My Gender Biased History…

December 21st, 2006

Nature or nurture? Can gender equality truly be handled through education? In my case it is especially difficult to separate the two. I am not sure if my religious past forced me to pay close attention to the gender equality issue or if I am just destined to buck the system. Perhaps it is both or perhaps the nurturing fed my curious nature. All I know is that I was aware of gender bias from a very early age. When I went to kindergarten I was shocked at how differently the boys were treated compared to the girls. They were allowed to go to the bathroom upon demand and girls were told to hold it. Their boys gym classes consisted of baseball and soccer and the girls jumped rope and played hop scotch.

My brothers were born a year later and I saw this trend continue, even in my own home. The boys were allowed to do things that the girls were not. The boys were allowed to be aggressive. They were encouraged to be aggressive, to take the lead. The term “sissy” was something to be avoided but “tomboy” was acceptable. I remember that my sister was not allowed to play baseball at our bus stop because she threw like a girl. I remember thinking “its better to throw like a girl than to throw like a frog.” Punishments were different for the same act. If a girl spit, she had to write “girls don’t spit” a thousand times. If a boy spit, they were told not to do it indoors. This all seemed to be so different from the way adults acted.

Quite frankly, all of the women I knew at that time in my life were very powerful. They ruled their households and the room when they occupied it. Even my truck driver step-father found an escape route when the women convened over coffee. I remember laughing out loud when my step-father quoted 1 Peter 3:7 and said that women are the “weaker vessel” that the husband was to “honor and protect.” That got me a fierce look from my mother which only made me laugh harder.

There was something very backward about that entire scripture that made me think that somewhere along the lines of history, that was translated backwards. I remember thinking that I had never seen a man “honor” a woman because she was “weaker.” Exploit her, ridicule her, lord it over her, condescend her, mock her, yes, but never had I ever seen a woman honored for it. In my limited experience, I had only seen women honored when they trancended their male counterparts while maintaining a public facade of humilty and submission.

Religious rehtoric taught me that men were slaves to their desires and women were to be careful not to unleash that desire. Just about every story in the bible protrays a women that caused the downfall of great men - Adam and Eve, Sampson and Deliliah, Jezabel, King Solomon and Bathsheba. I was once counselled that my shirt was inappropriate because the pockets drew attention to my chest. I was 10 years old and flat as a pancake but somehow those pockets on my shirt could cause a man’s mind to mistep. At 10, I had never been “turned on” by anything so the idea that these uncontrollable feelings were entirely gender based made sense to me.

Thankfully, my nature did not allow this pattern of spoonfed guilt to destroy me. This experience did, however, fuel my natural instinct to make more observations, read more on the topic, and ask deeper questions of those powerful women that are all around me…

Entry Filed under: Religion