Comments on: Encounters with Sexism

By: Eileen

Eileen — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:27:36 +0000

Julie,
Thank you for this discussion and your blog and book.
I am in a church full of 30-somethings and their kids. We are an urban congregation of progressive, highly educated, artistic and justice minded folks- Last Spring we put on a play with the kids (ages 6 thru 9) It was Jonah and the whale- and we had a boat constructed of boxes-complete with a steering wheel.

Right on cue the kids got in to the boat and one of the little pigtailed girls went to the helm and took the wheel– up from the back an 8 year old boy pushed through saying–Hey only boys can steer the boat. The little girl held her ground and said.. NO..and continued to “steer”-

Made for a lot of conversation at coffee hour.

Story 2-
Our church has a female pastor-

One of our moms has a 7 year old daughter who has grown up in our church community-
Mom tells the story of when she took her daughter with her to visit relatives and they went to the relatives church. The service started
and the little girl blurted out loud— mommy mommy… look…. a man priest… a man priest.
Sometimes I see it’s all inch by inch. Course I was involved in the women’s movement in the 70’s and have a long view.

By: Hannah

Hannah — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:33:46 +0000

Thank you for writing this and bringing attention a really serious matter. As an Asian American woman, I’m just beginning to come into a more clear consciousness about marginalization, whether it’s towards ethnicity or gender. I appreciate your leadership!

By: Pippin

Pippin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:24:01 +0000

Julie, I only wish you’d understand that the hurt and disappointment that has come out of this has nothing to do with

1) your position (which, gasp, i agree with)
2) the fact that you are defending what you believe in
3) and the fact that you disagree with the disagreements or the 4)fact that you represent an underrepresented voice (gee, what do you know, I happen to be a woman too)

It is how you choose to dismiss, ascribe the worst assumptions, motives and feelings to the people who disagree, no matter how respectfully they have tried to do it– or that anyone taking a contrary position who feels that they haven’t been able to agree to disagree because the conversation has been shut down rather than been properly debated– is the one being dismissive, or unwilling to hear the truth. I assure you that is not the case.

But I doubt we will ever come to any sort of understanding on this– so I’ll just take it as a case of two or three sincere voices talking past each other and probably will continue to..

By: Karl

Karl — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:33:01 +0000

Julie, I question how much actual engagement or dialogue has really occurred when your supposed dialogue partner keeps saying “hey wait a minute, you’re misrepresenting me – that’s not what I believe or what I said at all – and why do you keep telling me that I have the worst possible motives whenever I hold an opinion you don’t like.” It would be awesome if you had actually dealt with the substance of what I said. We were in dialogue at first, but after your post in #37 it felt like any attempt at real dialogue was over on your part because in spite of my best efforts to be respectful in sharing my opinions and how I’ve arrived at them, I offended you. My listing of things you have accused me of that were false and unfair and thus were interfering with real dialogue also seems to have offended you. I’m worn out.

I bet some conservatives have in the past attributed bad motives to you, misstated your position on things and said dismissive things like “emergents are just the disaffected children of fundamentalism – forget the actual issues you’re trying to discuss, you guys are really just rebelling against your parents in an overextended adolescence.” Those people may have thought they were engaging and dialoguing with you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they were. They were avoiding the issue by speaking lies about you and telling you WHY (they thought) you held your position, without actually engaging your position on its merits, and then re-spouting the talking points of their own position. I’m sure it didn’t feel like dialogue or engagement from your end of that conversation. I can relate to how you must have felt.

Don’t fool yourself. Your being a woman with an opinion contrary to mine isn’t a problem for me. Dive in and engage, by all means. But please be fair and honest. I wish you well.

By: Julie Clawson

Julie Clawson — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:42:07 +0000

I would really appreciate you guys stop putting words in my mouth and saying that I don’t want to engage with you just because I don’t agree with you. We were dialoguing here, we just happened to disagree. I also kept trying to say that this is deeper than affirmative action, but you guys kept insisting otherwise and labeled my attempts as bulverism. Don’t turn your unwillingness to follow the conversation into an attack on me.

This isn’t about making me mad. Or about me not being willing to discuss. So please stop dismissing me for that just because I wanted to stay true to what I believe. You are welcome to disagree with me, but don’t accuse me of not being willing to dialogue when you don’t like that I disagree back. I want the discussion. I appreciate the points you make. But I don’t just sit back and take it when people disagree with me. Respecting the other doesn’t mean silently letting opposing louder voices have the last word. So it may be annoying that as a woman I dive in and engage, but I’m going to keep doing that even if that’s not how people want me to behave.

By: Pippin

Pippin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:23:46 +0000

To Melody– “don’t let certain individuals drag you into unproductive arguments… they don’t deserve your energy”. I for one think those are important discussions to be had. I find those to be genuine questions, which have unfortunately been dismissed completely.
I remember the classic “who is a feminist” question– we were asked in gender studies, “are you a feminist?” Most of us said we weren’t. “Well then, do you see women as equal to men? Do you agree that women should be free from inequality and oppression” Everyone nodded. “Well then, you’re a feminist”
That is a very loose definition obviously– and the correct term that we use is ‘feminisms’, because while everyone can agree that women should be equal, not everyone agrees with how they can achieve this. Many people believe women should be free from inequality in the home and workforce, but not in affirmative action. Whether you think their conclusions are wrong or not, what I’ve seen here is the immediate labelling of someone who thoughtfully, respectfully disagrees with aspects of affirmative action to be an ignorant, selfish, offensive troublemaker who seeks to drag people down in ‘unproductive arguments’.
The stereotype of evangelicals is that they refuse to dialogue– but how can they when you don’t allow them to? As someone who is, as I always say “too liberal to be conservative, too conservative to be liberal”, I find the general tone of the responses on this blog to be very disappointing and honestly, quite hurtful. (Although Julie, I appreciate that you appreciate my honesty and I truly hope I’m not out of line by saying this)

For however much you speak of compassion for those who are different from you, it seems to me that it all only occurs on the ‘big picture’ (systemic) level for you. The one who falls into a different category on an ethnic/religious level. But sometimes I think we also need to remember that the ‘othering’ could well occur on a personal level, the ‘other’ could be the one we disagree with, the one we cannot see eye to eye with, the one we wish would just go away because their ideology is not in line with your values.
Karl, I get what you’re trying to do and I appreciate the points you have raised– these are important things to discuss. But I can’t help but feel too that if Julie feels that this issue isn’t something that she wants to go into a debate/dialogue on with you– although I understand you must feel that your voice has been completely dismissed– then perhaps it’s probably better to leave it and respect that position. To go on for too long about it would be unproductive. There are many online discussions that would welcome your thoughtful posts.

By: Karl

Karl — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:27:15 +0000

I’m sorry for the double post, but I should have added Julie, that I’m really sorry that we apparently can’t discuss this issue (along with so many others) without me making you mad. It honestly makes me sad (like, it’s been hanging over me in the background like a black cloud the last few days), and makes me wonder about the feasibility of one of the things I really value – the possibility of dialogue and conversation across ideological and theological lines.

By: Karl

Karl — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:18:57 +0000

Julie, I’ve received the same advice. So far, I’ve tried to stay in dialogue because even though I disagree with you about a lot, I’m concerned about many of the same issues you are. I’ve also seen the complaints that people who are more conservative than you aren’t interested in discussion but just come through for drive-by insults and accusations and then never stay and dialogue. It’s not my intent but maybe my presence here gives you an idea of how the folks in your former, conservative church felt about you, when you (rightly) weren’t willing to just sit quietly and accept what they said without questioning it. It gets frustrating to have someone committed to being part of your community, who doesn’t agree with all of the community’s assumptions and accepted dogmas and raises questions about them.

You told me my words were hurtful. I apologized, and I apologize again for hurting you. I’m not trying to be hurtful, but rather discuss the issue of quotas and affirmative action as it arose in the conversation about Wheaton’s president. I realize the issue is so charged with hurt for you that it’s hard to hear a contrary opinion without being hurt, but hurting you isn’t my intent. You also made a bunch of incorrect assumptions about me, and assigned motives to me that are untrue and insulting. Every statement that I listed above that you made about me or my beliefs about this issue and reasons for having them – is untrue. You may hear me and FEEL like those things are true about me, but they aren’t.

You dismissed Pippin’s suggestion that you actually engage the issues themselves by basically saying that you prefer to expose people’s bad motives and false underlying beliefs for holding their position – rather than engage their opinion about the issue itself. That’s Bulverism, at least in the way you practiced it with me, because the assumptions and motives and underlying beliefs you “exposed” aren’t assumptions or beliefs of mine. You don’t seem to have any interest in engaging, unlike Pippin who also thinks I’m wrong but would be willing to actually talk about the issues instead of accuse me of sexism for having a different opinion.

Linda, thanks for the link. I’m sure I do have some things to learn about feminism and I’ll check it out. But feminism isn’t brand new to me. I’m in favor of women in leadership and in all roles of ministry. I’m in favor of equal pay for equal work and equal access to jobs and educational opportunities. I was contributing to Christians for Biblical Equality and reading The Priscilla Papers when Julie was still arguing for Traditional Gender Roles. By the measures of most fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals, I am a feminist. But there are aspects of feminist thought that I disagree with. Disagreement with a position doesn’t necessarily mean ignorance of it.

By: logic_and_imagination

logic_and_imagination — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:12:23 +0000

[...] offenses, getting along, and leaning on those who are the lightning rods for us, like Dr. Rah and Julie Clawson. I’m not so sure who other lightning rods are for [...]

By: linda

linda — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:41:49 +0000

In suggesting that sometimes a woman or minority may be uniquely suited for a job by virtue of her gender or race, are you also saying the converse is true – that there are some jobs where a white male brings needed qualities to the table that a woman or minority aren’t as well suited to bring because they aren’t white and male?

karl, please don’t take this the wrong way as it’s not meant as a slight but just an observation. i think your above statement shows you don’t really have a great understanding of issues of feminism. i think a site that would help you in this is feminism 101. i’m still just learning myself and came across this site recently. while you may not agree with everything or even much there i think it will help you to understand where feminists are coming from and help in your dialogs. a good read would be their page on male privilege and some of the accompanying links.