The Privilege of Being Human

My friend Tiffany posted this on her Facebook page today. It is from Father Bob, who adapted this look at male privilege from a tool used to help recognize white privilege. You can access that link HERE. 

I have highlighted the ones that I have seen or experienced in my context as a Christian woman. 

1. If I wish, I can arrange to be in the company of my gender most of the time.  

2. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my gender made it what it is. 

3. I can be quite sure of having my voice heard in the group in which I am the only member of my sex.  

4. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my gender on trial.  

5. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my gender.  

6. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my gender.  

7. If I declare that there is a gender issue at hand, or there isn’t a gender issue at hand, my gender will lend me credibility for either position.  

8. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of the other gender.  

9. I can worry about sexism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking. 

10. I can take a job with an employer that has an employment equity program, without having my co-workers suspect that I got the job or promotion because of my race or gender.  

11. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation, whether or not it has sexist overtones.  

12. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative, or professional, without asking whether a person of my gender would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.  

13. I can choose public accommodations without fearing that people of my gender cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.  

14. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my gender will not work against me.  

15. If I have low credibility as a leader, I can be sure that my gender is not the problem.  

16. I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people of my gender.  

17. All in all, I generally do not have to worry or wonder if my race or gender is a factor in the opportunities available to me in my family, my education, my recreational activities, my career, and my future old age.

Does this ring true for you as you read them? We all have privilege of one kind or another.  Racial privilege,  economic privilege, education privilege,  etc...  as Christ followers, what are we meant to do with the privilege we possess simply for being born a certain skin color, gender or nationality?

Dust Devils

I grew up in the desert land of southern Nevada. The desert is a strange place with unusual weather phenomena like sand storms and dust devils. A dust devil is like a mini-tornado, a swirl of heat and sand that twirls and hovers above the ground. They look like spinning ballerinas. When I was a kid, I would become mesmerized when I spotted a dust devil from the safety of the family car. There were rare occasions when I'd see two or three dust devils spinning together in a cluster. It resembled a dance party. 

Dust devils are created when the right wind conditions are in place. They touch down upon the earth spinning and grinding whatever their wind-driven devilish selves can kick up and around. Sand particles and small rocks go round and round in fast cycles creating a dust cloud wherever the dust devil travels. For this reason, they are easy to spot from far away.

The winds of change are blowing for women in the contemporary church today. More and more I am hearing of women who are discontent--I call it a holy discontment--with the way things are. This is good. Christianized sexism has gone unchecked in some corners of Christendom. Patriarchy is viewed as normal. Resistance to patriarchal Christianity is viewed as deviant and unbiblical.

Unladylike Mother Jones

Love This! I saw this quote while researching Unladylike. I kept it in a file for a while hoping to find a spot to slip it in the book. I never did quite find that spot, but my friend Annie just posted this on my Facebook wall. Just had to share it with you! 

If you have a good Unladylike'ish quote, forward it to me. I am still collecting them!!!

The Civil War Song of Male/Female

W

hen I was in middle school and high school I played the trombone. I was a good horn player and had even earned my way into the city’s high school honor band. But in my own school band I held second chair. The first chair trombone player was a boy.

          My mom recently reminded me that I didn't want to challenge him for first chair since I thought a boy ought to hold it, even though I was a better player than he was.

Somehow I got the courage and finally challenged this boy for the first chair. I literally blew him away and for the rest of the year, I possessed the power and the privilege of being the only girl horn player with first chair bragging rights.

           It broke band social codes for a girl to play trombone in the first place, let alone to hold first chair, but when the band director signaled us to play, ranking no longer mattered. Playing together did.

I loved the trombone. It was my instrument, what worked for me. I played it loud and strong. The brassy tone of my horn blended with the other trombones, trumpets and clarinets and drums. We made music together, all of us converging as a tapestry of sound.

          I hadn’t played in over thirty years, but recently I was invited to join a brass ensemble made up of hospital employees where I work. Nurses, doctors and even the president of the hospital system I work for are in the band. One of the chaplains is our music director.

She Loves Unladylike

Writer and editor of She Loves magazine rightly observes, 

Gender equality is a hot topic, causing much division, and yet, through my own awakening to injustice in its many forms over the last decade, I hoped and prayed this book would shine a bright light into the unnecessary silencing too many women still endure. Personally, I am thankful for my faith community where women’s voices are heard–it’s not even a question–and we can get on with the business of what God uniquely calls us to do on the earth. But I grew up in a silence and a stifling and I know what she’s writing about. Moreso, I hoped her book would bring more language, tools and clarity to the gender justice conversation. (Idelette McVicker)

I was so stoked when she requested an email interview after she began reading Unladylike.  The payoff for all the hard work that went into this book is when a reader like Idelette emails me how my words are bearing resonance. She further writes,

Pam reminded me that I have a responsibility to lean into freedom–not just for myself, but for my sisters. Injustice doesn’t just run away. We have to say, Enough! If I am tired of silencing, I have to take a stand. Plus: If we want to be part of empowering women everywhere, understanding our value–and ourequality in the eyes of God–is essential. It’s from this place that we can go on and transform our world. 

In “Unladylike,” Pam drew me in with her gracious spirit, comfortable writing style, yet well-researched strength. 

Through the lines, I heard a whisper, Another way is possible for our women.

Idelette asked some great questions in her interview. I'll leave you with this snippet and hope that you'll go to the She Loves magazine site to read the rest.

Idelette: Why is this your story to tell and who did you write this book for?

Pam: When I first began to reflect on writing about women and the church, the first mental obstacle I had to cross was the fact that I am not a pastor nor an elder. I do not have that story of being banned from following my calling because of my gender. And that’s when it hit me: despite the absence of a leadership call in my life, I have been acutely affected by inequality in the church towards my gender. My womanhood and identity have been profoundly affected and shaped by the messaging of the church that women are to remain in subservient roles. That is my story, and I realized it is the story for many other women, too. Most of us are not called to be pastors or leaders, yet women of faith bump up against what I refer to in the book as “an inner stain glass ceiling,” the personal censorship we put on ourselves out of a sense of lacking power. That’s the story I wanted to tackle and these are the women I wanted to reach, women like me who are ordinary Jesus women scarred from inequality.

A New Mourning : Saying Good-bye to Tony Tuck

Anthony J. Tuck 1/28/39 to 2/2/12

My friend Tony Tuck passed away last week, just a few days after his 73rd birthday. When I got the news I was incredulous. No. Not Tony. Heart attack? Can't be. The guy was healthy and active...

But yes, it was true, Tony passed away on an otherwise ordinary day under a blue canopy of a Pacific Northwest sky.

My heart broke immediately for his death. And it also ached for Jane, his wife and a good friend of mine. How can she be without him?  How can he leave her? They have been together  for over four decades. They met when  they were young communal hippies during the heyday of the sixties era. She has lost half her heart and soul, I thought. And I sorrowed for her as surely I sorrowed for the light gone out of the world that Tony took with him to the other side.

A new mourning has arrived. With it comes ghosts of old mournings from years past--from the summer of 2007 to be specific. That was my summer of tragedy. Four funerals in one month. Read about it HERE.

I am going through the motions at work and even at home. I haven't really spoken too much about Tony's passing. I've barely mentioned at all how deeply this is affecting me. I don't want him to be gone. I don't want Jane, my dear friend and one of the tenderest, wisest women I know, to be Tony-less.

He was a good man. A wise Jesus man of a sage who affected many, many lives including mine and Jerry's.

He will be missed.  The  mystical conversations,  his authentic probing questions to get to the heart of a matter, his understanding of the Enneagram and how to apply it to relationships, and his noodles. Noodles! My God, he cooked Chinese noodles better than the Chinese! (And wherever did he get that huge, oversized wok from?)

And so, a new mourning has come upon me. I comfort myself with the words of Isaiah, the ancient Hebrew prophet who spoke oracles with poetic imagery of the exchange of ashes of sorrow for the oil of gladness. Life is temporal. But, assures the sacred text of the Bible, so too, is death.

The Unladylike Writer - current article at Burnside Writers Collective

The good folks at Burnside Writers Collective have kindly published my latest article about why I wish I didn't write the book, Unladylike. 

Here's a teaser:

Right now there are congregations from coast to coast where women remain relegated in subservient roles. The men preach and teach and rule in a spirit of patriarchy, while their sisters serve the coffee and polish the stain glass windows. Nothing wrong with serving, but in Unladylike I explain how women of faith remain caged up in domesticated roles out of being conditioned to remain so. We do not come forward from the back of the church because we’ve been convinced that we’re not meant to, that there is a divine order of gender and we must mind our place. 

In Unladylike, I call bullsh*t on this. But I wish with all my heart and imagination that a book like mine was utterly unnecessary. I dream of the day when the heralding for equality in the church will no longer be needed.  

But that day is not today.  (for the entire article click here)

The conversation has been good and strong with some pushback from some readers. Not everyone thinks slavery and women's inequality is a comparable parallel.

On another note, I am wondering if anybody has any header advice. I am trying to create my own header for an Unladylike the Book website and dangit, I am not very good at this sort of thing. I can't hire anyone so I'm in a total DIY mode. If you have any suggestions for a very clumsy techno-illiterate like me, I am wide open. I've been stumbling around like a drunk monkey to get an Unladylike the Book website up, and the header is the number one graphic that tells the visitor what's up with your digital space. Marketing people reckon you have about 7 seconds to hook a web surfer before they decide to stay or go.

Leads and suggestions appreciated!