My Experience Fighting for Female Equality in My Church

The train rocked back and forth as I looked down at my book.  I couldn’t focus on the words, but I didn’t want to look at the people around me.  Not right now.  I knew that I was an island of isolation among a growing sea of suits.  The men of my church were heading to the semi-annual priesthood session of conference.  They chatted happily while I tried to hide in my cave of anxiety.  Excitement and dread gripped me.  The words of my book were no longer making it into my brain, so I shut it and looked up.  Were there others on this train like me?  I scanned the crowd.  Then I saw her.  She looked familiar from the online forums that I had been part of for months.  She wore a purple coat, purple being the symbolic color of the Ordain Women movement.  I hesitated to speak to her, knowing how other people feel about our movement.  For months I’ve been drowning under ridicule, hate, antagonism…I am an outcast because I see inequality where others don’t.  I have chosen to speak up in a culture where silence is respected.  If I spoke up now, and let this girl know who I was, how would she respond?  I wasn’t positive she was one of us.  But the purple coat spoke to me, so I took a deep breath and made my way over to her.

        “Are you with Ordain Women?” I asked.

        She looked up and for a moment I thought I caught a glimpse of dread in her face as well.  Then relief washed over both of us as we realized we were among friends, allies.  We moved quickly to a place where we could sit together and an energy of love and excitement suddenly surrounded us.  The feeling of isolation and anxiety abated. There is something very powerful in just being in the presence of a like-minded soul.  I was among one of my sisters, someone I didn’t have to explain myself to, someone who understood perfectly and wouldn’t hurt me with well-meaning daggers.  And we were headed to the center, to a place where hundreds of like-minded people were gathering. 

        When we arrived at the park, women and men were chatting excitedly.  Soon the devotional began.  Nadine McComes Hanson led the music.  Nadine has been fighting for the priesthood and equality for women long before the internet and the ability to have hundreds and thousands of voices supporting hers.  We sang “Come Come, Ye Saints,” a song that our pioneer foremothers and fathers sang as they pressed forward to a place where they could rest from persecution and build the kingdom of God in peace.  We sang the last verse for Nadine, “And should we die before our journey’s through, Happy day!  All is well!”  How long will this battle last?  Will I see the fruits of it in my own life?

        After the song, Kate Kelly, the founder of Ordain Women spoke.  "Before Ordain Women I was afraid to speak my truth.  I was afraid to say what I really think.  I was afraid to point out the obvious fact that men and women are not equal in our Church.  And, it occurred to me that if, as a well-educated, self-confident woman I was unable to say what I think, it must be extremely difficult for every Mormon woman who thinks like me to speak out.  It is so hard to speak up when you feel alone."  Yes!  Alone, I thought the problem was all in my head.  Now I was surrounded by hundreds of other people who saw the same problems I did.  Our power came from speaking up together.  "I am not invisible.  Now I know that there are hundreds and thousands of other people who can see it just as clearly as I can.  We are not invisible."
        Then my friend Abby got up to speak.  "I have never stood on the sidelines of the church," she said.  "I have young women leaders who would be disappointed to know that I am here, but they are the ones who taught me the values that brought me here today...faith, knowledge, and especially integrity."  I looked around.  None of these women and men were ones to stand on the sidelines of the church.  They were the rising stars of Mormonism, the ones who devoted everything to the church.  They came from the center and providence had pushed them to this place.

       As the closing prayer ended, we lined up and started for Temple Square.  Just outside the park men were shouting at us that we need to submit to our husbands as Eve Submitted to Adam.  These were men who hated our church, but hated us even more.  Their voices carried after me from behind as I began crossing the street to an echo of honks and people in nice clothing yelling at us from their cars.  These were members of our church who were taught alongside us in Sunday School that the first great commandment is love.  As the wind began to pick up with a mighty ferocity, I wondered at the dichotomy that lay before me.  Anti-Mormons hated me for what I was doing, Mormons hated me for what I was doing, only God knew what was truly in my heart.  Suddenly hail began pelting us, and the angry voices disappeared in the noise of the weather.  We pressed forward against the torrent which began to abate as we walked onto the holy grounds of our religion, Temple Square.

        I looked around as the sun began to filter in through the clouds.  I pictured a younger me visiting temple square with my family, doing service projects there with youth groups, coming to conference with friends during college.  I walked past the reflection pool and saw myself as a young woman, posing for a picture with my soul mate on our wedding day.  This was my place.  This is where I belong.  Yet only weeks ago, Church PR had told us not to come, not to make this public request.  We have been told that we are only a divisive group, apostates bent on ruining the church.  I have personally been told to leave.  I don’t belong in this church with the burdens and the questions I carry.  We were told that we belonged outside with the protesters, those men yelling hateful things at us.  But we were not protesters.  I felt like I was visiting Temple Square like I had so many times in my youthful, blissfully faithful days.  Today was no different, except that I was there seeking a Balm of Gilead.  I was surrounded by others like me, who carried burdens resulting from inequality in the Church. 

        The event was peaceful and anti-climactic.  We walked peacefully to the Tabernacle, stood peacefully in line, and waited patiently to speak individually with a PR lady.  She was warm and friendly, as she listened to our concerns and bore our burdens.  As I talked to her, I wondered how much further along we could be as a people if all our members acted the way she did.  Even if we don’t understand, can’t we at least speak warmly and listen, bearing each other’s burdens as we have covenanted to do?  I had an inclination as I spoke to her to reach out and hug her, but I faltered.  We were pitted against each other on opposite sides.  I wasn’t supposed to hug her, she was the other…or I was.  As I started to walk past her I had a moment’s relapse and I turned and touched her shoulder.  Our eyes connected and for a moment we looked into each other’s souls.  We were one, sisters, bound by love, though differing in our views and positions.  I was reminded that this is not about me fighting against the church.  I can’t make them “the other,” the way I have felt them do to me.  This is only about speaking my truth.  Suddenly I felt the energy drain out of me and I found a quiet place to sit down.  All the effort and sacrifice we had all made to be here, was it worth it?  Had we been heard?  Of course we didn’t expect to be let in.  But we wanted to be heard.
       My answer came about twenty minutes later when I pulled out my phone and read the official Church PR statement.  It said that we had refused ushers’ directions and refused to leave when asked.  "While not all the protesters were members of the church, such divisive actions are not the kind of behavior that is expected from Latter-day Saints and will be as disappointing to our members as it is to church leaders.”  I felt like I had been punched in the gut.  Had these PR reps seen the same event I had seen?  We had been dignified and respectful, yet that was not the report the Church was giving.  With no outside witness to back us up, since the news media had been denied access, it was our word against theirs.  Here it was again, us vs. them.  No, they had not heard us, and they had no intention of listening.  Unlike the lovely woman at the door, our church did not care about the sacrifices we had made, did not care about the pain we experienced in standing up and speaking about our feelings and experiences as women in the church.  Our church wanted only to paint us as the other.
        But we are not other.  We are not apostates, we are not anti-mormon protestors, we are not any number of things that the church wants us to be so that they can dismiss us.  We are the church.  We have devoted our whole lives in service to this church.  It is our home and we want to use our talents and energy to make it better.  We have a precious beautiful truth to share.  In a book called the Alchemist, by Paulo Cohelo, the Alchemist comes up against some guards and they ask him what he has in his pockets.  He pulls out a stone and a flask and tells them that they are the philosopher’s stone which will turn everything to gold, and the elixir of life, which will cure all ills.  They laugh and send him on his way.  The boy who is with him asks incredulously why he told them that.  He says, "...when you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed."  This is how I felt on Saturday as the truth I offered was dismissed so easily.

Tribalism Part VI: Religion

        This last post of my tribalism series is going to be my hardest post yet.  I wish religion didn’t need to be tribalistic.  I wish we could be bonded by love and faith, not separated by beliefs and theories.  Psychologically, we thirst after meaning.  We want the world to make sense.  We want life to extend beyond now.  So furiously we cling to the beliefs that are handed down to us.  They help us to maintain order and a sense of security. 

        But opposing beliefs can’t co-exist.  My favorite part of the book, “The Life of Pi” is when Pi is surrounded by his Catholic Priest, his Muslim Imam, and his Hindu Pandit.  They each praise him for being such a good student of their respective religions, until they realize that he is also a student of the other two.  Outraged, they contend with each other about the falseness of the other religions.  The exchange is humorous and it sheds light on how silly it is for one religion to claim all the truth for its followers.  I believe that religion is about gaining spiritual maturity and obtaining pure love.  There is no maturity, nor love in the war between religions. 

        One tribe will call itself the true church, and refer to everyone else as heathens, infidels, gentiles, “the world,” or non-members.  Straw men of sinners and followers of Satan are created to spark fear and to keep those within the tribe from exploring and understanding the other.  In my experience, other straw men become a threat to the tribe: intellectuals and liberals.  A great cliff of apostasy is created and fear is used to keep tribal members as far from that cliff as possible. 

        I spent the first thirty years of my life beautifully, peacefully living amongst a religious tribe that I loved.  I lived an orthodox life and I was, as they say in my religion, “A member in good standing.”  I learned the doctrine inside and out.  I served in leadership positions.  I devoted my whole life to my tribe.  My life has been what it is because of my religion.  It introduced me to God and to faith.  It taught me that I could achieve high standards of moral conduct and it taught me how to live providently.  Because I was orthodox, I felt a sense of community and love from my tribe.  Like I mentioned in my first post, tribalism can be a beautiful thing. 

        But then I was cast out of the Garden of Eden into the cold harsh world.  My curious mind led me to understand the “other” and to realize that they are not so different from me.  How am I any different from the Muslim woman who devotes herself to Allah, prays four times a day, lives a good life, loves a lot, and sacrifices to make her pilgrimage to Mecca?  Her rituals are sacred to her and mine are sacred to me.  They are different.  Our beliefs about eternity are different.  But our faith is the same.  Why would a loving God choose only one of us because the other’s sacred rituals and beliefs were not the right ones. 

        This new way of thinking took me to the edge of the apostasy cliff, and I jumped off.  Guess what?  It wasn’t really the scary cliff I had grown up believing in.  In fact, I found a bridge.  It’s a bridge that unites the world by love and faith.  Unfortunately, this bridge is invisible.  All my tribe can see is me, and apostasy.  I have to admit, it’s pretty scary to be on an invisible bridge over a cliff of apostasy.  So I turned back for love and support, but I found that I was already “the other,” so easily dismissed and cast out by my tribe. 

        I wanted to share with my tribe the beautiful world I had found beyond ours.  I wanted the love and support I had always found from them when I did what was expected.  Instead, they threw straw men at me.  I was one of the elect being led astray by Satan, I had lost my testimony, lost the spirit…I had been deceived.  Out of fear, I was pushed away at arm’s length.  I understand that the bullying is not out of malice.  Bullying is a necessary part of tribalism.  It keeps people from leaving by causing a “pain of independence.” 

        I still love my religion.  It is home.  It’s part of me.  I crossed my bridge, but I came back.  And I will always come back.  I don’t fit in like I used to.  But I come back because I hope that someday the great gulf of apostasy won’t divide us and keep us from understanding the true purpose of our religion: to love and understand each other. This love and understanding is the bridge that I now call home and I hope that someday it will no longer be invisible.

Tribalism Part V: Liberals vs. Conservatives

        I was born in beautiful suburbia to a conservative family.  I had a safe and happy childhood.  I love my conservative upbringing.  I was part of the tribe, mostly because I was young and didn’t understand politics.  I just went with the flow, drawing mustaches on Bill Clinton’s face every chance I got.  He and the other democrats were the enemy of course, and I had to do my part, right? 

        But then I grew up and found a different worldview.  I received a liberal education in college and experienced my first election between Bush and Kerry.  As much as I loved my conservative upbringing, and as safe as it had felt, I knew that something deep down in my core made me liberal.  I accepted the democrats’ message, while trying to gag down the republican one.  Of course I wanted the republicans to be right, but I wasn’t excited about their message.  I was excited about liberal ideals, and when that excitement came out of me, the bullying began.

        I was told that I was on a dangerous path.  I was called delusional, I was told that I couldn’t think for myself and that my husband had brainwashed me.  When I was pregnant with my first baby and debating the need for Plan B Contraceptives to be over-the-counter I was told that I was a baby killer.  I lost friends…a lot of friends.  I learned to be a closet democrat and keep my mouth shut.  Whenever it did come out that I was a democrat, the bullying would continue.  Only now, ten years later, am I confident enough to wear my liberalism and live outside the closet. 

        Leaving the tribe was hard, but living in one tribe when I once belonged to its enemy can be even harder.  Especially since most of my friends and family belong to that tribe.  I find value in conservatism and liberalism, and I feel that they could complement each other, but for the warfare.  Liberals call themselves progressives, but conservatives often call them radicals, godless, secular, unpatriotic.  Conservatives call themselves patriotic, defenders of America, good citizens, but liberals call them backward, gun-toting bigots.  This language doesn’t help. 

        Neither do the straw man arguments that are created in order to keep people riled up against the other side, thus preserving the solidarity of the tribe.  Straw man arguments are misrepresentations of an opponent’s argument.  For instance, I think most of us can agree that abortion is not something we want to be part of our society.  We just have different ways of wanting to solve the problem.  But if someone says they are pro-choice, a straw-man argument will misconstrue that to say “You don’t care about innocent babies and the sanctity of life.”  On the other side, pro-life can be misconstrued as not caring about the life, emotional strain, and choice of the mother.  This problem is aggravated by the people on the fringes who say ignorant things like a woman can’t get pregnant if it is a legitimate rape.

        I hear enough straw man arguments to think that what we have is two different sides building their own scarecrows.  These fake enemies are created in order to ensure fear of the other side.  A tribe needs an enemy in order to safeguard its survival.  An outside enemy creates nationalism and unity, and keeps people from looking at problems from within the tribe.   I am bothered by these fake enemies, because they obfuscate the truth and make it harder for liberals and conservatives to work together and understand each other. 

        Having jumped from one tribe to another, I quickly went from seeing Bill Clinton as the enemy to seeing George Bush as the enemy.  Now I try to search for the straw within the enemy.  That’s why it is hard to hear about President Obama, the cause of all our woes.  If the economy is bad, it is the result of this one man.  Twinkies go under because of the nature of capitalism, it’s Obama’s fault for killing capitalism.  Muslims are our enemy, well Obama must be a Muslim.  Obama can’t possibly have been born in the United States, because making him “other” than us makes him scary.  The problem is that President Obama is not the enemy.  Liberals, secularists, atheists, they’re not the enemy, and they are not going to cause the downfall of America.  The constitution is not hanging by a thread.  These are all fake enemies created to keep the tribe strong, and the fear of them keeps us from true communication and compromise.  That is the real enemy, the lack of communication and understanding that is keeping us from moving forward and reaching our potential as a nation.     

        I grew up thinking democrats were evil, but when I discovered liberalism, it was not the scary thing that I expected it to be.  The thing I love about having grown up conservative is that I enjoy the best of both worlds.  Conservative and liberal coexist peacefully inside me.  I have the progressive liberal side of me that looks forward and envisions greater things.  I also have the conservative side that keeps me grounded and helps me to look backward to evaluate the course and make sure that I am on safe ground.  How would things be different in politics if we could use our individual strengths to move forward together?  Tear down the straw men, cut out the tribal language, and look to each other’s strengths.  Let’s jump in a boat together.  Liberals can continue looking forward and conservatives can keep looking backward.  As we trust the vantage point of each other, working through our differences, we will have the best of both worlds.  We will know where we are going as well as where we have come from.    

Tribalism Part IV: Mommy Wars

        In continuation of my feminist post, I am going to dive a little deeper into the subject of motherhood.  I know that a lot of blog posts have been written lately on mommy wars, but I will add my perspective to it.  In order to understand where I am coming from, I think a picture will help:

        This is my minivan full of kids.  I have dreamed of this my whole life.  I spent my childhood playing with dolls.  Whenever I played the Game of Life, I didn’t care if I had the most successful life or the most money at the end.  I felt that I had won if I had my car full of kids.  The other day I was joking with my husband that I waited to be born the year the minivan first came out, because I had to be sure that I could get one.

        This dream of mine has been much more challenging than I ever thought possible, but I still love it.  It’s me.  When I look at this picture, it activates the pleasure center of my brain.  I know that the same image would activate the amygdala (fight or flight) of other people’s brains.  We’re all different.  Some women want to be mothers and have lots of kids, some don’t.  Some women choose to stay home while others work.  There are so many ways to be a mom and raise children.   But instead of celebrating those differences, we divide into tribes and fight over the “right” way to be a mom and raise kids.

        Since being initiated into the world of mommy wars, here is a list of some of the things I have done “wrong”: I had my kids too early, I also had them too late, I had too many kids, but I also haven’t had enough kids, my spacing was too close, I birthed them wrong, I breastfed them wrong, I discipline them wrong, I send them to the wrong school…the list goes on and on.  I think this list is something that most moms can relate too and even add to. 

        Part of the problem is ethnocentricity.  The reason we use ethnocentric language is because it really is hard to see things from another’s perspective.  Because a picture of my four kids in a minivan gives me pleasure, it might be hard for me to understand that not everyone gets pleasure out of that.  I get annoyed at the comments people make about me all the time because I hear them all the time.  But I know they are made simply because someone who isn’t doing what I’m doing day in and day out will look at my life and feel overwhelmed.  Everywhere I go I hear, “Wow! You have your hands full!”  “Is she your last one?”  “You just stay home with your kids?”  “You know how those are made right?” 

        I heard some working mothers talking the other day about the things they hear all the time that annoy them:  “How do you DO it all?”  “How do you know that your daycare is a safe place for your kids?”  “Who taught your child to read and play the violin?  Your nanny?”  Once again, I think these statements and questions come from people who look at a life choice and feel uncertain about it because it is not their own. But these comments come with huge assumptions that just because you are a working mom, you can’t also be a fully engaged mom who teaches her child to read or play the violin.    Onlookers don’t really need to be making these remarks, because for career women and SAHMs, these things are already heavy on our minds. 

        The choices we make as mothers are not easy.  It’s not easy to stay home and raise a large family.  It has been the most difficult thing I have ever done.  It has expanded my capacities beyond what I though was possible.  It is a challenge financially, but I know many SAHMs who are incredible at finding creative solutions to money problems.  We teach our kids piano and swim lessons, work together with other moms to form co-op pre-schools or dance groups, cut coupons, and become really good at bargain shopping.  It is challenging mentally and emotionally, but these incredible women I associate with rise above it every day.  Yes, we have mounds of laundry and dishes that never end.  We are tired and frazzled and at the end of our rope with a certain child who is acting up.  Some days are monotonous, some days are stressful or tiring, and some days are perfect.

        It’s also not easy to be a career mom.  I can only know this from listening to other women.  But the internal struggle sounds similar to mine.  Just like me, she has mounds of laundry, children who act up, and not enough hours in the day to accomplish what she needs to do.  Most of her fears are fears that I share.  And underlying it all, am I doing the right thing?  Isn’t that what we are all asking?

        I remember being told when I was a new mom and used a pretty strict method with my baby that encouraged her to sleep through the night fairly early, that I was ruining my child because I let her “cry it out.”  I looked at my ever-happy four-month-old, and then and there declared that the idea of ruining your child is a myth.  As long as you are trying to do what is best for your child, it is not likely that you will ruin him/her.  We have to do what is best for ourselves, our kids, and our own family units.  People on the outside can’t possibly know what that is.  

         I think the reason moms often feel threatened by the choices of other moms is that they challenge the “rightness” of our own choices.  I want to know that my life choices are valuable and that I am doing the “right thing.”  But if I’m doing the right thing then someone else must be doing the “wrong thing.”  It can be hard to get beyond seeing the world in black and white.  I don’t actually believe anymore that there is a right or wrong way to be a mom.  There is no perfect way to produce a good child, a strong family, or a happy mom.  In fact, there are many imperfect ways.  We don’t need to add more pressure to women who are already wondering if they are doing the right thing.  Our hearts will tell us what the right thing is for us.  Let’s end the mommy wars.  Let’s listen to our hearts and let other people listen to theirs.   We are all different.  We have different bodies, different minds, different interests, different talents, and different life experiences.  Based on those things, we can make parenting decisions that are just right for us and our families.    

Next Post: Liberals vs. Conservatives

Tribalism Part III: Feminists vs. Non-feminists

        Oh feminism!  I say this with a sigh right now because I feel fatigued from running back and forth between the two tribes.  Why don’t I ever hear about masculinism?  Perhaps because men have had the ability to define themselves and the world around them since the days of Adam.  Women are only just beginning to enjoy a loud enough voice to define themselves.  From my vantage point however, it appears that tribal warfare is keeping us from fully defining ourselves. 

        Let’s look at the warfare: first the tribal language.  I’ve heard feminists call those outside their tribe “Sexists.”  While that is a characteristic that can exist among non-feminists, it is not fair to use that one characteristic to define a whole group of people.  In western culture, I think one of the main forms of sexism that exists is benevolent sexism, which places women above men as moral superiors, rather than beneath them.  People who use this form of sexism often don’t even know that they are doing it or that it is harmful to both genders.  I recently heard someone say that the feminist movement just caused women to be as base as men.  He was referring to Miley Cyrus’ performance at the VMAs without even mentioning Robin Thicke who was an equal participant in that performance.  If men and women are truly equal then women are equal to men in their ability to be base as well.  Another phrase I have heard a lot lately is that women are more nurturing than men and that is why they belong in the home.  Once again, we are placing women above men in their ability to be nurturing, thus subjugating them to one role for which they may or may not be well suited.  This also causes self-fulfilling prophecy, in that men don’t have to learn to be nurturing because that is not in their nature.

         So sexism does exist, but it is not a good word to describe all non-feminists.  As I mentioned in my last post, it is wrong to take the deep and complex personality of someone and narrow it down to one characteristic.  It is also wrong to do this with a group of people.  It is especially ineffective to do this when the person or group of persons doesn’t even know that they are doing it.  Benevolent sexism can seem like a really good thing.  If someone thinks that sexism is the idea that women are not as good as men, then going to the other extreme and saying they are better than men can seem…well, benevolent.  But both extremes are dangerous.  Men and women are equal, plain and simple.  To say anything else is sexist.  That doesn’t mean that the person or group saying it is sexist, it only means that the idea is sexist.  Ideas don’t make up a person and ideas can change. 

        The characteristic I most often hear in reference to feminists is “angry man-haters.”  Some feminists are angry, some rightfully so.  Some feminists do in fact hate men.  But there are so many forms of feminism and so many different issues that appeal to different women within the realm of feminism, that it really is not fair to characterize all feminists as angry or as man-haters.  In fact, some feminists are even men.  If a feminist hates men, it may be that she was hurt badly by men.  The best way to know what a feminist is truly about is to listen to him or her.  I have found groups of feminists that I relate to and groups that I don’t.  It never hurts to listen.  In fact, a lot of the “angry” characteristic that is associated with feminism could be diminished if people just listened to them and understood them.      

        I have seen quite a bit of ethnocentricity coming from both tribes.  I think non-feminists tend to be content with the status-quo and it is hard to see how other women can be hurting because of it.  Instead of really trying to understand that pain, non-feminists use their own experience as a reference point and start coming up with reasons why they think women might be fighting for more freedom.  “You just don’t understand how valuable you are.” “You don’t value your femininity.” “You want to be exactly the same as men.”  “You want to be better than men.”  The problem with making these kinds of remarks is that they are huge assumptions about the motives behind another person’s actions or beliefs.  Anytime we make assumptions like that, we are in grave danger of being wrong and only adding to the problem.  It is always better to lay aside our own understanding and try to really listen to the other person.    

        That goes for feminists too of course.  I have heard some feminists make remarks about women who chose to live “traditional” lifestyles as stay-at-home mothers and housewives, who suggest they are not living up to their potential.  Their feeling is that these women allowed themselves to be subjugated and what they are doing is not as worthwhile as a woman who is contributing to the world in another way.  I read a book recently by a muslim female doctor.  While I really liked her story of how she overcame sexism to get where she was at, I couldn’t get past the comments she kept making about housewives.  It was as though she expected women who stayed home and raised large families to all be desperate, undereducated, and to have let themselves go.  Her mentality sounded something like this: “I can’t believe she looks so good considering she is just a housewife with three little kids.”  It’s really not fair for a career-oriented woman, even one who had to work so hard to get where she is at, to look at a stay at home mom in this light. 

        I am going to delve deeper into the sub-tribal warfare that we often call “mommy wars” in my next post, but the main point for me is that there are many different ways to live and experience life.  Ethnocentrism makes it hard for us to look at other people’s life choices and to be okay with them.  This is what draws me to feminism.  The kind of feminism I like to promote tears down walls that say that one way of living is better than another.  My feminism desegregates the sexes and relieves the world of arbitrary gender roles that say men should be this and women should be that.  My feminism makes use of all of our talents and abilities to maximum capacity without any thought of whether that is the proper role for that person.     

        I haven’t always been a feminist.  In fact, this is the first time I have actually called myself a feminist.  Until just recently I could count on one hand the number of times I have felt unequal to men in my own culture.  I didn’t see the harmful effects of benevolent sexism.  My life choices fit well with my society’s expectation for women, so I have not had to deal with a lot of the bullying that comes from going against the cultural current.  But my eyes have been opened to the negative impact that specific gender roles can have on society. 

        This all came to a head for me about a month ago after I had spent some time myself experiencing the negative impact of gender roles.  I was at McDonalds with my seven-year-old daughter.  She didn’t like the toy she got in her happy meal so she went to the counter to trade it.  The lady laid out all the toys, segregated of course, and said, “These are the boy toys and these are the girl toys.”  My daughter frowned and walked away with the toy she already had.  I didn’t think much of it until I heard her and my son fighting.  She was trying to manipulate him into giving her his toy.  I sat down and asked her why she didn’t take that toy when it was offered to her by the McDonalds employee.  “Because it’s a boy toy,” she said.  My heart broke for her.  Here she was only seven years old, already learning that she can’t do or have certain things simply because they are for boys.  Here she was at the age of seven, already learning that the way to live in a man’s world was through passive-aggressive manipulation.  I asked her what else she thought boys could have or do that girls couldn’t.  I was amazed at the long list she produced.  My intelligent seven-year-old daughter who likes bugs more than babies deserves to make her own decisions in life.  Her choices should not be based on a set standard of gender roles.      

        That’s what feminism is to me.  It’s about being able to dream as little girls, and make our dreams a reality.  As women, I don’t think we should be on different sides pitted against each other.  We should all be fighting for feminism.  Feminism is the right and ability to define ourselves and the world around us.  It is the freedom to be who we are as individual women, with respect, love, and acceptance from the collective womanhood.

Tribalism Part II: Extroverts vs. Introverts

        It is a little problematic to fully fit introversion and extroversion into the realm of tribalism as I described it in my last post, but in a culture that values extroversion over introversion, there is a bit of warfare that goes on.  As I talked about in my last post, tribes typically use their language’s word for “people” to describe themselves, and an epithet like “eaters of meat” to describe another tribe.  Similarly, in our culture we refer to extroverts as OUTGOING, which has a very positive ring to it, while referring to introverts as “shy.”  It is pretty clear just by the use of those terms which tribe is dominant in our western culture.

        I belong to the less dominant tribe and have suffered from the tribal warfare.  When I was little, there was one thing in life I could count on more than anything else.  When I met someone new, they were pretty much guaranteed to call me shy.  They weren’t the only ones of course.  Everyone called me shy.  I tried so hard to rise above that label.  Sometimes I would meet new people and I would try so hard to prove to them that I was not shy.  But the inevitable always came out of their mouth: “You are so shy!”  I wasn’t being shy!  Do you know how much I was putting myself out there?

        I learned how to act “outgoing.”  I read self-help books on speaking and I practiced hard.  It’s been at least ten years since I’ve heard myself reduced to the term shy.  But now the cycle starts all over again.  It barely takes seconds for a new person to take the intricate and complex beings that are my children, and reduce them to one flat character trait.  “Oh you’re shy.”

         I worry about kids who are growing up with the idea that they have to change who they are to fit the world’s criteria for acceptance.  I know the great complexity of my kids’ souls.  I know them inside and out.  So when I hear people make snap judgments about them and instantly reduce them to one label that is supposed to sum them up, I want to scream at them.  You don’t know her!  How can you make the slightest judgment about who she is?  That is the problem with snap judgments and labels.  These labels can’t even begin to describe the complex beings we are.           

         There are as many different ways to be shy as there are people to act shy.  Shyness itself isn’t even a character trait.  It’s a reaction in the amygdala, the fight or flight area of our brains, to new and uncertain stimuli.  People who are more sensitive or high reactive will have stronger reactions in their amygdala.  “Shy” is a horrible word to use because it oversimplifies the complexities of the human brain.  Introvert and extrovert is a better comparison, but as I mentioned before our society values extroversion over introversion.  Here’s the problem with that: introversion is not all bad and extroversion is not all good.  It is not better to be an extrovert or an “outgoing” person. 

        Both personality types have their good points and their bad points.   For someone who struggles with shyness, it is hard to battle the physiological challenges that arise when you have to get out of your comfort zone and speak to people.  But the sensitivity and ability to observe that introverts have opens up a world to them that extroverts sometimes struggle to see.  It can be hard for an extrovert to open up the part of his/her mind that can see the big picture and notice all the little details as well.  Sometimes empathy doesn’t come as easily.  But extroverts are amazing at being able to speak and win people over and radiate friendliness.  It’s no wonder we value extroversion.  But we need both personalities.  Like the yin and the yang, they are complimentary and they complete our world.

        So in my experience, tribal warfare between introverts and extroverts in the western culture mostly looks like extroverts setting the stage and the rules, expecting introverts to adapt.  The problem with this is that it will only leave us off-balanced.   If you want to see how the world might look without a healthy balance of introversion and extroversion, look at congress.  Our political system is set up in such a way that introverts don’t make it very well.  And we all know how functional congress is.  We don’t need introverts to become extroverts.  We need to value both and allow space for both to be who they are, to overcome the struggles they do have, and most importantly to work together to make the world better.

        If you are interested in this subject, there is a great book called “Quiet,” by Susan Cain.  I highly recommend it.    

        Next tribes:  feminists vs. non-feminists

Tribalism Part I

        It’s as old as time itself.  Being the social creatures we are, the group or groups we belong to are an essential part of life.  We are hard-wired toward tribalism because it is evolutionarily advantageous for us.  Our tribe gives us a sense of safety and security and allows us to use our different skills for the benefit of all.  Survival of the fittest is easier for a group than an individual.

        Tribalism of course exists in a different form in the modern world where the major battlefront seems to be social media.  We form tribes around ideas.  We group ourselves with people who are similar to us and we fight against people who are different from us. There is definitely a purpose to this.  It is comforting to belong to a group of like-minded people.  It’s even comforting to shun those who are not like us because of the threat that they pose to our equanimity.  In a religion, people can worship peacefully, knowing everyone else knows the rules and can play the game the right way.  In politics, people can group together their core values and vote together for those things.  

        But tribalism also brings with it negative and even dangerous problems.  Most tribes tend to refer to themselves in their native language with the word for “people,” while referring to other tribes with an epithet, or a prominent characteristic about that tribe.  So while a particular tribe might refer to itself as “people,” they might refer to another tribe as “eaters of meat.”  When you really pay attention to the language we use in our own modern tribes, you will find that we do the same thing.  In a society that values extroversion over introversion, the terms we use are OUTGOING which sounds like such a positive characteristic, and shy, something to be ashamed of.  From a feminist tribe, anyone who is not a feminist might be considered a sexist.  From a non-feminist tribe, a feminist might be called a man-hater.  Language is a huge part of the formation of tribes and the walls we build up that make it nearly impossible to understand the other tribe.

        Ethnocentrism, or judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one’s own culture, is a major part of tribalism.  It’s what keeps people committed to the group.  But it is also a major cause of hatred, violence, and war.  That religion’s spiritual rituals are different from mine, so they must be wrong or less spiritual.  She is opposed to gay rights, something I am for, so she has to be a bigot.  Or he voted for gay marriage, something that I am religiously opposed to, so he just doesn’t understand the moral implications of what he is doing.

        Another problem that exists in tribalism is bullying.  If a member of a tribe isn’t willing to conform to the politics of the collective, he/she is bullied by the rest of the group.  It is uncomfortable to go against the current of the tribe you belong to.  There is actually a neurological basis for this.  In the early 1950s a psychologist named Soloman Asch did a series of experiments on group influence.  He showed his volunteers some pictures of lines and asked them questions about how the lines compared.  In this first test, 95% of the students had correct answers.  Next he grouped the students together with an actor who confidently answered incorrectly.  In this test the number of correct answers dropped to 25%. 

        In 2005 a similar test was done by Gregory Barns with the help of brain-scanning technology.  The results were similar, but they were actually able to determine the reason behind the students’ change in answers.  When the volunteers tested alone the brain scans found activity in the occipital and parietal cortex which are associated with visual and spatial perception.  There was also activity in the frontal cortex which is associated with conscious decision-making. 

        When placed in a group with one person giving the wrong answer, there was heightened activity in the visual and spatial field, not the areas of conscious decision-making.  This means that they did not make a conscious decision to go along with the group.  The group actually changed their perception.  This suggests that if a group thinks an answer is true, you are more likely to believe it too.  This study also found that those who picked the right answer despite the group’s influence, had heightened activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain associated with fight or flight.  Barns calls this “the pain of independence.”

        When you put this in terms of our social grouping, it shows you that not only is there a problem with ethnocentrism and putting walls up to keep other tribal influences out, there is actually a problem with group solidarity.  In a religion, if one confident person gets up and says he or she knows something is absolutely true, how does that affect our perception of the issue?  And if we don’t go along with the group, the pain of independence along with the tribal bullying we experience may be too much for our amygdala to bare.  We may silence ourselves for fear of losing the comfort of our group.

        As I have found myself in and out of different tribes in my life, I have come to appreciate the need for tribes.  When I have lost the comfort and security of one tribe in my life, it becomes crucial to my emotional well-being to immediately find a new tribe to cling to.  For instance, and I will go into more detail in a later post, when I left the Republican Tribe, I needed a new political construct and a new group of people to associate with.  I couldn’t share my new views with my Republican friends because they rejected my views and bullied my opinions.  So I clung to the Democratic Party because it more fully encompassed my political views.  By making friends with other Democrats, I was able to safely share my views and rebuild my political construct without fear of rejection and bullying.  So while I can still love my Republican friends and associate with them in other ways, I now also have an outlet for my political beliefs.

        Another thing I have observed however, from being in and out of tribes in my life is how firmly each tribe believes they have the right way, the only way.  That is what causes tribal warfare.  I wonder if there could be a way for us to enjoy the benefits of our tribes without the warfare.  What if we could enjoy associating with people who are likeminded, and listen respectfully to people who view things differently from us?  What if we could love and associate with people whether they are in our tribe or not?  What if we can love and associate with people even when they leave our tribe?  What if we could appreciate that they were in the wrong tribe for them and be happy when they find a new tribe that suits them better?           

        This is my first post of a multi-part series in which I will examine some of our modern tribes.  Some that I have highlighted above include introverts/extroverts, feminists/non-feminists, conservatives/liberals, and differing religions.  Let me know if you can think of any other tribes in modern society that are worth discussing.