Why do so many Pentecostal women look like this?

In My Humble Opinion
1

First off: I realize I’m treading on dangerous ground here, so this can go straight to the Pit if anyone feels it neccessary.

Secondly, I don’t know if Pentecostals are even heard of outside the Midwest. Another big risk is nobody here knowing what I’m talking about. But I hope you do. And if not, I’d like to hear from any Midwesterners here.

Alright: My state, Indiana, is full of Pentecostals (a Christian sect, where the women wear long hair and long skirts all the time. The guys look the same as anyone else.) I don’t know why they are required to wear the hair and the skirt, and I don’t care, because that’s not what I started this thread to find out.

I started this thread to find out why they all seem to weigh upwards of 300 pounds. Almost all of them are big, built like barns, and extremely homely (and I don’t just mean lack of makeup and jewelry-I mean flat out unattractive.) I know this is a generalization…but, errr, not really. Anyone who sees these people on a regular basis as I do will know what I mean about the appearance.

So:

Is there some kind of Pentecostal diet that consists of a lot of extremely fattening foods, causing all the women to have this build?

Are there genes in the Pentecostal families that are widely shared and that result in the homely looks and the large, rotund bodies?

I’ll point out that I have been friends with several Pentecostal guys over the years, and none of them are what I’d call unattractive…they are all normal looking, and here’s the thing: almost NONE of them have been fat. In fact they are often lean from working on the farms (many of the Pentecostals are farmers, though not all. Those that aren’t can get summer work on farms of friends’ families.) I guess that might explain the weight, but certainly not the looks.

What’s the deal, Dopers? Am I just a lookist snob with too-high standards, or am I on to something here?

2

I don’t think it has to do with their religion. A bad batch maybe?

3

I live in SE Indiana, & know enough Pentecostals to know that there are a significant amount of Penty women who aren’t huge- tho I’ve also seen enough who do fit the OP. L

I think it has to do with the “Holiness” culture- perhaps the men are outside working hard & burn it off while the women stay inside, also working hard, but doing a lot of cooking, and tasting, and eating L; also let’s face it, there’s not a lot of other things they are allowed to indulge in. And those foods are usually high in fat & starch.

I also wonder if perhaps a religion which emphasises NOT dolling oneself up may attract/retain homely women. Just a total guess there.

Now to be totally pervy- when an attractive woman, be she Pentecostal, Holiness, Mennonite or similar, has that whole clean-scrubbed no-makeup, long dress, long-hair-done-up look, she can be really hot. The attractiveness along with the purity/taboo/“don’t touch” look can be a powerful combination.

4

My best friend from high school is Pentecostal (well, was raised Pentecostal and sometimes attends church with her family, at any rate), and near as I can tell, Pentecostal women are fat and homely in about the same proportion the American female population is fat and homely. My friend, her mother, and her sister weigh maybe 110 each, and that’s if you hose all that hair down. They are also remarkably attractive women. (Courty is one of those women that if she weren’t such a wonderful person, I’d hate her guts. Gorgeous hair, perfect skin, beautiful eyes, naturally straight teeth, wonderful bone structure, fabulous figure, effortless sense of style…it’s disgusting, I tell you.)

I’ve been to church with them a few times, and clothing and hairdressing issues aside, they look remarkably like any other congregation I’ve ever seen. Some short, some tall, some fat, some thin, some pretty, some not-so-pretty, some stylish, some frumpy. Just an ordinary collection of folks, really.

I think the issue is partly one of selective perception. You don’t notice the ordinary-looking Pentecostal women because they’re, well, ordinary-looking and don’t draw attention. It’s the very obese ones you notice, so you’ve got a preconceived notion of Pentecostal women as fat and homely. Because of that, you’re less likely to realize that the very attractive young woman with the long hair and the skirt and heels is also a Pentecostal woman.

The other part of it is that I think very few men realize just how different most women look without makeup. Look at a picture of your favorite supermodel without makeup sometime–most of them are very ordinary, and some of them are flat-out homely.

And I know you didn’t want the information, but I’ll share with you anyway: the long hair is because of a bit of scripture that talks about a woman’s hair being her crowning glory, and something I was never real clear on about cut hair being the sign of a harlot. They wear skirts and dresses because of Biblical admonitions against women dressing like men, thus no pants. They eschew makeup and jewelry because of Biblical admonitions against “vain adornment.”

5

Hokay. There are two reasons for the apparent dichotomy.

First, Pentecostals (of the type you describe) do not have much in the way of recreation except for going to church … and eating. Many still obey the no TV rule, definitely no movies (though some went to see the Passion movie), and under no circumstances, dancing. No swimming, unless it’s in a (gender) segregated venue. And the women aren’t allowed to participate in sports where they’d have to wear revealing attire. Are you getting the picture? :stuck_out_tongue: The women’s only physical activity is cooking, which is less demanding than it used to be, unless they’re growing the veggies and fruits themselves and doing it all, from cleaning and washing up through putting it into the serving dishes.

However, I don’t think the percentage of Pentecostal women who are overweight is that much greater than for other women of comparable age and activity levels. It’s just that they are the ones who are the most noticeable.

BTW, the reason they look so ugly to you is the lack of makeup and the hairstyles (not permitted to cut their hair) …

and, coloring and perms are also out, as preached by (male) ministers. Cosmetics make a vastly larger difference in the appearance of a woman than you might otherwise think. :slight_smile:

There are lots of Pentecostal women who are not overweight, even here in Mississippi, which is statistically the most overweight state. :eek: The thing is, they’re just not as noticeable. :cool: The slender Pentecostal women aren’t as obvious-looking, because long skirts are fashionable. Unless the nearby churches are anomalous, if you visited one of them, you’d see some thin Pentecostal women (and not just the young ones). And probably find that the young ones aren’t either as obvious, or quite as homely, as you had supposed.

And Pentecostals are found in most parts of the world. Here’s a link that offers a search for church locations across North America.

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I disagree with the idea that someone would notice only the unattractive ones because the normal-looking ones wouldn’t stand out. At least that’s not the case in my situation. The only time I’ve ever seen an attractive Pentecostal girl around my age, she REALLY stood out, because I was so shocked to have finally seen a decent-looking Pentecostal girl!

Believe me, the better-looking ones would stand out given the ones I’m used to seeing. I know I live in a fat part of a fat country, but there does seem to be a disproportionate number of fat women in that demographic.

7

Allow me: :cool:

Do you recall the part in Acts where St. Paul & company stayed in “Asia”?

“Diana” of the Ephesians was also known as Artemis (and some other names; I can explain if needed, but will have to do some reference checking first. This is GQ, and my brain doesn’t seem to hold as much as it used to). However, any resemblance to the Roman Diana or the Greek Artemis was purely in the name. The Asian “Diana” required that women worshippers serve at least one term (IIRC, a month) in their adult lifetime as a temple prostitute. :eek: In some cities, women could not marry until they had done this. :eek: :eek:

What’s that got to do with hair? Glad you asked. :slight_smile:

A woman who was serving in the temple had her head shaved. So if you saw a woman out in public whose hair was short, you had reason to believe she had recently served a term as a temple prostitute. So that’s why St. Paul made such a big fuss about women having short hair. He didn’t want Christian women to be mistaken for worshippers of the goddess.

So why are Pentecostals following that rule, 2,000 years later? It’s because only those who know something about the culture and religion of the region understand the reason for the rule. <sigh> And very few Pentecostals, even the ministers, are graduates of secular colleges/universities, much less study ancient religions or history. OTOH, the number of people with secular educations in Pentecostal churches is growing. There’s hope that this kind of knowledge will gradually penetrate. :slight_smile:

8

be careful, you used “Pentacostal women” and “penetrate” in the same paragraph.
:eek:

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Here’s a link to a site for comparisons of women with and without makeup. See Yasmine Bleeth or Wynona Judd for some rather shocking contrasts. On the other hand, it seems impossible to take a bad picture of Nicole Kidman.

10

Perhaps better suited to IMHO rather than GQ.

Moved by

samclem GQ moderator

11

Controvert–lots of those “no makeup” pictures are just pictures from movies where they aren’t wearing as much makeup, or as *pretty[/] makeup, as the high-fashion picture–look at Winona Ryder, for example. The non-makeup picture is from a screenshot of Alien Whatever.

12

Winona Judd looks like hell no matter if she wears make up or not.

Anyway, I don’t know about the obesity thing with Pentecostals, there are quite a few in my hometown and they are as thin/fat as anyone else. Indiana has one of the highest rates of obesity, so maybe that’s why you notice it more.

I think since they consider it a sin to primp and look nice, they probably say fack it and eat all they want. Why not? They aren’t supposed to concern themselves with looks anyway.

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No, honey, you’ve seen plenty of attractive Pentecostal girls your age, you just didn’t realize they were Pentecostal because they didn’t fit your stereotype or run up to and announce, “I’m Pentecostal, btw!”

14

What do you mean? That they don’t HAVE to wear the long denim skirts, white tennis shoes, and WWJD T-Shirts? They don’t HAVE to have long hair in a bun tight enough to turn their face into a rictus of pain, or wear the huge, square framed, coke-bottle glasses?

Don’t these women know that all of that shit seriously hinders their ability to get laid?

Just trying to keep some perspective here.

As for Arky Pentacostals…I’ve never noticed them to be fatter than anyone else…I’ve actually know many of them to be quite skeletal…but again, that might just be the ‘spiral of death’ hair bun they’ve got going on.

15

And just for the record, it’s not just a midwestern thing. I was raised going to a Pentecostal church in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. The churches closest to big cities are still fairly strict, but a lot looser in the day-to-day life requirements. So there was no more commonality in the appearance of the churchgoers than you’d see in any other large, modern, suburban congregation.

And our services had speaking in tongues, but no snakes.

16

I agree–the one of Charlize Theron shows her normal appearance contrasted with the complicated makeup job they did for *Monster[i/], complete with false teeth and sprayed-on sun damage.

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I thought this thread was going to be about the commonality of hairstyles on many Pentecostal women.

FTR, I am not knocking it. Just noting the similiarity of styles between many Pentecosal women. My hair is remarkably like Stephanie Harts, bottom photo last link, just a bit lighter and I am not Pentecostal.

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I grew up in Indiana, too, lived in a rural area for a while, went to a “Christian” school for a few years, and…

I never noticed Pentecostal women being overweight more than the general population, but the homliness factor is definitely there. But I don’t think it’s genetic. It always seemed to me that when a Pentecostal (or Southern Baptist, IN has more than its share of those, too) woman got to be of an age where she had married and had a couple of kids, they started to get this incredibly haggard, worn look about them. Most of the jr. high to high school girls ran average to pretty. I think it’s a lifestyle thing. Being as how Pentecostals, as well as many other fund’ist Xian sects, generally regard women as existing to be servants to their husbands, generally have no real emotional outlets (unless you count praying in tongues) and there seems to be a “look the other way” attitude toward domestic abuse when perpetrated by the male HOH, the women wear out and lose their looks by the time they’ve been married a decade or so.

OTOH, there are a lot of non-denominational sects that are not part of United Pentecostal churches where the women, even though wearing clothing that covers them from just above the ankle to well below the knee, still manage to look like hookers. Think Tammy Faye Bakker- that would be the norm in some of these churches. Makeup applied with a trowel, hair teased till it touches the walls and ceiling, and sprayed almost solid, bleached more than the average female population. Garish jewelry, flamboyant clothing in colors that could be used to warn folks of nearby highway construction. It almost seems like a reaction to the traditional image of the Pentecostal women.

I personally find both types equally freaky.

19

Oh, Lord, I know exactly what you’re talking about. When I worked at College Mall, I saw several families with the women wearing the “uniform”: Denim or other fabric skirt, plain texture, ankle-length; non-descript, unflattering blouse; white socks and the same white tennis shoes. No make up, hair pulled back in a bun or pony-tail. That was what all the Pentecostal women from Monroe, Greene, Morgan and Lawrence Counties seemed to wear. I saw variations on that in Columbus, and now here at home an hour south. There was a particular family who frequented the mall, and the women were thin. One of the daughters was attractive, and had a nice figure. That “uniform” seems to be indiginous to the Greater Metropolitan Bloomington area; I haven’t seen it elsewhere, except where I mentioned already. What was truly strange (at the time) was to see Mennonites from Beanblossom in the mall.

Vlad/Igor

20

Oh how I wish we could edit posts. I guess they figure people will actually use the preview button.

Anyhoo, there are a lot of non-denominational charismatic sects where the women, even though wearing clothing that covers them from the neck to just below the elbow and well below the knee, still manage to look like hookers. Think Tammy Faye, etc…