Author: Amanda Advocates

I’m fascinated and appalled by the way many people still like to stereotype women and girls as either pure goodness or immoral seductress.

In a rape trial last week in Ireland, the defence barrister (a woman) asked the teenage victim to hold up her lace underpants worn on the night of the attack. The implication for the jury was that any girl who wore underwear like that was asking for trouble. The man was found not guilty (though I cannot know how important that part of the evidence was in the jury’s mind).

Story tellers in Hollywood Westerns used to draw the same simplistic picture – women on the frontiers of white settlement were either virtuous wives and homemakers bringing civilising values or bold bar girls with revealing clothes and little virtue.

In ‘Stagecoach’, a classic John Wayne and John Ford Western, the stereotypes are certainly there: the doc who drinks too much and the sanctimonious women of the Virtue League. But the coach passengers include Dallas, a girl of ‘easy virtue’ (their male clients are never described like that!) with a good heart. Wayne’s character, Ringo Kid, is drawn to her lack of hypocrisy and they fall in love. The ‘moral’ characters evoke little sympathy.

Maybe we need to allow for more Dallas models in our Barbie collections.

Wives in British colonial settings also carried the flame for moral rectitude and civilised values: in the face of challenging cultures where western men had affairs with local girls, British memsaabs were charged with upholding Victorian values. That meant church values too.

Australian historian Anne Summers summed up the colonial mindset in Australia with a wonderful phrase – women were either ‘damned whores or God’s police’. She argued that colonisation reduced 19th-century women settlers to one of two narrow roles: virtuous wives and mothers, “God’s police” who made sure colonists did not get drunk or gamble; or the transgressive “damned whores” who answered the repressed needs of men, in a colony where females were in short supply.

Bible commentators do the same thing – put the Bible’s women into one of 2 columns – very good or very bad.

Jezebel is ‘very bad’, so is Potiphar’s wife, so is Herod’s wife. And it’s mostly to do with sexual sin – these women tempt men to sinful behaviour. Eve is described as a temptress and blamed for causing Adam to sin.

On the ‘very good’ side we have young women who are usually described as beautiful, like Ruth, Esther or Mary.

I think this is why Billy Graham’s ‘rule’ about not meeting with women in private has been taken up so enthusiastically by a new generation – we still see women as unbalanced tempters and men as victims.

Billy Graham was a famous figure who I am sure attracted all sorts of needy people who wanted his attention – men and women. He was travelling a lot, away from his circle of support. He also knew that the media would pounce on any whiff of indiscretion.

I do not criticise his way of dealing with the issue of temptation but somehow now, we leave the man’s response out of the equation as if they do not have intelligence and strength to deal with vulnerable men and women.

(Well maybe they don’t, considering the huge number of cases of male leaders who have abused their power and influence over young lives)

We all have to get better at acknowledging the whole spectrum of behaviour of women. We don’t want to see women as static romantic heroines of chivalry but we don’t want the opposite either. Women are loving, nurturing, strong, brave, impetuous, emotional, intellectual, frail…..the list goes on.

It worries me that in these days of hate-filled discourse, there is a revival of idealising ‘traditional’ roles, and putting a soft glow on the complementarian idea that women are sort-of-equal, but just not equal enough to lead or teach.

Some women and men are totally happy to be homemakers, family builders and supporters of others. If that is their gifting and desire, fantastic.

But for those who are called and gifted to be teachers, preachers and leaders, we should not be vilified, and random Bible verses should not be quoted to imply that we are rebellious. The ‘blame women’ thread in contemporary commentary needs to stop.

A friend confessed to me the other day how hard it is to be an ethical clothes shopper. “So many pitfalls even when I am trying to do the right thing.”

I sympathise with her dilemma. The more you know about clothes – who makes them, how the fashion cycle works, the environmental impact – the more difficult it seems to choose wisely.

As a woman (or man), trying to be ethical and secretly also wanting to look attractive in the clothes we wear, we have to find ways to buy well.

At the heart of the matter is the fact that I need to acknowledge my consumer sins and be aware of how I can take real practical steps.

I want to see clothing as pieces I can love over many years. I am old enough to have clothes that I bought 10 or 15 years that are still perfectly good and give me great pleasure to wear. So I try to buy quality that I can afford (I love shopping the sales and second hand).

I have to confess that after years of being a mum who spent money on my children before thinking of spending money on my own clothes, I have enjoyed shopping for me in recent years. And I have to be careful, especially online.

So I try not to impulse buy and I try to buy so that I replace something that is wearing out.

Some clothing companies are making a real effort to be more ethical. Baptist World Aid in Australia produces a really useful annual report which rates fashion brands on where their clothes come from, what fabrics are used and wages and working conditions for workers. This year, Zara received an A-, H&M a B+. Reports like this are genuinely making a difference – companies don’t want to be bottom of the list (transparency about suppliers has gone up 8% in one year) and consumers are demanding more information on where their clothes come from.

So check out the report (most brands are international) and support the brands that are making a genuine effort.  And talk to your friends about your shopping choices based on ‘happy’ clothes.

There has been a campaign #imadeyourclothes that highlights the skills of tailors and wants to remind us that clothes workers should be given dignity and fair pay. It is impossible to produce tshirts, coats and trousers for rock bottom prices without someone being exploited. We can be stylish without being slaves to trends that last six months.

I want to live in the belief that ‘strength and dignity are my clothing’ (Proverbs 31:25) and that means not robbing someone else’s dignity to get cheap jeans.

All of us need to get off the fast fashion treadmill and buy clothing we can love and appreciate over many years, made by people who actually get satisfaction out of their work.

So I try to support local initiatives that are using fairly paid labour and which are doing the right thing.

What I can’t do is shrug my shoulders, brush off my guilt and say ‘It’s all too hard’.

I can make better choices for people and planet.

So check out ethical brands here (I know they tend to be more pricey but see if it can work for you).

Check out eternal creation and visible clothing. And i61 clothing.

Rather than contributing to the landfill nightmare of yesterday’s fast fashion, take up the mantra of Yves Saint Laurent  – ‘Fashions fade, style is eternal.’

For more inspiration on being an ethical consumer, check out:

‘Consumer Detox’ by Mark Powley (Zondervan, 2010) is a wonderfully practical and non-judgemental book.

For inspiration about fashion and faith:

The Character of Fashion by Simon Ward (wb publishing, 2016) shows how fashion (in all its facets from education, design, media, retail, modelling) can be reclaimed for ethical and Godly values