Toward a World Without Gender Centrism
I recently found my new favorite blog, Sociological Images. It’s a group of sociology professors and students who use images to prove their point. I don’t love all the posts but some, with one picture, will make you completely shift your view on something you most likely thought was fundamental. For instance this post, “…The History of Pink and Blue.”
The idea for this article comes from a post on that blog titled, “Stick Figures and Stick Figures Who Parent.” It shows how stick figures on signs are almost always by default male. The point is clearly made when a woman figure is pictured with a child. Several other posts on this site go on to look into the issue of the idea of androcentrism (focusing on maleness as the default viewpoint.)
To compensate for androcentrism we often promote the opposite, gynocentrism. I contend that in most situations point of view shouldn’t focus on that of men or women but on a combined humanity. We do this in many areas of society including the church. Specific subcultures often have more of a tendency to segregate into androcentrism and gynocentrism.
The world of sport clearly does this. Men participating against men and women against women is very different than andro- or gyno-centrism and is not what I’m discussing. Defining categories of sports against a male default causes the problem. For instance, we have the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), or Major League Soccer (MLS) and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL).
The women’s league is defined against the men’s thus promoting androcentrism. To fully switch to gynocentrism, the NBA would be the league in which women play and the MNBA would be the league for men. But, that isn’t the answer either. The answer is switching to a non-gender centric view where both leagues are defined appropriately, so the MNBA and the WNBA with “NBA” as the non-gender default.
In the name of gender equality, we sense the issue and try to fix it by giving women their own “things.” Thus, instead of promoting a non-gender specific outlook, we switch to promoting androcentrism for men and gynocentrism for women. For instance, instead of promoting t-shirts with team logos and colors to women through creating smaller sizes and a cut that fits a woman’s body better, we create pink apparel having nothing to do with the team’s logo or colors. We also create magazines and websites for women by women in the name of promoting women. (Thus implying the original is for men and by men.)
The actual non-gender way to deal with this is letting women participate in currently androcentric platforms on equal footing. If a woman isn’t good enough to write or report on ESPN, don’t let her. Creating something like espnW goes a long way to promote gynocentrism but not a neutral gender outlook for sport. On their “About EspnW” page they say their mission is to, “…serve women as fans and athletes. espnW.com provides an engaging environment that offers total access to female athletes and the sports they play, takes fans inside the biggest events, and shares a unique point of view on the sports stories that matter most to women.” I looked but couldn’t find an “About Us” page listing a mission statement on ESPN.com.
This happens in Christian culture, especially as it relates to what would be defined as “serious” or theological issues. For instance, ChristianityToday.com has a blog titled, “Her.Meneutics,” which in their lengthy explanation under “Who We Are” states that, “Her.meneutics is devoted to what evangelical women think.” This popular blog has many writers and much promotion behind it. If you look for a men’s section on ChristianityToday.com you can find a men’s section letting you subscribe to a magazine devotional for men. To their credit, Her.Meneutics isn’t featured prominently on their homepage and nothing male specific is promoted either.
Ministry to men specifically and women specifically is great and needed, but when “thinking” in general moves into andro- or gyno-centrism, issues occur. I used to work for a Christian organization and they were looking into discussing views regarding the role of women in church on their website. The goal was to have different people write articles on their different views. We had a committee to decide how this should work.
I thought we should have mainly men, and a few women, write the articles because men hold more standing in most people’s minds as far as theological debates go. (Name me any widely respected household female theologian? Male?) Another woman on the committee, much my elder and someone I respect a great deal, was appalled by my idea and stated that since it was a women’s issue, all the writers should be women. It would help give them a voice. I felt uneasy about this discussion, and never realized why until recently. She promoted a gynocentrism for women, and hoped men would catch on. She thought that women think for women and men think for men.
If all the leading experts on the issue were male, having them be the ones to write on the topic would not androcentrism. That’s just getting experts to write on a topic. Yes, we can throw in a women’s viewpoint to help get that perspective and build a career for said woman. But, if we want to fix this issue, we need to admit that it happens, and we need to encourage women to get the same education and training as men.
I often see in the church today an increasing number of studies, books and lectures written by women for women. This worries me as promoting a gynocentrism toward women and an androcentrism toward men. Men realize women have “their studies” and start thinking that books, lectures, studies and so on by men are for men. We both need to have interaction with the opposite sex and focus on a neutral default in areas that are clearly neutral.
I’d love to hear from all of you on ways that you’ve seen this issue occur.
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About The Author
Bethany Sundstrom-Smith
Bethany Sundstrom-Smith holds a Master's Degree in Theology (Th.M.) with a focus in Media Arts from Dallas Theological Seminary. Her background is in journalism, marketing, and making lattes. She lives in Portland and runs Cadia Marketing.
Well, there goes my idea for a blog titled “Thinking Through Christianity…for Women!”
Thanks for this, Bethany. I agree entirely that the solution to androcentrism is not gynocentrism. (Andro being, on one level, an ironically man-is-default-human word itself.) It drives me insane that biblestudies are almost always segregated by gender, and that we might work through a study guide written by a man in a woman’s study, but you’ll not likely see a men’s study work through Beth Moore. And not because the men are sexist pigs, but because Moore explicitly aims her studies toward women. The same is true for studies like Women of the Bible. Why should this be a study for women instead of a study for everyone?
I will say, though, that while I agree that gynocentric efforts such as espnW are less than ideal, it seems to me that the solution of letting women participate in currently androcentric platforms on equal footing seems… perhaps a bit idealistic. Perhaps gynocentric movements are a necessary first step toward non-gendered reform. The problem is, of course, that it seems to take us (society) way too long to get uncomfortable with the first step being a permanent solution to move on.
At any rate, love this post; and thanks for sharing the sociological blog–great site.
I knew some men who went through a Beth Moore study, even though it said Woman’s Bible Study on the front.
They joked that the real title was ‘WO’ – Man’s Bible Study.
When those came out, a lot of women enjoyed the fact that a Bible study was made for them. But since men used them I didn’t see a purpose behind marketing them for ladies. (Though, it probably helped them to sell better.)
Of course, part of it is the “problem” of women teaching men (again, the women themselves are often more concerned about this than the men).
WO-Man’s Bible Study made me laugh out loud. Good for those men.
(You’re right, marketing and profit is certainly a factor as well.)
Here are some great comments from our Facebook page. Thought it’d be helpful to have them on here also. —————
Christina S.B. —
I had trouble posting on the blog site, so here. I may be off target here but one time a pastor told me I play sax like a man. I took it as a compliment since I don’t know of any women that are as good as Kenny G, Coltrane, etc. There is Candy Dulpher but she lacks a certain quality…and you’ve probably never heard of her. The point is music is mostly free of the gender centrism described in your post, but somehow this pastor seemed it was the most appropriate way to pay a compliment- compare her to a man. My thinking is that rather I play with some bit of confidence and authority, and perhaps even influenced by the Holy Spirit, which I think in the church could still be a man’s sport, so to speak. Didnt mean to sound boastful, but I trust you get where I’m coming from…it wasn’t the technical difficulty that made this pastor think ‘man.’
———–
Christine Hand —
Christina, I think your story shows that music is super androcentric. I would have taken “you play like a man” as a compliment, too, which illustrates that the way men play music is taken as normative. Of course, your story also shows that people in general expect women to be worse at playing their instruments (or at least different — less confident and authoritative in tone, as you pointed out). And this is a problem, because it can make me lazy. I know by now that I’m not expected to be as good as my male counterparts and sometimes I end up reinforcing the stereotype because I can exceed expectations for how women are supposed to play without necessarily coming up to the standards of how men are expected to play. (I need to work on that :)) So even though music doesn’t have, for example, associations like the WNBA in sports catering exclusively to women, it still largely views a certain quality of playing as well as certain instruments and styles as male by default and other instruments and styles tend to be thought of as more female. (For example, when we play as a band and people see us bring in a keyboard, they frequently assume that I will be playing the keyboard instead of one of the two men.) The only way to fix the problem, of course, is to keep being awesome musicians, so that there will be no idea of playing “like a man” or “like a woman” but just like a great musician — in your case, the incredible — and confident — sax player you are!
Adam —
You’re so funny!!!
Renea –
It probably is idealistic for me to want equal footing. As to the issue of these movements being a necessary first step — I did think that for awhile. I’m not so sure now. Many of these gynocentric movements have sprung up recently when, in my opinion, women should be gaining equal footing much more easily than in the past. Yet, it doesn’t seem to be working quite right.
I may have to write another blog entry on how I see this issue playing out since I have a ton more to say!
Christina and Christine —
Great points. One of the interesting things reading through the Sociological Images site is seeing how ideas are perpetuated through image. When we see images in print or on television of sax players being men it perpetuates our belief that this is an accurate belief. I did a search just now for “saxophone player” on Google Images and the vast majority are images of men. The few of women show them feminized and in suggestive outfits and or poses. I saw one possible exception. This doesn’t help the view that women can play a sax or any instrument proficiently.