In a Man's World

"When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman."
-- Betty Friedan

Reading: by Betty Friedan, from The Feminine Mystique, from the foreword to a new edition published in 1997 (p. 17)

As we approach a new century – and a new millennium – it’s the men who have to break through to a new way of thinking about themselves and society. Too bad the women can’t do it for them, or go much further without them. Because it’s awesome to consider how women have changed the very possibilities of our lives and are changing the values of every part of our society since we broke through the feminine mystique only two generations ago. But it can’t go on in terms of women alone. There’s a new urgency coming from the changing situation of men, threatening to women unless men break through. Will women be forced to retreat from their empowered personhood, or will they join with men again in some new vision of human possibility, changing the man’s world which they fought so hard to enter?

Reading: by Jessica Valenti, from He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know (2008, p. 54) 

He’s a Politician, She’s a Fashion Plate

As if it isn’t hard enough being a female politician in a man’s world, women in public service have to deal with the extra baggage of being judged constantly on their looks. When was the last time you saw a newspaper article on a male politician’s suit? Or a television pundit arguing over whether a male politician was showing too much skin? Sounds ridiculous, but it’s what women in politics have to deal with every day of their career…

The New York Times, for example, had an entire article in 2007 dedicated to women politicians’ fashion sense, “Speaking Chic to Power.” Because Lord knows there’s nothing more to women in politics than whether or not they wear Prada…

[Y]es there are times when men’s appearance is talked about in terms of politics, but it’s usually related to sexism as well. Take, for example, when papers started reporting that John Edwards spent $400 on his haircut. The coverage – especially the conservative coverage – was dedicated to mocking him as feminine because he cared about his hair. That’s Sexism 101, friends…

Reading: by Langston Hughes, a poem entitled “Mother to Son”

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

In a Man’s World

A Sermon Delivered on May 13, 2012

By

The Rev. Axel H. Gehrmann

Mother’s Day. What does Mother’s Day mean to you? (I have a mother. I am married to a mother. I hope my daughter will be a mother some day.)

As you may know, America’s first Mother’s Day Proclamation was written in 1870 by the Unitarian author and activist Julia Ward Howe. Julia Ward Howe was an abolitionist, who fought for a woman’s right to vote, and is probably best known for having written “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” She was a pacifist, and after the Civil War, it was in this spirit that she wrote the Mother’s Day proclamation: “Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or tears!”  “The sword of murder is not the balance of justice,” she said. “As men have often forsaken the plow and anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.” 

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, she called for the creation of an international congress of women, which would transcend national divisions and together work for peace.

But Julia Ward Howe is not the one who created the Mother’s Day holiday we celebrate today. Our Mother’s Day was first observed in 1908 by Anna Jarvis, who wanted to honor her own beloved mother. The second Sunday in May was the anniversary of her mother’s death. In Anna Jarvis’ mind, Mother’s Day should remind us how much our mothers’ devotion and sacrifice means. The best way to celebrate, she thought, was to give our mother a single white carnation and a simple hand-written note.

She campaigned for the creation of a national holiday, and in 1914 her efforts paid off when President Woodrow Wilson did just that. But instead of becoming the simple, sacred observance she envisioned, Mother’s Day quickly became commercialized, boosting the greeting card industry, floral and chocolate sales, as well as any number of gifts.

This is not what Anna Jarvis had in mind. So in the 1920s, she began to publicly protest what she considered the exploitation of Mother’s Day. In 1948, she was arrested for disturbing the peace, at a demonstration against the commercialization of Mother’s Day. In the end she said, she “wished she would have never started the day because it became so out of control.”

Both Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis were part of what today is considered, the first wave of the Feminist Movement. Both of them were leaders, confronting political and economic conditions bent on marginalizing and trivializing women.

* * *

In her book Sexism in America – Alive, Well, and Running Our Future, Barbara Berg writes, that World War II had a significant impact on the women’s movement. When American soldiers went to war overseas, some six million women were drawn into the labor force. Most of them were married, and many had young children. 

The government needed women in the workforce to support the war effort. And so the government propaganda of those years said, “There’s not a job a woman cannot do.” The image of Rosie the riveter, with her iconic bandana and rolled-up sleeves, perfectly portrayed the can-do womanhood of the early 1940s.

Millions of women stepped up to the plate, and though at first uncertain, they soon came to value their newfound independence, economic power, and sense of self-worth. A poll at the time showed that 80% of the women working to support the war effort wanted to keep their jobs, even after the men returned from the war.

But this is not what the men who ran business and government had in mind. Instead, within months of the war’s end millions of women were laid off. As Barbara Berg puts it, “women, told one week they could operate cranes, were advised the next to go back to the kitchen and make jam.” As part of a massive media campaign, a 1947 issue of Newsweek put it bluntly: “For the American girl, books and babies don’t mix.” And the bestselling Modern Woman magazine wrote, “An independent woman is a contradiction in terms.”

In 1950, 4.4 million American homes had a television set. Ten years later that number had multiplied more than tenfold: 50 million TVs had been sold. Throughout the fifties, both television programs and advertising promoted a very distinct vision of domestic life, with spotless kitchens, gleaming new appliances, and mothers whose lives revolved solely around issues within the home. “The redomestication of the American woman became the driving purpose of prime-time television,” Barbara Berg writes. (p. 3)

It was in response to this effort to reduce women’s identity to that of a quaint and compliant consumer, that the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s arose. And this second wave of the Feminist Movement was amazingly successful.

In 1963 Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique became a bestseller. That same year the Equal Pay Act was passed. In 1964, sex discrimination in the workplace was banned. In 1966, the National Organization for Women was founded. In 1972 Title IX was passed, which outlawed sexual discrimination in schools. In 1973 the Supreme Court passed Roe vs. Wade. In 1978, 100,000 people marched on Washington in support of the Equal Rights Amendment.

But then in the 1980s, there was a shift. Conservative forces seeking to promote their own vision of “traditional womanhood” gained greater influence. Ronald Reagan was elected to the White House, and a new incarnation of cultural conservatism took shape. In 1982, the Equal Rights Amendment failed to be ratified. Pat Robertson concisely and provocatively captured the conservative perspective, when he wrote, “The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” (from a 1992 fundraising letter).

* * *

In recent years, things have not been going well for women in America. And the media, once again, is a driving force in shaping the role of women in our culture. To put it in a nutshell: it is all about appearance. Both advertising and entertainment are feeding us a steady diet of images of supermodels and movie stars, whose appearance is carefully honed to conform to a very particular notion of beauty.

The images are of dangerously thin, young woman, cosmetically, professionally made up, the images photo-shopped and altered by computer technology, creating an unreal picture of what is presented as the “perfect” woman. 

These images are designed to catch the eye, and sell not only beauty products, but any number of things from clothes to cars, to watches, to whiskey. As Jean Kilbourne has pointed out, a lot of advertising is based on making people feel anxious and insecure. For men, these anxieties often surround issues of status and power. For women, the message is: you are never beautiful enough. That’s why you see the same body types again and again in ads. These are the images that best promote the sale of beauty products.

The average woman in this country spends between $12,000 to $15,000 a year on beauty products in pursuit of impossible beauty ideals. (That’s $12,000 to $15,000 not spent on education.) The products promise self-confidence and self-empowerment, but in fact they perpetuate a culture preoccupied with appearances. Whether in entertainment or advertising, women are overwhelmingly portrayed as pretty objects. And this objectification has consequences. Especially for our children.

When girls are seen as objects, they begin to see themselves objects. A report by the American Psychological Association from 2007, says, “In study after study, findings have indicated that women more often than men are portrayed in a sexual manner and are objectified. In addition, a narrow (and unrealistic) standard of physical beauty is heavily emphasized. These are the models of femininity presented for young girls to study and emulate.”

In recent years, self-objectification has become a national epidemic. So, for instance, between 1997 and 2007, the number of cosmetic surgeries performed on youth under age 19 has tripled. Girls struggling with self-objectification are more likely to be depressed, suffer from eating disorders, lack confidence and ambition, show lower cognitive functioning and lower GPAs. These girls also show lower “political self-efficacy.” They don’t believe their voices matter. They don’t believe they can make a difference. And so we are at the verge of raising a whole generation of girls less likely to become leaders.

In recent years, real changes have been taking place that are having serious effects, not only on women, but our whole country. Since the 1960s, woman had been making slow but steady progress in taking on leadership in politics. But even so, while women today are 51% of the population, they constitute only 17% of congress. Did you know, the mid-term election of 2010 was the first time since 1979 that women have not made gains in congress? At our current rate, women will not achieve parity for another 500 years.

Did you know the US ranks 90^th in the world in terms of the proportion of women in national legislatures? Did you know that 67 countries in the world have had female presidents or prime minister? The US is not one of them. 

It is bad enough that advertising and entertainment consistently objectify women. The vast majority of movie plots revolve around men’s lives and concerns. Women’s roles, more often than not, are small and stereotypical. The women portrayed, more often than not, are young, match a certain beauty ideal, and are scantly clad. And when, every once in a while, there is a movie that involves a female protagonist, more often than not, her story revolves around finding the right man. Women over forty, women who are independent, self-directed, complex characters are amazingly rare. They are almost invisible.

But the objectification and trivialization of women goes further. Even in the news, the coverage revolves around men who are powerful and women who are pretty. When women do assume positions of power, that comes across as a bad thing. Those women are called bossy or bitchy, and then the articles move on to talk about what these women are wearing. How much ink has been spilled about Hillary Clinton’s hairstyle or Sarah Palin’s sex appeal?

Did you know that only 3% of the top positions in telecommunications, entertainment and publishing are held by women? That means 97% percent of what we learn about ourselves, our country and the world, is presented form a male perspective.

Did you know that during John Boehner’s first four weeks as Speaker of the House, he was on the cover of five national weekly magazines: Time Magazine, Newsweek, The New Yorker, The National Journal, and The Economist? Did you know that Nancy Pelosi, during her four years as Speaker of the House, has been on the cover of zero national weekly magazines?

As Jessica Valenti points out, even The New York Times joins in making the appearance of female political leaders news, instead of the substance of their political positions. In her book on the double standards with which women are confronted, she ends each short chapter with a call to action. “So… what to do?” she writes. 

“When you see a biased article, write a letter to the editor! Send it around to your friends with a note about how gross and sexist it is. When you hear friends talk about political candidates and someone makes a comment about a woman’s appearance – speak out! Don’t let it go unnoticed. And take the bull by the horns: Look into organizations that promote women’s leadership and political participation. Encourage your friends to run for office. And wear whatever you [darn] well please.” (p. 57)

* * *

There is something seriously wrong with a society that treats women as we do. And, as Betty Friedan knows, a solution to these problems lies not only in the hands of women, “it’s the men who have to break through to a new way of thinking about themselves and society.” When women are reduced to being pretty objects, men are reduced to being lecherous bullies and brutal thugs. I know we can do better.

May Mother’s Day remind us that we are all whole people. Each of us powerful and capable. Each of us endowed with a conscience and a yearning for justice and peace. Mothers and fathers, daughters and sons - each of us capable of loving. Each of us worthy of being loved.

May Mother’s Day inspire us to do our part to build a better world, beginning with ourselves.

Amen.

Old Habits in a New Age

"Habit will reconcile us to everything but change."
-- Charles Caleb Colton

Reading: by Charles Duhigg from The Power of Habit – Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (p. xv) 

When you woke up this morning, what did you do first? Did you hop in the shower, check your email, or grab a doughnut from the kitchen counter? … Tie the left or right shoe first? What did you say to your kids on your way out the door? Which route did you drive to work? When you got to your desk, did you deal with email, chat with a colleague, or jump into writing a memo? Salad or burger for lunch? When you got home, did you put on your sneakers and go for a run, or pour yourself a drink and eat dinner in front of the TV?

“All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits,” William James wrote in 1892. Most of the choices we make each day may feel like the products of well-considered decision making, but they’re not. They’re habits. And though each habit means relatively little on its own, over time, the meals we order, what we say to our kids each night, whether we save or spend, how often we exercise, and the way we organize our thoughts and work routines have enormous impact on our health, productivity, financial security, and happiness. One [research] paper published… in 2006 found that more than 40 percent of the actions people perform each day weren’t actual decisions, but habits.

Reading: by Pema Chodron from Taking the Leap – Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears (p. 1, 2)

As human being we have the potential to disentangle ourselves from old habits, and the potential to love and care about each other. We have the capacity to wake up and live consciously, but, you may have noticed, we also have a strong inclination to stay asleep. It’s as if we are always at a crossroad, continuously choosing which way to go… 

There was a story that was widely circulated a few days after the attacks of September 11, 2001, that illustrates our dilemma. A Native American grandfather was speaking to his grandson about violence and cruelty in the world and how it comes about. He said it was as if two wolves were fighting in his heart. One wolf was vengeful and angry, and the other wolf was understanding and kind. The young man asked his grandfather which wolf would win the fight in his heart. And the grandfather answered, “The one that wins will be the one I choose to feed.”

So this is our challenge, the challenge for our spiritual practice and the challenge for the world – how can we train right now, not later, in feeding the right wolf? How can we call on our innate intelligence to see what helps and what hurts, what escalates aggression and what uncovers good-heartedness? With the global economy in chaos and the environment of the planet at risk, with war raging and suffering escalating, it is time for each of us in our own lives to take the leap and do whatever we can to help turn things around. Even the slightest gesture toward feeding the right wolf will help. Now more than ever, we are all in this together.

Reading: by Robert Allen Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan), from a poem set to music entitled “The Times They Are A-Changin”

Come gather 'round people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters

Around you have grown

And accept it that soon

You'll be drenched to the bone

If your time to you

Is worth savin'

Then you better start swimmin'

Or you'll sink like a stone

For the times they are a-changin'….

Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don't criticize

What you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is

Rapidly agin'

Please get out of the new one

If you can't lend your hand

For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn

The curse it is cast

The slow one now

Will later be fast

As the present now

Will later be past

The order is

Rapidly fadin'

And the first one now

Will later be last

For the times they are a-changin'.

Old Habits in a New Age

A Sermon Delivered on May 6, 2012

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

I am a creature of habit. Every morning I make my first cup of tea in the same mug. It’s always Irish Breakfast tea, steeped for five minutes, with a generous shot of half and half. Every evening I load the dishwasher with plates, cups, and glasses organized in the same order. I press two buttons that tell the machine start up two hours later. Then I go upstairs. And just about when I reach the top of the stairs, I can’t remember whether I had pressed those two buttons. So I go downstairs to check. Yup. I did. That’s my habit.

According to Charles Duhigg, we are all creatures of habit. Almost half of what we do every day is habit. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Scientists say that when we engage in the same sequence of actions, again and again, we learn to act without thinking, automatically.

For instance, most of us who drive cars can do so effortlessly. When we approach a stop sign, we don’t think about what to do next, when to take our foot off the gas, where to bring our vehicle to a halt, how to cope with cross-traffic. We don’t need to give undivided attention to every parked car we pass, to on-coming traffic, to pedestrians stepping off the curb. We notice all of these things effortlessly, and act accordingly, constantly adjusting speed and direction. (There is nothing like supervising a teenage student driver, to remind you of all the countless decisions and judgments a car driver does need to make while driving.)

Our habits are helpful, because by acting automatically and unthinkingly throughout the routines of our days, we free up precious mental energy to focus on other issues, other concerns. 

One of the problems with our habits, is that our unthinking routines can get us stuck in ruts that are unhealthy, if not downright dangerous. A habit, which served us well in one stage of our lives, can become a real problem when the circumstances of our lives change. Or when the world around us changes. And the world is changing.

The times they are a-changing. This was true when Bob Dylan wrote his song in 1963, and it is true today. This is something we as a church need to be aware of.

* * *

Earlier this year Peter Morales, the current President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, published a paper entitled “Congregations and Beyond.” In it, Morales makes the case that the way we think of ourselves as a religious movement, and the way we run our churches, is tragically outdated, and no longer appropriate for the society in which we live today.

Our style of religious organization developed in a different era. When this church was founded a hundred and fifty years ago, and when people first gathered for worship, the size of our parking lot was not an issue. People came from a few miles around, either on foot, or by horse-drawn buggy. There was no need, at the beginning of the service, to ask people to turn off their cell phones. Incredible changes have taken place in our society, 

“To be limited to a traditional parish form of organization in the 21st century is like limiting ourselves to technology that does not require electricity,” Morales says.

Part of the reason he believes our understanding of congregational life needs some serious re-thinking, is that the vast majority of self-described Unitarian Universalists today are not members of any UU congregation.

In North America, UU churches have a collective membership of about 160,000 adults.  But there are about 650,000 Americans who identify as Unitarian Universalist. So, for every one of us here this morning, there are three others who are UU, but aren’t part of any church.

Morales wants to find ways to invite the 500,000 unaffiliated UUs to be more actively involved in our movement. Along these lines, he says, outreach is essential. We could make better use of technology and social media – websites, blogs, facebook, YouTube, twitter – they are all great tools to help us connect. We could also provide more opportunities for face-to-face interactions in small groups – whether at church or in peoples’ homes, at coffee shops or university residence halls. And we could do more to provide opportunities for social activism and meaningful volunteerism. All of these are crucial ways to connect.

On a very basic level, Morales believes our congregations should focus more on connection and less on “membership.” 

* * *

This morning during our New Member Recognition, Gail Schiesser described some of the key ideas we associate with membership: a commitment to share your creative thoughts, your vital experiences, your questions, and the principles that matter most to you. This is how we imagine membership at its best. But this is not the only shape church membership can take.

My colleague Roy Phillips, once described a cartoon that captured a different kind of membership. The cartoon is entitled “New Member’s Worst Nightmare.” 

“[It] shows an elderly man with a long, flowing beard, speaking to a young couple new to the church. The couple looks at a huge bulletin board listing all the congregation’s committees. At the top is emblazoned: “Our Committees Need You!”

The old man says, “Most people are on nine or ten committees, but since you’re new I’m sure people will understand if you only join six or seven to start.” The best part of the cartoon is the list of committees themselves: Finance Committee, Investment Committee, Board of Trustees – yes. But it goes on… Thermostat Control Committee, Committee for More Comfortable Pews, Committee for the Promotion of Committees, Plant Watering Committee, Pigeon Control Committee.” (Transforming Liberal Congregations p. 3)

Phillips says the cartoon makes him laugh, but also makes him wince, because it is so close to the realities of church life he knows only too well. People come to church in search of community, and we give them committees. And that is a tragedy.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. There is a place for committees in congregational life. I am a big fan of committees. They offer great opportunities for involvement, great ways to contribute to the work of our church, great ways to put our principles into practice, and get to know one another in the process. But committees are not enough. 

As the Methodist minister Kennon Callahan puts it, “People come to... church longing for, yearning for, hoping for… [a] sense of roots, place, belonging, sharing, and caring… We make the mistake of assuming that, putting people on a committee, they will develop ownership for …the church… [But] their search is far more profound and desperate than that. They are looking for home, for relationships. They are looking for the profound depths of community.” (Effective Church Leadership, p. 106-107)

As Callahan sees it, we come to church looking for four things. The first is a sense of community. The second is a sense of our own individuality – our worth, our uniqueness, our preciousness, our power – a sense of how we are each one-of-a-kind, each of our lives an unrepeatable phenomenon. Third, we come to find some sense of meaning – to know that our lives matter, that we are each uniquely qualified to make a particular contribution to the human venture. And finally, fourth, we come to find hope – a sense that we can make a difference, and that it is worthwhile to care, to question, and to try. (Phillips, p. 8)

* * *

People have been seeking out religious communities for a long time, searching for a sense of community, a sense of individuality, a sense of meaning, a sense of hope. But the times they are a-changing. The habits that once helped us meet our deepest spiritual needs may no longer be serving their intended purpose. Our old habits are not enough.

Bob Dylan wrote the song “The Times They are A-Changin,” when he was twenty-two years old. He was trying to write an “anthem of change for the moment.” A lot of listeners thought it was protest song about the “generation gap” and the political divisions in the 1960s, surrounding the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. 

But Dylan himself said he was less interested in describing a generational divide, or making a political statement. He was trying to express a feeling. He was trying to describe the distinction between aliveness and deadness. In order to be fully alive, we need to be engaged in the realities of the world around us, not stuck in the habits of a world that once was.

* * *

Religious practice is an effort to distinguish good habits from bad, to discourage the bad and cultivate the good. This is how Pema Chodron describes the goal of Buddhist mindfulness. Good habits promote happiness and clarity. Bad habits cause confusion and pain. Good habits help us to be attentive to the world around us, to be kind, and generous and patient, to be grateful for the blessing of life, and to be respectful toward others. Bad habits of mind are when we grow self-centered and narrow-minded, indifferent to others, concerned only with our own needs and desires. It is a bad habit of mind, to let our universe grow ever smaller. Before we know it, we become needy and greedy. 

We need to learn new habits. The new habits we learn need to be ones that move us toward aliveness, rather than deadness. We need new habits that help us wake up, rather than put us to sleep.

What would this look like? Pema Chodron describes people she has known, people who have cultivated a habit of aliveness like this. She says, “They’re fully conscious of whatever is happening. Their minds don’t go off anywhere. They stay right here with chaos, with silence, with a carnival, in an emergency room, on a mountainside: they’re completely receptive and open to what’s happening. It’s at the same time the simplest and the most profound thing…” (p. 14)

* * *

We are all creatures of habit. 

May we have the wisdom to realize how some of our habits help us 

and others hinder us from living the life we want to live. 

May we dare move beyond treasured old habits,

So we might learn treasured new habits

- habits of kindness, of compassion, of connection –

that we might change our lives and our world for the better.

Amen.