Race, Gender Roles, and Conservatism
Continuing our discussion on race and spirituality, I want to use a metaphor that I believe will only enrich our discussion. Beyond that, I love this metaphor because of how intersectional it is. By intersectional, I simply mean that it has different layers and different dimensions. These types of metaphors tend to produce the most stimulating discussions.
Interestingly, it’s a metaphor I use quite frequently in my mind, but I find I don’t always do a great job sharing with people what I think and how I think. If you have difficulty making the connection between race and spirituality, you may find a metaphor like this a bit more helpful. If you already see the interplay, this may highlight things in a way you find useful in a conversation with other friends.
So, imagine I recently got married, right? God bless the woman that’s courageous enough to say she wants to spend the rest of her life with me… I digress. Lots of my friends and family come together for the wedding, and following the wedding, I spend about 2 weeks honeymooning with my wife. When I come back, naturally, I’m backed up on school, so I have a lot of work to do. When school is in session, I think the longest I’ve gone without doing work is maybe 12 hours. I can’t even imagine how much I would have to do following a honeymoon. Suffice to say, I have a good deal waiting for me when I get back. 2 months following the wedding, you see me and my wife in the fellowship at church and you approach us. You have a pretty good relationship with both of us, and you’re very excited to see us, as you haven’t been able to catch us at all in the past 2 months.
Casually, you approach us and say, “Hey! How have the first 2 months of marriage been?!”
I’m not married, nor have I ever been, but I’m guessing this isn’t an unusual or uncommon question, particularly in church, where you probably had many church members involved at different stages of the relationship (ie. courtship, wedding shower, engagement party, wedding planning, wedding ceremony, etc.) It’s a pretty simple question; you just want to know how the first 2 months have been. You didn’t direct the question to any one of us in particular, so it’s really up for either my wife or I (or both of us) to respond. I decide to respond first, perhaps out of sheer excitement about how great I believe things are. That, or maybe I’ve made a habit of speaking for my wife, even though she’s a bright, outspoken women with her own perspective, albeit she still thinks of me as her leader. Maybe some combination of the two.
“Things have been wonderful! We’ve had really great communication. It isn’t always easy, with me having so much reading and studying to do for school, but my wife has been super supportive and we’ve still been making time to connect consistently. She lets me know when I’m dropping the ball, and I always try and bounce back the next time around and do better moving forward.”
You really like the response, and you’re excited things are going so well. My wife isn’t as enthusiastic about the response I just gave though, but at the risk of seeing the smile on your face be replaced with disappointment, and bumping heads with me in front you, she decides to hold off on sharing and discuss with me a bit later. My wife is feeling a bit… differently… about the first 60 days of our marriage.
She’s thinking, “Things have actually been pretty rough, all things considered. I find myself wrestling to be loving and patient with my husband, because I feel like he can be really inconsiderate sometimes. On top of that, even when he’s home, he has all this reading to do, so even when we’re together, it doesn’t actually feel like we’re together. Communication has been getting better, but it started off pretty rocky. And when I say it started off rocky, I mean we started off with almost no communication at all, so I suppose almost anything is better than no communication at all, right? I try and share with him from time to time what I’m feeling, but I feel like he turns around and does the same thing an hour later. I know he loves me, but it’s been a rollercoaster.”
These 2 accounts on the marriage are fairly different. Interestingly though, only one of those people had an opportunity to share: the husband. My wife, on the other hand, found herself in a situation where if she chose to be honest, it would essentially undo everything that was shared in the first account. The metaphor I chose wasn’t by chance. Not in the teeniest bit. I liken a situation like this to what it means to be marginalized or underrepresented, even in a church setting. As the husband, I’m the leader of the household. When people want to know how things are going, it’s not unusual to go to the captain of the ship. Similarly, in a church setting, it’s easy to get on stage and say all kinds of things, with the best of intentions.
“We love each other unconditionally in this church. Because of Christ, we’re not affected by all the crazy social issues happening in the world. This is a church for all kinds of people, and we welcome everyone, no matter their race, gender, or socioeconomic status.”
Let me be very clear: I think all of those statements are wonderful and extremely important. The problem is, even as those words come out of the mouth of the person on stage, that’s not the experience of every member of that church community, and frequently, it tends not to be the experience of underrepresented minorities (I fully acknowledge that everyone, at some point or another, has experienced exclusion, but you’ll have to understand that this post is about being marginalized primarily because you’re an underrepresented racial minority.)
Again, I want to highlight the metaphor I gave concerning the first 60 days of marriage was completely fictional, but it’s still a great example. When my (fictional) wife is listening to me give my account of the first 60 days of our marriage, the account she completely disagrees with, what is she thinking or feeling in those moments?
“My husband is delusional.”
She’s thinking, “What planet does this man live on? Are we talking about the same marriage?” Rightfully so. To my wife, it probably seems like in the past 60 days we’ve been living in completely different worlds. At the end of those 60 days, my conclusions are very different from hers. So much in fact that she can only wonder how I got to those conclusions to begin with. The only possible explanation she can come up with is, “This man must be delusional.”
“My husband appears to be disconnected from what I think/feel, or deliberately chooses to misrepresent it.”
The example I gave doesn’t provide granular level detail between myself and my wife leading up to the conversation at church. The example doesn’t get into specifics of what the conversations looked like, but my wife does make it clear in her account that we had conversations about things she was thinking and feeling. In spite of that, my account of the first 60 days seems completely disconnected from hers. This leaves my wife feeling like I’m either disconnected from her, or, I know what she may be feeling but choose to paint a rosier picture, for any number of reasons (I find the latter possibility particularly interesting, and I think there’s a lot to unpack there).
“Because I am a woman and he is a man, my voice will be marginalized for the duration of this relationship.”
Remember my point earlier; I’m leader of my household, so in some ways, I liken that to being the captain of the ship. My wife probably already feels like I speak on behalf of the family far more frequently than she does. Well, as long as the captain has a good understanding of what’s happening on the ship, that should be fine. If the captain dismisses concerns that are brought to him about things happening on the ship, well, that can be problematic. This is a moment where my wife likely feels like she’s marginalized and will continue to be, because of who I am (the husband and captain) and who she is not (not the husband and not the captain).
“In my absence, my husband would be unable to give an accurate account of our marriage.”
In the example, my wife was present. Someone approached us and threw out a general question. What would happen if my wife were not present? How would that conversation proceed? How long would it last? What conclusions would be reached and what decisions would be made? This is one of the most pressing elements of diversity. When you don’t have a seat at the table, your voice isn’t going to be heard. My wife probably left that conversation thinking, “Unless I’m involved in every conversation about our marriage, this man is going to have no idea how to let people know what’s really going on.”
“My husband does not and cannot effectively represent me.”
I liken this point to more of a political metaphor. You want a politician in office who can effectively represent you (and others, I’m sure, too). When my wife saw how I responded to an otherwise simple question on the first 2 months on our marriage, what was she thinking?
“Oh my gosh, this man cannot represent me.”
That’s an issue, because we’re a team. We’re supposed to have similar interest and I’m supposed to otherwise be advocating for both of us, even in her absence. But in my response, it probably became very clear that I’m far better at representing myself than I am at representing my wife. Part of that is normal. It’s difficult to represent someone else. The flip side is you certainly don’t reinforce confidence in moments like this. My wife probably left that conversation thinking, “We need someone else at the table. This man isn’t going to do a good job representing me.”
We could probably come up with 3 or 4 more points, but let’s stop here. I want to reiterate an earlier comment: everyone, at some point or another, has felt marginalized or excluded. Even think about the example I used… we can easily tweak this and use it to highlight exclusion because of socioeconomic status, age, sexual orientation, religion, etc. (I’m sure I don’t have to highlight gender, because that’s probably easy to follow in this example). My biggest interest in this piece was highlighting being marginalized because of your race and the thoughts and feelings that may produce, particularly when you feel marginalized as a result of what is shared (or maybe isn’t shared) on the stage or from the pulpit (I’m generalizing this to anyone who has a microphone at any point during the service).
This is particularly the case, perhaps, because churches tend to be otherwise conservative environments. I don’t mean that in the political sense. I mean that more so “socially”. At least by modern standards, churches are [very] old fashion. We subscribe to what most people would describe as “traditional” gender roles. I don’t think we change particularly quickly, nor are we super open to doing so. After all, the Bible has been the same for centuries. Decision making and influence tends to lean more in favor of men than women (this probably varies, slightly, from church to church. Indeed, some churches in America are pastored by women.). People tend to be conservative in how they express themselves socially (ie. tattoos, pierced ears, unique hair styles, etc.), as well as how they interact with others (yes ma’am. No ma’am.). Finally, there’s an, otherwise, homogenous form of thinking: One Lord. One Faith. One Baptism. Period. You can’t argue with the scriptures. In that sense, yes, churches are (socially) conservative environments.
This can create situations where people may not feel as inclined to share some of their grievances, particularly when they feel it will be at odds with most other church members. Instead, for weeks, or months, or years, they may feel their grievances, race related or otherwise, are completely unnoticed by their fellow church members.
Yes, it can feel like the person with the microphone is delusional. Yes, it can feel like they’re completely disconnected from what you think/feel or deliberately choose to misrepresent it. Yes, it can feel like you’ll be marginalized for the duration of the relationship because of your race. Yes, it can feel like in your absence, there will never be a balanced dialogue about the situation.
Do I have answers? No, not quite. That wasn’t really my goal here though. After all, it’s difficult to determine a path forward if there isn’t even agreement on where we are, or where our current path is taking us. No, I don’t have answers. But maybe this improves our understanding of, in my humble opinion, where we are today.
I think part of this was normalizing the feelings of underrepresented minorities in church communities… you’re not cynical, per se. This stuff is real, so in some ways, I think it’s natural you feel the way you do, albeit I think prayer is an important part of this as well. The other side of that is helping those in the majority understand why minorities think and feel what they do. I suppose only time will tell whether or not I do that effectively here.
Some random thoughts.
Nnamdi