After taking a religions class focusing on the roles of women last quarter, I am becoming aware of the secondary role women take in our culture for the first time in my life.
A couple of weeks ago, as soon as I got to work two people started talking to me at once: One was a man and one was woman. They had to realize that I couldn’t listen to both of them speak simultaneously. I patiently waited for one of them to give in and quit talking, but when that didn’t happen I made eye contact with the man and the woman fell silent.
I was amazed at what I had done, dismissing the woman as less important. That was the first time in my life that I was conscious of doing something like that, but I’m sure I must have done it many times before, and it made me think of Sue Monk Kidd’s book, “The Dance of the Dissident Daughter.” In that book the main character, Sue, feels disgusted of the norm that women should come second.
After finishing my conversation with the man, I turned to the woman and said in my head, “The men are done speaking now, what do you have to say?”
Horrible right? It gets worse.
That woman is a manager of the restaurant I work at, and she’s also an outward feminist. She used to tell me all the time about the oppression she felt as a woman and how she didn’t feel she was respected the same way men were.
I used to think, “Are you done complaining yet,” trivializing her comments as feminist gripe. But, now through my own actions and that religions class I can actually see what she has been talking about all along.
So, the next time this happens, I pledge to give the woman my full attention first. I wonder how the man will feel. Shoot, I wonder how I will feel.