No Wonder She's Called a Witch
still not a dude in a dudes' world
I want to tell you about four seemingly unrelated moments in social media that crossed my feed in surprisingly quick succession:
A professor of psychology was asked by a young dude1 what the privileges of patriarchy are, because he wanted to start taking advantage of them; the professor said ‘you already are’ and listed off many things, including career availability, body autonomy, safety after dark.
An author talked about five films that most people would dismiss as boring; each are largely wordless, depicting the interior life of a character. The author talked about how impactful the journey was – both emotionally and visually.
A Methodist minister reminded us that it was a 6th century pope that decided the sinful woman at the well, the sinful woman who washed Jesus’s feet, and the woman named Mary Magdalene were the same sinful woman, and that the Christian scriptures do not actually support this being one person.
A philosophy professor casually mentioned Socrates’ teacher, Aspasia, paused, and noted that once we became Christian, those in power were uncomfortable with the idea that a great thinker would have been taught by someone who was not a dude, so she got left out.
In all four cases, the creator was a dude. On its face, that’s fine. It’s good that dudes are talking about emotional intelligence, setting the record straight, being visibly feminist.
Except in the first case, it’s remarkably frustrating that those who are not dudes have been saying this for years, but a young dude will only listen to another dude.
Except in the second case, all five films are the interior lives of white dudes (films include actors Adam Driver and Tom Hardy), and how is it he could not include even one film about the interior lives of those who are not dudes on his list? Or do those not get made?
Except in the third case, is it any wonder those who are not dudes have been struggling for so long?
Except in the fourth case, well… is it any wonder that the woman in Endor whom Saul consults for wisdom in the Hebrew scriptures (1 Samuel) is colloquially known as the Witch of Endor?
Sigh.
So what does this have to do with liberal religion and congregational shenanigans™ you ask?
Short version: everything.
Longer version: I’ve taught a lot - often about worship, music, and liturgy; sometimes about leadership and governance; and occasionally I stretch a little into systematic theology - often connecting it to the ways we sing our theology. I love digging in deep, exploring how we got from early ideas to the ways theology gets expressed today. But it’s also clear that I can’t tell that story without noticing how those who are not dudes have been sidelined, blamed, or erased.
And it’s interesting, when you’re not a dude, to teach about something more academic like systematic theology - especially the historic and philosophical parts. Even here in the 21st century, it can be… challenging. Some dudes have wanted to challenge my authority. Some dudes have been certain they know more than I do. Some dudes have wanted me to know everything about a topic I mention briefly (goddess bless the dude who heard me mention the Council of Nicaea and wanted an in-depth conversation about absolutely everything that happened there; I had to break it to him that he was severely overestimating my interest and investment in the early church fathers).2
To be clear, every time this happens (because this isn’t an isolated incident) everyone has been respectful, and the conversations have been rich, and many still respect me as someone who knows probably more than them (or at least has an interesting take) about these things, but wow, it’s still exhausting, and I don’t know how professors who are not dudes do it on a daily basis.
It's why I rarely teach theology in a systematic way. I mean, I’m a practical theologian, which means theology informs what I do but isn’t at the fore. Liturgy and ritual’s my jam. I’m the gal who cried every week of systematic theology class and was just grateful I passed. While the guys on my floor were reading their stacks of Cone and Niebuhr and Schleiermacher and Rauschenbusch, I was running to the chapel to hang banners and rehearse songs and paint trees.
I was putting the ideas into practice, making them come alive. But it was the guys with the thick books and the long debates over pints that were the ‘true theologians.’
The fact that dudes’ interior lives, knowledge, and authority is still so more valued is a problem.
I see it amongst colleagues: a person who is not a dude can give advice, or offer a hot take, and it’s good and seen and valued. But when a dude gives the same advice, or offers the same hot take, it’s praised and shared and copied and referred to by others. Dudes are still seen as leaders, not-dudes as doers.
I know I’ve talked about this some before, but it’s really stuck in my craw right now.
Please do better, dudes. And the not-dudes who are conditioned by clearly a couple thousand years to think the same way.
Let’s actually listen to the feminists in female-presenting bodies. And not just things that affect their bodies, but about psychology and philosophy and theology, and science and art and film and history, and video games and design and math and and and…
… oh. And just because we know something about a thing, it doesn’t mean we know EVERYTHING about a thing. No one does.
Let’s all do better.
And make some good movies that aren’t just about the interior lives of white men. Please.
PROGRAMMING NOTE: I’ll be on my way to the AUUMM conference in Atlanta next week, so there will be no post, because I’ll be driving, and that would be wildly unsafe.
I have adopted the terminology “dude” and “not a dude” when speaking about gender issues that emanate from societal, patriarchal structures. I get it from this great site/tracker, and I talked about it a few years ago here.
I’m reminded of something that happened in a trivia match a couple of years ago; one of the teams I am on is named “Pour Some Old Bay on Me” - we are Maryland-based, and it’s a fun pun on the title of a Def Leppard song. During one match, of our our opponents made a joke that must have been a reference to a Def Leppard song or album that none of our team was familiar with, and he got so angry with us - how dare we name our team after a Def Leppard song if we didn’t know their entire back catalog! Yeah… it’s a pattern.
Same old same old, as in going on for years, centuries, that old (or not so old) dude network. So common, commonly accepted, entrenched, perpetuated that some of us don't realize how entrenched it is until we talk with others. Your points help me see how important it is to have the "safe" spaces where non-dudes can discuss, engage, as well as the importance of having non-dudes elsewhere, in management et al. I used to wonder about such spaces, for any marginalized group, until I realized how entrenched outlooks are. My realization came partly by way of a UU learning context, just within the past five years, around the pervasive effects of enslavement in the U.S., including the various reactions of other white UUs in my generation. My education in the 50s and 60s, in an excellent school, omitted so much. Keep talking! We need this education, exposure, awareness as much as ever, in affinity groups, safe places, and mixed communities.
This is so very true. From time to time parishioners have told me that my sermons aren't intellectual enough. But if I throw in a quotation from a man, suddenly these same people thing my sermon was great. I've said the same thing, tho only difference being that I've told you a man said it also.
In seminary we had a project to construct a timeline for a church history class. We had to choose five people (and some other things). So for the five people I chose three or four women and a man or two. When it came time to share in class, a man sitting in front of me, after seeing the folks I had included, said, "oh! I don't have any women." I know friend. That's why I intentionally included them.