In the winter of 2021, I wrote a piece that I never published because I thought it was just too controversial. As a churchgoer (I’m not any longer) I didn’t want to cause offense to my fellow parishioners. Here’s a bit from the beginning. I had titled it ‘Church — Help or Hindrance?’
It was while attending the Covid ‘parking lot’ service that I really realized how patriarchal my church’s service is. There was no singing, no deep contemplative breaths in the silences in between to distract me. Just me, in my car, on my own, listening. God, God, Christ, Lord, he, he, his. God is the Father; therefore, he is male. I felt overwhelmed.
How is everyone here okay with this? I wondered. Not the kind of question one can ask out loud at church.
After church I took the Advent Bulletin home. Everything said in the church service is in its 12 pages, except for the sermon. I underlined and counted the mentions of male words. I’m sure I missed some. This isn’t my Master’s Thesis after all. I tallied number of mentions the following words:
God 51
Christ 31
Lord 21
King, Warrior, Prince 1 each
He 22
His 10
Him 7
Father 9
Son 9
I scanned for female references. There was one.
Daughter.
Rather than giving me hope, peace and solace, as a church service is supposed to do, the constant male references started to agitate me. I just didn’t like it.
We are a progressive Episcopalian church. We are a believe out loud congregation, accepting all people (BIPOC, gay, trans) with open arms. We acknowledge and honor that we are on the unceded land of the Coast Salish tribes. We have a female minister. She is the second female in a row to be leading the congregation.
But how can the church move into the future with such unequal gender references? How are youth internalizing this language?
I guess I’ve always known that the patriarchy existed. It is more recently that I see the need to dismantle it.
Just last week I heard of a local church that is taking all gender references to God out of its service. That is very good news to me.
I have also thought about the patriarchy in the military. Since the promotion of endless wars is primarily a male endeavor, with women doing the most suffering, I could write about that. With a high of 90.9 percent male in the Marine Corps and a low of 77.3 percent male in the Air Force, we can safely say that the military is patriarchal. The military is not focused on mother nature, cooperation, and creation, but on control, competition, and destruction. The patriarchy is strong in the military. Anyone could write about that. Patriarchy in the police? Anyone could write about that. Patriarchy in scientific publishing, banking, politics, and economics.
But what struck me in the gut was a confrontation with the patriarchy in one of the volunteer organizations I work with. After an unpleasant encounter with a male colleague during a meeting, we agreed to mediation. What I expected was an apology, some reflection on male dominance, and some appreciation. What I got was an insight into his mind and how he was consistently troubled by my communication and actions. The final takeaway presented after we aired our grievances was the need for the organization to be more transparent in its communication. His demeaning attitude toward me didn’t seem to matter.
It’s a long story from my point of view because the issue kept building as my climate activism friend kept taking more ownership of a project that we were working on. It came to a head at a meeting where he insisted that he did not want me to be the Master of Ceremonies at an event because of the timbre of my voice and my serious effect. He sandwiched in a compliment saying I was good at making speeches at more serious events like die-ins but that a male friend and member of our group had a more jovial voice that would be necessary to perk people up at a rally. He would not budge. I suggested we share the MC duties. He adamantly said that in all his work on the stage that was NEVER done. I, embarrassingly, had to put in a plug for myself that as a former 5th-grade teacher I could definitely turn on the energy as needed. I felt stupid for defending myself but I couldn’t imagine anything else to say.
He said the MC needed to have a sense of humor. Not wanting to say anything I would later regret, I did not respond to that one. I pride myself on having a good sense of humor. I thought whaaaat?
During this group project my patriarchal friend had said that he did not want me to follow up with the people I had contacted to speak at an event because he wanted a different, male, volunteer to contact all the speakers adding that this person’s boyfriend was a professional communicator. Why would this matter at all? What am I, chopped liver?
He did not want me to add the names of the presenters on the shared Google document (that I created) because “We didn’t need it.” I obviously was not part of this ‘we’ because I did need to have the names of the speakers next to the organizations they worked for.
Because I spoke with others about my frustration with his behavior, he thought that I was keeping secrets and talking behind his back. I had already told him to his face that it was feeling demeaned because he wasn’t listening to me. I was talking about him, sharing that I had said, ‘you are disrespecting me by saying that I can’t write a message to people that I know. You are disrespecting my ability to write saying that someone’s boyfriend will do it better’ yet he was still adamant that it be done his way.
During this project I didn’t communicate to him everything I was working on. That wouldn’t be possible with all that was going on and it’s a non-hierarchical organization. He’s not my boss!
After the painful meeting that he hijacked with his obstinance, we had a conflict resolution/restorative justice meeting a couple of weeks later with someone with experience volunteering to help. We used the VLOMP format — Vent, Listening, Ownership, Empathy, Plan.
At this point, he insisted that his wife join the process since she is part of all his decision-making and as the victim of a backstabbing organization, he insisted she attend. It simply floored me that he was seeing himself as the victim.
Instead of asking me if it was okay for his wife to join us when we received a text from the mediator saying it would be the two of us with them moderating, he responded with all the reasons he insisted she joins us. My response was, ‘I think the idea is that you ask me if it is okay, and from what you have said, it is fine with me.’
During the meeting, I had some trouble making my points. I gave an example of a time when I thought about another person’s needs and not just my own, and I realized that what I had wanted really wasn’t that important and even antithetical to the operating principles of the organization. I was making a point about self-reflection. I was highlighting that we are all people doing this work and that we, as people, matter.
His response was, “So you’re telling me I have to agree with you even when I don’t, so I don’t hurt your feelings.” AARGH!!! No.
Overall, the meeting didn’t go as I would have liked it to. The venting and listening part went fine. The Ownership, Empathy, and Plan part will still be a work in progress. In the end, I smiled and said this was a good step in getting our grievances out in the open.
But I didn’t feel heard…still.
So, no ‘thank you for all you did to make the event happen’ came out of this.
No, ‘I appreciate all that you do.’
No, ‘I’m sorry acted like a tyrant needing to have things done my way.’
Instead, the accusation of backstabbing and being part of a dysfunctional, untrustworthy organization. (It is not).
I don’t want to alienate anyone wanting to work to change the world for the better and protect life on earth as an activist in the fight for climate, ecological, and social justice. But I’m having to take deep breaths. The patriarchy is real and invisible to those very comfortable living in it. Making it visible is tiring work, but it must be done.
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Previously Published on Medium
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