Losing It?
The other day, a friend of mine texted me about an HBO documentary on gazillionaire investor Warren Buffett. I get these kinds fairly often, where someone sees something in the news about gender equality and clues me in.
Most of the time, it’s about bad news; often, Tertullian’s patriarchal fingerprints are still fresh at the crime scene. And let’s face it, in the age of Trump, there has tragically been a lot to lament!
But this text about Buffett was different. It was more of a “hey, this dude gets it” kind of text. Evidently, in the documentary, Buffett confesses his male privilege and discusses the untapped capacity of women in the workforce.
This all sounded intriguing to me. A wildly successful male business leader acknowledging privilege? In my experience, that’s no small thing!
So I googled it. I typed in “Warren Buffett male privilege.”
And you know what came up?
Me.
There it is, the second search result down on the page. It’s this post here, from May 6, 2013.
Returning to the text exchange, I told my friend about the search result, and he apologized. He wrote: “Oops. Sorry. Missed that post by you.”
Gracious of him, but here’s the thing:
I had forgotten that post as well.
I suppose this could reflect a few different things. Perhaps it means that I’m old and starting to lose it. I think my wife and kids might affirm this as a viable reason.
Or, maybe, this forgotten post from almost four years ago could tell a different story.
About a passion that has not waned. A fire still burning.
And a focused determination to understand this thing called male privilege and to keep challenging Tertullian until I figure out what Jesus would have me do with it.
Learning from Tim Kaine
When was the last time you were led by a woman?
Over my 2o years as a campus minister, I’ve had two seasons where my direct supervisor was a woman, and many more where I served under the leadership of women in other capacities. It’s true to say that those positive experiences have helped to propel me into reflection on issues of gender and faith, including on this blog.
If the latest polls are correct and Hillary Clinton is elected president in just under two weeks, on January 20, 2017 we will all be led by a woman, for the first time in our country’s history.
And for lots of Americans, and for many male Americans in particular:
That will be a first.
That’s certainly true for Clinton’s running mate, Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine. Here’s Kaine from the other day, from this article:
“Other than supervising attorneys on occasion, this will be the first time I’ve had a female boss,” Sen. Kaine told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in an interview to be aired in full on Tuesday night at 9 p.m. — and he was a little taken aback by the realization.
“Wow, I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he chuckled.
Again, I don’t think Kaine is alone in this. And I wonder how the nation will respond to a woman in the oval office. In particular, how will American men, long accustomed to the privileged position in this country, respond as “Hail to the Chief” serenades a woman?
Perhaps Kaine himself can give us a roadmap how men might engage a President Clinton. More from the article:
A civil rights lawyer and self-described feminist, Kaine said he “relishes” the idea of reinventing gender norms in the White House alongside Clinton, who could be the first women elected president of the United States.
“I get to be now, play a supportive role — that’s what the vice president’s main job is — to a woman who’s going to make history, to a president who will preside over the centennial of women getting the right to vote,” Kaine said.
He added that as much as Clinton could normalize the idea of a woman in the White House, his vice presidency would normalize the notion that “strong men should definitely support strong women.”
Of course, there’s bound to be some confusion, Kaine acknowledged. For instance, he said: “Is my wife Second Lady if there’s no First Lady?”
Nevertheless, Kaine said he was excited to create a new model.
“There’s no complete playbook for this, but that’s cool too,” he said. “There’s traditions that you honor, but it’s always something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. So you got to make your own traditions.”
Three comments on Kaine’s posture here.
First, it will be important to acknowledge the novelty of the situation. This will indeed be something new. For the first time, a woman will hold the highest office in our government. And, the truth is that new things can take some getting used to. So each of us should expect a bit of internal dissonance, particularly at the beginning.
Second, I appreciate Kaine’s posture towards the new thing. He is predisposed to be supportive. Now, he’s her VP choice, so of course he’s going to say that, but what about the rest of us? When George H.W. Bush left office, he wrote a note to his successor, Bill Clinton, and here’s how he closed the letter: “your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.” In the current political morass, this brand of civility feels like a pipe dream. But what if we find that within ourselves, committing to be supportive? What would it mean for Clinton? What would it mean for us?
Third, Kaine calls us to a paradigm shift. Here it is: “strong men should definitely support strong women.” Friends, that is a vision we can and should get behind. To go a step further, I’ll say that “strong men definitely supporting strong women” is a vision that the Bible affirms. You see, the message of Scripture is that women and men are called to jointly steward our world. Sometimes, that means men will lead, other times, women will lead, and, all in all, joyful support should mark the partnership.
If the trends continue as the campaign (mercifully) winds down, Hillary Clinton will make history on January 20th. Indeed, for the first time in our 227 year history, the country’s daughters will have someone placing their hand on a Bible who looks and talks like them. It will be a powerful occasion.
And the country’s sons? May we respond like Tim Kaine.
Standing in Solidarity
As I’ve been talking about male privilege over the last couple of years, I often get some version of this question:
“So are you saying that men should voluntarily give up power?”
In a word: YES.
I mean, if we’re going to eradicate the scourge of privilege and balance the gender scales, power is going to have to be redistributed. And that means women gaining more power and men giving up power. As I’ve said before (here on The Junia Project blog, most recently), releasing power is not necessarily a bad thing. Heck, if it was good enough for Jesus…
It’s good enough for me.
And, evidently, it’s also good enough for a tithe of Adventist pastors. According to this article, after their denomination voted to not ordain women, a group of male pastors decided to voluntarily downgrade their clerical status from “ordained” to “commissioned,” as a way to stand in solidarity with Adventist women, for whom commissioning is currently the only permitted ministerial option. Here’s an excerpt:
Mike Speegle, senior pastor of an Adventist church in Fulton, Md., said Wednesday (Oct. 14) that he requested and received a change in his credentials late this summer as his way of supporting his female colleagues.
“In our structure, I can’t make them equal with me by ordaining them, but I can make myself equal with them by taking the commissioned license, which is exactly what they have,” he said.
Pastor Kymone Hinds, the leader of a Memphis, Tenn., church, took similar action. He and another minister, Pastor Furman Fordham of Nashville, Tenn., received permission from their regional officials.
“Though I am not in agreement with the position that you brethren have taken on this issue, I admire your willingness to act on your convictions and fully support your right to do so,” wrote Elder D.C. Edmond, president of the denomination’s South Central Conference, in a September letter to them.
Cool, right? And costly as well. According to the article, the choice these men have made comes with clear costs:
Hinds said it was worth it to him to lose access to certain privileges of ordination: presiding over regional conferences; organizing churches; and ordaining elders, deacons or deaconesses.
Imagine that. Out of a place of conviction that gender equality is God’s creation intent, and out of a concern that their denomination was erring by not allowing the same access to power that they enjoyed, these men choose to willingly lay down their ordinations.
Friends, solidarity is a powerful thing.
I’ll give Pastor Hinds the last word:
“I wanted to stand in solidarity,” he said Wednesday. “We realize that our female ministers do the same work and have the same education but there is a glass ceiling over them.”
Amen.
On Biases
No one likes to admit they have a bias.
I mean, it seems to me we’ll do almost anything to avoid the appearance of bias. It’s like we have a built-in allergy to anything that implies that we are anything but, ah, fair and balanced.
Which is a problem, because we surely do have biases. Lots of them, and some that we aren’t even aware of. And recent evidence from a Harvard study suggests we have a clear gender bias. The full article is here, but here’s an excerpt:
The research found that 23 percent of girls and 40 percent of boys preferred male political leaders instead of female, while only 8 percent of girls and 4 percent of boys preferred female political leaders. Similarly, 36 percent of boys preferred male business leaders to female. (There was no significant difference between girls’ preference for male versus female business leaders.)
So what are we teaching our kids? The same things that may be holding women back today. The data suggest that awareness of gender discrimination may be related to unconscious bias against female leaders, and that this may also be true for racial bias.
Bias “can be a powerful — and invisible — barrier to teen girls’ leadership,” Weissbourd said. “Yet parents and teachers can do a great deal to stem these biases and help children manage them.” [Read the full report here.] Which would mean, yes, more future leaders who are women.
So what do we do? The article suggests five helpful ways parents can seek to counteract gender-based bias, and I recommend parents in particular take a good look. In particular the last two seemed helpful for me.
Want another option? I noticed the other day that the folks at Facebook have produced a series of videos exploring unconscious bias in the workplace. I have yet to listen to them all, but, right off the bat, Vice President of People Lori Goler comes right out and says it:
One important thing that we’ve talked about here at Facebook is that we all have bias, every single one of us. It’s just part of the human condition. And the reason it is important to acknowledge that, is if we don’t acknowledge it, we can’t do anything about it.”
Amen.
Friends, the first step to overcoming our unconscious biases are admitting they are there in the first place. That’s why when it comes to overcoming the bias of male privilege, I think it starts with admitting that privilege actually exists.
So, let’s all take a good, long look in the mirror. We’re all biased, and those biases run deep. Most of the time, we haven’t consciously bought into the bias, but they are there nonetheless. And while they don’t automatically make us bad people, they do demand our attention.
May we have the courage to face our biases and, eventually, put them to rest.
3 Reasons Why it’s Tough to See Male Privilege
That Tertullian, he can be tough to find sometimes.
I certainly think that was the case last week at Fresno Pacific, where I had the joy of speaking to the men at two chapel services, on Wednesday and Friday mornings.
Together we wrestled with the notion of male privilege, and I challenged them to respond by admitting that male privilege exists, submitting their privilege to Jesus, and then committing to use their privilege to empower and advocate for others (find an older post about this three-fold response framework here).
It’s that first one, admitting that privilege exists, that I find to be the biggest challenge for men. At least that’s true the first time they engage teaching on this topic.
Why is that?
I think there are at least three reasons.
First, by its nature, male privilege is extraordinarily subtle and therefore difficult to spot. Male privilege sort of lurks in the culture. Because of this, it takes intentionality to locate, and that intentionality can be difficult to come by. On Wednesday morning, I told the men this story, of Tommy the bug guy. In hindsight, my male privilege becomes clear, in the stark contrast between my experience with Tommy and Amy’s. On the other hand, if Amy and I hadn’t intentionally made space to debrief the experience, it’s quite possible that we would never have been able to see (or feel) it.
Next, no one likes to be told that they have more power than someone else. That’s not exactly a popular message, and it’s almost like we have an allergy to the idea of privilege. In our perfect worlds, we’re all equal and there’s no such thing as a power differential. Sadly, the world doesn’t work that way, and yet I find that coming to grips with that reality can be a difficult paradigm shift.
And the kicker is that that is particularly true if you are the person with the privilege. In the same way that it’s hard for white people to see white privilege, it’s hard for men to see male privilege.
Finally, male privilege is tough to see because few people or institutions are pointing it out. During Friday’s talk, I offered to buy lunch for anyone who had heard teaching on male privilege before, either in class or in their churches. Needless to say, I only paid for myself. Perhaps this is a post for another time, but I think part of the reason for the silence is that, deep down, as men we like our privilege. After all, when the system is working in your favor, there is risk in pointing out its flaws. With this in mind, I think it’s incumbent on those of us who see male privilege to point it out to others.
In the end, on Friday I exhorted the men to step out of the river. I think culture can be like a river, carrying us all along. And, from time to time, we all need to swim over to the bank, get out onto the shore, take a long step back and contemplate at the river. When we do that, we’ll undoubtedly see good things, beautiful things, things worthy of praise.
But we’ll also see broken things. Things that cause others (and ourselves) pain. Things that must be redeemed.
Things like male privilege.
Women Leads
Two weeks ago, our son started junior high.
Junior high, people. Heaven help us!
And so we’ve been adjusting to this new experience, including the academic step (or two) up. For instance, last week he brought home his English reading list. And let’s just say it’s full of some pretty fun books. Like Lemony Snicket. Or The Maze Runner. Or a couple of Lois Lowry titles. Heck, forget the DMiss, sign me up English Composition!
One other book on the list bears mention:
The Hunger Games.
It’s where he wanted to start, so we recently hit up the library for a copy.
And, of course, he’s been eating it up. The other day we drove from our house to Jamba Juice, a trip of all of 3 minutes. Yep, he brought the book. Or the other day the family van suffered a blowout on the side of the freeway. The wait for AAA was at least 55 minutes. Did Josh notice? I think not. His head never surfaced from the pages. In fact, I think 8 tributes died while we waited for the tire change…
One of the distinctive things about The Hunger Games is the female lead Katniss. Actually, maybe that’s not particularly “distinctive.” After all, there’s Tris from Divergent and Cassia from Matched. Come to think of it, if you’re going to endure a dystopian future, you probably want to be a young woman!
The other day a friend sent me the following meme depicting Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon:
I like the answer. Perhaps because it’s similar to my answer to the question “why are you blogging about male privilege all the time?”
And here’s the caption, from A Mighty Girl:
Although there has been some progress, the need for prominent female characters in TV and films is still huge. According to a study by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, only 29.2% of 5,554 speaking characters in 122 family films they recently analyzed were female — the same 3 to 1 male/female ratio that existed in 1946.
Friends, that’s not good enough.
In the end, I’m grateful for strong women in media, in books and on the screen. For our girls for sure.
But also for our junior higher.
Want a bit more of Joss Whedon on writing strong women characters? Try this link.
It’s Not the Onion, It’s Science
Honestly, I’m unclear on why we continue to name weather systems.
I mean, really, what is to be gained by personifying potentially catastrophic climactic events? Why couldn’t we name them after, say, fruit? Or geometric shapes? Or even animals?
The other day a friend sent me an article that posits the following conclusion:
“People don’t take hurricanes as seriously if they have a feminine name and the consequences are deadly, finds a new groundbreaking study.”
When I first glanced at it, I thought it was the Onion.
Here’s the rest of the piece:
Female-named storms have historically killed more because people neither consider them as risky nor take the same precautions, the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concludes.
Researchers at the University of Illinois and Arizona State University examined six decades of hurricane death rates according to gender, spanning 1950 and 2012. Of the 47 most damaging hurricanes, the female-named hurricanes produced an average of 45 deaths compared to 23 deaths in male-named storms, or almost double the number of fatalities. (The study excluded Katrina and Audrey, outlier storms that would skew the model).
The difference in death rates between genders was even more pronounced when comparing strongly masculine names versus strongly feminine ones.
“[Our] model suggests that changing a severe hurricane’s name from Charley … to Eloise … could nearly triple its death toll,” the study says.
Sharon Shavitt, study co-author and professor of marketing at the University of Illinois, says the results imply an “implicit sexism”; that is, we make decisions about storms based on the gender of their name without even knowing it.
“When under the radar, that’s when it [the sexism] has the potential to influence our judgments,” Shavitt said.
On this blog, we’ve uncovered male privilege in lots of different contexts, from politics to economics to sports to the church.
Now, we find it embedded in how we deal with the weather.
So, allow me a friendly public service announcement:
Until the day when Tropical Storm Pomegranate, or Hurricane Rhombus, or SuperStorm Chihuahua is barreling your way, your response should be the same, whether the system is named Wayne or Rhonda:
RUN.
Gender Brokenness Trending
Increasingly, most of the important cultural conversations are happening 140 characters at a time.
Indeed, trending on twitter has in many ways become the cultural arbiter of what’s being talked about. According to the twitter company fact sheet, 500 million tweets are sent every single day. And many of those tweets are hash-tagged into conversations. To borrow an idea from writer Andy Crouch, that’s a whole lot of “culture making.”
Over the last several days, the hashtag #YesAllWomen has been trending, as a response to the horrific shootings in Santa Barbara, where a student who felt spurned by women he wished to date went on a shooting rampage, eventually killing 6 in Isla Vista.
According to this Salon.com article, “the Twitter hashtag #YesAllWomen, which began trending yesterday, has already begun this important conversation. It reminds us that sexism and misogyny exist — in angry, threatening emails, in the workplace, on twitter, in the kidnapping of nearly 300 Nigerian girls.”
To be sure, reading through #YesAllWomen is a heart-breaking experience. But it’s also instructive. Because in a way, #YesAllWomen represents the adverse effects of a culture gripped my male privilege. Here are some of the many tweets that have grabbed me:
Because when I was sexually harassed in 7th grade they told me “boys will be boys” and that I’m just “naïve”
Someone at a gas station shoved me against my car, stuck their hand up my dress and the cops asked me what i was wearing
Because I am so tired of women having to learn rules for safety when men should be learning rules for behaviour.
Because I just got a comment from a guy saying the shooting spree was God’s just judgment on sinful women.
Because I apologize whenever someone sees me without makeup. and I didn’t realize how stupid that is until just now.
Because my 15 yo daughter hears filthy things yelled at her if she happens to walk past 2 or more men
Because when I want to call out somebody for making a sexist joke or comment online, I worry I’ll burn professional bridges.
And there are more. Thousands and thousands more.
As you read these tweets, what’s your response? Anger? Sadness? Empathy? All of the above?
Personally, I’m reminded of (and consoled by) the words of Psalm 12:
Help, O Lord, for the godly are fast disappearing!
The faithful have vanished from the earth!
Neighbors lie to each other,
speaking with flattering lips and deceitful hearts.
May the Lord cut off their flattering lips
and silence their boastful tongues.
They say, “We will lie to our hearts’ content.
Our lips are our own—who can stop us?”
The Lord replies, “I have seen violence done to the helpless,
and I have heard the groans of the poor.
Now I will rise up to rescue them,
as they have longed for me to do.”
The Lord’s promises are pure,
like silver refined in a furnace,
purified seven times over.
Therefore, Lord, we know you will protect the oppressed,
preserving them forever from this lying generation,
even though the wicked strut about,
and evil is praised throughout the land.
Join me in crying out the Lord for intervention!
Commenting on the hashtag, writer Neil Gaiman tweeted, “The #yesallwomen hashtag is filled with hard, true, sad and angry things. I can empathise & try to understand & know I never entirely will.”
Amen. That’s true. As a man, I’ll never fully understand.
Today, I’m just thankful that twitter gives me a chance to understand 140 characters at a time.
I’m Not Finished Yet
Evidently, last week Tertullian was traveling in Canada.
How do I know?
This note, left on an airplane, spelling out an anonymous passenger’s conviction that the cockpit of an airplane is no place for a woman. Here’s the transcript of the note:
“To Capt./WestJet,” the note says. “The cockpit of airliner [sic] is no place for a woman. A woman being a mother is the most honor not as “captain” Proverbs 31 (Sorry not P.C.) P.S. I wish WestJet could tell me a fair lady is at the helm so I can book another flight! Were [sir] short mothers not pilots Westjet.”
Outrageous. Indefensible. Atrocious. Don’t get me started about the Bible reference.
And I wish the attitude behind were less common.
After all, there are so few women pilots. Think about it. When was the last time you were on a flight piloted by a woman? Heck, when was the last time you saw a woman pilot on the airport concourse?
The statistics demonstrate this reality. In 2010, nationwide, fewer than 7% of commercial pilots were women. It was even worse for “airline transport” pilots, with women constituting just 3.92% of the population.
On it’s website, American Airlines celebrates the facts that it was the first major airline to hire a female pilot (in 1973), to have a female captain (in 1986) and to have an all-female crew (in 1987). Still, in 2011, American’s pilot corps was over 96% men.
Amelia Earhart once said, “Men do not believe us capable, because we are women, seldom are we trusted to do an efficient job.”
It seems like decades later, Earhart’s observation remains accurate.
At least I’m inclined to see it as true.
What?!?
Obviously, I’m someone who cares a lot about gender equality. Every time I blog, I try to identify and call out the male privilege embedded in our culture. And, daily, I am working hard to bring to Jesus the male privilege embedded in my own soul.
But on the rare instances when I’m on an airplane and it’s a female voice telling me that “we’re first in line for take-off,” to be honest I pause. In fact, I do more than pause. What happens is that my sense of personal safety drops a bit. Not a lot, just a bit.
That’s right. When a woman is piloting my plane, my gut reaction is to feel slightly less safe.
All evidence to the contrary of course. Women pilots are just as competent, just as trained, as their male counterparts. That I know of, there is no data to suggest that I am in any way in more peril when there is a woman behind the controls. In fact, once my initial, millisecond reaction passes, I’m perfectly comfortable with whoever is in charge of my plane.
So what’s happening here?
Simply put, since my youth I’ve been breathing the foul air of culture that tells me that women are less competent, less trustworthy, and less safe when it comes to important things like flying airplanes. I’m at 41 years of having that message reinforced day by day, and old habits die hard.
You see, I’m on a journey. And I’ll always be on a journey. It’s a journey that is taking me from a blissfully unaware and privileged man to someone who recognizes privilege and seeks Jesus’ guidance for how to use it to bless others. It’s a journey toward shedding my biases and honestly it feels terrific.
What’s that old quote? “I might not be where I want to be, but thank God I’m not where I used to be.”
Indeed.
So here’s my pledge. Next time I’m on a plane being flown by one of the 4%, I’m going to find my nearest napkin and write a different note. One of affirmation. One of encouragement.
One of personal repentance.
On Giving Up Power for the Sake of the Mission
It’s so rare when someone willingly gives up power.
It’s even rarer when someone gives it up joyfully. And yet you get the sense that that is exactly what’s happening in Indiana.
In case you missed it, last week I blogged about the dramatic shift that leaders of one congregation are entering into around gender and power. Specifically, after prayer and discernment, they are choosing to open up their church leadership, at all levels, to women. This is a full-blown reversal from the church’s historic, restrictive posture.
There’s a lot to appreciate in this willful power exchange, but I think I’m most glad to see the emphasis on mission. For these church leaders, there is a deep conviction that accomplishing God’s mission requires both men and women using their gifts. Truly, it’s “all hands on deck.” I’ve blogged about mission before, here and here. And you’ll see the focus on mission in the quotes below.
In any event, the story continues to trickle out. Here’s an excerpt from this Christian Post article about the story, and thanks to Jeremiah Gibbs for the twitter share. Enjoy!
The brokenness of the world is reflected in the “equity and dignity between men and women,” according to Teaching Pastor Tim Ayers, who preached on Feb. 9 the second part of Grace Church’s new teaching series. In that message, Ayers spelled out the results of the leadership’s painstaking exegetical endeavor into the Bible’s position on female leadership.
“Our governing board and our pastors deeply studied the overall tenure of all of Scripture related to leadership within the people of God,” explained Ayers. “Then, they wrestled with God’s initial intentions, the world’s brokenness and God’s desire to repair that brokenness. Then, they affirmed that the task of the Church is to heal the broken places that resulted from the Fall and to live out in this world as best as we can God’s initial desires for His world. And they came to the conclusion that one of these broken places is the inequity that exists between men and women.”
Ayers insisted, “This decision is not a slippery slope. It is getting in line with God’s initial designs for His people, it is taking the whole of Scripture seriously, and it’s standing against the structures of a fallen world.”
The Grace Church teaching pastor stated that “the issue in 1 Timothy is competence and character” and that “according to Paul, race and class and gender are not the issues.”
“We need the best people that God has given our community at the table,” Ayers stated, “people who meet the character demands that Paul gives us, people who know the Word, people who walk in submission to the Spirit of God, and who live lives of prayer.”
The leadership’s decision to lift Grace Church’s gender restrictions and affirm female leadership did not come as a compromise to culture or to “make a point.” But rather, said Ayers, the decision was about a desire to allow all the people of Grace Church to join God in His mission in bringing salvation and hope to the world.
Challenging Tertullian 