The First Half of Captivating

I'm a bit reticent to post, since I don't think my experience with this book has been as significant as the rest of yours. I'm really struggling with the construction of the book, and finding it hard to overlook some of the flaws in order to accept the content, which seems pretty good, or at least well-intentioned.

While I appreciate the inclusion of various pop culture texts (I laughed aloud when I saw The Alchemist and I love that they mention Strictly Ballroom), I find their citation extremely shoddy. There is no bibliography, and even within text they are sketchy on details. Especially disconcerting is their use of texts like The Last of the Mohicans without differentiating between the book and the movie. While I haven't read the book, I'm aware that it varies greatly from the 1992 film (there are other versions as well, but again I am guessing/assuming this is the one the Eldredges mean) and has no romance between Cora and Nathaniel. If I didn't have any familiarity with the text, I would have assumed that they were talking about the book, since it was never clarified.

I feel as though a lot of the references to films and books rely heavily on the reader's prior familiarity with them. I realize this is a tricky line for an author--do you assume the audience has been living under a media blocking rock for the past two decades and explain everything, or do you just drop things in and hope that your reader can make the connection? I have read/watched most of the texts that they mention, but I think I would feel lost if I hadn't because these quotes are just tossed in left and right without much effort to connect them with the chapter. (Ex. the first full paragraph on p. 52 in Ch 3--where they talk about a bunch of movies starting with Jerry Maguire.) The references are barely explained, but they are expected to stand as 'proof' of the point. There needs to be more explication--it's the author's job, not the reader's to show how an example supports a thesis.

All the stories of women, are these interviews they've had with people? Things they've made up? I don't think it's especially clear (ex. Carrie's story in Ch 4), and it makes a difference to me whether this is an actual person they're talking about or a fictitious character.

Some of the problems I have with the lack of connection with their quotations I also have with their use of scripture. While there are moments that the Bible is deeply engaged with--the idea that Eve was the pinnacle of creation was quite provocative and well argued IMHO--more often, scripture seems to be tossed in with less frequency than pop culture and with nearly the same treatment. I haven't read very many psychology books, but there are times when I feel this is mostly pop psychology (childhood wounds, etc.) with a veneer of Christianity.

Ok, enough with the questionable writing, onto the content. I'm struggling with a lot of the absolutes that they attribute to females and femininity. While they do give some attention to trying not to pigeon-hole women, I think they do: "It's why little girls play dress up. Little boys play dress up, too, but in a different way. Our sons were cowboys for years. Or army men. Or Jedi knights. But they never once dressed up as bridegrooms, fairies, or butterflies. Little boys do not paint their toenails. They do no beg to get their ears pierced. (Some teenaged boys do, but that is another story.) Little boys don't play dress up with Mommy's jewelry and high heels. They don't sit for hours and brush each other's hair" (p. 13). This entire paragraph doesn't tell me anything about the souls of women or men, all it does is catalogue what is culturally accepted, what our particular society teaches about masculinity and femininity.

A cornerstone of their argument comes in Ch. 3 "Haunted By a Question" ; they suggest "Little girls want to know, Am I lovely? The twirling skirts, the dress up, the longing to be pretty and to be seen--that is what that's all about" (original emphasis, p. 46). THIS IS NOT ME. I rarely if ever remember playing dress up. I relate much better to what they say is the little boys' question "Do I have what it takes?" And the while much of the argument that follows, how women go about answering that desire to have their beauty affirmed, has some resonances, it makes me feel as though some how I'm not feminine, I'm not right because I don't relate to that core issue.

They later catalogue two types of perversion of femininity--dominating women and desolate women--and I can see some traces of myself in the dominating woman, who seeks to control and be perfect. The Eldredges suggest "this is not to say a woman can't be strong. What we are saying is that far too many women forfeit their femininity in order to feel safe and in control. Their strength feels more masculine than feminine. There is nothing inviting or alluring, nothing tender or merciful about them" (52). Yet they don't explain how a woman can be strong, and I'm left again feeling as though I'm not feminine.

While one could argue that I've just tried to deaden myself to this core feminine issue--that rather than deal with the pain of trying to feel as though I have worthwhile beauty, I've ignored that desire. But I don't think so. Much of what they are saying I find relateable on a human standpoint. The fact that we need to learn how to God first as our sustainer, provider, lover, savior, all and all is so true. I loved the verses from Hosea about placing thornbushes around her, and the thought that "In love, he [God] has to block her attempts until, wounded and aching, she turns to him and him alone for her rescue." (96) If these sorts of thoughts were framed in the context of how an individual responds to God, rather than a woman, I think I'd be much more affected. For now, I mostly feel uncomfortable about my apparent lack of femininity.