I listened to Canadian Olympic speed-skating champion, Clara Hughes, being interviewed on CBC yesterday. What an amazing athlete. At 41 she has switched sports. Now she plans on winning a gold medal in cycling, Which means that she must completely reshape her body. One thing that won’t be changing is her lung capacity to hold oxygen. It’s ridiculously high. In a recent cycling race through the mountains, she beat a number of world class male cyclists. Chuckling, she told her interviewer that these men got “chicked”. That’s the term, apparently, for women beating men at sports events.
From an evolutionary perspective, one of the great transformation narratives of the 20th century is how society is in the process of “getting chicked”. I don’t mean this in the least derogatorily. Call it the rise of feminist consciousness or feminine power, but it seems clear that we’re making up for millenia of suppressed (and oppressed) feminine. (I realize that even using metaphors of feminine and masculine is controversial. Some feminist critiques call this impulse to label certain qualities either masculine or feminine “essentialism”. And given that patriarchy historically devalued these so-called feminine characteristics—receptivity, empathy, holistic thinking, right brain, dark, Earth, etc.—a good case can be made for this position.) Check out my friend, Chris Dierkes critique of these categories in a review of a colleague’s book.
Regardless of where you land on that issue, young men are having a hard go of it. See this article in the Atlantic by Kate Bolick on her decision to remain single and live in community with women, rather than choosing to be with what she calls the generation of “dead-beat” or “playboy” young men.
“Over the past half century, women have steadily gained on—and are in some ways surpassing—men in education and employment. From 1970 (seven years after the Equal Pay Act was passed) to 2007, women’s earnings grew by 44 percent, compared with 6 percent for men. In 2008, women still earned just 77 cents to the male dollar—but that figure doesn’t account for the difference in hours worked, or the fact that women tend to choose lower-paying fields like nursing or education. A 2010 study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30 found that the women actually earned 8 percent more than the men. Women are also more likely than men to go to college: in 2010, 55 percent of all college graduates ages 25 to 29 were female.”
And …as Hanna Rosin laid out in “The End of Men,” July/August 2010), men have been rapidly declining—in income, in
educational attainment, and in future employment prospects—relative to women. As of last year, women held 51.4 percent of all managerial and professional positions, up from 26 percent in 1980. Today women outnumber men not only in college but in graduate school; they earned 60 percent of all bachelor’s and master’s degrees awarded in 2010, and men are now more likely than women to hold only a high-school diploma.”
This phenomenon is not restricted to the Western and Northern Hemispheres. A feature of all microbanking programs of which I am aware make their loans exclusively available to women, not men. Women are regarded to be trustworthy, entrepreneurial, and collaborative while men are simply regarded as part of the problem. As far as I can tell in the world of microbanking this assumption is rarely questioned.
The church is also getting chicked, as the majority of seminary students are now women, and when I look around at my congregation it is becoming increasingly difficult to find good men (frankly) to serve in positions of leadership. I realize that when I say “good” I mean men with the capacity to leave spaces in the conversation, to have their minds changed, to be flexible and creative in their thinking, and to be able to handle being wrong occasionally. Generally speaking, it is becoming difficult to find men who are have sophisticated relationship skills. Many of the young men who are coming to church seem to be having more difficulty getting on with their lives than the young women. Admittedly, this is not based in empirical research. But here’s a piece that does track gender trends in the Church of England. In that church men still hold most of the power, but it seems inevitable that this too is in the process of being “chicked”. If trends continue, by 2028 men will have all but disappeared from church.
Clara Hughes is showing that men cannot take even our physical superiority for granted. For 10,000 years we have “enjoyed” an assumed superiority based exclusively on genetics and the social construction of gender. It’s all changing. That’s a good thing. It represents nothing less than an evolutionary provocation for men to collectively step up and into the fullness of our humanity. We are being required to consciously evolve.
I’m interested in hearing what you think about this? Is it true? Does it matter? What are the long-term implications?
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I too heard that interview with Clara. She is gutsy but sensitive, open about herself when speaking about her depression and the toll speed skating took on her from peers and men, yet restrained in her critique. I think there is a morphing of gender evolving socially at least if not genetically. Except, as a UCC clergy myself, I find churches still look for those classical male qualities in the male ministry personnel They recruit and my feminine weighted attributes so necessary in good pastoral skill sets are often undervalued. After all, I still see myself as a lover not a fighter in the theological domain. fwiw, Gerry
Well put, Gerry. Yes, I also notice that for the most part our “big” congregations continue to privilege men, with the pastoral care/spiritual care roles being associated with women. This will inevitably shift. It’s already happening.
It is marvellous, isn’t it, Bruce, as, as you say that many churches nowadays are putting the radical equallty of the Gospel into practice. In Australia, the Uniting Church in Australia is one such example, in terms of ordaining women, or allowing them to serve as lay leaders.Another such example is the Anglican Diocese of Perth, which, interestingly enough, thanks to former Archbishop of Perth,Dr Peter Carnley, was one of the first such dioceses to fully ordain women! My church deacon, wnose currently on leave, is another such example. So yes, progress is being made, And may it continue!
Indeed!
Getting chicked has a certain appealing ring to it. It’s interesting to wonder whether it matters or not and I find my brain working overtime on it. And wondering whether by becoming a dominant force in the world some of the nurturing elements of being woman might be forced out of our being. That would would be a shame because there is something vital about the mothering essence in our gender even though that marks us out as more vulnerable. Perhaps one of the spinoffs of more women in churches might be to regain worship of the Great Mother. Here’s hoping, in a completely non-theistic way of course!
Thanks Sande,
I’m all for more worship of Great Mother. We haven’t even begun to plumb the depths (as men) of our deep yearning for a devotional orientation to the feminine divine. Ten thousand years of suppression of this yearning will prove to be very powerful when it finally erupts in church.
Wow. What an opportunity for conversation!
I have raised two boys who are both fine young men, both exceptional listeners. I grew up with three brothers (I often found myself wishing I could be like them…athletic, musical, daring). I am married to a wonderful, caring man who is currently building an attic fort for his grand daughter. And I am fortunate to have a father who is still alive and remarkable in his love for compost, soil and all things green.
Far from wanting to ‘chick’ any of them, my desire has only been to grow as woman, as female and be able to live in peace within myself first with what appears at first to be ‘opposite’ of what and who male/men are. My 3 year old grand daughter is busy trying to sort out this distinction for herself now. And as far as she is concerned, it is anatomical. As a grandmother, I can listen as she sorts this through in her 3 year old way, and come to the conclusions, at this time in my life, anatomical is only the beginning. There will be the hormonal soon enough and the sexual attraction to one gender or the other. Then the opportunities to become conscious of all that she learned later in life and to question/examine all that she has understood to be true.
I even have young parents in my life who are trying to raise their children “genderless”. At a dinner gathering where the 2 year olds got naked in the sandbox, my grand daughter exclaimed “Hers got a penis!”
Perhaps the question and conversation now is turning more from “What do women want?” to “What do men want?” and “What as evolutionary humans do we want?” Maybe we are both/and rather than either/or.
When will life be about acceptance rather than competition? When will life be about conversation, co-operation and collaboration rather than a battle, a defence and an annihilation? This shift is requiring us to look at all our old paradigms, metaphors, language, habits, prejudices in a new way. And we are right in the middle of it! Which means for me a whole lot of mystery and not knowing…a place of receptivity and listening. The death of duality…what is emerging?
And Mary pondered these things in her heart…me too!
I love that you are initiating these conversations Bruce. I think this will be an opportunity to ask the men in my life, what it means for them to be a man at this time in history. I’ll let you know! My offering to this discussion will simply be the grass roots, at the dinner table conversation stuff. That’s about as scholarly as I’ll get!
donna
Donna,
Don’t you think that the best philosophy/theology happens at the dinner table. If it doesn’t, it’s not connected to reality. My sense is that Clara isn’t really interested in “chicking” men, but rather living into her full potential. When the men she beats are able to celebrate her, a new male will be on the ascendant. I think that’s precisely the question, What do we want as men? I’m not sure we’ve gone deep enough into that. It’s a huge debate whether it’s desirable to raise genderless children. The simple biological fact of more testosterone (when little Johny enters puberty) orients the high “T” person differently. That holds for high “T” women as well, but the predominance of high testosterone is correlated to gender. Yeah, big conversation.
I wonder if this underlies the backlash from certain religious and political quarters–known in the U.S. as the “war on women.” Conservatives in this country are attempting to limit access to affordable contraception and repeal equal pay laws (and at times succeeding). Sadly, our state and national legislative bodies are a long, long way from getting chicked. A great deal of financial and politcal power remains almost exclusively in the hands of men.
Thanks for your always-thoughtful reflections, Bruce!
DW,
I suspect it has a great deal to do with the backlash. When Jesus said, “the rich (and powerful) already have their reward” I suspect he was referring to the patriarchy who holds on to power with clenched fist. My sense is that as the money system transforms, they will simply be left behind. Blessed are the meek for they know they way of open-handed, open-hearted gratitude.
Men have run the planet for at least 5,000 years and look where we are!
An idea of a science-fiction novel in which only women exist on Earth and raise only female children has been noodling around in my head for over a year. I think it’s not as far-fetched as one might think!
What do you think, Don, about Donna’s take above? We, too, have been victims of patriarchy by limiting our own access to other potentials that we have asked women to carry for us. That said, I’d definitely write the novel! It seems as though we need to resist with as much strength and passion our culturally assigned roles in perpetuating imperial models of masculinity as women in the past 60 years.
Although I don’t know you personally, Don, you’re not wrong there!
This looks like the beginning of an exciting conversation! It brings to mind the meaning of alterity and the hope of a new advent for humanity. For me, the french feminist,philosopher and psychotherapist, Luce Irigaray offers insight that fits with my experience with the wonderful men and women in my family. On the issue of subjectivity she warns against “the gesture that recognizes that the subject only exists thank to limits and that, before the universe and especially before the other, the subject is structured not by mastering or dominating but by accepting that the subject is not the whole, that the subject represents only one part of reality and of truth, that the other is forever a not I, nor me. nor mine, and not a: not yet I, not yet mine to integrate into me or into us.
She goes on to say that “What can assist the woman in becoming subject is the discovery of the other, the masculine, as horizontally transcendent, and not vertically transcendent, to her….this cultural becoming of the woman will then be able to help the man to become man, and not only master and father of the world, as he has too often been in History. It seems that the woman must give birth to the man not only bodily but also spiritually.
Between East and West (pp.127-130)
For me to give birth spiritually to the men in my life means to recognize and cherish the strength of their tenderness.
That’s gorgeous Donna. Such a depth of compassion and a willingness to adopt an orientation that facilitates the emergence of men’s full potential, seeing us “whole against the sky” to use Rilke’s phrase, and not according to the culturally mediated categories of masculinity. Horizontal transcendence. Nice.
I was actually at that famous ‘battle of the sexes” tennis match between Billy Jean King and Bobbie Riggs! – the one you have pictured in your blog. I am a woman who was raised to be powerful. My parents, particularly my father, encouraged it. I started my career as a Chemical Engineer at a major oil company. I was in the second generational wave of women who entered this field and had to push through barriers in a very, very “good-old-boy” man’s world. It was tough. And it made me tough too. Now i’m a minister of a Unity church and that toughness comes through at times. Sometimes congregants misinterpret my drive and objectivity as insensitivity. I find myself now in another ‘tough’ world of completely different dimensions.
Interestingly though, Unity is chock full of spiritual women, and courting the spiritually inclined male is a goal! We don’t want our men to fell ‘chicked’! We want them to come and find a safe place where they can explore their souls, share and be loved.
Life is full of interesting balances and paradoxes, huh?
You were there! Must have been fun. I guess what we’re wanting is a world in which women can be in the fullness of their power, which includes drive and objectivity, and men not feel diminished/disempowered. But that’s our work to do. I like the idea that you being in your full power as a woman gives me space to be in my full potential as a man. Two human beings bringing the full range of our qualities to bear on the moment. Creating an intersubjective space that expects each to show up fully and hold nothing back.
Thanks Carol.
Fantastic, post, Bruce, and one to which, I’ve been wanting to reply for a few days, now, but I’ve been really flat out this week! with work, swimming, as well as a really fascinating study we’re doing on Carl Jung. Allthough sad;u women have a long way to go in terms of achieving equality with men across the board(i.e employment-especially in the church, euual access to contraception in Third World conntries etc), it is marvellous to see people, such as Clara, make inroads to such radical equality with men. Even one of my own cousins is apparently trying out for the team, so should be exciting! Interestingly enough, the Anglican Diocese of Perth, was one of the first dioceses to fullly ordain women to the priesthood, one of whom, was the first priest I had at one former half of my church congregation(my church is an ammulgumation of two churches, by the way). Another was one of our diocesan bishops. So yes, things are looking up! I hope this Clara Hughes lady does well. She seems really promising! Cheers, Bruce!
Thanks Phillip
Thanks for this very important reflection Bruce. The two areas where it is slow if not non- existent it seems are the areas for politics and business. it seems when women do achieve in those domains, they end up supressing the feminine and adopting the more masculine qualities. Maybe we are working towards more balance as human beings, however, ultimately I think Jung was on the correct path when he talked about the intergration of both aspects in the second half of life. Sadly, there is little recognition of this in our culture – even our religious culture.
I’m looking forward to your new book. congratulations.
Thanks Anne,
It’s an interesting question whether domination is a masculine quality, or if it’s how positions of power evoke certain behaviours and attitude in both men and women. I’ll keep you posted about the book. And thanks for your good wishes.