Spring 2012 WomenExplore: Join the Unfolding Story

By Tracey L. Hurd, Executive Director

The image of life as a narrative or a book unfurled captures me.  There is something comforting about envisioning us all as players in a grand unfolding, mutually held together by the weight of a solid book’s binding.  There’s progression, yes, a moving forward, but the option to go back – to return to page three—is ever-present, too.  Life as an unfolding story gently suggests a metaphor of life as change happening without true loss. 

Change as a Constant:  Adapting, Surviving, Thriving is the theme for the upcoming Spring 2012 Lecture and Discussion Forum series.  It’s the first full series that we will launch with our new name, WomenExplore Lecture and Discussion Forum.  It is a lyrical but unplanned coincidence: two changes at once.  The new series name provides a larger umbrella for the variety of topics that anchor our sessions and it names a focus on women that has been part of the program from its inception.  WomenExplore signals our progression, but the pages of the Theological Opportunities Program are held dear and intact.  We are one story.

I joined this narrative of change and continuity as Executive Director on the first of February.  Muna Killingback left for full time work at U. Mass, Boston, in the late fall.  Sitting on the board of WomenExplore, she maintains her close ties with this community and program.  I come here after years in primarily academic settings—as a former Scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Center, program director at the Unitarian Universalist Association, and faculty member at Boston College.    The dual commitment to learning broadly about issues in the world today, and deep thinking about how those issues touch our own lives, drew me in.  I attended a session with a friend, and came back again and again.  I am honored to be part of a program that is so full of possibility and transformation. 

This spring’s line up is stunning.  There will be excellent lectures from leaders in fields presenting cutting-edge research that wrestle with chaos, journey, clutter, sensuality, grief, home, competition, partnering, aloneness and growth.  There will be shorter focusing presentations preceding the lectures, where we will learn about how these topics have taken shape in lived experiences of a participant of the WomenExplore community.  The focusing presentations and lectures, together offer synergy and tension.  Time for engagement, discussion and questions is therefore an essential part of each morning.

So much awaits us.  Come!  Bring a friend.   We have a truly wonderful spring series.  It will be interesting and engaging, and better with you there.  There is a place for you in the unfolding story of WomenExplore’s Lecture Series and Discussion Forum.

GENDER DELUSIONS

—by ELIZABETH DODSON GRAY,  November 10, 2011
Theological Opportunities Program / WomenExplore Lecture and Discussion Forum

Every morning when you and I, as women, walk out our front door, we walk out into a culture that is permeated with assumptions—Dare I say "gender delusions"?—assumptions that men are superior to women. That men are smarter—more competent, more "suited" than women for public office.

If we as a culture do not believe this, then explain to me why we regard as "normal" all the male heads of corporate business? Why do we regard as "normal" the great preponderance of males in the Congress and in the state legislatures, and all the male governors, and, yes, foreign heads of state.

The Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was first written by Alice Paul in 1923. Explain to me why the Equal Rights Amendment was not passed by the Congress until 1972— and then failed to be passed by enough State Legislatures by the 1982 deadline for it to become a Constitutional amendment.

The Gender Delusion of Male Superiority

I remember seeing a cartoon of a little boy and a little girl standing nude around a toilet. The little girl looks over at the little boy’s body and says, "Oh, is that why you make more than I do?"

In a similar vein I remember a three-year-old girl who was being raised by her divorced mother. The mother’s college friend was spending the night, and the little girl and the friend’s young son had a bath together. Going to bed that night the little girl whispered in her mother’s ear, "Isn’t it a blessing it didn’t grow on his face!"

The gender delusion is silently invisible in our culture— and it only occasionally "rises up" to full consciousness. Several decades ago I was showing to a group of couples who were my good friends a slide show based on an academic paper I had done recently.

In the middle of the slide show, one of the husbands suddenly glimpsed the fact that I don’t think that men are superior to women. He burst out with the comment, "But I am superior to you, Liz!" I made a withering response: "And just how did you figure that out, Ken?"

His reply was astounding to all present—"Because I can run a jack hammer and you can’t!"

The room exploded! The men said, "If you think you’re better than me, Ken, just because you can run a jack hammer, you’re crazy!" The women pointed out the obvious—That I could have a baby, and he couldn’t!

What astounded and sobered me was the chilling realization that this man had secretly chosen a jack hammer to indicate his superiority! Ken was a vice president of a major New England utility and was in a rather "liberated" marriage. But in his head and heart all these years he felt he was superior because he could run a jack hammer!

Only Being Powerful and Dominant

Sometimes in this culture we confront a sense of masculinity that seems to depend for its validity and strength upon men being superior to women! Men want to be super-rational, "cool," always in control, never uncertain, can’t ask for directions, can’t admit mistakes—and are only comfortable with being powerful and dominant— because women are not allowed to be that!

Where did all that come from? You might think that, from prehistoric times to now, men worldwide would be deeply grateful for the childbearing which women do, to bring into the world the next generation of the human race!

But worldwide there is no gratitude. No appreciation! Instead we find widespread oppression of women, expressed in honor-killings, cliterodectomies, and laws to control female reproduction.

Do you remember the woman taxi-driver who commented to Gloria Steinem, "If men gave birth, abortion would be a sacrament!"

Nowhere in worldwide patriarchy is women giving birth named as sacred. Instead from earliest times in human history women seem to be feared, and found to be needing "control." Retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong has an explanation for this: I quote
An examination of the taboos of almost every primitive human community reveals the male need to put down or control the female. A universal need to put down or control another is a sure sign of both fear and hostility. One cannot help but wonder why the male—who was generally larger, stronger and faster— could be so threatened by the female.

Spong continues: One has to look beneath the obvious and explore psychological dimensions for answers. The ancient taboos of our primitive ancestors focus the male fear of women on the mystery of the female reproductive process. Early societies did not understand the male connection with reproduction. The women seemed to be capable of producing life alone. The woman was also the one who experienced the menstrual cycle, and only the development of a new human life in the woman’s womb could interrupt the regular mystery of female bleeding.

The menstrual cycle was a source of enormous male anxiety, the taboos reveal. The menstrual blood was felt to be capable of great evil, so the woman would be banished during her menstrual flow, and liturgical cleansing rituals were necessary before she could be readmitted to the tribe.

Spong continues: In every primitive society, blood and life were intimately connected, and the regular female experience of bleeding without dying gave rise to many superstitions.

The female menstrual cycle was even thought to control the moon, which turned more or less on the same span of time. Through the moon, the tides seemed to be responsive to women’s mysterious power. The woman who possessed these cosmic powers was greatly feared and needed to be controlled by the physically stronger males. That was the ancient conclusion.¹

A Culture to Reassure

I think what men did everywhere was to set about creating for themselves a "culture to reassure"—which is patriarchy!

Margaret Mead reports that  "In every known human society, the male’s need for achievement can be recognized. Men may cook, or weave or dress dolls or hunt hummingbirds, but if such activities are appropriate occupations of men, then the whole society, men and women alike, views them as important. When the same occupations are performed by women, they are regarded as less important. In a great number of human societies men’s sureness of their sex role is tied up with their right, or ability, to practice some activity that women are not allowed to practice. Their maleness, in fact, has to be underwritten by preventing women from entering some field or performing some feat. . . . There seems no evidence that it is necessary for men to surpass women in any specific way, but rather that men do need to find reassurance in achievement, and because of this connection, cultures frequently phrase achievement as something that women do not or cannot do,rather than directly as something which men do well."²

This leaves us today confronting a culture which in a thousand small ways reassures men that they are superior—and are "intended" to be superior. Male entitlement wafts its quiet but persuasive refrains through every lived moment. Biologically "entitled" to have sex without getting pregnant, the male is further biologically entitled to have children without experiencing either pregnancy or childbirth.

A Family without Anteing Up

Our daughter Lisa was throwing up into her toilet during the nausea of the first three months of her pregnancy, and our daughter interrupted to say to her husband, "You owe me big-time for this!"

The male then feels further entitled to have a family without "anteing up" his share of housework and childcare. I remember David saying when Lisa was a toddler and sick one night, "I have to get my sleep. I have to work tomorrow!" (My unpaid work of caring for a sick child the next day was unseen.)

Lest you think these examples extreme, let me tell you this story. A colleague came up to me and said, "Liz, I have to tell you this story. I just retired, and my wife is not yet retired. So I volunteered to do some of the housework while she’s still working." (Clearly, he had not done any before!) So, he continued, "I got out the vacuum cleaner and I am vacuuming away, when inside me this little voice says, ‘YOU should not be doing this!’ Liz, can you believe that?" And I say, "Yes, I can believe that!"

Growing up in this culture, male entitlement is quietly and perniciously and deeply embedded in each young man. It is "socialized" into the emerging young male consciousness—and it is what makes even the most egalitarian or feminist heterosexual relationship a challenging life journey!

Before I leave the gender delusion of male superiority, let me show you exactly why it is false and therefore a delusion.

VISUAL of Generations of Ancestors (and their DNA)

Each of us is a random combination of DNA from both a mother and a father, and each of them is likewise a chance combination of their parents and ancestors’ DNA. If there were to be genius in the DNA of our forebears—the generations of our parents and grandparents and great-grands and so on, it is a process involving random chance which produces here or there another Einstein or Beethoven or Fanny Mendelsohn or Georgia O'Keefe. There is no physiological way for that genius not to go into a female body. It is impossible. Half of the genius available to the human species is in women’s minds, bodies, hearts. And for thousands of years we have missed it because it has been suppressed. In Afganistan the insurgents target for destruction the schools for girls, as a way of suppressing girls’ potential.

So there is no genetic bias toward male superiority.

VISUAL of genetic ancestors.

Adam’s World

But there is another big gender delusion which is even more insidious and less understood in our culture. Do you remember those beautiful snow-globes which you shake to make the snow fall? Has it ever occurred to you that you could be living inside someone’s snow-globe?

We really are inside someone’s snow-globe, because we are inside a culture of assumptions about life and reality.

The point is that reality does not just exist "out there." Rather, we perceive reality through the mental eyeglasses of our social formulations. These are like the green eyeglasses in The Wizard of Oz. Sociologists call this "a social construction of reality." I call it living in Adam’s world.

Remember in the Bible when Adam names all the animals? We live inside a social construction of reality (a virtual snow-globe) in which Adam, the male of the human species, has named everything and thought everything from the point of view of his male body and male life-experience.

Of their socially-dominant gender, the generic male can say—like Adam—"Everything is named, everything is thought, from my point of view." And all of us, having been born "into and socialized within this "Adam’s world," feel what patriarchal history for centuries said: "This is the way the world really is," for we have never experienced life another way.

Our language itself reflects Adam’s world. So-called "generic" language has perpetuated the illusion that all of the human species is made visible in the words man and mankind. Our language is like a Rorschach test, imaging back to us reflections of even uniquely male genital experience in statements such as "the thrust of his thinking," "a penetrating comment," "a seminal book," even "seminars." Yet male consciousness, like the Washington Monument to "the father of our country," has left us blissfully unaware of the frequently phallic nature of the sculpting of its monuments as well as its words.

In the long history of thought, Adam’s world has given us male-constructed philosophy, male-constructed psychology, and, yes, male-constructed theology. It has been men who have "erected" these great conceptual systems. Thus traditional Christian theology has imaged the generic human in the form of the male, and also imaged the divine in the form of the male. Michelangelo’s portrayal of a bearded God reaching the finger of creation-energy to fill Adam with life has been accepted in Western culture as an icon, a visual summary, of the theological statement at "God created man in His own image."

VISUAL—Michelangelo’s "Creation"

But when we take account of the sociology of knowledge, and notice who is doing the knowing, we realize that the flow of creation really happened as the reverse of what we earlier perceived. It is actually the human male who has created God in his own image. Yes, like Narcissus of old, the male sees only himself in the cosmos reflecting-pool of ultimate mystery.

The feminist theologian Mary Daly said that "When God is male, then the male is God."³

Within Adam’s World, Naming Is Power

VISUAL of Naming Is Power.

If you doubt this perspective, ask yourself about the new meaning in our current vocabulary of the word "hot." The word embodies the truth that now in this cultureall female bodies are subjected to the all-seeing male lecherous "EYE"—ranking them for their sexual vibrations.

We used to say that it wasn’t good to treat women like sex objects. Today "HOT’ says it all, and nobody (not even feminists) seem to object!

Naming is power. Consider the hostile and denigrating names given to men and women in this English-speaking culture. Did you know that there are 227 words in English which denigrate women. (Think of doll, broad, tomato, chick, fox, cat, dog, bitch, cunt, whore, "ho".) How many English words are denigrating to men? A grand total of 12, of which some are denigrating because they are denigrating to women—like mother-fucker, son of a bitch, and bastard!⁴

Consider also the presently running TV commercial for a hard-working truck. The truck says "I take a tank of gas as far as she will go!" Can you imagine naming as male a tank of gasoline? No.

Naming Is Power—and the power to name is potent in Adam’s world. What a struggle it was for feminism to name the realities of "date rape," "spousal rape," "sexual harassment" (Think of Herman Cain and today’s news!). "Domestic violence" is a reality with a terribly misleading name. "Domestic violence" hides the truly violent partner (almost always male!). And "domestic violence" sounds like the walls are beating up the intimate partner. Do you notice that for all the violence to women, we never add the word male? The male connection to violence to women goes unnamed.

YES, Naming is power

We were once buying a rug. The salesman threw down a rug for us to consider buying, saying "There she is!" My quick feminist husband said, "Why do you call the rug ‘She’?" The young salesman looked confused and I filled in "Because you throw it on the floor and walk on it!"

Then there are words like "slut" which express moral contempt for femalepromiscuous sexual behavior. But there are no corresponding words for expressing similar moral contempt for promiscuous male sexual behavior. What is comparable? "Womanizing"? No! Little moral contempt there. "Don Juan"?—this is almost a title of admiration. TV commentators, lacking any proper word despite all the real-life examples from Arnold Schwarzenegger to John Edwards, fall back on "affairs" or "bad behavior." Bad behavior! Do you notice that the word adultery is practically never used?

Living as Women in Adam’s World

Question—What does the existence of Adam’s world mean to feminists? If you truly understand that we as women must live in a cultural world which is based almost totally on male life-experience, what does that mean for how we as women live our lives?

I think it means that we must have an attitude of "suspicion" toward every cultural attitude and assumption, not just "HOT"! We need continually to ask ourselves "Do we as women feel that way on this issue and this area of life? Is the male view of sex truly my woman’s view? Is the male view of family, or success, or foreign policy, my woman’s view?

But it is hard to do that as one woman alone. And that is where TOP comes in. TOP is a woman’s standing point. TOP is where we find our voice to dialogue together in safety about our women’s views of everything from globalization to immigration to family—yes, even to sex. TOP is where we gather our life stories, our experience of violence toward women, and our experience of the cherishing of women, our experiences of both love and of betrayal.

As women we will always walk in two worlds—one the patriarchal world of male naming, Adam’s world, and the other the fragile yet blossoming world of women’s experience and women’s naming.

With the help of TOP, we will walk more surely and more confidently in that awakening women’s world.
 
—Elizabeth Dodson Gray

REGION’S PREMIER WOMEN’S LECTURE SERIES GEARS UP FOR FALL SERIES

—by Muna Killingback

The T.O.P. Women’s Forum, the region’s only lecture series devoted to the concerns of women, from the personal to the global, launched its 10 week fall program on Thursday September 15th on the theme “Lifting the Mask: The Courage to Live My Truth,” designed to guide women to live more authentically according to their own values and aspirations.

The series opening was entitled, “Curtain Up: Women’s Stories, the Power of Sharing Our Experiences” with a two-hour performance by True Story Theatre. The troupe played back stories from audience members’ lives with compassion and insight.

“Whenever True Story Theater performs, we laugh and cry and there is a palpable electricity in the room that runs through us all,” explains Charlene Brotman, longstanding member of TOP’s advisory committee, “We feel our common humanity.”

On Sept. 22nd, Abby Seixas psychotherapist and author of Finding the Deep River Within explores, “The Continuing Dilemma of Taking Care of Ourselves: Why is it Still So Hard?” She will delve into the reasons women find it hard to prioritize their own needs and explain why nonetheless it is important to put ourselves first at times.

“What Does Feminism Mean to Me?” will be the topic of a panel discussion on Sept. 29th moderated by Harvard Divinity School professor Leila Ahmed. Panelists include Prof. Elora Chowdhury of UMass Boston, Prof. Sally Haslinger of M.I.T., and Gina Helfrich, Director of the Harvard Women’s Center. The panelists will also respond to questions and engage the audience in a participatory dialogue.

On Oct. 6th, Brown University’s chaplain Rev. Janet Cooper Nelson will speak on, “Discerning and Validating my Inner Truth,” offering spiritual insights into rediscovering what is most meaningful and rewarding to each individual in their lives.

Other lectures in the series focus on fostering personal relationships in a technological age, strategies for women dealing with conflict, challenging the verbal abuse dynamic, and the impact of patriarchal language on security issues.

For the final lecture on Thursday November 17th renowned international fashion designer, artist, and retreat leader Sigrid Olsen will address the topic, “Composing Our Lives, Being True to Ourselves.”

The 10-lecture series meets weekly on Thursday mornings from 10 am to 12.30 pm at the University Lutheran Church at 66 Winthrop Street, just off of Harvard Square in Cambridge, a short walk from the Harvard Square T station. The cost of an individual lecture is $15 ($5 for students); a series subscription is $120. Group discounts are available. For more information, see www.theologicalopportunitiesprogram.org or call 617-285-7408.

* * *

The Theological Opportunities Program of lectures and conversations on issues of concern to women began as a program of the Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, MA in 1973. It evolved to address any and all issues of concern to women from the personal to the global and became an independent non-profit organization in 2003. It has no religious or other affiliations.

For more information: Muna Killingback, Executive Director, 617 285 7408

The Commission on the Status of Women:A Whirlwind Exchange of Ideas and Meeting of the Minds

—Muna Killingback

At each annual meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), hundreds of women representing tens of organizations and networks converge at the United Nations in New York bringing with them their issues, their reports, their ideas, their passions. They have their differences for sure, but what we all agree on, the goal we all share is creating a world where women and men can live freely and equally and in peace.

Representing the World YWCA, I attended two meetings this week that reflected this passion. One, called “Bridging the Israel-Palestine Divide”, brought together a young Palestinian woman and a young Israeli woman who belong to an organization called One Voice (http://www.onevoicemovement.org/) that unites mostly young Palestinians and Israelis in promoting their common vision of and wish for the two-state peace solution. Rosa Helou of Palestine and Dana Sender of Israel both agreed that their organization “amplifies the voice of the moderate majority.” Their role in One Voice, Rosa said, was to tell their governments to work for an end to the conflict. She added that, “We are inspired by what has happened in Tunisia and Egypt.”

Both focus on their own populations using vehicles such as town hall meetings, extensive social media, and sometimes publicity stunts to raise awareness about the need for a just and sustainable peace solution.

What I found particularly interesting was the fact that women comprised sixty percent of members in the Palestinian section of One Voice and seventy percent of members in the Israeli section. This is not a coincidence, I believe. Feminist psychologists such as Jean Baker Miller, particularly in her groundbreaking book Toward a New Psychology of Women, have noted that women value and invest in relationships more than men do and perhaps this extends beyond the personal into the public and global sphere as well.

During the discussion, a very interesting question came from a member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, one of the organizers, along with UN Women and the Permanent Mission of Ireland, which hosted the event. She asked Dana about how she felt about the obligatory military service Israelis have to undertake and said that her own niece in Israel had been a conscientious objector and had faced a trial for her beliefs. Dana, who had earlier said that she had already done her Israeli military service, responded that she was a patriot and would serve in the army again. I think in this case, a more feminist approach would serve to accelerate the goal of peace because all militarism is an extreme manifestation of patriarchy, the seeking of power over through force.

A UN Women representative also asked about if their work was affected by the fact that the peace process had not had any traction, noting that it not succeeded in getting Israel to stop building settlements in the Palestinian territories it occupied [a violation of the Geneva Convention]. Dana noted that the Israeli section felt it had strongly contributed to the recent creation of a two-state solution caucus in the Knesset and she said that they were working for the implementation of international law. Rosa commented that the shape of the two state solution was already basically known and that both sections of One Voice were working for an end to the occupation of Palestinian lands.

At another meeting later that afternoon, a very stimulating panel entitled, “Created in God’s Image: Promoting Positive Masculinity from Hegemony to Partnership” discussed the specific idea of challenging patriarchy and its restricting gender roles. The panelists represented the World Student Christian Federation, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), and the International Council for Reconciliation.

LWF feminist theologian Elaine Neuenfeldt observed that religion reproduces and maintains patriarchy and its structures, and worse, “gives the impression that it is sacred.” She said that since both women and men are created in God’s image they are equal. Because this “equality is shaped by divine wisdom, breaking down this relationship is sin.” She talked about seeking the Biblical and theological notion of justice and noted a paradox in the men aspiring for gender equity: “How can our partners live out this idea of justice while benefitting from this hierarchical [patriarchal] structure?” Partnership can only be achieved in a context of justice she affirmed. Noting that gay activists had pointed out that negative masculinities cannot be ascribed to the entire male population and asked, “How do we deal with non-positive masculinity? Men who are violent, perpetrators of violence?”

Patricia Ackerman of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Women Peacemakers Program (http://www.ifor.org/WPP/) talked about the success of gender trainings for men that promoted and enabled men to think about new ways of defining and thinking of themselves as men.

The second part of the program was devoted to small group brainstorming to define which concepts of masculinity need to be challenged and what approaches in the gender discussion initiated by women need to change. Finally, they asked how we can motivate women and men to engage in change?

In the spirit of the CSW, I, like every other participant, came away with new ideas, inspiration, and program designs and am looking forward to my next whirlwind day at the CSW.

What is the Difficulty Women Have with Women in Power?

—Kathy Jellison's focussing talk, November 11, 2010

Thanks to all of you for the kind invitation to try and focus the conversation today. When I was asked to speak to this particular issue of “What is the Difficulty Women Have with Women in Power?”—my first inclination is always to rush to the defense of the sisterhood—None or very few women have this kind of difficulty! Or how dare we make such sweeping statements about women! I hate when that happens that anything about us is framed in the negative. We get such bad press anyway—couldn’t we have framed the question better or in a more positive way? Of course we are all comfortable with other women in power—we exalt in their success; we cheer at their experiences of getting ahead in this challenging and often patriarchal world!

But then I decided to actually think about the topic; to go back in my mind. What was my discomfort about—aside my general discomfort about painting all or some women with a particular brush—was my reluctance in using the word power—could I get at this subject by using another word that doesn’t feel so nakedly masculine, would that make it easier to speak to the issue?

So then I began to explore the contrast between authority and power. The word ‘power’ has to my ear overtones, suggesting coercion, the use of force in some physical or psychological form. Authority on the other hand, with its overtones of ‘legitimacy’, reflects a quality worthy of admiration. According to the late Reverend William Sloane Coffin, a former pastor and friend of mine at Riverside Church in New York City, “a person earns authority by showing understanding, wisdom, and compassion. Generally authority and power are both present to some degree in powerful individuals and institutions, but surely the ideal for people and institutions of power is to embody the attributes of authority. He goes on to say, “I know how authority and power vie in your souls, for they continually compete in mine. They vie in our role as parents, in the way we conduct ourselves on the job, in the way we perceive our beloved nation. And it is in the divorce of power from authority that we can trace the darkness in or personal lives and in the life of our nation.”

So as the existential framer—I will share my own experience as a person who wrestles with power and authority. I have long ago claimed for myself that I am indeed a person of power, a person with authority—and have been so for most of my life. I now comfortably claim this descriptor—as I try to only use my powers for good! Ever since I was a child—the second child of a family of 5 children, I have been called upon and risen to take a leadership role. “What shall we play today?” would ask my friends. Or “what have you done today to make a difference” would ask my Mother at dinnertime.

There was as long ago as I can remember an expectation that I would have thought a thing through, that I would have an answer, or I would provide some fun activity in which my friends could participate. I was very comfortable being the decider—as George W. Bush once named himself (I am thinking I probably won’t quote him again). If someone else had an idea or a thought, they would bounce if off me as if I had the final say or had the best input.

Okay—fast forward 20 years or so to Kathy Career Girl. I came into young adulthood in the sixties and seventies and did quite well professionally, being in the right place at the right time several times. A willingness to say ‘Yes’ to opportunities, and no generation ahead of me so show me where the lines were of how far I could go. I identify with columnist and writer Anna Quinlan as she claims certain realities in her early success—a product of affirmative action for one.

I had relocated several times for my firm, August Max, a wholly owned subsidiary based in New York City of Specialty Retailing Incorporated out of Hartford, Connecticut which was a division of a Fortune 500 company, US Shoe Corporation out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Such was the landscape in the 60’s and 70’s of my industry. It was a heady time in retailing; there was an enormously potentially explosive market of Wait For It—TA DA—working women with a whole new set of wardrobe needs—their lives required working clothes, weekend clothes and leisure clothes—all with matching whatever.

After eight years in the nineteen-seventies of working for this emerging nationally-expanding organization, I became President, Chief Executive Officer (that is what it said on my business cards!) and the company grew to over $50 million dollars doing business in 12 states and looking to add more.

Now I will get to the part where I experienced some women who had difficulty with some women in power. August Max had over 800 people in our employ around the country—the vast preponderance of which were women—and women who were often my senior in age and life experience. I found that not many of us—either myself as a person in a power position, not they-- as persons who worked for a woman in power had much experience with how to go about all this. For much of our collective lives, theirs as employees and mine as employer—our role models had been men. And we learned how power was wielded in hierarchal and patriarchal systems—although many of the guys we worked for and with were terrific role models and good bosses—such was not always the case.

And so I found often that some women’s expectations of me were that I would behave like a daughter—deferential, or like a mother, forgiving and/or looking the other way. Or if I was too gentle or easy-going, some were likely to read it as a sign of weakness and try all sorts of shenanigans. With several employees, I thought I had to assume a tough stance in order to move the work forward. There were even occasions when we had to part company and I hope I handled it well. There were often times when employees, some men and some women, questioned by what authority I was making decisions. But the occasions were few and far between—I was learning to be a leader of people, and they were learning how to work with a woman leader. We practiced on each other.

After I left the corporate world I began work in the world of non-profits. Right after I moved from New York City to Providence, a friend called to ask if I would help him with the search for a new Executive Director of the YMCA in Woonsocket, my home town. He was the board president and asked that I meet with the board to map out a strategy for the search. After that meeting the board asked if I would serve as interim director. “Me, run a Y? I was from 7^thAvenue in New York’s garment district—I didn’t know a hockey puck from a basketball—but sure, why not? I’ll give it a try!” From the Y, I went as interim director to Leadership Rhode Island for 14 months, then Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design for 4 years, then a few other stops including AIDS Project Rhode Island, RI Coalition for the Homeless, Worcester Center for Crafts, and others.

After the fourth stop, I figured out that interim directorships are what I did for a living now. The boards of directors who entrusted me with the leadership of their organizations during crises and transitions gave me a window view on many societal issues—great learning experiences on things that mattered or had consequence for the world we live in.

I learned to work to serve a mission—transferable skills; comfortable with decision making, trust the experts around me; hear the truth of the matter; and know the value of mission centered, outcomes focused, client based organizations. I learned that non-profits when they work well are delivery systems to deliver something that matters.

When I was asked to be interim director of the Women’s Center of RI, I was thrilled. Ever intrigued about what it might be like to manage in a purportedly feminist environment, I jumped at the chance to take the job permanently.

Arguably one of the best outcomes of the women’s movement was addressing domestic violence—I learned that every woman’s story is every woman’s story—just a matter of degrees and life circumstances. All of us have scars at the hands of power mongers and bullies, all have shed tears at tyranny. We worked hard at not knowing what was right for each woman who came into shelter, at not asking women to trade one form of tyranny for another. I have come to see that issues of power and control are not gender issues, but bullying coercion—issues of choice and self-determination . We understood all this at the staff level. But the Board of Trustees (which was comprised of 80% women) was a different tale—their refusal and discomfort in seeing our common lot with the women we served and therefore our common charge of dealing with systemic change came as a big surprise to me and a challenge; I watched the fear of many of the trustee woman if I tried too hard to make the association. We had taken 15 months to do strategic thinking and planning, had written a comprehensive approach to systems change; had lined up the strategic alliances that would make it possible, and ran head on into the board’s reluctance to act on the plan. I felt the fear and denial of many of the woman in volunteer leadership positions—I heard their fear in words that felt like “if I admit to having too much in common with the women here in shelter, I might have to face my own life and see that someone else makes my decisions for me, has me on an allowance, runs my life. The valuable lesson I learned from that experience is to accept that different woman are at different places on the journey toward their own personhood—I learned not to judge that which I didn’t understand—that women’s amazing ability to survive their own circumstances needs to be accepted as to what they can take in and what they are ready to change.

Organizationally I learned that culture has strategy for breakfast every morning. It doesn’t matter how good the strategic plan and thinking was—unless the leadership was ready to embrace change, nothing much was going to happen. I needed to get out and move on to where social change was possible.

So all of this is old news—60’s, 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s. Has anything changed? To a large degree, I am still in positions of authority and yes—power. People work for me, I am chair of boards of directors, I am a trustee who chairs committees. I am on the leadership team at Mount St. Rita Health Centre in Cumberland, Rhode Island, where I am the director of development; I have been a consultant to non-profit organizations for over 20 years doing interim directorships and executive coaching.

Many of the folks I work for and with are women. Here is what I have learned. If I remember that 'it ain’t personal—it’s business'; if I remember that there is more at stake than being right or wrong, in charge or nay. If I remember that in the world I inhabit, in the words of Margaret Wheatley, author of   "Leadership and the New Science," there is what she describes as a force field that holds us together in a particular mission—often made up of a society’s dreams and aspirations that call us to our highest selves. My authority now comes from what I am called to do—finding that which unites a team of people, that which excites and engages us and yes, often it is I being maybe the one who names it and invites others to participate. I find the more in tune I am with the rightness of the work, and less concerned about being in charge—the more the work gets accomplished. Today, 35 years later, I am a better leader because it isn’t about me—it is about the work.

If ultimately what I care about is sharing my voice so that others can find theirs—I like to think I manage like a woman—but more likely I manage like a person who is good to have around, to get the work done. I like being a person with authority—I claim that for myself willingly.

Do I think some women still have problems with women with power? Sure, but I am not sure it is because they are women; maybe they have had bad experience with people in authority. I want to be in the company of people who give women the benefit of the doubt or at least try to understand their fear and their problems with other women.

In Rhode Island the Episcopal bishop Geralyn Wolfe is not without her detractors—some genuinely dislike her, many disagree with her priorities and leadership style. But it pains me to hear from old line Episcopalians that after Bishop Wolfe it will be a long time until there is another woman bishop in Rhode Island. I am thinking that there have been really not good male bishops in our history, and no one says no more men can aspire to the bishopric. Some things are slow to change.

In the few weeks that I have been thinking about this talk with you all, I have asked several women to share their experiences of women who have had problems with other women in power. I heard time and time again that the behaviors with which they took issue, upon reflection, had less to do with gender than a set of undesirable characteristics that can be found in difficult people—those folks who feel the necessity to wield power, the power brokers, who use positions of authority to intimidate and belittle.

For my money, give me someone with the moral authority to tell their own truth; give me someone who may be afraid to don the mantle of leadership but does it anyway for the good of all, because it needs doing and they know others will follow with their own honesty.

At this stage of my life and career I have the luxury of surrounding myself with bright, caring women—sisters of Mercy—their founder and role model was Catherine McAuley who to this day has not quite achieved sainthood but whose values of compassion, hospitality, respect for all, and stewardship make her a very powerful woman. The feminization of the Christian church through the Mercys is a conversation for another time but such fun to be part of. I learn from them everyday what good leadership is all about.

So I have come to believe that women who may have problems with women in power need our understanding, our compassion, our hospitality. I am thinking that their journey has been not as easy; and that their point of view is shaped by challenging experience. I try to forgive them all—and more importantly I learn how to not be the nightmare of their past experience—I want to invite them to accompany other women on a quest to find the brave new world. We have too much to do.

I have become an expert on giving the blank stare. When someone, either gender, comes at me, wanting to wrestle for control and power, I have learned to ask the question, “And how does that serve the mission?” “How does that idea move the ball down the field (my only sports analogy)?” And then I go silent with the inquiring blank face waiting for an answer that hardly ever comes. I find that the potential detractor cannot get traction at my expense and often moves on. Reframing the conversation, refocusing the issue—does my heart good to stop some variations of passive-aggression in its tracks. I don’t like bullies in any gender and have finally learned not to rise to the bait. It isn’t important and not my fight. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a good heated debate or even a good scrap on occasion, but only about things that truly matter to me. So there it is, my approach to power and my response to those who have problems with it.

I want to close with one of my favorite prayers:

For making me a woman in what still so often seems a man’s world, I thank you.

Because you taught me by example that power is your gift and not my possession.

For giving me a body though it sometimes fails me and is not all I wish it was, or rather, a good deal more that I wish it was, I thank you.

Because you taught me that I am so much more than my body and yet my body is your holy temple.

For calling me to be more than I believe I can be, and less than I sometimes pretend I am, I thank you.

Because you taught me that being is more than doing, what who I am and whose I am are more important than what I do or what I have.

For all that you are, I bless you as you have so greatly blessed me.

Ms. Mary Conner, from the Women Uncommon Prayer Book

Kathy Jellison

November 11, 2010

Yang and Yin of the Wired World

—Cynthia Wickens Gilles

I am forever seeking balance in the increasingly complex system of life. Some of you may recall my first TOP talk in November 1996, when I was anticipating potentially fatal surgery. My topic then was “Asking the Question: What Do I Want To Do With The Rest Of My Life?" Today, in an era of extremely rapid change catalyzed in part by our wired world’s amazing evolution, I am addressing that same question from the following perspectives.
● Time limits: How long will we live? How can we best make a positive difference in our worlds, remembering to relish being alive, fulfilling our responsibilities, and caring for ourselves and others?

● Priorities: What are our priorities in life? Do we consciously choose to allocate our time according to these priorities?

● Decision making and mindfulness: How do we decide and to what extent are we usually mindful of these decisions?

● Our lives are complex systems: Our life choices are influenced by their context and purpose as well as our priorities and time limits. What things are most important for our decisions?

__________________________________________

All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

James Thurber

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Balancing potential benefits versus potential costs is increasingly challenging in our complex Wired World. My choices in this world have been influenced by the context of my personal life as well as by knowledge gleaned from diverse sources. My Wired World choices are unique but my questions may pose challenges for others as much as they have for me.

I have more time available now and try to exercise my well earned right to spend more time on myself, despite my long lists of things to do. But I have been a single parent of an adult son with special needs for over 30 years. He continues to become more independent and is a big help in many ways but still needs considerable support and attention. I am responsible for managing our four bedroom home, finances, etc., and other family relationships. I will be 79 in December and need to devote much more time to multiple health needs. I have nearly died six times in the last 50 years and have had two reminders of approaching mortality this year: successful surgery for a breast cancer that was only a 2 on a scale of 1-10, and a one day hospitalization this month for something that may or may not be a serious heart concern. Although my pace of life has slowed, I tend to be distracted more easily and must work harder on being mindful in order to combat creeping CPA, otherwise known as continuous partial attention.

In the department of technological innovations, I am a relatively slow adopter. For example, during the first ten years after I returned to paid work in 1970, I always found a willing secretary to do my typing. My baptism of fire came when my Federal grant proposal for an AIDS Discrimination project was funded. My interagency Board of Directors could not believe how ignorant I was about choosing computer hardware and software, so they chose for me. The attorney I hired for the project and the IT coordinator at our host agency instructed me and I discovered the blessings of computer cutting and pasting. They taught me so well that I was able to type our successful second year continuation proposal unaided!

Considerations that Influence My Wired World Choices

The Wired World has many branches. I prefer to use a limited number of them selectively, as tools to achieve purposes I care about. These include communication, maintaining connections and relationships; collecting, storing and sharing information; researching diverse topics; advocacy and networking; planning and coordinating; writing and other creative arts; continuing education; and recreation. Unfortunately, these beneficial uses can be accompanied by potentially harmful side effects that I prefer to avoid. And my decisions are influenced by emotions as well as reason.

1. Relationships: Intimacy and Trust versus Distance

Relationships can satisfy a basic human need for connection, but their quality is of critical importance. How do you define friendship? I believe that most real friendships take time and effort and face to face conversation to develop trust and intimacy. On Facebook, the number of friends appears to greatly outweigh the quality of relationships in members’ weighting scales. Social networks seem to help people become more interconnected but actually tend to decrease intimacy and community. Friendship needs face time as well as Facebook. Face -to-face contact has far greater impact than any online networking for friendship, politics, advocacy, organizational development, and other purposes. I often see friends and families dining together, or people walking together, with each person separately engrossed in an electronic device. Virtual relationships can keep us from developing real relationships with people who are physically present.

What fuels this need for constant “hyperconnectedness?” It can be a way to escape feeling alone. As Tufts senior Charlotte Steinway recently noted, “The tragic, isolating thing is that we reach for our devices because we don’t want to seem lonely – which is causing us to avoid our peers and actually be lonely.” Texting and talking on an electronic device sends a message to the world that I am not alone. Some people become so involved in their private virtual worlds that they seem unaware of the real world around them and exhibit very rude behavior. And I suspect that some people use these devices to help them feel important as they walk down the street or sit in meetings and ignore the speakers. Of course, some of them may just be addicted!

2. Information Access and Overload

Do you have enough information, just enough, or too much? How many of you think we can’t have too much information? How do you decide who or what to trust? Being able to locate needed information is a great benefit but we are constantly in danger of overload with too much information, often of questionable accuracy and value. To limit information pollution, we all need the Snopes fact-checking website to sort out truths from untruths. Unfortunately, the site has limited scope and its’s managers think that the truth doesn’t stand a chance versus gossip. People can say anything they like without any level of accountability or authentication. Of particular concern are the myriad viral cultures spawned by the Wired World, with their ability to rapidly circulate vast amounts of misinformation.

In contrast, the increasing ability to access and exchange vast amounts of information is contributing to great strides in science, the arts and other realms of knowledge and creativity. And social networks can offer both advantages and harms, depending on their use. With so many information sources available , it is easier to stay with some relatively familiar ones that we consider trustworthy and otherwise desirable. Although I am grateful for the many educational resources available electronically, and enjoy collecting and sharing information, I am mindful that some uses of my time are far more valuable to me than others.

I am minimally signed in on Facebook but decided for personal privacy reasons that I did not want to include a large amount of personal information.– My arthritis fortunately prohibits using Twitter but limited exposure to a small sample of tweets by newspapers, radio and TV suggest I haven’t missed much. – It would be hard to avoid having a Blackberry or similar device if I were still gainfully employed or job hunting, but I am not. Blogs have created a modern Tower of Babel, the whole world talking to itself with many anonymous voices of uncertain quality and value. Even without using these networks, I have access to more information than I need, often the same information from multiple sources - too much already!

My favorite media choices include newspapers, radio, TV, the Internet, magazines, newsletters, and limited TV. I love the look, feel, and smell of newspapers, the ease in scanning pages to find articles of interest. Newspapers are often the best sources of quality journalism, though this is under attack. Reading newsprint is easier for me than reading a computer screen. I delight in scanning the paper while enjoying a cup of coffee at my kitchen table. And I also enjoy trying to stay informed about current information on health and other policy issues using all of the above media. – Electronic media have enabled me conduct some valuable personal research, most recently on several related health problems and medication side effects. Ease of online communication with my physicians also is convenient but I feel rather guilty about being on the benefit side of economic and literacy inequalities that cause disparities limiting access to the Wired World for many people.

3. Mindfulness versus Multitasking

I agree with Mary Oliver that you need to live a good part of your life fully engaged with the real world and people around you to feel alive and happy. Time is life. But being fully present requires a level of mindfulness that can be hard to maintain in the face of distraction overload and resulting continuous partial attention. We really can pay full attention to only one thing at a time, and it takes time to shift from one focus to another.

Recent Stanford studies found that multi-tasking is inefficient and overrated. People who do more multitasking are more easily distracted and less able to ignore irrelevant information than people who do one thing at a time. They also understand less and are less creative and productive. Constantly shifting attention impairs both in-depth learning and retention in memory, and also can impair higher cognitive functions such as effective decision making. Neuroscientisit Eric Kandel observes that only when we pay deep attention to a new piece of information are we able to associate it “meaningfully and systematically with knowledge already well established in memory.” And for me, this becomes harder with increasing age.

Hand held devices offer many benefits, such as coordinating with others, being able to call for help, and being able to work in many different places. But using them while walking as well as while driving can be dangerous. And some new research suggests that cell phone use impairs drivers’ ability to recall information in cell phone messages, and also challenges the idea that conducting important business conversations while driving boosts productivity.

Tony Kamaroff perfectly captures my feelings about distraction overload. He says,”I refuse to use a smart phone. In a world that’s already pulling me in 10 directions at once, I don’t need to be pulled in an 11^th direction. I don’t want to be interrupted every few minutes by a signal that says there is a new message for me, because my personality is such that I’ll stop what I’m doing and look at every message. And forget what I was doing just before I got the message. And go crazy trying to remember. And going crazy is not good for your health.”

4. Wired World Devices as Tools versus Traps

Electronic devices and other technology can cause distraction, interruption and addiction, change the way we think, and devour our time, but this all depends on how we decide to use them. I try to remain mindful of the differences between using and being used by electronic media, between independent access and addictive compulsion. I am curious about many things and try to keep well informed and continue to explore and learn, but I have to discipline myself to avoid spending too much time on media.

Electronic devices build invisible walls between us and the people and natural world around us, and it is not just because of work-obsessed lives that demand we be on call 24/7. These devices are fearfully addicting and this is an international problem. South Korea recently classified 2 million of its 49 million citizens as “Internet addicts.” Even

feeling obligated to check all of one’s e-mail and respond promptly to every new message can be a problem. The Internet is loaded with addictive opportunities. Commercial websites are designed to make shopping easy. Even e-Bay has its addicts. I am pleased to have cultivated my ability to ignore intrusive ads which saves not only time but money!

5. Security and Privacy versus Vulnerability

Cyberspace presents personal dangers as well as opportunities. Social networks all carry security risks. Sam Allis has wisely observed that “Once you buy into text messaging and/or e-mail on a cellphone, you’re doomed. You’re always available. You can’t hide. You’ve lost any semblance of a private life. Call it the revenge of technology.” Some dangers are local, national, or international in that cyberspace lends itself both to planning and to trying to foil terrorist and other attacks. We are constantly subjected to a frightening amount of unseen surveillance, not only by governments, but also by many commercial entities, and undoubtedly others as well. And once they have found us, they have few reasons to let us escape their scrutiny. Because I believe that surveillance of our personal information is much broader than most of us can imagine, I will continue to minimize my involvement with social networking sites.

Erving Goffman observed that, “Among all the things of this world, information is the hardest to guard, since it can be stolen without removing it.” Theft of personal and commercial or proprietary information can pose major problems. And I do not entirely trust digital records. They can be accidentally erased or be contaminated by viruses. Hard drives die and Internet providers can vanish, temporarily or permanently. Also, the galloping electronic evolution is hastening hardware and software obsolescence. I have two hard copies of my 1982 doctoral dissertation but am still seeking someone who can transfer it from old 5¼” floppy discs to newer accessible media.

6. Impacts on our Brains and Health

I also am uneasy about some other potential effects of the Wired World on my health and cognition. Several sources, including Nicholas Carr’s recent book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, raise some serious concerns, that the internet may be reshaping our society and our brains in ways that make it more difficult for us to concentrate, to remember, and to think deeply and critically. And some cognitive neuroscientisits believe that the reading brain is slowly becoming endangered.

James Carroll argues that soundbites reduce experience to fragmented episodes without the context essential to understanding. He also believes that PowerPoint presentations, with their shorthand organization, can create the illusions of understanding and of control while inhibiting actual thinking. Brigadier General H.R. McMaster says that “Some problems are not bullet-able.” So consider discarding the laser pointer and just talking to people!

Bill Wasik, an analyst of the rising impact of technology on everyday living, observes that “the challenge is to try to find ways to partially unplug ourselves, to carve out spaces in our lives away from information, away from the constant buzzing of the hive mind...a lot of creative people want to be working on their craft, they want to be thinking big about what they should be doing...but the culture is encouraging them to think small.”

I take great pleasure in the ability to choose being out of reach. I treasure the natural world, solitude and silence. Some physicians write nature prescriptions these days so I’ve been working on one of my own. This summer, I’ve enjoyed sitting in late afternoon sun in our backyard and reading or just observing birds, flowers, and the sky - or sitting in our small plant room in late evening meditating on the soothing cricket songs that vary in intensity with the temperature. Georgia O’Keefe observed that it takes a long time to see a flower. I want to take time to appreciate the natural world around me.

There are no absolutes in our wired world; ultimately it comes down to balancing benefits and harms to individuals, society, and the world, all infinitely complex systems. I have touched on some of the considerations that influence my personal choices of how to spend my time.

When she was dying of cancer, Erma Bombeck wrote, if I had my life to live over I would have cried and laughed less while watching television, and more while watching life. Mary Oliver asks,”Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

I’ll close with the same poem by Naomi Shihab Nye that I used at the end of my first TOP talk.

THE ART OF DISAPPEARING

When they say Don't I know you?

say no.

When they invite you to the party

remember what parties are like

before answering.

Someone telling you in a loud voice

they once wrote a poem.

Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.

Then reply.

If they say We should get together

say why?

Its not that you don't love them anymore.

You're trying to remember something too important to forget.

Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.

Tell them you have a new project.

It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store

nod briefly and become a cabbage.

When someone you haven't seen in ten years

appears at the door,

don't start singing him all your new songs.

You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.

Know you could tumble any second.

Then decide what to do with your time.

Naomi Shihab Nye

Originally published in:

Moyers, Bill, editor. The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets.

New York: Doubleday, 1995.

—Cynthia Wickens Gilles