Social Justice

The Destruction of Men

I’m tired.

No, scratch that. I’m exhausted. I don’t mean physically; I mean I’m mentally drained to the point that more words won’t come. I’ve run out of different ways to say the same things. Yet here I am, giving it one more try.

Feminism is not “bad for men.”

Or perhaps it is, in the sense that it requires men to examine the ways in which they benefit from male privilege. Perhaps it is bad for men who actively work to perpetuate the systems in place that tip the balance in their favor. Perhaps it is bad for men who violently use and abuse women.

But it’s not bad for men in the sense that they must no longer be real men.

The reason for my weariness today is the numerous conversations on- and offline following last week’s Feminisms Fest blog link-up. I think the reaction of non-participants (overwhelmingly cis men) can be summed up like so:

I’m tired of hearing about feminism. Not all men are bad.

Yes, well, that’s true. The thing is, though, even if you’re one of the good (not “good”) ones, unless you’re putting your voice out there already, you probably have some things to learn.

It’s not about the actions of one individual man that concern me. It’s the societal structures in place that allow people to live in blissful ignorance of the hidden privileges of being a male-identified, male-bodied person. Even some of the things that do hurt men are the direct result of patriarchy. I’ve tried (sometimes patiently, sometimes not) to explain what it means to be privileged, but too often I’m met with, “Huh?”

This checklist of male privilege is fairly helpful. There are some things that I think could use some clarification, but overall, it’s a nice summary. It’s not surprising, but it is disappointing that according to the checklist, cisgender is also assumed; that’s a post for another day. I also want to mention that a few of the items on the list would be harmful to men if they were reversed–another direct result of patriarchy. For example:

A man would not be questioned about having a career and children, but he certainly would be questioned if he decided to stay home.
A man would not be expected to take his spouse’s name on marriage, but he would be questioned if he did.
The entirety of manhood would not be seen as a failure for one man’s failure in his career–but he might be seen as having failed at manhood.
A man who works for a woman might be viewed negatively if he wasn’t vying for her job–or even if he expressed his respect for her authority.
A boy who is quiet, introverted, or artistic is often viewed as unmasculine.
Boys may be judged on the kinds of toys they do or do not play with.
On the whole, a man doesn’t have to worry about the message his wardrobe sends–unless he doesn’t want to wear “typical” men’s clothing or colors.
A man who has been sexually harassed, raped, or victimized by an intimate partner may have more stigma and fewer resources for help based on the faulty idea that he should have “been a man” and prevented or stopped it. He may not be able to seek asylum at a shelter due to distrust of men or disbelief that he was victimized.

Yes, men, this is hurting you, too. But not in the ways you think it is. Not because a woman who works in upper management is a “ball-buster” or wants to “be a man.” Not because your notion of feminism is that it’s anti-man. What’s hurting you is not feminism but the systems that feminism seeks to dismantle.

I think the mistake is that in some way, men recognize that the power is imbalanced, and there is an understandable fear that the tables will be turned. It’s not so much about losing the privileged status (at least, not for the genuinely good guys); it’s about not wanting women to do to men what they’ve done to us for centuries. I can assure you that while there are probably a few women who would like that, the overwhelming majority of us just want equity.

That’s all. Just all people, equal in all things. Equal pay. Equal choices for our lives. Freedom from fear. Freedom of gender expression and sexual expression. Opportunities for all people in all areas of work and life. Justice for everyone, regardless of who we are, how we identify, or what we look like. It’s actually pretty simple.

The ways to accomplish it are simple, too. Take a look at the checklist again. What things on there can you change in how you interact with your spouse and children? Your parents and siblings? Your employers and employees? Yourself?

If you think about it, it’s not hard to see why we still need feminism–even for men.

Notable News: Week of February 23-March 1, 2013

Blogs, Cool Stuff, Faith and Spirituality, Feminism, Links, Women

What a great week it’s been. I have been honored and thrilled to participate in the feminisms link-up and be included with some of my favorite bloggers. Today I’m highlighting the best of what I’ve seen this week.

1. On the Body and Blood

There’s a lot of my spiritual past I still have to sort through, even as it relates to women in the Church. It’s not all so tidy, but it does mean that when I approached the rail for the first time to receive the Eucharist, it was the most unconsciously natural thing for there to be a woman with the Body and Blood in her hands, just as a woman held the Body and Blood two thousand years ago. [“feminism & me, whether i knew it or not,” Antonia Terrazas]

2. On (literal) bra-burning

Those scraps of fabric finally started burning well, the polyester fibers casting out light and all of our bold pronouncements at the injustice of the world. We stared for a brief moment at our success.

The flames blossomed.

“Oh my gosh!” someone shrieked. “THE TRASH CAN IS ON FIRE!” [“The Fires of Feminism,” Emily Maynard]

3. On not being half

I was angriest that day because a boy had said out loud what I’m always afraid men are thinking.

That, as a woman in the church, I am by very nature a HALF.

Half a heart. Half a body. Half a purpose. [“today i embark on an expedition to take back my personhood,” Jesus Gypsy]

4. On needing femimism

This is how I feel. When someone asks me why I believe inequality exists, I want to scream, “Why do I believe you exist? You’re standing right in front of me!”

So actually, Christian church, you need feminism like the dying need a tourniquet. But I need your attitude like a fish needs a bicycle. [“What I Learned: Like a fish needs a bicycle,” Emily Joy Allison]

5. On being a feminist for our sons, too

I’m a feminist because I want my son to see all people as valuable human beings, created in God’s image. I want him to reject culturally constructed ideas about what it means to be “masculine” or “feminine” and to embrace biblical truth about what it means to be human, male and female, created in teh image of a loving God. [“for my son,” Amy at Making All Things New]

6. On the control of women’s bodies

everything about my mother’s experience tells me a story about someone else deciding what women should do with their bodies. It tells me about dangerous assumptions and naive women and sickness being passed from one generation to the next, daughters without mothers and mothers without daughters. [“FemFest : My Daughter’s Body,” Bethany Suckrow]

7. On love and justice

But I agree with hooks that there can be no love without justice. Where unfairness, inequality, abuse, disrespect, victim-blaming, and rape exist, there is no love.

And feminism is one movement that fights for justice for women. [“Feminisms Fest: I need feminism because there is no love without justice,” Sarah Moon]

8. On taking ownership of misogyny and healing the hidden wound

We hear sermons telling women their only place in this world is the home. We buy toys that are deliberately designated for either boys or girls. We see movies that portray women as one-dimensional manic pixie dream girls who’s only mission in life is to rescue “sensitive” moody guys from their self pity. [“FemFest: The Other Hidden Wound,” Travis Mamone]

9. On speaking blessings over the feminist women and men of faith

So, I’m bending the rules a little bit. Next week I’ll probably do my own wrap-up, as well as a list of contributions that I thought were particularly helpful or well-done. In the meantime, I’m going to write something that’s on my heart: I want to speak a blessing over everyone who has participated this week. [“People of Valor,” Shaney Irene]

10. On places where you can read more

Have a great weekend, everybody, and I’ll see you on Monday.

Why bullying matters

Bullying

By Lphip003 at en.wikibooks [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

Trigger warning for bullying.

A new study states that the effects of bullying have long-lasting effects on the survivors. According to the New York Times article on the report,

Victims of bullying at school, and bullies themselves, are more likely to experience psychiatric problems in childhood, studies have shown. Now researchers have found that elevated risk of psychiatric trouble extends into adulthood, sometimes even a decade after the intimidation has ended. [Read the rest of the post here.]

No. Shit. Really?

Well, thanks for that, JAMA Psychiatry. We certainly couldn’t have figured out that adults who were bullied as children might suffer with symptoms of PTSD without your expert help in identifying that fact. It’s not at all as though those of us who were actually traumatized as children haven’t been saying this, you know, for years or anything.

It really makes me angry that it’s taken so long for the after-effects of bullying to be recognized. We have networks to help survivors of all sorts of other violent acts, and we acknowledge the trauma that has been suffered–except for bullying. When it comes to bullying, it is still looked at as a rite of passage. Victims are still sent to “social skills” classes to learn how not to be “easy targets,” and all of us have heard at least one person say to us, “Just get over it already.” We’re told that the bullies are to be pitied (and within the church that they deserve “grace”).

I don’t need the New York Times or JAMA Psychiatry to tell me what I already know: Bullying destroys a person from the inside out, and it takes years to break free of the self-loathing. We internalize the messages of worthlessness and some of us never fully recover. We have permanent scars, physical and otherwise; some of us don’t make it at all.

I lived it for eight years of my childhood. I was called names, I was ostracized, I was mocked. I was punched in the face, smacked with a bag of heavy books, and poked with sharp objects. I was spit on and had all manner of disgusting substances put in my hair. I was pantsed in the lunch room. One kid used to flip open the latch on my musical instrument cases and laugh at me when I told him to stop. I had a boy in my ninth grade study hall threaten to rape me because “ugly girls deserved it,” and he spent the first five minutes of nearly every study hall touching my thighs and calves under the desk where the teacher couldn’t see.

You know what happened? Let me list it:

I was told to ignore it
I had the “sticks and stones” rhyme recited at me
I was told I was “thin-skinned” and needed to toughen up
I wasn’t believed (after the backpack incident, my father examined me and declared that there were no bruises–i.e., I was lying)
I was told that boys who picked on girls “liked” them and I should be flattered (yes, even the rapey guy)
I was told it would pass
I was told it wasn’t that bad
I was called a complainer
I had several teachers laugh at what the kids did to me
I had to ask for my seat to be moved on more than one occasion, rather than having another student moved or told to stop

So does this produce trauma? Yes. And I hardly need some study to confirm what I could have told the researchers in a five-minute phone call.

I think one of the worst parts of this is that my experiences were mild compared to some of my classmates. As bad as it was, I used to be grateful not to be some of the other victims. I’m ashamed to admit that while I didn’t bully any of them, I did nothing to help them. I was too busy trying to survive and I feared that my situation would worsen. I have no excuse; I should have stepped in anyway.

If you want to know why I’m so passionate about being part of making sure we take down institutions that enable person-on-person aggression of any sort, this is why. It’s not about “accepting” the “other.” It’s not about being kind to people in spite of our differences. It’s about respecting the humanity of each and every person and teaching our children to do the same. When that becomes our starting point, then there will be no “others”; only people.

“I’m not [fill in the blank] but…”

Social Justice

Yesterday, I tweeted this:

Just so we’re clear, there is never a good time to open a comment with “I’m not homophobic, but…”

and got this agreement in reply:

the same applies to ‘I’m not racist/sexist but…’ and ‘I’m not being funny/rude but…’ #badsentencestarters

Right. Exactly.

There really isn’t a good excuse for starting a sentence that way. It is invariably followed by something that ranges from merely ignorant to blatantly racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. If you feel you need to justify your words by trying to explain them away, then please, for the love of all things holy, just keep your mouth shut.

I tend to push back when I see the above. My reactions depend on both how the person phrased it and on whether the sentiment is expressed unthinkingly or deliberately. The response I get is usually immediate and defensive. I’ve heard everything from “you’re a complete idiot” to “you misread my [anti-whatever] remark! I actually meant this [anti-whatever] sentiment instead!” It absolutely never seems to make any difference whether I call out privilege and/or hate speech nicely or whether I do it in ALL CAPITALS LIKE I’M SHOUTING.

I hear all the freakin’ time that the only way to change anyone’s mind on an issue is to be polite, nice, grace-filled, understanding, and kind. I’ve heard the phrase “you’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar” more times than I care to count. You know what I say to that?

Who the hell wants to catch flies?

What I mean by that is that I don’t want to merely make people stop saying hateful things. Extending grace and being polite might momentarily make a person reconsider their words or their joke or the picture they put on Facebook (though not usually, in my experience). It does nothing to change the underlying attitude that caused the person’s initial action. If a person is unwilling to step aside and acknowledge their own privilege, fear, ignorance, or distrust, then it doesn’t matter at all how I phrase things.

There’s a genuine belief that if we are just gracious enough, eventually people will see the error of their ways and come around. I’m putting this here for all to see: That is a lie. I don’t think it’s a deliberate misleading. I think that people with naturally “nice” personalities tell themselves (and often others) that in order to justify their approach. The truth is, it doesn’t work any better than yelling and being angry.

But yelling and being angry don’t really work either.

Because the problem is not in our approach to confronting privilege, ignorance, and hate. The problem lies exclusively with those who are intolerant. It isn’t my job–or yours–to change someone else’s heart. That change must come from the inside. But if we want to see any genuine progress, we need to stop tolerating intolerance, particularly in the name of “friendship.”

There’s an attitude on both more liberal and more conservative sides that says if we liberals/progressives don’t put up with hate speech, then we are guilty of “intolerance” ourselves. It’s the same stupidity behind “reverse racism,” “misandry,” “and “heterophobia.” There are no such institutions, but the minute we call someone out on their words we get an earful of how we’re hypocrites.

I’m done with that. I’m done listening to white, straight, cisgender people (particularly men, but lots of women, too) moan about how they are somehow losing out and how they’re not allowed to have their “opinions” anymore. Because you know what? If your opinion includes believing that someone else is in any way less than you, you are absolutely not entitled to your opinion. If your opinion includes ignorance of basic facts, you are absolutely not entitled to your opinion. If your opinion includes the attitude that you are marginalized despite your obvious privilege, you are absolutely not entitled to your opinion. There are still some things that are wrong at their core.

What I’d like to see is real, deep change in the fabric of our society as a whole. I want more than figuring out what approach to take when confronting privilege. I want to stop putting out both the honey and the vinegar.

I want to stop catching flies.

Why we need to speak up

Bullying, Religion

By Adamantios, via Wikimedia Commons

Yesterday, this post received a lot of attention. The author, Lore Ferguson, urges Christians to focus more on their local congregations and less on what big-name pastors like Mark Driscoll are saying or doing:

I don’t go to Mark Driscoll’s church. I don’t have to concern myself with how he teaches the book of Esther or how Mars Hill handles church discipline or how threadbare his tshirt is.

I don’t go to Rob Bell’s former church. I don’t need to worry about how progressive the service or teaching is there or how cool his glasses are.

I don’t go to John Piper’s church. His hand motions don’t affect me and the size of his congregation doesn’t bear on me.

I don’t go to Rick Warren’s church. I’ve never read The Purpose Driven Life and the main purpose of my life is drink more coffee, so that’s good enough for me.

I go to my church. I am covenanted in there. I am knit there. I seek theology first in the Word and second from my pastors. I trust there. I am trusted there. They rightly have the most influence on me and I trust that even with all the influence I might have elsewhere, the most influence I have is there. At my church.

To a point, she is correct. We absolutely need to make sure that our primary connection (if we attend a church) is to the one in which we serve locally. However, she is wrong that we don’t need to concern ourselves with what well-known leaders are doing or teaching.

The first thing that it’s important to note is that Lore attends a church that is part of the Acts 29 Network. I believe she should have put a disclaimer on her post stating such. While Mark Driscoll is not the president of the Network, he is still affiliated with it and it was originally his baby. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the theology of an individual church within the Network differs significantly from that of the Mother Ship. One would hope that the abusive practices of Mars Hill have not trickled down, but there are definitely some teachings that are concerning.

The other problem that I have is that Lore seems to be unaware of the influence Pastor Mark has on church leaders across the country. The practices at Mars Hill are indeed being implemented at smaller, local churches. People are looking to Pastor Mark for guidance and reading his books. This is not a good thing. I would not suggest that every word he’s ever written is terrible, but the overarching themes in his books, sermons, and comments are all of the same variety. If we want to stop the poison from spreading, it is absolutely our responsibility to inform people before they walk into a book store to purchase one of his texts. Local pastors need to be aware of the underlying hostility and abuse.

I am distinctly uncomfortable with Lore’s assertion that “God has this, He’s on His throne, His eyes on His children. He’s got this.” It sounds to me like a bit of magical thinking. I’ve heard this one before–we don’t have to do anything except pray, because God will take care of it. Now why does that sound so familiar? Oh, yes. It can be found in James:

Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense? [James 2:14-17, The Message]

It most certainly is our job to do something. Anything else is merely an attempt to assuage our discomfort and avoid getting our hands dirty.

The fact is, real, live people are being hurt and abused directly and indirectly by Mark Driscoll and his teachings. Speaking out is not “gossip” any more than speaking about rape or child abuse or domestic violence or hate crimes is “gossip.” The only way to prevent more people from suffering is to name the abuse and affirm that it is wrong. We need to ask ourselves why there is an entire web site devoted to people sharing the ways they have been harmed by leaders at Mars Hill. We need to read the stories of abuse and shame and we need to get angry that someone who claims to be speaking God’s truth is getting away with actively harming people.

There are two other things we must do. First, we need to examine why we feel uncomfortable when we hear stories of deep hurt coming out of churches. If we conclude that it’s because we don’t like “bad-mouthing” leaders, then we need to go back and read Jesus’ words to the Pharisees–and lather, rinse, repeat until we understand that it is not the hurting that Jesus called out, it was those who claimed to speak for God. If we conclude it’s because those people must have “wrong” theology or that the abuse they suffered was somehow their fault, then there are bigger problems we need to work out about victim blaming and our own personal doctrine.

Second, we need to stop defending Pastor Mark (and others like him). We need to stop saying things like, “Well, he’s just cashing in on his shock value–it’s what he does” and start realizing that this is not a healthy way to spread the Gospel. I’m not going to stop pushing back on this. I refuse to sit here in silence, even though I don’t attend a church remotely related to Acts 29 and even though I can’t fathom a reason our pastor would ever pick up one of his books. There are people I know personally (including myself) who have been deeply wounded in one way or another by the implementation of Mark Driscoll’s abusive teaching. I will not sit idly by and watch more people’s lives be destroyed.

If I sound angry, it’s because I am. I am angry that we have let this go on too long. If I can do anything–anything at all–to stop this from continuing, then I will. I will speak until I have no voice and write until I run out of words, but I won’t stop or back down as long as anyone is allowed to continue to spiritually abuse people in the name of my God.

Anger is not hate

Religion, Social Justice, Women

The conversation from last week about Emergence Christianity and the shifting tides is still continuing. I’m glad to see that. There is a lot that has broken open here, and I hope that it’s a sign of good things to come. I don’t mean in terms of the movement; I mean in terms of the living out of Christian faith. My hope is that this is another way in which we can find ourselves reaching out to one another to dismantle the system that enables the silencing of people’s voices.

That said, I want to talk again about one of the ways in which the system contributes to the muting of so many people across Christianity. I like to call it “Be-Niceism.” There is a school of thought that equates non-violence with non-anger. It dictates that we must never use harsh words or direct criticism. In fact, even we who are willing to push forcefully against the system have resorted to using the word “critique” rather than criticism because the latter word has become so connotation-laden.

I see this phenomenon in just about every Christian circle. The gentle souls are often upset by what they perceive as angry ranting and resort to reprimands that we won’t get anywhere if we “stoop to their level.” Yesterday, when Pastor (I use that term loosely) Mark Driscoll tweeted,

Praying for our president, who today will place his hand on a Bible he does not believe in to take an oath to a God he likely does not know.

There was a lot of anger over the tweet, as there should have been. It is not only a problem because of the assumption about the condition of President Obama’s heart, but because it honestly doesn’t matter whether he is a Christian or not. Using that as a measure of whether or not he can be a decent person or a decent President is inappropriate at best. Anyway, my concern isn’t really about Pastor Mark’s tweet; it’s about the response to the responses.

When Shaun King replied with a series of very angry tweets in which he made brilliant use of the word “motherfuckers,” the outrage directed at him was disproportionate. He had made an honest, impassioned plea for people to stop judging other people’s faith—and promptly had his own called into question for being angry. I don’t know what Bible these people have been reading, but mine has Jesus doing pretty much the same thing Shaun King did, including the name-calling. And it wasn’t the ordinary people who Jesus called out, it was the religious leaders of his day.

Not much has changed, has it?

My point is that while I understand the desire for everyone to get along with each other, that is simply not a reasonable expectation. Even Paul (the big favorite among Evangelical types) alludes to that when he says to live at peace with one another insofar as it is possible. That means that it isn’t always going to be possible.

Which leads me to what I really want to say here. It makes me absolutely infuriated when I see the damage that people like Pastor Mark do to Christians and the Christian faith. It’s not just a matter of “he doesn’t speak for all of us.” It’s that he and others like him are personally responsible for harming vulnerable people. He and others like him are directly responsible for creating an environment which is sex-negative, patriarchal, and trans- and homophobic. If we are against any of those things, then we have a right—and, I would argue—a responsibility to stand up and say, “Enough.”

Fighting back with our words is not “stooping to their level.” It is a wise way to express the anger we feel at injustice. It is not wrong to protest. It is not wrong to say we are angry and we don’t want to take it anymore. It is not wrong to openly speak against Pastor Mark and his ilk, even using words that may shock or offend. We need people who are willing to do these things. What would be wrong would be to resort to physical violence, illegal means, or psychological warfare in order to force these men (yes, men) to change or step down.

I see this problem all the time among feminist Christians. As much as I love the writings of some of these women, I have grown weary of seeing so many of them congratulate each other on not being bitchy. They also tend to either pick apart or ignore women who are tougher, sometimes in really passive-aggressive ways: “You were so awesome! You responded in love, unlike that other nasty, angry feminist over there.” This is another way of silencing our voices based in the patriarchal notion of what it means to be a good woman, thinly disguised as “this is what it means to be a real Christian.”

I have nothing against anyone who wants to take a more gentle approach. I believe that’s rooted in personality, however, not in faith or in Scripture. I’m not going to apologize for being bitchy sometimes; nor do I want anyone else to apologize for being gentle. We just need to understand that this is a matter of style, not a matter of sin and not something that requires a good/bad dichotomy.

I’m going to continue to train my critical eye on the -isms that plague our culture, especially among Christians. I still have some residual ire from last week’s nuclear fallout from the Emergence conversation. After reading President Obama’s words from yesterday’s inauguration, I know that I need to keep working toward those goals. Every day, I remind myself that I am not making room at the table for anyone else. Rather, I’m choosing to see that they have always been sitting there and I need to stop isolating myself in idle chatter with those who perceive themselves to be at the head of the table.

The Destruction of Men

Notable News: Week of February 23-March 1, 2013

Why bullying matters

Why we need to speak up

Let's Be Friends

Sharing

Tip Jar

Shopping Cart

Your Shopping Cart

Supposed Crimes Publishing

Beaten Track Publishing

More Content