When I did CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education aka hospital
chaplain internship) I had an incredibly sexist manager. A man who would scoff
if one of us (women, we were 4 out of 12 summer interns) would ask a clarifying
question about the on-call schedule or our reporting. When we would respond to
his scoff with an apology for asking our questions he would answer with, “I
have a wife… I know that women don’t get it and always have questions.” He
would laugh under his breath at us if we cried or got emotional during our
morning reports after a tough overnight. Us women can be so emotional, can’t
we?? *insert eyeroll*
My supervisor, who led our small groups, and was one of the
most badass women I’ve ever met and she would ask me why I had such strong
reactions to this manager, why was he getting under my skin so much? She wasn’t
defending him, she was digging, searching for the source of my ragging feminism
and short fuse when it comes to sexism. “Did your parents not support you? Were
you told as a kid that you couldn’t do things because you were a girl?” she
would ask… My experience as a kid was literally the opposite. I have been so
lucky to have been exposed to some truly badass women in my life. I had a front
row seat as a kid watching my Mom knock out glass ceiling after glass ceiling,
proving time and again that women could not only be pastors, but they could be
really damn good at it. I had aunts that were highly educated and firsts in
their fields, grandmothers and great aunts that proved women could run a farm,
complete tough mathematics tasks, raise kids while doing it, run political
campaigns and go toe to toe with anyone that stood in their way. I was watching
Mia Hamm and her team beat the odds in the 99’ world cup and sell out stadiums
across the country while winning it all, I was singing girl power songs along
with the Spice Girls, my parents took me to meet women like Mae Jemison (the
first woman of color in space and an all-around genius). And, I think most
importantly, I watched men like my Dad not only support all these women but
lift them up when it was necessary and also get out of the way when it was
necessary. In fact, my Dad is probably a bigger feminist then I am!
Because of all this I have been pondering a lot lately this
question of why… why I’m so focused on these feminist issues when I was raised
with the idea that I am as good if not better than the man next to me? Part of
the answer is shell shock. Because I was raised the way I was, in the community
I was raised in, with the examples I had, I was blind to just how sexist the
world still is, I couldn’t recognize the microaggressions exploding all around
me because I hadn’t seen or experience straight up aggression myself until I
was in the professional world. Now it’s all too clear how much we still need
each other, how much work we have to do. If the election of Donald Trump over
Hillary Clinton proved anything to anyone it should have been the fact that the
country, we live in is still teeming with sexism. If the Brett Kavanaugh
accusations are proving anything it’s that we still don’t believe women, we don’t
value their bodies and their safety, we go with what is convenient over what is
right.
Women today are simultaneously filled with determination and
fear; with pride in the women who were first and the knowledge that glass
ceilings and trails can grow back. That the responsibility to be first might
still fall on our shoulders. No matter what our list of accomplishments may
hold, both individually and across the board, we will always have something to
prove. When a woman walks into a room she has to prove she is capable, where a
man has to prove he’s incapable. Women are constantly fighting to prove we can,
where men are given that acknowledgment just by existing. This is why we, as
women, have to continue to come together, to lift each other up and to believe
each other; not blindly of course and not because of some kind of made up
trickle down feminism, but because if we can’t support each other and hold each
other accountable in a safe and productive way, no one else will.
When I moved into my office at my internship site I made the
conscious choice to surround my desk with pictures of women (Leslie Knope
style). I didn’t do this because I don’t have supportive men in my life, I did
this because I wanted to remind myself of the powerful women who helped raise
me, the women I call colleagues and friends, and the women who are coming after
us that we have to raise right. I admire every face that smiles back at me from
my office walls because behind those smiles is power and fight, a history of
firsts and boundary pushing.
We may think that we don’t need each other, that there is
balance in our world because more women are in the work force, more women are
climbing mountains and running marathons, more women are educated and powerful,
maybe we’ve made it! In so many ways we, as women, have arrived, we have proved
ourselves time and again. But, until we stop hearing “for a woman” at the end
of a compliment or success then we have not made it, there is still work to do.
Until “boys will be boys” is no longer an acceptable excuse and rapists aren’t elected
into office we have not made it. And you know ladies, until we start lifting
each other up and believing each other, we will never make it. I am lucky to
have fellow women who remind me every day how powerful and capable we all are,
not just in how they go about their lives but in sharing stories of women who
were the first to climb mountains, get elected to office, or accomplish something
great. The reminders are beautiful and necessary.
I know that I am lucky. I am lucky to have had the examples
and support I did while growing up. I am lucky to be surrounded by some truly
powerhouse women and even luckier to call them friends and family. There are
many who aren’t as lucky, who feel they are fighting the patriarchy alone. There
are many who deal with intersectionality that forces them to fight battles on
multiple fronts at once, or pick their battles in ways that I (as a white,
heterosexual, cisgender, middle class woman) don’t have to. Because of this we
have to be more aware of what we are facing, to acknowledge that even
microaggressions are damaging and painful, that even though we have come so far
there is still work to do.
So, keep sharing those stories, keep finding other women to
run with, lift each other up, remind each other of the power we have both individually
and as a group, but most importantly; believe each other, listen to each other,
because once we realize we aren’t alone, there’s no stopping us.
