my head. That being said, I really loved the vehicle and even drove it cross-country, which was likely fool-hardy in it's condition. Would I ever buy another vehicle from Liberty? Probably not, but only because I'd be 1) too embarrassed by my own stupidity, 2) wondering if I would be foolish enough to listen to another sales pitch, and 3) on edge, wondering if the next vehicle I was looking at contained some horrible flaw which would come back to bite me in no time at all. I'm very unpleasant when I'm on edge and wouldn't want to put you (or me) through that.

Thankfully, I will likely never have to decide whether to purchase another vehicle from your dealership as I have moved to Maryland and now get to test the veracity and honor of a host of other dealerships. But I think for now, I will simply focus on finding a good and trustworthy mechanic to thoroughly inspect any used vehicle I would purchase, so that I don't simply take a dealer's word for the condition of the car, particularly if they are selling it "AS IS".

I nearly hit send, but even though what I wrote is true, it isn't the whole truth. We DID after all get in an accident. The accident made the mechanical problems even worse. We would have had to replace the vehicle without the accident, but leaving out the accident is, well, less than truthful. And the entire note was less than kind.

I'm hugely embarrassed by my part in the whole thing. I'm 45 years old. I know better. I did something foolish, like foregoing a $60 mechanics fee when buying a vehicle. Penny-side, pounds foolish.

Ticket

I came across a traffic ticket that someone else received. It offered the chance to simply cover it with a fine and a signature and checking that you either agree with the charges as filed or to mark "no contest" (or the latin equivalent thereof.)

I think this person should pay the fine, check one of the boxes and sign on the dotted line. It's over, it's settled, it's done. It's not a matter of fight it because it's wrong, it's a just charge. This person doesn't think so. No one else, when confronted with the facts of the incident see things as this person sees them, but that's how it goes.

I look at the situation and see bad consequences if this person doesn't pay up and sign it away. In fact, I was tempted to pay it for this person, check one of the boxes for them...but there's the sticky part. The signature. I can't do this for them.

It occurs to me that we all come to this place in life. We've done something wrong. By our very nature, we are sinful and separated from God. We have the charge from the governing authority, God, and God himself has paid the fine. There is only one box to check--Guilty as charged. But there is the signature line. Ah the signature line.

I cannot do that for another. All I can do is to urge them to sign away and take the payment that has already been made. Otherwise the charge stands. Sign away and accept the payment on your behalf and it's wiped away. Done. Gone.

Some of us want to protest that we're not guilty. Ahh, it's on tape. So we argue anything and everything to keep from admitting our guilt. We don't want our name on that line.

Some people think they would rather sign for their guilt and pay their own fine, but the fine is more than they have ever or will ever own. But they're gonna keep trying, perhaps doing community service, to try to wipe away the fine, or to wipe away their own guilt. It doesn't work. All they need to do is to sign.

I'm grateful that God himself was willing to pay the fine for me. Can you imagine the courtroom where the judge hands down the sentence and then pays it himself?

Amazing. Wonderful.

Nevertheless

So many hurting people and a faith tradition that I don't believe answers sufficiently the trials and troubles we face in this life. How is it that our expectations became so distant from the truth of scripture? I have had people tell me that God will step in, that he will heal, that he will change the circumstance, that he will lift us out of trouble. I have puzzled over that for years.

The Bible that I read says that Stephen was stoned, that sometimes a prophet was beaten, imprisoned, stoned, one was sawn in pieces. Most of the apostles were martyred, many of the first century Christians as well--Nero was known for using Christians as torches. Every one that I can think of who was mightily used of God led lives of suffering. Not everyone mentioned in Scripture, but the mighty ones.

How does this mesh with our belief that God is in the business of making our lives okay? Even when our theology disagrees with this belief, our internals are set (at least here in America) for rescue, earthly reward, etc. We buy into the beliefs that all we have to do is work hard, live cleanly, go to church, watch our tongues and try to clean up the behavior of society and our lives will go well. Our careers will flourish, our bank accounts increase and our later years will be easy.

We struggle when people have problems. We struggle when their children go astray, and we find all the reasons why, usually things that blame the parents and make us feel better because, since we are doing everything right, our children will not fall into the same things. We struggle when someone suffers from cancer, or when a friend becomes a young widow and we comfort with the lamest offerings we have--God means it for the best, and God has better things for you, or just look at what God will teach you! We don't suffer with them, we recoil from their trouble. It messes with our safety. If we acknowledge that these things aren't the result of their individual failings, or that they aren't some wonderful path they are on, then we acknowledge that we may have to suffer as well.

We turn from the family who is underemployed when they have to turn to social services for help. Well, they shouldn't have to go to social services for help. They should be taken care of by the church! The early church did just that. "And there were no needy persons among them." Read Acts 4.

The thing is, we were promised suffering. We were promised the difficult path. The Joel Osteen's of the world want you to believe that there is something wrong in that. They deny what scripture teaches and their words make me want to puke! Seriously. They are a vile distortion of scripture.

We are promised suffering. We are promised trials. Not, ohmygosh, I couldn't find a decent parking space at the mall today kind of trials, but real soul-wrenching, faith-stretching difficulties.

Some of us will have God step in and rearrange the circumstances. He provides some with miraculous healings, some with that tremendous job at just the right time. He provides those Lifetime Movie moments for some. But sometimes (and for me it seems more often than not) he does not intervene. God allows the bad thing. He allows the failures, the loss, the discouragement, the cruelty of others. He allows the loss of possession, the failure of the family or the church, the financial devastation, the job loss, the humiliation of government or charitable assistance. He allows the loss of a precious daughter, that special friend, the husband and provider. He allows a man to walk out on his wife for another woman or for a man. He allows a mother to walk out on her children. He allows parents to abuse their children and children to torment their parents. So very often he does not step in. What then?

Seriously, what then?

If you are a reasonably serious student of scripture I think these things should not surprise us. We should not be surprised by trials of various description. We were promised them. We were promised that the testing of our faith would produce endurance. We were promised the endurance would complete the work. We are promised that we will suffer many things for Christ's sake.

That's not what we want. Heck, it's not what I want. So often I look at others and see God rescue them when he is not rescuing me and I wonder, "why?" It's not a mildly curious question, it is a gut-wrenching, depth-of-my-soul question.

I used to beat myself up for those questions, and for asking God to deliver me out of my trials when it appeared he wanted me to walk through them. Jesus, in the garden of Gethsemane asked to be rescued from his upcoming suffering. He asked over and over in a torment that we are told made him sweat as it were drops of blood. That's some serious torment. That's some serious praying. We are told that after hours of this praying--alone, because his friends couldn't be bothered to stay awake while he is suffering so--he says, 'nevertheless, not my will but yours.'

And that's the key. I do not understand suffering. I can't explain it. I still prefer the miraculous saves. I know God could have stepped in and healed 18-year-old Alyssa even at the moment of her death. He did not. Why? I don't know. But I know my faith is tested through it.

My faith is not tested when God steps in and does the miraculous Lifetime Movie Moment save. It's joyous and I celebrate his goodness with everyone else, but God is good when he doesn't step in, just as he is when he does. God's love is no less when he elects to allow our suffering than when he elects to lift us out of it.

I need to remember this. My faith is useless unless it can deal with the bad things. It is useless to me and useless to others.

When Uncle Robb was dying of pancreatic cancer, he had been suffering for a long time, but really doing much better than I expected. I visited him one day in one of those moments where I just knew I was supposed to go right then. Things were falling apart. It was a cold snap and the window guys were there replacing the old, drafty windows. He seemed rattled. We were standing in his kitchen. The power snapped off in half of his house (I still don't understand this one) and it was the half with the furnace. At that moment, he crumpled. I don't know how I saw it, because his outward posture didn't change, but I saw it anyway. He said, "I've lost hope." I knew what he meant, and for a change I had the right words.

I reached out and wrapped my arms around him, after all, I knew he was dying from the moment I heard his diagnosis. Don't ask me how, but I felt that this time God wasn't stepping in. And there were signs along the way that told me to prepare for his death. Anyway, with my arms around him, I smiled and said, "You haven't lost hope. You've only lost hope for healing in this world. You still have every hope for healing in the next." Robb died fairly peacefully. He was in hospice around two weeks, and in that time was cheerful and sweet and unfailingly appreciative of everything people did to care for him. He was precious.

I miss him and may never stop missing him. I cannot explain his suffering away. I will not try to. I accept that this was an awful thing. Horrible. Terrible. Many things in life are. I have two friends my age and younger who are suffering from cancer. My neighbor back home is just finishing up her final round of chemo from this bout of cancer (it's her second.) Alyssa went home to be with the Lord a short time ago, and God has allowed us to lose our house. I cannot explain these things. I cannot explain away or put a happy face on the suffering that my friends are going through.

What I cling to and come back to is that God says he loves us. He says he is good. If I believe anything it is that he is who he says he is and that my understanding of that does not change it. If I need evidence, the cross should be all the evidence I need, but I am weak and sometimes (okay, usually) require more. God being God, there is no shortage of evidence of his might, his power, his glory and his love.

When I get messed up is when I expect God to step in and stop people from doing terrible things to each other. I get messed up when I assume that we are supposed to live a financially successful, disease-free and trouble-free life, or that because God can do something means that he is required to do it--for me.

Let me never try to encourage someone by telling them that God will rescue them. From experience I know that God can and sometimes does rescue us. From experience I also know that sometimes he does not. May I never tell someone that they just need to believe, as if their faith is the issue, not God's will. When I give false promises, when I tell people that, I am stealing the faith and hope that is real. I deny the truth of scripture.

I hear such nonsense and I want to spit. Ptuey! I was once told that our car breaking down was not "the abundant life that God promised" and that if I had faith it would not happen. "Don't you believe God loves you?" the prayer line lady asked. I thought of Stephen at that moment. I mean gimme a break. Was Stephen stoned because of a lack of faith? Was it because God did not love him enough? Was Jesus crucified because he wasn't grasping hold of the abundant life? Or is that faith sad and weak and useless for the reality of life?

Your life and my life will have trials. God may miraculously carry you out of yours. Excellent! God may not. Praise him anyway. He is worthy of praise, not just because of what he does for us day by day, but because of who he is! God may part the Red Sea, or dry the river Jordan, or he may hold us in the midst of the flood. He may rescue us or walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death. He may heal or he may not. Nevertheless, not my will, but his. It was good enough for Jesus.