More Sexism

Maybe it’s all the talk of sexism in the news (Newsweek’s Anna Quinlen points out that the Republicans have used the word more in the past week than in the past fifty years.), but sexism seems more visible this week. Or may it’s because I’m reading The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, Sue Monk Kidd’s account of how she—a Southern Baptist and member of the select “Gracious Ladies” club—got fed up with all the sexism in her church (and society and marriage) and discovered feminine spirituality.

After a torturously slow journey filled with fear and angst about leaving what is familiar, Kidd ends up with an alter filled with nature imagery and the bare-breasted Minoan Goddess who holds snakes, a renewed and more equal marriage, and a new career as a bestselling author. It’s an interesting read, though somewhat repetitive. I have to say my spiritual journey has been quite different, maybe because I was never in the “Gracious Ladies” club to begin with. No one ever taught me how to pour tea, certainly not my mother who didn’t fit the stereotype of silent, selfless womanhood that Kidd was surrounded by in the South. Instead I was educated by strong, progressive nuns and then Quakers, not to mention the Girl Scouts, who taught me how to start a fire and pitch a tent on a mountain. I did have to find new ways of thinking and talking about God when I reached adulthood and realized that the Lincoln Memorial image of the Divine wasn’t cutting it. Quakerism was an easy solution, with hundreds of years of genderless spiritual imagery. Marrying Tom introduced me to Catholic congregations that intentionally use inclusive language. So I haven’t felt the need to go to Crete to find balance in my spiritual life. In fact, I don’t feel like I’ve experienced that much sexism in my life—until I pause and start adding up the incidents. (Yale and Botswana stand out as the places where I experienced the most.) I don’t feel that I have as much anger to work through as Kidd, though every once in a while I notice something and feel a righteous indignation bubble to the surface. Like Kidd, the desire to protect my daughter can bring out the warrior in me.

For example, two days ago the kids convinced me to let them look in a new Halloween store that had sprung up right next door to the Staples we were visiting. It was the kind of place where you could buy big, rubber, bloody limbs, bloody swords, or fake blood for that matter so you make anything you want bloody. There were life-sized ogres and tombs and…well, you get the picture. My son loved the place, and so did my daughter, though I found myself uneasy as I started noticing how sexist most of the female costumes were. Little girls could choose between being a harem dancer or Hannah Montana, while virtually every costume for an adult woman was sexualized in some way and illustrated with a model in a suggestive pose. There was the usual “Pirate Wench” and a slew of women in what are normally powerful positions (like police officer and soldier), their authority undercut with hemlines way too short to trick-or-treat in October in Pennsylvania. The policewoman looked like she might do more than take you down to the station after she got those handcuffs on.

Now I’m not against having a little fun on Halloween or using it as an excuse to dress in ways that make us feel attractive at a party. But as a mother, I couldn’t help noticing how my daughter’s possibilities were constrained in this store that had scores of stereotypical costumes. White men could be doctors or monsters, while women of all races could be sexual objects and black men could be pimps. (There was also a display with a life-sized lawn ornament that looked disturbingly like a lynching, though the man’s race was hard to say for certain.)

Of course, we don’t have to buy those costumes or buy into those images. My daughter is putting together her own outfit, I’m happy to say. But still those costumes are not random or accidental. They tap into stereotypes that are deep, persistent and more common than most of us want to think about in our busy, everyday lives.