This world gets me down
sometimes.
This could have been a funny little post where I shared how I decided to mess
with the pair of male and female mannequins standing right behind the break room door, after having been spooked one too
many times by their unexpected presence and the surreal but fleeting impression
that they were actual people. I could have told you how I thought it would be
funny to put them in creative, quirky poses, like making them form a London-bridges
of sorts with their arms, greeting people as they entered the door. I could
have told you how, on a later visit to the break room, where I then decided to
update the mannequins’ poses, and after trying to move the female mannequin’s
wrist, I accidentally popped it clean off, so changed my idea and just left in
in one of the male mannequin’s open palms, as if he were saying, “Here. You
dropped your hand,” and had her celebrate by throwing her two arms and one hand
in the air. I could have told you how much laughter the thought gave me of how
ridiculous this was going to look to whomever walked through that door the next
time.
But instead I’ll tell you how, following both of the times I changed the
mannequins’ postures, I came back to find them in sexually suggestive
positions. Now this doesn’t surprise me; people with juvenile minds is nothing
new, and I think a mark of spiritual maturity is no longer being surprised by, and
therefore feeling the need to react to, sinners behaving like sinners. The
thing that got me upset, and ultimately ruined what to me was a fun, harmless,
yet silly prank, was that whoever had rearranged the mannequins had done so so
that the male was groping the female. This was done two different times, in two
different ways—specifically, the latter having the female with her back
turned away from the male, suggesting an unawareness of what was transpiring,
while he cupped his hands on her butt.
Don’t misunderstand me; I am aware these were only mannequins (headless ones,
to boot), and I’m sure someone was “justhavingtheirfun”hurhurhur, and maybe it
sounds like I’m reading too much into this. But there’s a tragic mindset behind
someone whose most creative way to arrange the mannequins is in a sexually provocative
manner, especially one where the male is essentially objectifying the female.
To pause and make a disclaimer: I’m not writing this blog to add one more piece
to the collective of outraged souls seeking justice for the way women are
objectified—most often by men. Such a cause is a noble one, and one that
(tragically) may never receive the social gestation it deserves; however, I
feel like the unfortunate side-effect of the increased amount of attention this
message has been given has birthed a jadedness in its beholders, no longer provoking
a call-to-arms, as the dawn of its revolution once did, but an automated
retreat from any interaction. Instead,
let me address the why behind
the outrage.
What gets me down, and
what breaks my heart, is to see the ways in which people don’t even think twice
about the way they treat God’s precious creation. The implied idea behind the latter-most
mentioned mannequins’ pose, the one where the male had groped the unaware female,
is that there is a pervading, almost commonplace assumption in today’s society
that one has an implicit, innate right to act out one’s desires upon another
person with no regard for the other person’s personhood—and not the other way
around. What is the other way around? The fact that a woman has every right to her own body because she
bears the image of God Almighty, the creator of all things, the Beginning and the End. This is a precious,
treasured status of the utmost highest. How can we then, so easily, defame it
by recasting it so that its sole function is to serve, unswervingly, another’s
desires?
Behind this act is a
mentality that implicitly states that a woman’s identity and nature is fluid,
rather than permanent and holy as God created it. If a man were to decide to
grope a woman (as in the case of the mannequins), look at her lustfully, or,
God forbid, even rape her, he disregards and dismisses something that isn’t his
to take. And I’m not specifically referencing the obvious virginity, though by
no means is that in any way irrelevant/unimportant to this discussion. I’m
talking about the very nature and way in which God created women (and humanity
in general). God has every right to declare things good, or very good, for He was
before all things, and by Him all things were made. I don’t think people
realize how atrocious these “harmless” acts really are, for they assume that
they can alter what God has forever established. It goes without saying that
these kinds of behaviors devalue women, something that has an especial clarity in
the more violent examples, because it moves women from image-bearing human
beings, (or, if you don’t care for the Christianese lingo, from autonomous
persons, deserving of fairness, love, and respect), to objects serving the
gratification of another. That’s not to say there isn’t a context for these
kinds of things. Foreplay and sexuality are healthy, God-created things. But
when they are accomplished by removing
a woman’s humanity, that is when these acts are truly tragic. And when this
kind of thing is done casually, as a laugh (likely in the same vein of my silly idea), maybe you can understand
why this world gets me down sometimes.
Image by Cedric Necocrief (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
