Ok Seriously

One more post on the Target gender-desegregation hoopla. Because I'm really frustrated and kind of horrified at the things people are saying.* I read this post by Matt Walsh because some of my Facebook friends 'like' his page (although I did decide to hide all posts from him in future because I need to live my life not constantly frustrated about this.) Anyways.

I have two sons who are into a broad variety of things, including dolls, construction vehicles, dance parties, and reading. I don't have a daughter, so I can't speak to what she would be like, although I remember being a little girl who loved biology (National Geographic wildlife specials all the way), fat novels, playing in the woods, and riding bikes and playing Red Rover with the neighbourhood kids. Chances are you have a similar story. You loved Barbies, climbing trees, and those foam 3D puzzles of architecture. You loved the Hardy Boys, card games, and a stuffed frog you took to bed with you every night even when you were way too old for it. None of these things was cause for much comment. Now, I'm not saying there were no problems with the expectations on kids in the past, of course, but the truth is that the toy aisle has gotten more gender-segregated in the last few decades. 

The thing is this: toy gender segregation is not about biblical manhood and womanhood. It's about money. Toymakers, broadly, don't give a plugged nickel whether their toys encourage girls to be nice, pretty, and domestic, and boys to be tough, athletic, and spatial.** They do, again broadly, care about their bottom line. If you can get siblings to play with different toys, because one of the siblings is a boy and two are girls, you've just sold that many more toys. If boys and girls can't play together in groups because boys and girls don't play the same group games, you've sold that many more toys. If, however, kids can happily play group games, pretend games, building toys, et al. in non-gender-specific ways, toymakers don't get to divide their markets into smaller, more lucrative categories. 

Why get into a righteous froth on behalf of toymakers' moneymaking categories? I talked a bit in my last post about how most of the toy segregations don't make sense and are actually discouraging the kinds of things we want to see in godly men and women. Let's go over it one more time. If your little girl plays with dinosaurs, wonderful-- she's cultivating a sense of joy and wonder in God's creation. If your little boy plays dolls, wonderful-- he's practicing to be the kind of father who's there, one-on-one with his kids, teaching them the truth as they stand and sit and walk. If your daughter loves hockey, perfect-- she's set on a path for enjoying the physical form she's been given, stewarding her body and health well, and learning to cooperate with others. If your son is dazzled by ballet, perfect-- he's getting set to grow into a man who appreciates the beauty and creativity of art and enjoys God's gift of music and dance as ways to praise him and communicate with each other. None of these things conflict in any way with Biblical categories of manhood and womanhood expressed within marriages and churches. None of these things have the slightest thing to do with sexual orientation or transgenderism. It's a crying shame to see people-- parents, even!-- acting as if it's somehow bad to let kids freely roam the toy aisles without a big sign insisting that what they like is for the other gender. It is also startlingly illogical. Surely letting kids like what they like is doing the precise opposite of encouraging gender confusion, by telling our little girls and boys that there are many ways to be a girl and many ways to be a boy, and in all that beautiful diversity, there is no need for one to long to be something other than what she is, something other than what he is: a unique person who loves, say, science experiments, Lego Star Wars, and paper doll kits, and is just right exactly the way they are.

*People are using words like 'sissifying' and 'pussifying' to describe this move, because A) this has anything to do with anybody being tough? and B) thanks for showing clearly with your word choice that yes, people do still think that female=weak and useless, so we DO need to break down these gender stereotypes; sorry Matt Walsh, when you say "Nobody ever said that girls can’t be strong or boys can’t be gentle" your own crowd is right there giving you the lie...) 

**Which, BTW, not Biblical criteria at all. That's just culture and tradition talking.

A Quick Crash Course...

...in why I write about gender stereotyping and feminism.

When Target makes a decision that allows kids to enjoy whatever toys they are drawn to without feeling as though they are making the 'wrong' choice, and a big crowd of people hop onto their Facebook page to tell them they are denying our God-ordained genders, kowtowing to the 'transbullies', and leading America further into the 'depraved' dark hole it's already in. GUYS. God didn't give Adam and Eve each a pile of approved toys. Kids are also not born with any particular proclivity to cars/blocks/actions figures vs. kitchen sets/baby dolls/pink dress up. None of these things are sexual. None of these things are inherently gendered. None of these things are treated in the Bible's discussion of gender, which instead focuses on things like honour, servant-heartedness, and love. Those are things I can do and be while moving heavy rocks to build a wall for my garden-- so why not a little girl playing with construction toys? Those are things my husband can do and be while cuddling our little boy before bedtime and singing him a lullaby-- so why not a little boy playing with a doll? These were things Jesus exemplified while heading up a bread and fish meal for a big crowd-- so why not a little boy playing kitchen?

What I'm getting at is, when you're upset about the breakdown of gender divides that do not exist in any way, shape, or form in the Bible, and invoking God to do it, you're doing it wrong. You're gypping a bunch of kids in the process. It hurts nobody to let kids like what they like without judgement. It will help kids, to feel free to explore and learn with a broader range of toys and games. It will help kids by letting them feel more confident in their choices and preferences. Putting extra-Biblical rules and restraints on little children is exactly the sort of thing the Bible frowns very strongly on. Unlike letting your daughter play with Avengers action figures and your son wear fairy wings, on which subject the Bible is utterly silent.

(Or maybe I just read the headline wrong, and Target actually replaced its whole toy section with a squad of evil child-corruptors handing out sexual literature? No? Then let me close with this handy flowchart:)

Biblical Models, Not Cultural Stereotypes

Appreciated these thoughts on making your church a safe place for people with same-sex attraction, particularly these thoughts on gender stereotyping. It does matter in our churches; it does.

"4. Deal with biblical models of masculinity and femininity, rather than cultural stereotypes. 

Battles with SSA can sometimes be related to a sense of not quite measuring up to expected norms of what a man or woman is meant to be like. So when the church reinforces superficial cultural stereotypes, the effect can be to worsen this sense of isolation and not quite measuring up.

For example, to imply that men are supposed to be into sports or fixing their own car, or that women are supposed to enjoy crafts and will want to “talk about everything,” is to deal in cultural rather than biblical ideas of how God has made us. This stereotyping can actually end up overlooking many ways in which people are reflecting some of the biblical aspects of manhood and womanhood that culture overlooks."

The Problem With Stereotypes

Link Pack

Just a few links from around the web that I found interesting:

Some thoughts on the phrase, "Real men don't do x." Following on from the Ray Rice story:
"Saying “real men don’t do (x)” is a feel good, self centered mechanism that men use to relieve themselves of critically examining the world we live in and how their roles as both beneficiaries and agents of misogyny sustains a world where such violence is possible."

How gender stereotypes affect biologists' interpretations and discoveries:
"[S]perm turned out to be feeble swimmers... The last thing you’d want a sperm to be is a highly effective burrower, because it would end up burrowing into the first obstacle it encountered. You want a sperm that’s good at getting away from things... The team went on to determine that the sperm tries to pull its getaway act even on the egg itself, but is held down against its struggles by molecules on the surface of the egg that hook together with counterparts on the sperm’s surface, fastening the sperm until the egg can absorb it. Yet even after having revealed the sperm to be an escape artist and the egg to be a chemically active sperm catcher, even after discussing the egg’s role in tethering the sperm, the research team continued for another three years to describe the sperm’s role as actively penetrating the egg."

Heartbreaking article on Rape Culture in the Alaskan Wilderness:
"In the late 1830s, small pox wiped out a third of the Native population in southern and western Alaska. In 1900, a flu and measles epidemic did the same—or worse, by some estimates. Some villages were decimated; in others, there weren’t enough left alive to bury the dead."
"Then, shortly after the second pandemic, many Native Alaskan children were shipped off to boarding schools—some as young as 6 years old—and many were beaten, sexually abused, and urged to forget their languages and cultures. In a few villages, multimillion-dollar lawsuits were filed against Catholic priests and church workers for molesting almost an entire generation of Alaska Native children..."
"...This is further exacerbated by the fact that traumatic experiences can lead to alcohol and drug abuse, and alcohol and drug abuse can lead to further traumatization. "It’s like a circle, you can’t take just one; they’re all linked together," says Cynthia Erickson. "You’re born, you’re molested—kick another domino down.""

A great challenge regarding the statistics on collegiate rape:
""The price of a college education should not include a 1 in 5 chance of being sexually assaulted." – Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand."

And finally, Immodesty All Over the Map, an exploration of different cultural modesty standards and how they should make us slow to judge others:
"A fixation on our own definition of modesty threatens to warp our perceptions and hurt our interactions with others—particularly as we venture outside our own culture."

The Manly Church

Today I want to talk a little bit about the common charge heard in Conservative/complementarian circles that today's church is 'feminised', springboarding off this article from Christianity Today called "Act Like Men: What It Means to Fight Like a Man", subtitled, Men, is [sic] your life characterised by courage, strength, and love?

Here's how the article starts: "One of the reasons many churches struggle is they're not a friendly place for men. Think about the worship service at your church. More than likely, there's a lot of talk about loving each other, but not much about fighting against sin or fighting for each other. There's holding hands when we sing, but not much locking arms as we get marching orders for the mission."

The article goes on to cite passages like 2 Timothy 4:7 ("I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race..."), Ephesians 6 ("Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the tactics of the Devil…so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand."), and 1 Peter 5:8 ("Be serious! Be alert! Your adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour.")

You may not be surprised to find that I take issue with this. Here's why: what they are talking about is not feminisation. It is just plain weak theology and vague experience-- and I refuse to accept that as inherent to my gender. "Is your church all about lovey-dovey pop-psychology stuff, with no serious, difficult looks at sin and struggle to be seen? LADIES."

Those passage referenced above? Are inspired Scripture intended for the whole of the church, not 'Notes from the Men's Manual of Being a Good Christian'. Battle language is part of our life as Christians; warring against the flesh, fleeing temptation, standing firm against the flaming darts of the enemy, being alert and watchful are the territory of every Christian. Being "characterised by courage, strength, and love"? Two-thirds of that dictum are in my blog title referencing Proverbs 31, the excellent wife.

I have always loved John Piper's description of "strong complementarian women" as having "massive steel in their backs, and theology in their brains." By all means, let us call churches to draw from the richness, depth, and strength of Scripture in their meetings instead of relying on niceness to save us. Let us face the darkness of our sin, let us ask the Spirit for self-control, endurance, and discipline along with our love, kindness, and gentleness-- and let all of us do this without drawing a line down the middle for gender, because that line is not written into God's Word. Let us not, however, make the mistake of calling a theologically-weak, feel-good, standardless church 'feminised'. Because, I beg your pardon, but that ain't my femininity.

Always A Member of A Class

"...not that every woman is, in virtue of her sex, as strong, clever, artistic, level-headed, industrious and so forth as any man that can be mentioned; but, that a woman is just as much an ordinary human being as a man, with the same individual preferences, and with just as much right to the tastes and preferences of an individual. What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person."

Dorothy Sayers hitting it out of the park.

Culture Check: The Top-Selling Girl's Dolls

This image is sourced from Pigtail Pals Ballcap Buddies' blog, where a community member submitted this collage of the top-selling dolls in toy stores right now. Are these "just" dolls, or do they send a loud and clear message to our daughters (and sons!) about the "right" way to be a girl?

One of the reasons I wanted to share this is because there is a certain amount of fear about blurring gender lines in the evangelical, complementarian community. This is certainly a concern; God created two genders and declared two genders very good, and I think it is right to celebrate and defend that. But I think it is equally harmful the way the majority of our culture (as seen in the bulk of mainstream media and merchandise) seems to be pushing the lines further apart in ways that alienate and harm male-female relationships, and limit both men and women, boys and girls. You can bet that the top-selling boys' action figures have nothing in common in terms of interests, physique, or attire with any of these girls' dolls.

Yes, God created us different, but God also created us for fellowship and with many, many similarities. Men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus; we are all image-bearers of God, joint heirs of the same salvation, and intended to live together with fellowship and respect, not mutual incomprehension. (And we both have a great deal more variety within our respective genders than these dolls would have us believe!)

The "Default Male": What's That?

Scenario: a fly is buzzing through your kitchen, landing on your sandwich whenever you put it down. You and your toddler wave it off in annoyance for a while, but eventually you're sick of it. "Run and get the flyswatter," you tell your child, "and I'll kill him."

Scenario: you are reading Are You My Mother? to your toddler. The baby bird comes upon a dog. You put on a special deep voice for the dog as you drawl, "How can I be your mother? I am a dog."

So what do these scenarios have in common?

They are the illustration of a principle called the 'default male'. This term describes a phenomenon where we automatically assume that any creature not directly identified as female by specific "feminine" markings (long eyelashes, pink bows, long hair) is a male. This means that chances are good that you unconsciously refer to every frog, worm, anthropomorphised vehicle (say, an airplane you're watching fly by, or a toy car), bunny in the yard, stick figure, or unspecified professional (doctor, mechanic) as "he". This is true unless the animal in question has its offspring with it, in which case it is instantly a mummy (although the young are probably still "he".)

Try it out! Grab the nearest children's book with animals in it-- Are You My Mother? will do. In this book there are four gender-specified characters: the mother bird and the baby bird (male), the cow (which is clearly not a bull), and the hen. Do you read the kitten and dog as male or female? Consider the dog's reason for not being the bird's mother: "I am a dog." Chances are that if the dog was male, he'd say "I am a male," wouldn't he? But-- with no eyelashes, no frilly collar, odds are good that you read the dog as male and not female. It holds true in other books. Brown Bear, Brown Bear-- the sheep has no horns and the cat is a "girly" colour so perhaps you read them as female, but do you look at the rest of the animals and think "girl bear", "girl dog", or do you automatically assume they're all male?

Have you ever told your child before killing an earwig that you're going to "squash her?" Have you ever stopped to consider the actual natural functional relationships of creatures such as ants and bees (most worker bees and ants are sterile females) before calling them a him? Alternatively, do you ever call an animal pictured with it's offspring the "daddy"? (I had a funny moment today where my son was doing a puzzle, which featured a green-headed duck with four ducklings. Given it's plumage, it was obviously male, but up until recently I would never have called it the daddy, and I would not be even slightly surprised if the original puzzle-maker intended it to be a mummy.) *

So, like with canting, after having described what the term means, I want to talk about why it's a problem.

I've mentioned in earlier posts the ratio of male leads to female leads in children's media. I've also talked about why it troubles me that toys relating to family life are strongly marketed to girls as if family life is somehow not "manly".

These are, I think, two of the main problems with the default male phenomenon.** In general, it's fair to say that male-female populations are about 50-50 in the world, human as well as the animal kingdom. So what message do we communicate about one gender if we consistently leave it out? I would argue the message is like, "Males do more, experience more, and take up more space in the world than females," which, essentially, is tantamount to saying "Males matter more than females." I don't think it is a stretch to interpret it as such. If every creature you encounter is assumed to be male, unless there are very specific indications to the contrary (and sometimes even if there are!), you set up a world where male perspective will be more valued than female, because you've been subtly trained to believe that males are just more there. I believe this feeds into the imbalances of gender leads in our culture's storytelling, and probably strongly contributes to the idea that male's stories are universally representative, while female's stories are just for female audiences. I believe this feeds into the ways our language and cultural predilections make things coded "female" shameful for boys to associate themselves with.

Now, I don't think that the complementarian church as a whole actually holds the stated belief that "Males matter more than females." Indeed, thankfully, I don't know anybody who would say that. But here's the thing: there's a degree to which our actions are going to shout down our words. If we are adamantly insisting that complementarianism is about "equal but different" and supporting the idea that God created us for two different roles in churches and marriages, but that both genders are both image-bearers and equals before God and His law, we need to be careful. We need to be careful that we're not knee-jerking against feminism and thus ignoring ways in which we are not treating women as equal. And if we're defaulting to assuming male presence is more prevalent and male perspective more weighty, then I'm afraid we are not living up to our "equal but different" belief, and are thus undermining the credibility of our complementarianism.

The other side of problem with the default male phenomenon is how it limits girls. Consider how it must affect little girls to be taught by implication from the time that they are infants that if they're not either practicing some form of domestic, maternal instinct or displaying a specific set of beauty ideals (long hair and eyelashes, pink accessories, skirts), they're not a proper, recogniseable girl. Is it any wonder that our daughters are growing up beauty-obsessed, wearing make-up younger and younger, buying into a toxic beauty culture of disordered eating, insecurity, and self-alteration? Is it any wonder that there are still areas of interest that are predominantly seen as not really "for" girls (like STEM studies, politics, athletics)? The church ought to be a safe haven from a culture that teaches girls their beauty and marriageability trumps their brains, their hearts, their ministry giftings, and their talents in importance, and I believe we can be that while still holding marriage in esteem for both genders and proudly holding firm to a belief in different roles in the church and in marriages. And maybe it starts with sprinkling in a few 'she's' with all the 'he's' in your daily pronoun use...

*This post gives some examples from media of creatures interpreted by filmmakers as male despite nature pointing to them being female.
**Although, more seriously, in things like crash test dummies (based on average male figures) and heart attack symptoms (which actually present differently in women), the default male can lead to unnecessary female deaths.

Elementary-School Girls and Math Anxiety

Just read a really interesting article in the Smithsonian on how math-anxious, female, early elementary school teachers pass on their math-anxiety to their female students. It's a really short article, so why don't you click through and read it?

I'm particularly interested in this as I begin researching how to homeschool my children. Up until about a year ago, I would've fit the definition of math anxiety given in the article: "When someone has math anxiety, they can master mathematical concepts but tend to avoid the subject and perform more poorly than their abilities allow." I'm a fairly intelligent human being, passed my SATs no problem, and generally was able to find most subjects interesting and engaging, from different types of genetic mutations to how to write a sestina to basic CSS, and everything in between. Why did math feel like such a brick wall to me?

There were probably a lot of things at play, but two points stand out to me as notable:
1) My own math teacher (my mother) was and is pretty math-anxious, while my dad is pretty good at math. Of my siblings and I, only my brother came out of secondary school feeling mathematically adept. I'm not trying to blame my parents at all, but I do think it likely that some of the subconscious stereotyping as described in the Smithsonian article was playing out in our family. Obviously, as with the teachers in the article, there is no intention of raising girls who performed worse in math than the boys, but I think it's reasonable to suppose some of those preconceptions about girls being worse at math than boys were communicated through my own parents' educations (after all, when they were being educated in the seventies and eighties, it was by teachers who would've been educated even earlier-- at a time when girls and STEM studies were pretty well considered totally incompatible.)
2) The other skill-area in my life where I felt that notion of a brick wall and not being able to improve myself was sports. I always thought I was just bad at sports, but that it didn't matter because I was a girl and didn't need to play sports-- that was for boys. As an adult, I am much more able to see the joy and use of using your body well, and once I'm not pregnant/recovering from a pregnancy anymore, I do hope to engage in sports much more. So I definitely think I was self-stereotyping, discouraged in what could've been of great interest and benefit to me by pre-conceived notions of what I could and should be good at.

So coming back to the research I'm doing for homeschooling my own children: even before reading the Smithsonian article, I had come to the conclusion that believing your brain isn't capable of doing a certain skill is a fabulous way to cripple your brain in doing it, so I knew I wanted to pass on to my children the joy of math, logic, and analytical thinking as surely as my own mother did such a wonderful job passing on the love of reading, poetry, and music. I am more sure than ever now that I want to be careful not to let my (potential future) daughters think that math is for boys, and that one way I need to do that is by entering joyfully into math myself.

What about you? How do you think your math teachers affected your ability to learn math? Have you thought about how you will teach math to your kids (real or potential future)?

"Ladies' Man..."

This is another exhortation to think about how the language we use reinforces worldly views of gender versus Scriptural views; a bit of a companion post to my earlier post, "Ladies..."

Ok, well, let's start with some frank, if perhaps somewhat biased, opinions: I think my son is an absolute looker. I mean, he looks like his Daddy, and his Daddy is a babe, so how could he not be, but something about his fluffy blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and miles-long dark eyelashes seem to move other people to agree with me. People are always stopping us in the grocery store and such to tell him what lovely eyes he has. And hey, my mama-heart likes seeing my son praised, although I know his outward appearance is superficial and will in no way determine whether he is a man after God's heart-- which is what really matters. But it's nice to see my son making a favourable impression.

However.

There's something a lot of people (unfortunately, some of them believers) tend to say to him that really troubles me; something along the lines of, "You're going to be quite the ladies' man, aren't you?" or "The girls will just love you." Lest you think I've just misplaced my sense of humour over what people obviously intend as a lighthearted remark, let me unpack why this troubles me.

If this was an isolated cultural incident, maybe it could be shrugged off as 'no big deal' or 'just a joke'. But it's not; far from it. One of the most common ways our culture warps God's ideal of masculinity is by promoting the ladies' man as a paragon of manliness. If you need convincing that this is a culturally-prevalent attitude, check out two places where cultural norms are not usually challenged: superhero movies and TV commercials. Watch an Axe commercial*. Or a beer commercial, or a shaving commercial, or pretty well any commercial that airs during a sporting event. Picture Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark's glamorous millionaire lifestyle, traveling everywhere with a girl on either arm. Alternately, think of Steve Rogers (Captain America) prior to his enhancement: as a runty, unhealthy (i.e. not very masculine) guy, he can't get one girl interested in him, while his handsome, broad-shouldered friend can easily pick up two. The message is clear, and it is everywhere: if you're really manly, you can get lots of girls to sleep with you-- and you'll want to.

Is this what people are thinking when they compliment my son by predicting he'll be sexually appealing lots of women? I hope not-- I hope they're just not thinking at all, not realising that they're predicting my one-year-old will be sexually appealing to lots of women (because if they are thinking in that language, that's thoroughly creepy). But the fact that it's unthinking doesn't change the fact that they're planting those seeds in his mind, adding their weight to a cultural barrage that would push my son into thinking uncommitted, unchecked sleeping around is glamourous and desirable.

Now think of Christ. Think of his singleminded, self-sacrificing pursuit of his one Bride. Think of the sober, committed man of God called to lead the churches and how his faithfulness to his wife is among the first qualifications given in 1 Timothy 3. Think of Proverbs 5, pleadingly praising the blessedness of enjoying one committed relationship and using words like "scattered" "folly" and "led astray" in relation to this "ladies' man" ideal our culture promotes. Do we really believe that following God's statutes is a delight and "riches", as Psalm 119 puts it? Then let us not use the language of rebellious ignorance to God's way in our praise of little children!

What I would love is if people instead said, "You're going to make one woman very happy."** That's a goal I would like him to have. Here's the thing: there is absolutely nothing wrong-- indeed, there's plenty right-- with a godly man who chooses not to pursue any romantic relationship at all until he finds a woman who not only attracts him with her beauty, but also impresses him with her character, nothing wrong with waiting for God's timing, and most of all, nothing wrong with being a guy who just never really interests most girls he meets, until he meets the one woman whom God intended for him, who can see parts of him that others couldn't, and who will appreciate him as a whole man, body, mind, and spirit-- not just a hottie good for a one-night stand.***

I would like to talk at a later point about another harmful cultural warping of masculinity/femininity, in which purity is seen as a more feminine virtue, but for now I think I'll leave you with this plea: next time you bend down to a little boy's level and let him know you think he's great, can you take a second and check that that encouragement will help him think of Christlikeness as more desirable than being liked by lots of women?


*I was going to link an Axe commercial but they are just too offensive, especially coming from the same company who owns Dove and purports to be promoting respect for women and their natural beauty. Basically, picture dozens of stick-thin but busty girls in the tiniest bikinis possible, fighting and racing each other to get to one man. Tagline, "Spray more, get more." Phallic symbol duly included.)
** Or, even better, left his future sex appeal off the table entirely?
***This works the same way for girls, by the way. I wish there was a way to reassure all the single girls I know that it doesn't matter two straws if there's no one interested in them right now. I was never the object of much male attention before I caught Steven's eye, and darned if I can think of one way that has made our love the less sweet or our marriage the less wonderfully fulfilling.

One-Sided?

Someone remarked about the movie review I just did, "Role of women? What about the role of men? Isn't that a little one-sided?" I would like to address that here.

See, yes, it is one-sided. Just like the problem.

Because while there are certainly ways in which Hollywood stereotypes men and makes them one-dimensional and even sexualises them, there is nothing like the same kind of systemic, far-reaching problem as there is with the way women are portrayed in film.

Consider the following:
-According to a recent study by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, male characters have nearly three-quarters of the speaking parts in children's entertainment, and in family films, male characters outnumber females 3:1.
-The majority of movies do not pass the Bechdel Test, either featuring only one token female character, or by never having two females cross paths, or by putting two females together and having them only advance the plot on behalf of the male characters. Even more movies only pass the Bechdel Test by one conversation. Try to imagine a world where the reverse was true-- most movies only had one man and if there were two, they wouldn't ever speak unless to talk about the female main character.
-Except for in films made specifically for a female audience, the vast majority of leads are male.

I have to agree with Geena Davis' assessment. Have you noticed recently that the women in your life are hard to come by (drastically outnumbered by the males?) No? What about how they interact? Have you noticed that women tend to avoid each other like the plague unless they are getting together to talk about a man? No? Hmmm... Well, have you noticed that whenever you talk to a female you're bored to tears? Still no?

Okay, so now that we've established that that's not how the world works, I can establish why I want to approach film reviews from a perspective of the role of women. It's not because I think women are more important than men-- it's that I think they're just as important, and Hollywood is doing a terrible job of communicating that. If we aren't aware of just how one-dimensional and marginalized Hollywood makes their female characters, we will unwittingly absorb the message that women are more one-dimensional and less important than men. Like any of the subtle underlying biases in film, being aware of the problem is our best protection against assimilating the message. So I point out the maginalization of women in movies not because I enjoy complaining-- it's because I want change. I want people just starting out in film to think about why a man shouldn't enjoy a story about a woman, to think about what they're saying if they never make two female characters interact. I want movie-goers to come away from the theatre and to say, "The way they had that female character act was unrealistic because x," and then think about what real women are like and go out into the world with realistic, interesting women in their heads instead of a stereotype.

I've heard it said regarding this issue, "Once you see it, you can't unsee it." Thankfully, it's true. And once you're seeing it everywhere, you can become one more voice asking for something different-- something better.

Culture Check: Then and Now

The image above was tweeted by the group Let Toys Be Toys, which lobbies retailers to stop seling toys by gender and instead sell them by category. On the left, it shows items from the retailer Argo's 1970's catalog of toys; on the right, current equivalents from their website.

Aside from the obviously much poorer construction, design and materials used, what immediately strikes is the barrage of pink. It is unrealistic (do you know anybody with a pink house?) but, more troublingly, it fosters what I consider an extremely negative and unbiblical gender stereotype.

See, it totally excludes little boys from two fundamental parts of life: having and caring for a house, and having and caring for a child. By drenching all the household items and childcare toys in pink, which in our society is strongly coded "female", it is telling little boys that this isn't for them.

Believe me, this is not innate. My one-year-old loves balls and tools and cars, and I have had people say to me many times something along the lines of "He's a real little boy, isn't he?" because of this. And yes, absolutely he is. A real little boy who runs to get his little broom when Mummy's sweeping and his little vacuum cleaner when Mummy's vacuuming. A real little boy who loves feeding his Ernie doll tea and snacks, or rocking the weird little androgynous baby doll his great-grandma gave him and "singing" to it (think tuneless "la, la, la" noises). A real little boy who is just as fascinated by a bunny as by a motorcycle, who loves reading as much as running around outside, in short, who is fascinated and attracted everything in his world, not just the things that are typically considered "boy things".

And I want it to stay that way. I wish I could protect him from finding out as he got older that pink toy kitchens are where the girls play, from his little boy friends telling him something he likes and is interested in is "girly". Because if I could protect him from that, maybe I could protect him from the larger implications of it as he got older. From well-meaning adults asking him how many girlfriends he has as if it is somehow manly to be two-timing a woman. From the beer commercials portraying a man with a bevy of pretty girls around him as the kind of guy my son should want to be like. From the jokes in movies about girls desperately pushing for commitment while guys are just looking to "play the field" and have fun. Basically, from the larger cultural message that tells boys that they don't want commitment and family leadership and responsibilities-- they want meaningless sex with as many girls as possible, and to not get "caught" by any of them.

How does this little pink buggy play into that? It subtly, insidiously starts teaching boys that home life, parenthood, domestic bliss- those are "girly". Little kids don't have the insight to look at a commercial or advertisement for a toy directed at them and to see the way the marketer has figured out what makes them tick to push them towards a certain product. They don't know that toy marketers use a "divide and conquer" strategy: if you can convince little boys and little girls that they shouldn't like the same kinds of toys, you can sell twice as many toys. They don't know that the world and the devil want them to be anything but committed, engaged husbands and fathers. But they do feel the peer pressure and their instinct to be accepted by their gender telling them to stay away from the "wrong" toys. Oh, how I wish I could protect my son from that!

Instead, son, I pray you grow up to be like your Daddy. He is a tender and caring father and a wise and responsible caretaker of his home, and those are two ways that he shows the kind of manliness the Bible praises and that points to God: not swagger and infidelity and carelessness, but deep commitment to His bride and tender and compassionate Fatherhood.

"Ladies..."

Actually, this post is not addressed to ladies. I'm looking at you, gentlemen. Have you ever walked into a roomful of your buddies and teasingly referred to them this way: "Hello, ladies..."? Have you ever, prior perhaps to showing off your skills at some sport or other manly achievement before your male friends, announced that you'd "Show you women how it's done?" Ever told a little boy not to cry or be afraid of something because that's "girly"?

I'm going to assume that most of my readers are not the kind of people who would use vile language like this (I'm leaving it to your discretion whether you follow that link because there is some very offensive language in it but I think it's worth reading to see that what I'm talking about here can be taken a lot farther.) But have you ever thought about the implications of calling other men "women" as an insult?

Yes, God created us differently. We are physically different, we are emotionally different, we are mentally different, we have different roles. But God calls you, gentlemen, to honour women for their differences. And even lightheartedly, when you use 'girly' or 'women' or 'ladies' as an insult, you are saying that it is shameful to be a women. There is no corresponding set of insults that women use on your gender. I urge you to do us the same courtesy and not use our gender as a way of putting people down.

At any rate, I'm not sure God wants you to use your physical strength as a means of putting down other men. Sure, enjoy the physical strength God gave you. But God is far more concerned with your manly character-- your moral courage, your care for those weaker than you, your loving leadership-- than your manly ability to excel your peers on the soccer field. So why not start using the language of character instead of the language of gender to distinguish between the praiseworthy and the dishonourable? And if you're going to teach a little boy to display courage and self-control, could you perhaps use those words (and their counterparts, fear/cowardice and self-indulgence), rather than my gender?

You Don't Have To Be Pretty

I came across this rather appalling link via Princess-Free Zone: a pastor of a North Carolina church tirading about gender stereotypes. I wanted to address a specific quote, "And when your daughter starts acting too butch, you reign her in. And you say, ‘Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.’" (Emphasis mine.)

News flash! God does not say women have to be beautiful to please Him. God does not say it is women's job to dress up, woman's job to be "attractive". It is just not present in the Bible. Of the famous women of God in the Bible, do you know how many have their appearance mentioned? Five. Of these five, two are only mentioned because it's significant to a plot point (Esther and Sarah both attract the attention of pagan kings, but their faith is the point of the story. The other three are Rebekah, Abigail, and the Shulamite of Song of Solomon, all Old Testament women and part of a culture where a woman's economic value came from her appearance.) Do you know how many of the famous women of God in the Bible have no record of their appearance one way or the other? In the Old Testament, we have Eve, Ruth and Naomi, Hannah, Deborah, Tamar, Jochebed, Miriam, and Rahab. Among the women in Jesus' life, Anna, Elizabeth, Mary, Mary and Martha, Mary Magdalene, and among the women of the early church, Dorcas, Lois and Eunice, Junia, Phoebe, Priscilla, Lydia... indeed, nowhere in the New Testament is any woman praised or singled out for her beauty or lack thereof-- it's simply not present.

Now, all humans have a responsibility to steward the bodies God gave them. We are to avoid the sins of gluttony and laziness, and to treat others with respect, which easily translates into dressing appropriately for our culture and occasions, not eating to excess or only to satisfy our appetites, and to practice healthy exercise. I don't want you to hear me saying, "God says it's ok for you to be a couch-bound slob who lives in ratty sweatpants." But I do want you to hear this: all humans have these responsibilities. No, Pastor Harris, women don't have to smell nicer, dress up more, or spend more time cultivating their physical attractiveness than the men around them do. God never gave us that command. That's coming from the world.

Christian woman, God did give you a command about your appearance, though: to focus on inner beauty. To cultivate good works, a quiet and gentle spirit before the Lord, faith, not living in fear, to imitate Christ. But if anybody, within the church or without, tells you you have any kind of obligation to be beautiful, hold that up to the Scripture and I think you will find that it holds no water at all.