On Mutuality
Sometimes, people will ask me what the end goal is.
As in, if power was truly shared, if there was no more male privilege, how would it work?
To answer I talk about a community marked by mutuality, where power is allocated according to gifting, and where it is joyfully and humbly given and received.
The other day I came across the following quote on mutuality, from the book Women in the Greetings of Romans 16.1-16 by Susan Matthew. Enjoy, and imagine with me a world, and especially a church, where this was normal.
“Mutualism in this context may be defined as follows: it refers to relationships of reciprocity (i.e. where each has sometime to contribute to the other) whose purpose is mutual promotion (i.e. where the task of each is to serve the interests of the other).
Because of this purpose in mutual service, relationships may not be simultaneously equal: in one serving the other there will be temporary forms of asymmetry. But, crucially, this asymmetry is reversible and constantly reversed: there is never a settled hierarchy in one direction, but continual processes of reciprocal asymmetry in which a relationship of power which is unbalanced at one time or in one respect is continually reversed and unbalanced at another time or in another respect, in a dynamic, non-static, process of mutual promotion.”
“Women Can Be Doctors Too, Rob”
In case you are tempted to think that I get this male-privilege stuff right all the time, believe me, I don’t.
Allow me a short story to illustrate:
This weekend I was talking with two friends of mine about their doctor, and how they had been sternly warned to wear sunscreen in order to avoid skin cancer.
My friend said, “Yeah, and Dr. So and So was all over us about it.”
I replied, “Wow, he was serious then.”
Pause.
Same friend says, “Wait a second, our doctor is a woman.”
At which point my other friend says, “Um, women can be doctors too, Rob.”
Doh.
I’ve blogged before about being a work in progress, and this short story illustrates that point again. The fact that this interaction came on the heels of two hard weeks of working on my doctoral program in inter-gender partnership in mission? All the more embarrassing.
Simply put, we’re all indoctrinated by a culture marked by male privilege. So much so that we only notice it when we choose to, or when someone points it out.
Which is exactly what Nicolas Kristoff did in his column from yesterday. In the piece, Kristof starts with the same study on hurricanes that I blogged about last week (great minds…), and from there he engages the sexism that lurks below the surface in our culture. Here’s a particularly rich quote:
We often assume that racism or sexism is primarily about in-your-face bigots or misogynists, but research in the last couple of decades — capped by this hurricane study — shows that the larger problem is unconscious bias even among well-meaning, enlightened people who embrace principles of equality.
This affects the candidates we vote for, the employees we hire, the people we do business with. I suspect unconscious bias has been far more of a factor for President Obama than overt racism and will also be a challenge for Hillary Rodham Clinton if she runs for president again.
“It’s a mistake to assume that gender bias is only or mainly about misogynists,” said Susan Fiske, a psychology professor at Princeton University and the editor of the hurricane study. “Much gender bias is more automatic, ambiguous and ambivalent than people typically assume.
Something tells me that I will never be over Tertullian’s influence. After all, when you’ve been breathing bad air for 42 years, it has cumulative effect.
So recovery is a step by step process.
One that happens one conversation at a time.
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.
Interested Stares and Plenty of Questions
“I knew it was going to be a lot of work, but…holy cow.”
And that just about sums up my experience with the first week of my DMiss program. As an example, for the next month or so I’ll be working on my research design proposal, a 20ish page document that articulates my idea of how I’ll use these next four years.
And then the fun begins. Between now and October, I’ll need to critically engage around 90 different sources (books, journals and articles) related to my central research issue.
So, if you need me, I’ll be buried in a book.
But the other thing about this first week is that I got to meet my cohort mates. I’ll be accompanied on this four year odyssey by 8 other souls, each of us engaging different topics within the field of missiology. Honestly, this feels like one of the best features of the program, because I’ll benefit not only from others’ perspectives on my topic, but I’ll get to understand 8 other ways that God is at work in the world. So this week I’ve been thinking about, among other things, internet evangelism with Chinese youth, business as mission models in Liberia and Christian community development in racially fractured Benton Harbor, MI.
This is gonna be fun.
As a part of getting to know my cohort, I got to share about my proposed research topic. Here’s what happened:
Me: “And so, with all of this as background, I am planning a research project entitled ‘”Women and Men Flourishing in Mission: Models of Healthy Gender Equal Ministry Partnerships.'”
Them: (interested stares, and several “Hmms”)
Me: “In closing, do you have any questions for me?”
And then it erupted. Lots of really great questions. Like about how I came to be concerned about a topic like this. And about how my context of InterVarsity will fit in with my study. And about what I anticipate as roadblocks to my research. And more.
My experience with my team fits the general experience I have when I share about what I’m doing in this program:
Interested stares and plenty of questions.
Come to think of it, it’s not unlike the reaction I get when I tell people about this blog. Interested stares and plenty of questions.
And here’s the thing:
I love this reaction.
Because, if it’s authentic (and it usually is), it indicates a curiosity that I think God can and will use. For most people I connect with, this is a completely new topic. Few people in the church are really talking about this stuff. As a result, I am finding that people really want to know how to think about gender issues within the framework of their faith.
So I say keep it coming. I’ll keep reading and writing.
And you keep staring and then asking your questions.
Which One is It?
On Tuesday morning I started the first intensive associated with my DMiss program. So far it’s been amazing. As we meet these two weeks, I’m aiming to get to know my cohort, to refine/narrow my topic and to plot out my research process.
In the run-up to these two weeks, I’ve been doing some reading. OK, a lot of reading. Like a 7-8 books in the last month level of reading. And I discovered late last week that I also need to read a bunch of missiological journal articles. (Note to self…read the syllabus more closely!).
So last weekend I did a bit o’ online research, looking for recent missiological articles related to my topic. The result?
For the most part, “crickets.”
For instance, I went to the site for Evangelical Missions Quarterly, searched for “gender partnership” and found nada. Here’s a shot:
Same thing for “gender.” In fact, if you search the site for “gender” all you get is an article that contains the word “engendered.”
So then I tried Mission Frontiers, the magazine/site of the U.S. Center for World Mission.
Again, a search for “gender partnership” came up empty:
And then I tried the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, and, same story. Here’s a shot of the search page:
In this case, at least it only took 16.45 seconds to find out the news!
Similar stories with Missio Apostolica, Missiology and Mission Studies. In fact, the one place I found articles was on the Lausanne site.
So what’s going on here?
I think it’s either one of two things.
Maybe there’s really little out there on the topic of intra-gender partnerships in mission. I mean, I might be plowing new ground here.
Or, I’m just a really bad researcher who needs of some better search keywords!
Either way, it’s going to be fun to learn and grow through the process.
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.
Putting Things Right
Here’s a quote to get you thinking today, from the book What is Mission? by missiologist Andrew Kirk:
“For a Christian who listens to the witness of the Old and New Testaments, the problem of finding an adequate basis for justice is solved. Both the basis for and the meaning of justice spring from the nature of the God who is. Justice is what God does, for justice is what God is. By definition, he acts consistently with his attributes. So we know justice through God’s acts of deliverance, through his laws and through the kind of relationships between human beings that he requires:
‘He has told you what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?’
(Mic. 6:8)‘Is this not the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
and to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?’
(Isa. 58:6)‘Give the king your justice, O God…
may he judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice…
may he defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the needy,
and crush the oppressor.’
(Ps. 72:1-4)The word of the prophet is addressed to the whole nation, not just to individuals. The whole community has a set of obligations which reflect God’s character. ‘To do justice’ is to demonstrate that the corporate body of people belong to one another. Justice is an active concept. It is not the maintenance of a static state of equilibrium in which certain powers are kept in balance. It is an activity in which a disordered or disproportionate state of affairs is put right. To do justice is to enable the disadvantaged to escape permanently from the trap of deprivation in order that they may become full, responsible members of the community. This will happen as resources and opportunities in life are made available to all. Justice includes; injustice excludes.
Justice is also about checking the excessive concentration of economic and political power in the hands of a few, so that responsible decision-making may be an activity of the whole community. It is about ensuring that each person may own and enjoy the work of his or her own hands and be supported by the community when hit by adversity.” (pp. 104-105)
Learning from our History
As an old history major, and as someone who cares deeply about issues around gender, faith and the church, I was intrigued this week when I stumbled across this post by my friend James Choung. It’s a post about the effect that early Christianity had on women of its day.
Specifically, for women in the first several centuries after Jesus, the church provided a place of safety, personal affirmation and ministry empowerment. As James notes, “It seemed that Christian women enjoyed far more privileges and status than other women in the Greco-Roman world.”
This agrees with several of my previous posts; for example, here, here, here and here.
For me, the reality of how the church once functioned with regard to women provokes this question:
In our day, why is the church a too often place of pain for women?
Here’s an excerpt from James’ post, and I recommend the entire piece:
“My main question came from the subtitle of Rodney Stark’s The Rise of Christianity: how does the obscure, marginal Jesus movement become the dominant religious force in the Western world?
In his book, he takes a sociologist’s lens on Christian history, and says that without mass conversions or events, Christianity could achieve 5 to 7.5 million adherents by 300 AD just by having 40% growth each decade through relational evangelism.
Then, with each chapter, he unpacks a counter-intuitive reason why the Christian faith was growing. Christianity reached the middle and upper classes, and not just the poor. Their mission to Jewish people was rather successful, instead of unsuccessful. Christians offered basic care to the sick during plagues when their own pagan relatives left them for dead, increasing the chance of survival nine-fold instead of just relying on miracles. Christians were concentrated in urban areas where they could welcome the steady inflow from surrounding areas, and they could minister to the urban chaos and grind, due to the strength of their community. And during persecution, the way martyrs would face their death greatly impressed the Greco-Roman world.
But there was one more factor: women had an elevated standing within the Christian community.”
It’s Dry, but it’s Inclusive!
This morning it hit me:
“I’m a doctoral student now.”
Perhaps it was the three short papers due on Friday. Or the fact one of those papers is a book report and I had yet to read even a page. Or, maybe, it was the type of book I was starting:
Jealous?!?
Thought so.
Reading a different but similar book the other day, I was glad to come across the following section, on gender inclusive language in research writing. As you know, I’m a bit of a nut about inclusive language. Here’s the excerpt:
“Typically in the past, one wrote in sexist noninclusive archaic English. Singular masculine pronouns commonly referred to an indefinite person. However, that practice effectively excluded women. Old style manuals used terms like ‘mankind’ for all people. Language and writing style values have changed. In contemporary English such exclusive language is not acceptable. Many researchers have learned English composition using ‘he,’ ‘him,’ and ‘his’ as the correct way to refer to any person. To correct this practice and to conform to contemporary values, some simple editing procedures may be employed. In a few cases, one might use both pronouns (e.g., he or she, him or her, his or hers), however, in many cases the subject may be changed to a plural or to the specific name of the person or role. Using plurals allows for the use of inclusive plural pronouns. In other cases the author can simply edit the sentence structure to avoid exclusive language. One must however keep the pronouns agreeing in number with the nouns to which they refer.
Int the past many roles were defined in gender-specific terms (e.g., chairman). A more acceptable and contemporary practice is simply to refer to the person in nongender specific terms, (e.g. chair of the board). Many contemporary English style manuals provide many more suggestions about this change in writing style.”
Here’s to a generation of gender inclusive research writers!
On Flourishing
I love the idea of human flourishing.
I first stumbled upon the notion during my Master’s program, via a theologian named Miroslav Volf. Here’s what Volf has to say about human flourishing (from this article):
“I think in the Christian faith, human flourishing is life in which one receives oneself from God as a beloved child of God, and loves God and loves neighbor.
That’s a very rough definition of what it means to flourish as a human being. But I think it also has two significant components: The first component being that one leads one’s life well. The other component being that life goes well for one. So it has both active and passion dimensions to it. Health of the body might be a passive dimension of flourishing; aspects of moral responsibility are an active dimension.”
Human flourishing. I mean, the phrase even sounds beautiful.
From time to time when I’m asked what I’m studying in my current program, I reference this notion of flourishing. For me human flourishing is a God-given vision for life as God intends it, for individuals, for the community and for the systems of our world. Come to think of it, human flourishing is pretty close to the holistic Hebrew notion of shalom.
I heard a talk this week about human flourishing. Well, not explicitly, and the speaker never uses the term. And yet the story is certainly one of flourishing.
The speaker is Shauna Niequist and the talk is “What My Mother Taught Me.” Niequist is the daughter of Willow Creek’s Lynne and Bill Hybels, and in the talk she tells the story of how her mother went from flourishing to not flourishing to flourishing again. I think the talk provides not only a helpful snapshot of human flourishing, but it highlights what is at stake in a male privilege marked world where women are too often held back from flourishing.
Two short lines caught my attention, as I think they capture what flourishing is all about:
“I watched my mother become herself.”
and
“Make space for two callings in one home, in one marriage.”
You can find a transcript of the talk here on Niequist’s site. Or you can watch it below. As you watch it, let me encourage you to consider what flourishing could look like for you and your communities!
Challenging Tertullian 