2008 Woodie Awards
What She's Thinking: Hold the door
Grabbing the handle on our confusing gender dilemma
Joy Pavelski
Issue date: 10/11/07 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
Several girls have told me they feel more comfortable around men. "Women are so catty," they invariably remark. "Men make more sense." Some boys, too, hide from men among female company. Our culture has gender trouble, and I don't necessarily mean with homosexuality. I mean we have a hard time understanding what it means to be a man or woman, and this confuses how we think about ourselves and relate to others.
Am I the only girl who doubts herself because I enjoy baking bread? Do all men think that video games are the zenith of existence? I don't think so.
But too often I act against my suspicions of what womanhood is because I am afraid of what that might mean, too often pretend I can open my own damn door because I forget it can take more strength to walk through the door than to open it.
People hide from their own sex because it forces them to reflect on who they are or should be, and that can be uncomfortable. But I don't want to feel comfort. I want to know truth. And the two rarely coexist in peace.
Just as the feminist revolution has forced women to imitate men in their quest for validation, so modernity has softened men like a cat declawed. We have become either power-hungry or impotent, Hillary Clinton or Al Bundy. Isn't there something true about the sexes besides stereotypes and perverted knockoffs?
Our gender ignorance seems to parallel our god ignorance. The American Jesus-blond, blue-eyed, holding lambs and singing nursery songs in a Precious Moments tableau-is nothing like the rather surprising God revealed by the Bible.
We prefer, however, to flee the awkward authority of truth and force-mold God and man into images of political correctness. A god tamed will not interfere with our lives or assert ownership over our actions, attitudes and possessions. A man tamed will avoid the company of other men who might challenge him to prove himself and let a girl do all the chasing, collapsing into relationships rather than building them.
A woman tamed also avoids other women and "empowers" herself through every little action, determined to prove she's one of the boys.
Sometimes, it's easier to open our own damn door.
Our college motto teaches that strength rejoices in the challenge, and few mantras are more counter-culture. Why stop Sudanese genocide when you can dicker over coffee in U.N. meetings?
This is not a problem outside myself, one of those somber things I read in the newspaper over breakfast and have forgotten by the end of my first class.
Every time I ignore an annoyance because I'm afraid of what will happen if I speak up, I lose an opportunity to face injustice.
Not every battle should be fought at every moment. But, on the day battle dawns, may I not look away. May I rise beneath the banner of an uncreated God, seize my sword and charge.
Or just walk through the damn door.
Am I the only girl who doubts herself because I enjoy baking bread? Do all men think that video games are the zenith of existence? I don't think so.
But too often I act against my suspicions of what womanhood is because I am afraid of what that might mean, too often pretend I can open my own damn door because I forget it can take more strength to walk through the door than to open it.
People hide from their own sex because it forces them to reflect on who they are or should be, and that can be uncomfortable. But I don't want to feel comfort. I want to know truth. And the two rarely coexist in peace.
Just as the feminist revolution has forced women to imitate men in their quest for validation, so modernity has softened men like a cat declawed. We have become either power-hungry or impotent, Hillary Clinton or Al Bundy. Isn't there something true about the sexes besides stereotypes and perverted knockoffs?
Our gender ignorance seems to parallel our god ignorance. The American Jesus-blond, blue-eyed, holding lambs and singing nursery songs in a Precious Moments tableau-is nothing like the rather surprising God revealed by the Bible.
We prefer, however, to flee the awkward authority of truth and force-mold God and man into images of political correctness. A god tamed will not interfere with our lives or assert ownership over our actions, attitudes and possessions. A man tamed will avoid the company of other men who might challenge him to prove himself and let a girl do all the chasing, collapsing into relationships rather than building them.
A woman tamed also avoids other women and "empowers" herself through every little action, determined to prove she's one of the boys.
Sometimes, it's easier to open our own damn door.
Our college motto teaches that strength rejoices in the challenge, and few mantras are more counter-culture. Why stop Sudanese genocide when you can dicker over coffee in U.N. meetings?
This is not a problem outside myself, one of those somber things I read in the newspaper over breakfast and have forgotten by the end of my first class.
Every time I ignore an annoyance because I'm afraid of what will happen if I speak up, I lose an opportunity to face injustice.
Not every battle should be fought at every moment. But, on the day battle dawns, may I not look away. May I rise beneath the banner of an uncreated God, seize my sword and charge.
Or just walk through the damn door.
Be the first to comment on this story