Americans should broaden their view of leadership.
I have hesitated to publish this post because in affirming the great works that women can do, I may exclude the great works that many men are doing. I do not wish this post to be viewed negatively toward men. I have known many to be strong, faithful, and God-honoring. And I understand that as history would have it and as many cultures would have it, the books tell us that men have been chosen as leaders predominantly. I believe that in many cases, history needed men to serve in the instances they did.
But times are changing, and as America's history has proven, we fear the unknown. We don't bend that well as a unit. And we can do better. The unknown in this case is wondering what the world would look like if our political leaders comprised more balanced numbers of women and men. Unthinkable maybe because we've never seen it.
I think America needs to consider qualified persons for a job rather than only qualified white males (a very low percentage of all qualified).
Perhaps the people who fear change think, "It's just not the way we know the culture around us to be." That's a silly way to think. If everyone accepted only the world around them as fact and lived on that way, then Jesus' words, death, and resurrection would have no merit (I could go on about many great innovators).
In 2009 I worked on a college service team over Spring Break in Inez, Kentucky. After a day of painting, dry walling, and talking with the locals, my group sat around the dinner table. Someone asked the girls, "On a scale of one to ten, how much do you enjoy being a girl." What I heard shocked me. One by one, my female peers said twos, threes, and fours, and when it got to me, I said, "eight" and added "It's not easy at times, but definitely an eight." Sara, a friend of two years, piped in. "Yeah. I cange my answer. Nine. Eight or nine."
The guys all said it would be a one or two, if they were female. Why is it not seen positively to be female in this country?
I think the group agreed that the numbers were so low because of the negative portrayal that women have had in the media. America's obsession with sex makes it inconsequential to objectify a woman. By pure physicality a woman is generally weaker, and a man is stronger. The problem is not in having biological differences. The problem is in how women and men have believed bent notions that women are weaker other areas, too.
Many people blame the media for this view of women. Documentaries such as Killing us Softly or Miss Representation thrust a series of images around. Women in provocative clothing and advertisements. Women who are skinny and women who appear less than the man, essentially. In Miss Representation, images in the opening montage flash between these and then to women who have made great strides for our country - Susan B. Anthony, Coretta Scott King, and so on. To guess how correct the producers were, I opened to the first page of my InStyle magazine to see this:
So I agree mostly. If this is the standard for a woman's value, then women might as well leave their intellect and preset of skills to the wayside. It's a magazine for women. Men don't typically read it. So the belief is that women vie for this image, too; it is not just the pressures that men put on women. In any case, through media, women hear that they must be desirable. And I'd be lying to say I didn't believe it, too. People want to be desirable. The danger is that both men and women buy into this belief.
Media are the easy targets.
That's one reason women don't have as many opportunities in leadership as men, but not the only one. We have a very serious heart issue that tells us it's okay to diminish the value of our neighbor by miss representing them, and for decades and centuries this notion has begun wars, has started holocausts, has made people fear their neighbor, and wrapped up in misinterpretations, chauvenism, and media influences, we have developed a belief that women are as important as the flawlessness of their skin, among a host of other misconceptions.
I want to blame media because it seems like the easy out. But I think we have to first look at the state of our own hearts. If we did, then maybe our media wouldn't plague our perceptions so much. Maybe then women (and men) could be objectified less. Maybe a woman's role could have a broader definition, as could a man's.
I do not aim to equalize men and women. I would be comparing apples and oranges, and it would be fruitless to do so (pun intended). Rather, I intend to say that both can fulfill certain duties in this world, and it would be a shame if the person most fit to lead our nation out of economic struggles were not elected becasue of her gender.
My gift is not in leading but in teaching. I'm glad the patriarchs of our country considered that okay, you know, since Aristotle's teacher Plato was male. I know of a number of decent men and women who could run for public office, and if I penciled them down, the numbers would probably be similar.
As a Christian and a woman and an English speaker, I have learned that there is a lot at stake in pronouns, but I think it's okay to end this post like this:
If a woman's gift is serving, let her serve, if it is teaching, let her teach; if it is encouraging, let her encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let her do so generously. If it is leadership, let her govern diligently. If it is showing mercy, let her do it cheerfully.
