The Transformed Wife on What Men (Apparently) Want
The Transformed Wife
Have you seen The Transformed Wife on Facebook? If not, FYI, she doesn’t fold down into a car or anything cool like that. The Transformed Wife is like a regular woman who is married, but says she spent more than two decades in a “difficult marriage” before transforming into a religiously submissive wife. She often shares biblical verses that tell women how they should be behaving, according to long-dead men. She posts them online with her interpretation of what they mean. Then, people comment and politely question or disagree with her and get banned from her page.
*raises hand*
I mean, fair enough, no one can force you to engage in discussion about the loads of offensive twaddle your opinions that you choose to publicly post on Facebook. However, Lori Alexander, a.k.a. The Transformed Wife, is also a blogger. She believes that it is her godly role to teach younger women to “be sober, love and obey their husbands, love their children, be chaste, discreet, good, and keepers at home.” In addition to her social media, her blog is full of that kinda stuff. It’s the kind of content that I find hard to leave unchallenged because it is so potentially damaging and backwards. Be as religious as you like but if your brand of religion is rooted in harmful gender stereotypes and oppressive beliefs, people are gonna say so!
A recent post she wrote appeared in my Facebook news-feed over and over. The title was so outrageous that people assumed it was a joke. But, as someone who has followed her page for a while (what can I say, I’m curious ), I knew it wasn’t satire.
“Men Prefer Debt-Free Virgins Without Tattoos”
What a headline, right? Apparently, you can read the Bible and find enough stuff in there to extrapolate this fascinating conclusion. Who knew? In the post, which you can safely click through to here, The Transformed Wife recounts a message she says she received from an anonymous woman, adding her own thoughts to the points the woman made. And whoooaaaa, they are some interesting points.
Apparently, “virgin” women who are debt-and-tattoo free are much more attractive to young men than others. Because that’s what all young women should care about, right? Attracting young men? Fun side-note: the anonymous writer didn’t actually mention tattoos. Looks like The Transformed Wife threw in that tidbit for free! Let’s have a look at some salient points.
Who cares what men prefer?
That was my first guffaw, right there in the title. She’s making a massive generalisation, but let’s say she was right and most men share this weirdly specific preference. Who cares?
I don’t know about you but I encourage my daughters to be themselves and to please themselves, before anyone else. Yes, there are times when they have to do things they’d rather not, like go to school instead of staying home eating cakes and playing Xbox all day. But the message is that their self-worth should never be rooted in some warped view of what men may or may not want.
Virgins
Repeat after me: Virginity is a social construct that does not reflect a person’s value or goodness.
Whether or not a woman has had sex (in any of it’s many wonderful forms) is her own business. And it’s always women, isn’t it? Male “virginity” isn’t every held up like a shiny bauble waiting for “the one” to claim it. A man that would reject a person based on their sexual experience level is probably insecure, definitely unevolved and rarely worth wasting your time one. That’s my advice to any young woman reading this. You decide what you do with your body. Base those choices on what you want, not some potential future partner might think.
The Education Debt Burden that Men Don’t Want You to Have
As we giggle and snort past the title, we find ourselves immersed in the true enemy- education. This is a US-centric article and assumes most young women that have debt are paying back student loans and the associated costs of college. It became clear to me here that The Transformed Wife and her anonymous gal-pal aren’t really anti-debt. They are anti-women seeking education. At college, it seems, women aren’t taught to be meek and quiet. Instead, they are taught to be independent, loud and immodest.
Seriously though, how many red flags can you wave in one little blog post? It continues, with the anonymous fan-girl saying that women who go to college are unlikely to stay home and raise children, instead choosing to use their education and work. The Transformed Wife agrees, saying “Is college worth having less children? I will never understand how women prefer careers over having precious babies.” I am resisting the urge to explain the difference between “less” and “fewer” here, believe me. That grammatical atrocity aside, can we not judge women on their choices to have careers and/or children? Yo, Transformed Wife- you don’t even HAVE to understand other people’s choices! People do shit ALL THE TIME that I don’t understand but if they aren’t hurting anyone, MOVE RIGHT ALONG. Also, one can be educated AND a parent. I note that she doesn’t mention all the college-educated men out there that have managed to learn stuff AND reproduce.
Work, work, evil work!
They both lament the fact that young women with college debt won’t stay home to raise children after studying all those years. They will prefer to work, to pay off that undesirable debt. Dastardly! Presumably, they’ve already landed a husband at this point, though, otherwise, how would they have made babies? Confusing!
The Poor Husband!
This poor, put-upon husband has clearly settled for an undesirably-educated woman at this point, who is working as well as being a mother and wife. She has to, to get rid of that oh-so-unsexy debt! But the rebound effect is that college has made her opinionated and independent and noisy and probably TATTOOED.
Anonymous fan-girl has all the sympathies for him, saying “The husband will need to take years teaching his wife the correct way to act, think, and live since college taught them every possible way that is wrong.” The Transformed Wife agrees, sadly noting that even young Christian women aren’t wifing properly, not living in submission to their husbands. This is where older Christian women are meant to come in to brow-beat you into “biblical womanhood”. Side-note: how do men know the correct ways for women to act, think and live? It’s almost like women are just meant to do whatever men want???
Too old?
Anonymous lady reminds us next that by the time we are finished with all that educatin’, we may be TOO OLD for natural conception. Perhaps American college courses run for an average of 32 years?
And in all that time, apparently, no one learns how to cook, serve others or run a home. I mean, your 32 year course might be teaching you to be a doctor or a chef or whatever but it is NOT THE SAME and you have no ability to transfer skills, right? I am imagining a bunch of 50 year old college grads bumbling around the family kitchen, aprons strategically placed to cover their lower-back tatts, in total confusion. Too old for babies and completely full to the brim with worldly knowledge and therefore unable to work a microwave.
Living at home
The Transformed Wife and her buddy are sad that some women choose not to live at home until marriage. Transformy (cute nickname, right?) does acknowledge that is isn’t always possible BUT says that women should, you know, so their Dads can “protect” them. I feel like she might appreciate Sydney, where everyone stays home forever and ever because no one can afford to buy a house. Same same, right?
Women don’t understand things
The last bit is quite a kicker. The problem, according to anonymous fan, is that women don’t read the Bible with their dad or husband to explain it to them. Even the devout ones can’t really grasp it without a man to explain it, I guess? I’m sensing a theme here, but I can’t find a man to explain it to me. Oh well.
She throws in a couple of Bible references here. One tells fathers not to exasperate their children (good advice, exasperated kids are not fun) but to instead bring them up according to the religion (not my thing but you do you). The next, I really didn’t like much:
1 Corinthians 14:34-35
Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
I thought to myself, surely Transformy doesn’t agree with this bit. Surely she thinks women should be allowed to speak in church. She is a woman with an AWFUL lot of things to say. I’ve perused her website AND her old blog where she wrote about everything from gall-bladder problems to a fascinating article on why godly women shouldn’t poke their tongues out in photos– complete with biblical references! Here’s a woman who says A LOT OF THINGS. But nope, another post of hers confirms it. No women speaking in church. Sigh.
In short…
Don’t get an education, a student loan, a sex-life or a tattoo. Just get a man. Don’t assume you can read a book without help. Stay home, have babies, don’t think for yourself, shush.
