Response to Sandhya Jha

I found Sandhya Jha's recent post on gender really helpful, thoughtful and it sparked a flood of thoughts for me. It did not feel like “old news” to me. I wrote the following response directly to her.  It got long, so I thought I'd post it here. 

I chuckled with her reference to “Very progressive man.” My first thought was—oh, good—she’s not talking about me. Then I retreated where I usually do in these conversations to saying, “We’re not the ones you need to convince. Other women are the biggest obstacle. Convince them.” That was the first point of conviction for me. Because as soon as I thought that I though about often I let other men intimidate me. I’m not successful at persuading them. I’m often not courageous enough to try. So, I need to quit using that cop out line or else accept that if feminist women are responsible for the non-feminist women then I have to accept responsibility for persuading the unrepentant men (Oh Brother).

I think a lot of times “Progressive Men” try to appear feminist but don’t actually get there. I’ve been struck by a few of my strong feminist friends who married somewhat conservative almost red-neck men. The thought that occurred to me is that a lot of the most conservative, politically insensitive people I know are very respectful in one-on-one relationships with their wives and in fact everyone they meet. They don’t try to prove that they aren’t sexist they have an ethic of respect. It’s the weirdest thing that some of the nicest people, most willing to help folk around here are Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly fans. I simply don’t get it.

It shouldn’t surprise me, though. I know that there is a profound difference between what my “ideology” says and the feelings and motivations generated by synapses, hormones, and hardwiring. I am Romans 7 walking around in the 21st Century. That’s not an attempt to divert responsibility just a way of saying responsibility for actions means more than changing ideology. As you said, “Your desire for me to feel completely liberated . . . .” Right. There’s a long and arduous—not so straight but definitely narrow—road from good intentions to healthier interactions and systems.

Which leads me to say that part of what has to happen now is the development of simpler norms. You’re final point is where my anxiety kicks in—there are different kinds of feminism. As an aside, I’ll say, I have always been of the opinion that men cannot be truly feminist and the white middle-class cannot be liberationist. It has to do with my understanding of theological anthropology (or psychology). I believe that self-deception, which ideology often leads to, is one of the biggest barriers to wholeness. I believe that we must be constantly vigilant about our participation in injustice or to put the word simply—sin. I can be informed by feminism but to claim to be a feminist too easily drifts into self-deception that I have conquered all my sexist tendencies. So when I decline to claim my own feminism in the conversation, it’s not because I disagree. Aside over.

The challenge now is that with the diverse opinions about how gender should be thought about and lived out, it is much more difficult to know how to respond. If it’s dark outside and one of my women colleagues is still in the building. Do I offend her autonomy by waiting until she’s done to see that she makes it to the car safely (our zip code—76010--has problems to rival any inner-city neighborhood) OR is it just showing respect per your point #1 (BTW, I know my colleagues well enough to know to stay. They know me well enough to tell me if they think I’ve crossed a line and said or done something insensitive). Simple actions of “chivalry” become complicated internal dialogues for many men who are trying to be (or appear) non-sexist. That’s an isolated example of what happens all the time. Somewhere in the attempts to appear non-sexist we have stopped using language like the language one of your commenters posted. We don’t say to boys, “Be a gentlemen and treat ladies with respect.” It sounds patronizing and archaic. I heard a discussion a few weeks ago on NPR (can’t remember which show) where the women in the discussion said they didn’t like the term “ladies.” Really? Someone please explain how we’re supposed to keep this straight. Paradigm shifts create stages where old norms have fallen away but new norms have yet to emerge. Maybe that’s where we’re living but, in the absence of clear norms particularly as it relates to the education of boys the vacuum will be filled with the sort garbage we’ve heard recently.

Finally, and somewhat unrelated to the preceding, the Fluke controversy was tragic. Limbaugh’s rhetoric was some of the worst I’ve ever heard. Frankly, I think we need to have a conversation about religious liberty and to what extent the first amendment protects the policies of religious affiliated organizations. Personally, I think an insurance company should regard birth control as essential. I see it as preventative medicine and I think insurance companies would do well to be more aggressive with promoting preventative medicine. But, whether companies should be compelled by law to implement policies that are morally problematic for their shareholders is a lot more complicated than it appears. Fluke deserved a serious and nuanced response and serious scrutiny. What she got instead was a pundit willing to simplify it below the waist (where a man’s brain is a lot of the time) and drive it straight to the gutter. In doing so, he severely crippled people like myself who think that Fluke’s arguments deserve some heavy counter-argument and dialogue. Not on moralistic grounds about sex but on constitutional grounds about the extent of religious freedom and freedom of conscious in our complex interdependent context. Unfortunately, any male adversary to Fluke’s argument will now get coupled with Limbaugh’s rant and be dismissed out of hand as sexist.