Preface: I recently read Sarah Vowell's
Wordy Shipmates, a pop-history of the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. She includes a chapter toward the end on Anne Hutchinson, who was tried in Massachusetts in 1638 for publicly veering from the traditional Calvinist canon. Anne was banished when she refused in court to back down from her beliefs. Her family and some close friends left Massachusetts with her and settled a new colony in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. In the chapter, Vowell recalls a recent visit to Rhode Island:
- "In Portsmouth, Hutchinson and Dyer are remembered in a park called Founders Brook... A feminine hand has written "Hutchinson-Dyer Women's Healing Garden" in black marker on a small piece of plywood.
- “I wish I could say that I find comfort in the words "women's healing garden." I like gardens and healing and quite a few women...
- “That said, the words "women's healing garden" fill me with the same feminist dread I feel when a subscription card falls out of a magazine and I catch a glimpse at the address form. A potential male magazine subscriber is given the choice of one title, "Mr.", but a female magazine subscriber is given three choices, thereby requiring a woman to inform perfect strangers in the mailroom at Newsweek or Conde Naste exactly what kind of woman she is. She is either male property (Mrs.), wannabee male property (Miss), or man-hating harpy (Ms.).”
Disclaimer: Make of that what you will. The following post is about gender (and lengthy). I guess I've had a lot on my mind. I needed to put it into words.
I don't watch this show (
Mad Men). Well, I have watched this show, but I wasn't terribly interested. I post it, though, because I felt a twinge of rapport last week during my work trip in Miami. I gave a talk to a room of 80 (mostly) corporate execs who oversee operations and security for their multinational corporations. Among those 80 attendees were a grand total of only 4 women. I wish I didn't, but I felt small.
Among my own coworkers, we are approximately 70% female, which is typical for public health. Unless I’m over in the emergency operations center at work, where the gender distribution is also mostly male, I forget sometimes how much upper management tends to be male-dominated.
Not all of the likely many reasons for this trend are sexist, but I do think a fair number of double standards still prop up the glass ceiling. I have no personal interest in management, so I don't feel terribly marginalized, but if I were, I'd likely be at a competitive disadvantage. Which is unfortunate, since I rather like being a woman.
More frequently, I am in conversations with male peers, even those whom I respect and am quite fond of, who are easily dismissive or flippant toward female peers. “You’re such a girl” is criticism; women are described using “crazy” or “needy” or "overly emotional". Just last weekend, I attended a church leadership training, and as one female speaker was discussing the importance of effective councils, she asked priesthood leaders to make sure they pay attention to the women on their ward councils. “We have unique perspectives,” she said, “We look at things a little differently than you do”. As she said that, though, I watched the two men seated right in front of me turn to each other and smirk. Differently, eh? Wink wink.
“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” Henry Higgins famously asks in
My Fair Lady. Maybe because we’re not men? We are made up of different bodies, different hormones, and different social roles and expectations. Overly emotional? Compared to what? The implication being that the way men think or act or feel is the standard by which everyone should be measured.
I thought of a brief discussion in Sunday School the other week that had bothered me at the time. The lesson was on citizenship and government, and at one point the discussion came to the value of government by the voice of the people. Great, I thought, I love democracy. But then, someone essentially commented that the majority wouldn't be led astray so we shouldn't get distracted by the minority voice. Well, while I do love democracy, it is not a substitute for individual thought. There was a time, for example, when the majority believed that women shouldn't vote. Or hold leadership positions. Or own property. All of which I'm really glad that I can do now. Getting back to Sarah Vowell, she comments later in the same chapter:
- "Here lies the deepest reason why the Women's Healing Garden strikes me as so forlorn – that Hutchinson is remembered here by pink echinacea in bloom instead of on the nearby Portsmouth Compact plaque, where she belongs. All of the signers were there because of her, because she stood up to Massachusetts and they stood with her. But all the signers were men. Anne Hutchinson wasn't allowed to sign the founding document of the colony she founded."
While we have things to work on, at least that changed. But, it took some people with a minority opinion to stand up and say, Hey... this isn't right. And then keep saying it until people started listening. It makes me wonder which beliefs the majority hold to now that in 50 years we'll be really glad they don't anymore. I have some ideas, but that's probably fodder for another time.
P.S. Since we're in the season of thanksgiving... Thing I'm thankful for: Both of my X chromosomes. Estrogen can be a messy business sometimes, but I think the world would be a drearier place without it.
