So I was given a link to an article a few days ago called "The Harms of Projecting the Mormon Male Gaze."
This is not the first time I have seen well-meaning but misguided attempts to attack modesty standards, but it is probably the most thorough. It is also nearly entirely wrong.
The article begins with the writer rehearsing an account in which she complained to a male who had given a talk in church about a joke she had not appreciated, "the more doors that get slammed in your face as a missionary, the prettier your wife will be."
She describes approaching the speaker and saying the following:
"I’ve heard this joke a lot, and I’ve also heard how it affects the young women and girls, including me. It can make us feel like a young man expects to be rewarded with a pretty wife after serving a mission, or that we’re a trophy he earns for enduring hardship. It’s also hurtful because it makes us feel like we’re only valued for our looks, not for our kindness, or our personality, or our spirituality. And for the women who consider their looks to be a little plain, it can make us feel like we’re not deserving of a man who worked hard on his mission."
It's a fair point to say that young men should not expect the result of missionary service (or any other religious devotion) to be a wife, attractive or otherwise. The best motivation for service should be to help the children of God, and ultimately to return to his kingdom.
It's not a fair point to say that she should feel like she's a trophy who is only valued for her looks. It seems presumptuous to assume that missionaries everywhere are all hoping to marry her personally, or if she is not taking this to mean that missionaries are thinking of her personally, she has no business being hurt by the idea that missionaries hope to have an attractive spouse.
It's also unfair for girls who think they look plain to feel like they don't deserve a man who worked hard on his mission because hard working missionaries hope to be married to an attractive woman. This is part of the reason that the "prettier wife" saying exists... because so many men can relate to the desire to have an attractive spouse.
The author then recommends that such jokes be avoided, particularly in audiences that contain women and girls. Not having heard the context of the comment in this case, I cannot defend it as being humorous or appropriate, but I can imagine a circumstance in which a man, hoping to praise his wife, might use this idea in an acceptable manner.
For the author, the concern seems less about the joke, and more about a perceived systemic problem with males in the church. She describes it by saying:
"The Mormon Male Gaze (from ‘male gaze’) is rooted in the flawed idea that a young woman’s body is automatically, inherently sexually alluring to the priesthood holding men all around her. She is alternately seen as a temptation to be eschewed or a reward to be given. Both interpretations objectify the young woman for her body. When the Mormon Male Gaze befalls a girl, the young woman herself bears the burden of being appropriately alluring, so as to be a reward to “worthy” young men, while not being overly alluring to “tempt” other men. According to the many accounts I gathered, the projection of this Mormon Male Gaze is usually done by adult women to younger girls, or by women to each other. The projection of the gaze exists even when the threat of actual gaze does not."First of all, a woman's body is inherently sexually alluring to all males who are at least 12 years old. This should not be surprising. Tremendous amounts of advertising uses scantily clad women to part men from their money, and Youtube and Twitch streamers who show cleavage and/or tight apparel have far more views than those that do not.
This is not a new phenomenon. The reason prostitution is called the world's oldest profession is because it is true of men all over the world and throughout history. It's biologically true. The daughter of Jared seemed keenly aware of the effect of the female body on a man when she proposed a plan to dance before Akish:
"And now, therefore, let my father send for Akish, the son of Kimnor; and behold, I am fair, and I will dance before him, and I will please him, that he will desire me to wife; wherefore if he shall desire of thee that ye shall give unto him me to wife, then shall ye say: I will give her if ye will bring unto me the head of my father, the king. And now Omer was a friend to Akish; wherefore, when Jared had sent for Akish, the daughter of Jared danced before him that she pleased him, insomuch that he desired her to wife. And it came to pass that he said unto Jared: Give her unto me to wife. And Jared said unto him: I will give her unto you, if ye will bring unto me the head of my father, the king." (Ether 8:10-12)
The result of this arrangement was a conspiracy formed by Akish to kill his friend, Omer, the king.
How could the daughter of Jared be so confident that this man would commit murder because he saw her body and liked it? There may be more to the story, but it is at least in part to the fact that all men are inherently drawn to a woman's body.
Though King David was certainly at fault for the incident with Bathsheba, it is worth noting that the impulses that persuaded him to discard every decent principle he had come to embrace started when he saw a woman's body from his rooftop.
Though it is difficult to precisely describe the strength of this power, a man killing is friend and a good king cheating, lying, and ultimately murdering are things that have happened under its influence.
It is completely fair to say that women are not the "gatekeepers" or that women bear sole responsibility to keep men from behaving badly, as the author of this article points out later... but if a joke about attractive spouses is supposed to be avoided out of consideration for the feelings it invokes in others, certainly some care should be taken with appearance out of consideration for the powerful feelings it invokes in others.
Second, the point about the objectification of women is flawed. Since men naturally seek an attractive woman, marriage to a beautiful woman should feel like a reward; the blend of love, happiness, and attraction certainly felt that way to me. Additionally, a bride should feel like a trophy when she is married. This does not mean she should lose her humanity, or any of the other qualities she has... it means that she should feel physically beautiful. That's at least one point of wearing a wedding dress... to stand out as an object of admiration and desire.
It is a problematic marriage in which the wife is no longer the object of her husband's admiration. Of course she should be valued as an individual with talents and qualities besides physical appeal... but expressing physical love in the bonds of marriage does not have to take anything away from a wife's other attributes and values. It adds to the relationship when the husband continues to hold his wife as an object of beauty and admiration, in addition to honoring all her other roles.
The author of the article proceeds to group several items together under the "men shouldn't view attractive wives as rewards" heading. Some of these ideas can be addressed by understanding that men actually should prize their wives and feel like their relationship with them is a reward... but a couple of them are actually valid points:
"- Leaders who require girls to accept the invitation of boys to dance at church dances.
- I bought you dinner and was a perfect gentleman all night; don’t I deserve a kiss?”I personally think that dancing is a terrible way to interact, and I agree that forcing acceptance is a bad idea. This reinforces the behavior in the second example... the idea that physical affection should be handled by making deals. A kiss should be an expression of actual love, not a service to be purchased or exchanged for other goods or services. Even within the bonds of marriage where there should be an expectation of love, the value of physical intimacy is diluted when it is demanded, withheld, or treated like currency.
Another subject the author of this article tackles is something they label "the lustful priesthood guardian fallacy." The idea is that young women leaders ask women to cover themselves so they do not tempt priesthood leaders, and the main objection is that if they are meant to protect these girls, the ease with which they are tempted makes them bad protectors.
I am going to hazard a guess and suggest that the author of the article would probably not approve of a nudist girls camp, even if there were no men there. Would it be OK for a person to come in to a church meeting completely naked? Most people, even who object to the standards of modesty imposed by church leaders, would probably still be uncomfortable being naked. While this may seem like a straw man argument (after all, she is not arguing for exhibitionism), it serves to show that there is a line in which a person is not covered well enough. Acknowledging that there is a line means that the real debate is not "modest dress standards are bad" but "what constitutes inappropriate dress," which is a very different argument.
Her argument about gender reversals also falls flat for two reasons. It is equally inappropriate for men to expose themselves, whether or not women are the people forced to look at their junk. Also, men and women are... (surprise)... different. While there exist some women who are deeply affected by visual stimulus, men, on average, are affected far more. Dennis Prager did a great video on this idea. Thinking that men and women can be interchangeable is perhaps the biggest fallacy in this section.
The last section the author covers is titled "The Modest is Hottest/SexyModest fallacy."
Here she is recycling the argument used about women should not tempt men while simultaneously being attractive to men, as though it is only possible to do one.
My wife was always self-conscious about showing too much skin, and even before we were together, she went to extra lengths to be modest including wearing shorts over swimsuits, wearing shirts underneath dresses with questionable necklines, and mostly wearing t-shirts and pants. In other words, she strictly followed modesty council.
In spite of her following the guidance of church leaders, she was (and still is) very attractive. She is not the only one who has figured out the trick to this supposedly no-win scenario.
Even if a person does buy in to this either/or idea, then would it not also follow that a girl can't tell a boy that he should value her more as a person than a sex object while simultaneously showing her chest off? And isn't that more what church leaders are trying to teach young women? If a girl wants to be respected for her intelligence, her wit, her compassion, or any other non-sexual attribute, then maybe she should work to make those attributes more noticeable than her body?
At the end of the article, the author went into a tin-foil hat level conspiracy (probably hyperbole, but I could not tell for certain) about how the church's history with polygamy and pioneer DNA lead jealous women to lash out at potential rivals for their husbands' affection. Of course, that's utter nonsense. A far more reasonable explanation is that people have struggled to keep the standards of their faith for thousands of years... and that a bit of counsel from those who are more experienced is likely good (by the way, that's a huge reason we have the scriptures).
The issue that this article represents is more serious than the problem it seeks to investigate... which is that there are individuals in the church who do not understand the basic differences between men and women, or how to handle these differences, but that are certain that leaders in the church are wrong. That this article seems to resonate with so many people... that is the issue.
Instead of being angry about a "Mormon Male Gaze," it would be helpful for people to learn how men and women work... and until they have learned themselves, to trust that the guidance of church leaders is based on real experience that, if followed, will probably help rather than hurt.
