Dialogue: Christina

From: Christina

To: Robert

Sent: September, 2004

Subject: Female Revolution

While much of this conversation interests me, there is one question that looms persistently over me as I read your opinions. I am wondering how many women among your audience actually feel or have ever felt oppressed. Perhaps it is due to my limited travels or life experiences, but I can say, honestly, that as a twenty six year old female born and raised in this country I do not feel oppressed. Nor have I ever.

I do not harbor disillusions about other countries nor about our own history, but in the present state of this country, at least the portions of it I have called home, I see little to no oppression from the male gender.

I have held many jobs in my life and have for the last three years managed both men and women in the hospitality field. I have never at any point received any amount of disrespect from men based solely on my being a woman. What I have experienced is hostile attitudes and crude behavior from the same ignorant men who taunt males who are more sensitive or who are smaller than they are. I believe this dates back far and wide and will continue to exist, but my point is the men who display this kind of behavior feed on the weaker species, not simply the weaker sex. I have also experienced men who consider myself and other females to be simply sexual objects, but this I attribute more to the incredible number of females more then willing to wantonly display themselves across the glossy covers of magazines posted in every super market across the country. Many women in this country have failed our gender by reaching a status of supreme “importance” only to degrade themselves in the most rudimentary of ways; by taking off their clothes. Just when they have our attention, and the attention of our most vulnerable youth (both male and female) they use their bodies instead of their God given voice to make their impression. This epidemic, and I call it this because I feel it’s a complete poisoning of our youth, is taking an opportunity to show what we women are worth, to display our value and our intelligence and handing it back to the man on a silver platter. Not only has this helped the ignorant man succeed in his plight against women, but it also teaches our young girls that her voice is not as important or as popular as her physical characteristics.

The blame for this problem I place solely on the shoulders of today’s female, not today’s male. While our history is a valid point and many may argue that we are simply a product of that history, isn’t it our responsibility to now admit that we do have the tools to succeed in this world and are simply making it harder on ourselves to do so?

I was taught by my parents and a long list of people who matter to me that I can be anything I want. This motto, while it may be a cliché’, stuck with me through every decision and every step I have taken in this life. I never felt as though I was in competition with men, but rather with ignorance in general. To say that I have not battled oppression in some form is dishonest but I will be the first to say that women have helped build many of the walls we must now overcome. I don’t however feel that it is a lost battle. I agree that our country needs our help. I agree that our systems from government to religion are failing miserably and that “man” must shoulder some of this blame due to the simple fact that they hold the vast majority of the power in these fields, however, the woman has done little to change this or prevent it. If as many women as men were running for office doesn’t it seem more likely that more of them would be elected? I suppose in the end, I would say more men would follow if more women were interested in leading.

We are different and we posses a host of qualities that men could never offer. We need to stop stifling our own creativity, we need to believe in ourselves and then others will believe in us too. A brilliant mind and a progressive thinker is what it is, whether that be male or female. If women want to be respected as women we need to know what it means to be one and the only way to do that is to give the world some examples worth celebrating.

Respectfully,

Christina

From: Robert

Christina,

Interestingly enough, every woman of my acquaintance has, as you say, experienced oppression. One of the main contributors to “Conversations” was so oppressed that she fears walk  alone, even in daylight, in a park near her home. I have known other women who simply left their chosen professions, which were/are male dominated, driven away by frustration, and, the sense that they were never going to be part of the club.

It is the existence of this oppression, and the cooption of “Feminism” by people with a very negative agenda that has moved me to try to open up the dialogue about women’s power and how it might be reasserted.

Interestingly enough, other than your apparent doubts about “oppression”, I can find no actual disagreement with my basic positions in your communication. Even if you disagreed violently my request would be the same: may I publish your e-mail of 8/18/2004 as  part of our “conversations”?

I do thank you for your response, regardless your response to my request, and do hope that you will continue to communicate with us.

 Best regards,

 Robert R Ward

 Hello again Mr Ward,

 Thank you for responding and for all of your thoughts.

You are correct in your observation that I didn’t directly dispute what you said. That is because for the most part I agree with you, most especially concerning the part about re-establishing the role of nature in our lives. I grew up on a farm surrounded by hundreds of acres and I could babble on for hours about people’s lack of knowledge and concern for our natural resources but I’ll save that for another day.

The portion of your editorial that I took issue with and that prompted me to write was the sentence, “The position of the female has, for the last four thousand years, been relegated to something less than that of the male, subsidiary and not quite valuable.” I feel that sentence is misleading and that it paints a picture of life for a woman in this country that is inaccurate.

While I don’t dispute that incidents do and will occur that completely support your statement and my heart goes out to each and every woman who experiences these things, I am simply stating that I don’t feel it is an accurate representation of the feelings of the general population of men or women in this country today.

After reading your response to my letter I sat and thought for sometime about where to go from there and my fiancé suggested I simply talk to other women I know and see how they feel, so this morning I did just that. I chose a handful of friends and acquaintances who work in a variety of fields and come from a myriad of backgrounds and I called them up. These are the questions that I asked. Do you, or have you ever, felt that you have to work harder than a man for the same result? Do men in your position make more than you? Have you ever been in a situation where you were made to feel second to a man? Do you feel life is harder for a woman than a man as far as opportunities go? And finally I brought up the “o” word again for lack of anything better, Have you ever felt oppressed by the male gender.

Across the board the answer was a resounding “no.”

One of the women I asked was my mom, who at 47 years old is the single female employee at a saw mill located in a small town 50 miles north of Spokane. She has worked on the green chain and on the sorter for Stimson Lumber Co. for the last ten years, jobs which are typically filled by men. When she first started working there the men didn’t exactly welcome her with open arms. They were skeptical that she could do the job at all, a fact which was no doubt in part to my mother’s gentle demeanor and petite frame. Within weeks however, she proved herself physically and mentally capable and she has more than earned their respect. In fact when I asked her my questions this morning she laughed and said if anything they are easier on her and give her more help.

Another woman I spoke to is a disc jockey for a local radio station - another occupation which (at least in this town) is male dominated. She said she has never felt that being a woman was any sort of obstacle and that employers and co-workers don’t care what gender you are, they care about how hard you work.

Another woman, my boss, has owned and managed her own restaurant for the last 15 years and while she admits that when men first ask to see the owner they are sometimes surprised that it is her and not her husband that runs the restaurant, but as soon as they hear her talk and realize she knows what she is doing they show her complete professionalism and respect. She told me that men (and women for that matter) will treat you how you command to be treated - no better and no worse.

Another friend of mine has worked in the accounting department for an International Avionics company for nine years and she said that while working in an office environment can pose many obstacles in and of itself she has never in her life felt that being female was one of them.

I could list more examples because every single female I spoke with today says that as long as you have confidence in yourself and show up front that you are a determined, intelligent individual, you will be treated as such. Now, I live in a fairly small town compared to many (Spokane), but anyone who has ever spent time in a small town will tell you we are not the most progressive bunch, so if I can get this many affirmations in a small town that men are not limiting us or our growth, I find it very difficult to believe that larger cities are the opposite.

I feel that there are many areas in our lives today that not only do women hold their own, but they dominate. Women are awarded custody of their children twice as much as men are, even when the men fight for their children. There are plenty of alarming facts and statistics on this that I found on the American Responsible Divorce web site as well as DSHS sites. In our restaurant alone there are four men who have full custody of their children and they receive little to no help from the state, after all there is no MIC (Men - Infant - Children) program. They also had to fight a long and expensive battle in court to gain their rights even though in every case the mother had either abandoned the children or was addicted to drugs.

Many of my divorced male friends (with children) live in constant fear that something will upset their ex wives enough that the women will drag them back to court to strip them of their rights simply because the judge more often sides with the mother.

Women today don’t have to get the fathers permission to have an abortion, women today are not expected to perform the same physical requirements as men are to enter the military, woman today have more social and government support programs than men.

Am I saying that it is a woman’s world? Far from it. But we have more rights in this country than we have ever had and we have enough opportunities now that if anything is standing in our way whether it be a man or a corporation or a stereotype or anything else, we should see that we have the resources and the power to overcome these obstacles and it’s up to us to do that. I feel the problem is not that we don’t have the same opportunities as the men, but rather we don’t always take advantage of those opportunities.

Sincerely and most respectfully,

Christina

 Christina,

 I have a few arguments with your response, though they aren’t really important—my disagreements, that is—in light of my main considerations here. That is, I think you have mistaken what I am actually trying to say...yes there are segments of our society which allow certain women a reasonably level playing field. But. That playing field, and the rules of the game were created for, by and about men and women can only be handicapped players.

Before I go further, let me elaborate a point: I am an active, fully functioning male. I am married, happily and have been for many years. My wife avers that she, too, is happy with our relationship. I served in the US military during the Viet Nam era. I have pursued two successful careers, one as an electronics engineer, one as a research technician—while pursuing a further education in English—and am now devoting my time to certain philosophical pursuits which include Bellowing Ark and certain writing projects of my own. It is important that you understand that I am not a frustrated artist, not a failed businessman, not a “male-basher,” and that I have come to my current position through a lifetime of reading and studying.

 That position is this: though women and men view and move in the world in different ways, almost all cultures—especially those of the west (and chinese and japanese)—relegate women and their way of being in the world to a secondary status if they are considered at all. Not oppression, but a deeper and more contemptuous disregard, a willingness to assign zero value to something more valuable, and important to human survival, than can be readily evaluated.

 You might look into the writings of Helene Cixous—especially her essay “Coming to Writing”—or the novels of Sherri Tepper for another perspective.

 What we, those of us engaged in this longrunning dialog, are working toward is the seed of a way of thinking, of governance, that allows both aspects, male and female, equal input, equal value. That this is idealistic beyond belief is not news to me, but if a man’s reach doesn’t outstrip his grasp, what’s a heaven for?

Hope you’ll continue to correspond; and that you’ll consider us for further submissions of your writing.