Please don't do this - First Dance Kit

I intended to write about something different today, but then this crossed my timeline:

https://twitter.com/LatterDayLes/status/1177398242998390784/photo/1

This is unusual for me, but I am going to need to use some Caps Lock.

For convenience I will transcribe the offensive flyer. Then you won't have to see the questionable font choices (possibly six different ones used) or the highlighter framing points 2 and 4, which are the most sexist, but that's probably just a coincidence. But I think I will reproduce the italics and bold type. It might be petty of me.

First Dance Kit

1. Get ready for the dance. Paint your nails, wear a little lip gloss and don't forget to brush your teeth!
2. Don't forget what the approved dress standards are when choosing your outfit. You don't want the embarrassment of being asked to go home and change. And you don't want the guy dancing with you to feel uncomfortable because of the questionable outfit that you justified.
3. Go with a friend but don't be joined at the hip. No guy is going to interrupt the highly intense conversation that you seem to be having with your girlfriend every time he walks by you.
4. Never say "NO" to a guy who had the courage to walk over and ask you to dance in the first place. (a song lasts approximately 3 minutes, it's not THAT bad)
5. Know your standards (For the Strength of the Youth)
6. Don't forget your dance card!

Remember who you are and have fun!

My least angry thought is curiosity over whether they actually use dance cards. I suspect they were just looking for a "fun" end note. Do the kids these days even know that used to be a thing? It's been a while.

My second least angry thought comes from Arthur Chu in the Twitter discussion, suggesting that while most dance attendees probably do brush their teeth regularly, the suggestion to do so before the dance (but after dinner) could be helpful. When I was taking ballroom dance in college, I always reapplied deodorant and had a breath mint before I went. It was probably not necessary, but I didn't want to make anybody's experience unpleasant. (And I danced with someone with bad breath once, which really reinforced it.)

Also - regarding the discussion - someone said this was from one ward thirty years ago, but I suspect that was speculation. I never got a handout like this, but the attitude sounds so much like things I hear people saying that I would not be at all surprised if someone handed this out last week. I want to take it in to my Sunday school class next time and make sure no one is trying this with them. It is horrifyingly plausible.

Now, back to the rest of suggestion number one... I don't love it, but that might be a personal thing because I don't wear makeup. Regardless, it seems to be emphasizing the importance of girls being attractive, and having to work at it. That would only irritate me a little bit if it were not immediately followed by the crap that is number 2.

QUIT MAKING YOUNG WOMEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE THOUGHTS OF YOUNG MEN!

QUIT EMPHASIZING THE IMPORTANCE OF ATTRACTIVENESS TO YOUNG WOMEN AND THEN WORRYING THEM WITH THE IMPORTANCE OF NOT TEMPTING THE BOYS TOO MUCH!

I'd also like to take a moment to remind everyone that "modest" means not being stuck up or overly concerned with appearance. Turning it into a minefield between the equal failures of not being appealing and being too appealing (sexily!) is not helpful to anyone.

I worry about that more now because members have gotten much stupider about it than when I was a youth. Girls get shamed now for shorts that are just above the knee instead of just below, or sleeves that don't go past the elbow, and then don't see the hypocrisy in looking down on hijab and burqas.

I get even more worried about it because of number 3, which emphasizes the importance of availability and accessibility to boys over friendship. Way to kill the fun in a night out! This is for a first dance, so the girl is most likely 14 years old; can she be allowed to gradually transition from more interest in friends to more interest in boys? Because if they don't have enough interest in boys to be looking at the boys and quieting down when one approaches, discouraging the conversation may not help.

But 3 is even worse because of being followed by number 4, and this is where the completely fair accusation of  rape culture comes in...

GIRLS ARE NOT A REWARD FOR BOYS!

Telling girls how much a guy deserves credit for paying them any attention - and how it's unfair to say "no" - sets those girls up to accept mistreatment and abuse. Telling them to ignore their instincts when alarm bells are going off - because he was so brave and thoughtful... I need to give you a giant "NO" here. It is that bad.

The other interesting thing from the discussion was that some former young women said this was a rule, and so they would ignore boys who asked instead of actually saying the word. I promise you, that is much worse. I don't recommend teaching anyone to be passive-aggressive, but that workaround is much worse than a simple "No, thank you."

YOU ARE ALWAYS ALLOWED TO SAY "NO"!

Yes, sometimes a young woman's lack of interest in dancing with a certain partner may relate to unkindness and snobbishness. You can teach the problems with that without eroding agency and consent.

Of course, it also makes me wonder if the young men are getting a card to remind them to also ask the homely girls to dance. If she put on lip gloss, she deserves to get asked. It's only for three minutes.

Believe me, I understand that young people are often thoughtless and rude; their minds and personalities are still developing. That is all the more reason that the things we tell them matter.

Many of the things we try to teach young women are sexist and stupid.

Please don't do that.
   

Principles for Being of Help

Chapter 5 of To Be an Anchor in the Storm (by Susan Brewster M.S.S.W.) had principles of good communication, but chapter 6 - To Act as an Anchor When She Comes to You - had another list. I want to go over that to finish with the book.

Principles for Being of Help

1. Believe her
2. Take her abuse seriously
3. Remain neutral, don't take sides
4. Respect her decisions; don't judge her
5. Honor her feelings
6. Don't give advice
7. Control yourself; not her
8. Show her your reality
9. Try to empathize with her while maintaining your objectivity
10. Be a good model; fulfill your own needs
11. Let her know how you can and cannot help
12. Suggest ways of helping her which don't have strings attached

This chapter has longer sections under the different headings so there may be more room for elucidation here, but I don't intend to tell the book.

Part of why I wanted to list the principles out is that there are similar guiding principles to those for communications. There may be a desire to swoop in and fix the problems. There can be a strong desire to tell her what is what because you are so sure of her delusions. Those things that can feel so right and so much easier end up being harmful. Helping someone requires respecting their perspectives and choices, even when you see - completely objectively - that they are wrong.

Remember, this book is about helping women in abusive relationships; that means she already has someone to berate her and dictate her choices. However, in addition to being more gentle and respectful with her, you are also kinder with yourself. 

Look at principles 10 and 11; your needs matter too. Even with 8, you are honest about your own situation so you can let all the pride and strain go, simply accepting what you have and changing it if you need to.

Among many things that annoy me when I read philosophy, the biggest is how works focused on state-building (think Utopia or The Republic) can't handle individuality, as if all order will crumble if people like different things. There is room for our individual wants and needs, and we can uphold those while also respecting the wants and needs of others. That is how we help each others and ourselves.

It seems worthwhile to mention the centrality of agency in our Heavenly Father's plan. It wouldn't work without a Savior, but that happens through love, and not by force. If we take Christ as our example, that's how it has to be.

Principles of Good Communication

Today's post refers to Susan Brewster's book, To Be An Anchor in the Storm: A Guide for Families and Friends of Abused Women.

In Chapter 5: To Act as an Anchor Before She Asks For Help, Brewster gives a list of eight principles, starting on page 112:


Principles of Good Communication

1. Use open body language
2. Be honest with her and yourself
3. Open ears, shut mouth
4. Ask her to clarify what you don't understand
5. Be a mirror
6. Speak only for yourself
7. Share your "secrets" with her
8. Ask open-ended questions

Obviously there was information under each principle.

It could certainly be worthwhile to read the book, but also I know that many of these principles will sound familiar, whether from missionary training or active listening practice in parenting classes. I think I remember learning about "I statements" (part of speaking only for yourself) in health class in 10th grade. I definitely saw a reference to open body language on The Big Bang Theory.

So, it may not be that helpful to go over the different principles.

What sticks out most clearly to me is that it takes humility. You can't assume that you have the answers, or even that it is your job to solve the problem. You can be a listening ear and someone who cares. For someone in an abusive relationship, there very well may be other needs than listening, but for everyone - even people in good relationships - there are probably ways in which it would be very helpful to have someone listen, and let them get these feelings out.

Humility will not cause you to do all of these things automatically, but asking for clarification, listening, speaking only for yourself instead of invoking "everybody"... those are all things that pride will make harder.

Pride can especially make it hard to share your own vulnerabilities and insecurities, but it can be necessary to help others. It can also be necessary for our own growth. It is possible to start trying to change with one particular person in mind, but then find that you are transformed, and that your relationships with other people are transformed.

There is a lot of good that can happen.

The biggest change may be that your conversations consist of more listening, less thinking about what to say next. That can be a great thing.

And, there are limitations too.

In the case of an abusive relationship, Brewster stresses both that you may decide that you cannot fill the anchor role - which can be valid - and also that there may be situations that call for professional psychiatric help. For example, maybe you can help someone decide that she is ready to leave, but to get at why she ended up in that situation in the first place might take counseling.

Realizing that you can't do what someone needs does not mean that you can't be any help to them. Maybe you can help them find a counselor. Maybe you can just affirm that their needs are valid. There are a lot of different ways that things can turn out.

Recently we were studying 1 Corinthians, and it was the first time that I noticed that the chapter on charity comes right after the one on spiritual gifts. Your gifts are only as useful as your desire to help; without that they can even be destructive. With love there can be many qualities and abilities available for help.

I don't want to give a false impression that this is easy, but there should also be hope that it is possible. If the starting place is listening, that's not so bad.

Reasons we don't listen

Building on last week, there are a few examples of conversations we try and avoid or prevent. This is to our detriment.

One of the other books read recently was Healing Through the Dark Emotions: the Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair by Miriam Greenspan.

I did not particularly like it, though I agree with many of her basic points. The part that struck me the hardest was an account of her parents and other Holocaust survivors not being able to talk about their experiences. This does not mean not being able to find the words or open their mouths, but their experiences being rejected.

One example was a man who talked about having to lie in his own feces. The psychiatrist who was listening said he had an anal fixation.

One result of Nazis spreading over Europe was that a lot of psychiatrists - many Jewish but not exclusively - came to the United States, and there were many Freudians. That we got them all at a time when people with war trauma and genocide trauma were also coming, and when society was trying to push women who has experienced greater freedom and independence back into tiny boxes... well that was pretty unfortunate, and those effects carried on for years.

(That's not really the point of this post; it just bugs me.)

So, one thing that might prevent us from listening is thinking we know more than the person about their own experience. A developing field of academics that still has a lot to learn could lead to that. Sometimes something is so far out of our experience that we can't grasp it, but that doesn't mean no one has had the experience. It is also common that differing levels of privilege could give one an unacknowledged sense of authority, where interpreting and deciding feels like a right, though it isn't.

It is not even impossible that you actually will know more. Caring for my mother who has dementia, she says things that are wrong a lot. Trying to shut her down and correct her is not helpful. Listening still can be. It may be that behind the false thing is a true thing; it may just be that she needs reassurance. You may be an expert on a relevant topic, but you are still not an expert on that person and their experience.

It is really just better to listen.

Now for a much less high-brow example: soap character Thomas from The Bold and the Beautiful recently fell off a cliff. When it was uncertain whether he would live or even wake up, his father Ridge kept fearing the worst while Ridge's wife Brooke was telling him he couldn't think like that.

We give a lot of credit to positive thinking, but a lot of the books that promote it are pretty hokey, and a lot of the people who swear by it are pretty grumpy. Wouldn't you be if you kept swearing that success was in your hands but you never actually got a firm grasp on it?

In fact, in life terrible things frequently happen - not always for a clear cause and quite often unfair (though Thomas deserved to go off that cliff!) - and refusing to acknowledge the thing you fear most is not a magic incantation that prevents it from happening.

If you go over the actual feared circumstances, there are usually possible solutions. Maybe they are not the ideal, but they are still things that can be done. It can be empowering to have a plan.

• If Thomas dies, we will raise his son.
• If this doctor can't help him, we will bring in a specialist.
• If he has paralysis, we will modify the house to make it accessible, and we will support him.

I suggest that it is more helpful to have fear heard than to shove it down inside. I know it.

Recently I wrote out several negative emotions, but the longest list was fear. Putting them out there I realized that some of the fears were needless. Some things that I was afraid of have moved on to things I am sad about; I could not stop them from happening, but I have survived them. Some fears will be good to think about more, because preparation may be possible. All of that is only possible by facing fear; shutting it down also shuts down comfort and reassurance.

Often we may shut down someone due to our own discomfort.

I hope that the earlier part of this post has resolved one concern: that of not knowing what to say. Allowing them to talk is more important than what you say, and I think we are going to have a couple of posts on listening skills to help with that.

I also hope that a link can be seen, that as you become more comfortable facing your own issues, you will be better able to listen to others. That discomfort may come from a personal insecurity, but it is probably an insecurity that you don't need.

But the final point I want to make on that is that if you can see the feelings of other people as valid, you should be able to see your own feelings as valid too. This means that you may not feel like you can handle being the person who listens in this case, and that's okay.

If that's the way it needs to go, stick with kindness and honesty. Don't try downplaying their fears and concerns, sending a message that they are unimportant. Even when you cannot help, you can avoid causing further harm.

That has value too.