Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Dear Friend

Dear Friend,

We have known each other since we were kids, competing for best attendance in our 4th grade Sunday School classroom. I think we tied. I still have my t-shirt I won as an award, it nicely quotes one of the bible's most beautiful words to offer about love: patient, kind, keeps no record of wrong, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things. That is the foundation of our bond- the kind of friendship that has kept us connected despite our different backgrounds, different beliefs, different lives now. I know your heart is gold and that you seek goodness and grace and love in all you do. That's why you asked me these questions. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

You asked me two questions from the bottom of your heart in sincerity. These were: 

1) What rights do women not have in this country that they should and that men already have? 

2) What rights has Trump been directly involved in removing from women as president?

Your questions come from witnessing one of the most amazing number of people (mostly women) who marched in protest, in statement, in solidarity on one day, literally around the world. You speak specifically of Donald Trump and America, and while Donald Trump and the political climate in the United States was an effective catalyst for this march, it is only a small part of this larger movement. I think that was made evident by the marches that occurred on (I'm almost certain because some women even marched on Antarctica) every continent of the planet. You may not have seen the pictures from around the world because you probably aren't on the same social networks, but this event was so so so big. I sat at my computer looking at the millions of faces and cried and cried. I felt hope.

I am going to answer your questions the best I can, but I want to be sure to point out that this is not a final, comprehensive answer. This is a dialogue that has been happening in public or behind curtains for a very long time. The specifics change but the foundational inequality have persisted in most cultures. I also want you to know I am speaking from my own experience. I do not speak for everyone. I can only tell you my experiences, and then point to the experiences of my friends and loved ones. I also want you to know that while the march may have begun in the US and had a distinctly anti-Trump feeling (and full-disclosure: I do NOT trust Trump), that the march and the voices were so much bigger than just our country.

But you specifically asked about me, here in the US, and so I will address that. And I'm going to address it like Jesus, by asking you questions and telling you stories.

Have you ever been told that you couldn't do something because you were a man? Not shouldn't, but specifically CANNOT. I have. My story: I was called to ministry and I had people tell me that I can NOT do that. Or that I should marry a minister because that was what I was being called to (because surely God would never ask ME to be a minister). By irony of ironies, I would marry a minister, but that was not what God was talking about that night in my Freshman dorm room when I heard "be a minister." I even had a family member tell me they didn't think women should be pastors. Later, and with so much love and grace (and a surprise to me) that family member apologized. I was in shock, and honestly had been told I can't do something so much that I didn't even realize what a healing thing it would be to hear someone retract their statement.

Women do not have the right to a role model in every prestigious career.

Have you ever wondered if you were being paid less than your coworkers because you were female? I naively thought that I was excluded from this statistic (and it is a researched and clear statistic). I was hired as a hospice chaplain by women administrators, so of course my salary would be on par with my male counterparts. The other chaplain was a male, but he had been there for nearly ten years, so I didn't expect to be paid as much as he was, and I do not know his salary, but I hope he was paid more. I did, however, run into a sheet of paper that my predecessor had accidentally left in the files. He was hired in August, fired less than three months later, and I was hired to replace him for the same exact job and hours. The piece of paper that I found had his salary listed on it. His salary was $7,000 a year more than mine. We had been hired literally three months apart. I never said a word. I was just glad for a job. I stayed in that job and received rave reviews during my evaluations until I left the job because of a geographical move. $7,000 less out the gate, if I had remained in that job, that difference would have been compounded in my deficit over the years, as percentage raises would never close the gap.

Women do not have the right to equal pay in the United States.

Have you ever been in a situation where you thought you could be raped? I don't think that this is completely a male/female divide as there are definitely men and boys who have endured sexual assault. However, I doubt that you spent many walks with your cell-phone in your hand, ready to dial 911, just in case. I have. Every night-time walk from an event to my dorm on college campus, I had my phone in hand or a friend on the phone. If I saw a man walking near me, the anxiety quadrupled and I would even pretend to talk to someone on the phone as an extra barrier if I couldn't find someone. I'm not making this up, most women do this and have a scenario played out in their head of how they will get out of a bad situation. The difference, speaking specifically of the American experience, is that women are at risk for rape and sexual assault at exponentially higher rates. The reason why that is a fact is not important to this discussion. It's an interesting enough fact that your gender alone decides whether or not you will be at significant risk. The current statistic is that 1 in 5 women on college campuses are raped. That's horrendous. It's not acceptable. I don't know about you, but I can name several people off the top of my head that I know who have been raped or sexually assaulted. Two of my dearest friends were raped by family members. I feel like I am "lucky" that I have never been raped. LUCKY?! Do your guy friends share those statistics?

Women do not have the right or freedom from fear of sexual assault.

On that same topic. How many of your male friends have abusive wives? Again, it is not completely unheard of, but the statistics are still significantly stacked for women to be in abusive relationships. Not only that, but women are significantly more likely to be killed by their partner and/or spouse. I personally know a family who was affected by such a tragedy. I have another friend whose husband shot at her and was never jailed or penalized. He stalked her by straddling the line of the law just well enough that he could never be arrested. I also know women who suffer under mentally abusive husbands. Many don't even realize just how bad it is because they were taught to be congenial and accommodating. I have seen that accommodation completely shift a person's life into a nightmare. Also- while on the topic of uneven relationships, were you ever told to submit to your spouse? That your spouse should make all of the decisions? Have you ever been told that your role in life is to help your spouse? Not with the idea that you work together, but with the idea that your spouse's needs, wishes, and wants must come first in order for your family to function properly. The church we grew up in taught me that. I didn't listen, thank God.

Women do not have the right to be free from fear of domestic abuse or submission.

Has your physical appearance been the primary topic of conversation for anyone on a daily basis? As a child, a girl growing up cannot go one single day without a comment on her appearance. Hell, I even find myself compelled to tell little girls they look pretty, it's so ingrained in me. Even if it is a compliment, the focus is on how we made ourselves pleasant to look at. I'm not saying that compliments are bad, I'm saying that a lifetime of being told how my appearance affects someone does some damage to how I feel when I look in the mirror.

Women do not have the right to have their appearances be a non-issue.

Have you ever had the risk of having a baby suddenly take residence inside your body? This is fair. The task and risk and price of reproduction are shouldered primarily and predominantly by women. Men can actually choose to exit left and there would not be a single physical consequence, and very often not a financial or moral consequence either. I can't even list all of the ways women bear the burden, but I will list the ones that I struggled with, even with full consent and spousal support. When a woman gets pregnant: people feel compelled to touch them and comment on their bodies with no respect to whether or not they know the person. This is not welcomed by every woman. Healthcare for pregnancy is not guaranteed, especially if the ACA is repealed and replaced without the conditions that made women's health better protected. That starts to answer your second question, but Congress didn't need Trump to get started on that. I had/have access to birth control, which enabled me to have safe pregnancies and control the number of children that I had so that I was financially, mentally, and physically able to handle the load. I have a supportive husband who was willing to have a vasectomy so that I didn't have to remain on birth control until menopause. This has enabled me to get off of a hormonal medicine that affected my ability to fight off depression, made me gain weight, and lowered my sex drive. My life without the negative effects of birth control (or possibilities of negative effects) and without the worry of getting pregnant is a freedom that I wish on all my women counterparts all over the world who want it. When I had my first son, I took all the paid leave, sick leave, and some unpaid leave so that I didn't have to go back to work until three months after the birth. I had a successful vaginal birth with no major complications. My baby was healthy and my emotional health was average. Three months was barely enough time to recover and be ready. I worked for a church at the time, and my supervisor was put-off by my time off. My process of producing and nurturing a newborn human was inconvenient to a person who was not bleeding, leaking milk, sleeping in 1.5 hour stints, and not in control of the surge of hormones that rushed through my body as the natural part of prenatal and postpartum human pregnancy. My body was not in its regular state for nearly two years, from conception to weaning. I would not give that experience away, but I sure as hell don't think women get the support and care they need for their balance of the work they (voluntarily or not) play in the human reproductive cycle. 

Specifically: women do not have access to paid maternity leave in America. This is a third-world characteristic and atrocious. All American women do not have affordable access to birth control, pre-natal, and postpartum care. If you (out of your control) have a complicated pregnancy and are under-insured, you are financially fucked. Sorry for the profanity.

Let's move to a question that is slightly less intense. When you were growing up, did you have a shortage of male role models who were strong, in control, and respected? As a girl, most media portrayals of women were couched in terms of appearance, attractiveness or accessory to a male in a love/adventure/hero/fairy tale story. Strong women who were not attractive were displayed negatively: bitchy, or at best as "butch." Have you ever heard of the Bechdel test? Here it is, in order to "pass" the test, a movie or show has to have (1) at least two women in it, (2) who talk to each other (3) about something besides a man. Seems really silly easy, right? Start applying this test to tv shows and movies that you have watched and enjoyed. It's a little crazy how many don't pass. So the top 10 grossing movies when we were growing up- let's just narrow it to the 90s: 

Titanic (1997) - one main woman, focused on the man- fails the test.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) - two women, they never interact.

Jurassic Park - only one woman

Forrest Gump (1994) - two women, but they never interact

The Lion King (1994) (tie) two women (one a child), but they never interact

Independence Day (1996) - barely passes. One conversation occurs between two women.

The Sixth Sense (1999) - two female characters, never interact. 

Home Alone (1990) - debated, but not passed. Only conversation between two females is a woman and child about a head count of kids on the van, otherwise- no interaction between two women.

So only one of the top ten grossing movies of the 1990s passed the most ridiculously easy test, and by an approximately 30 second conversation. This is astounding to me. I think it should be to you as well. (I did this test for the 80s and 2000s- nearly identical results- the best pass was for an animated film about fish). The consequence of this under-protrayal of women in conversation about something other than men is more than I can write about here, but this is just the start of the conversation. Obviously the Bechdel test is not a test of the quality of the film, but it certainly says something about the quality of female roles in film-making.

Have you ever had to pay more money to exist? Reflecting back to the healthcare and family leave issues I mentioned before, there are also weird things like personal care items being more expensive and or taxed more for female items than male. It's been called the "pink tax" - and you can see it in stores where a few pink razors cost about the same as 5 blue ones (I'm not really simplifying- this is a thing). I stopped buying gendered products a while ago because it's fiscally irresponsible. It's a small thing- but one more small thing to put on the pile.

I started writing this nearly two weeks ago and it's sadly old news now. Old news because women aren't the only ones losing their rights or afraid for their future in this country.

But finally- what rights did Trump take away? The right to feel like the United States was on our side, or safe. Because when a man says this:
I did try and fuck her. She was married. I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn't get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she's now got the big phony tits and everything. She's totally changed her look. I've gotta use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful - I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.
it should be a game changer. It should be an automatic disqualifier. It should be over the line of acceptability. It should not be acceptable or justifiable. It should be a FULL STOP. But it wasn't. People decided that it was OK. It was something we could handle and accept if we could just have the other things we want.

That my friend, was the most frightening thing for me. I have time and again wondered how I had so much faith and hope in the American people. How was I so naive? That is why the women marched. The blinders of optimism fell off. They realized- it is THAT bad. It's THAT bad that we can live in a place where that statement is dismissible for someone running for the Presidency. That's when I realized that I had rose-colored glasses on when it came to women's rights. I was leaning too hard on natural evolution and progress. I forgot that power does not get relinquished willingly, and Trump showed me that the power was NOT equal or fair.

My friends who were sexually assaulted- they have had to start therapy again, or more frequently, or they've had trouble getting out of bed. The safety they had started to feel was ripped to shreds. They were re-traumatized. I fight for them, for my nieces, for the women who thought this was OK and would rather me not fight for them.

I thank you for asking, I wish I could write more, but I have to stop somewhere and I have to keep going forward.

I ask you to keep asking. Keep wondering. Just because you don't understand or experience something, does not mean it does not exist. I know you know that. I was confronted with my own privilege the other day when some folks encouraged people to wear a hijab in solidarity with their muslim friends. I was afraid to do it. That right there and then told me something.

In God's love, with all the grace and hope I can muster:

your female friend,

Sarah



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