Last month I was at an event that I helped organize. Inevitably I was here and there and everywhere: greeting people, making sure things were in place, answering questions, and taking pictures (I’ve been the official ‘unofficial’ photographer at this event for 4 years now). But, the one thing that will stick in my memory was the reminder that the little things count: “What we are doing in the present is creating the future, is the future.”[1]
You see, while I was taking pictures of people at one of the tables I ended up in front of someone I had not yet met, so I introduced myself and asked him his name. After he told me his name, Joe – a first year masters student, immediately proceeded to tell me how intimidated he was by me. He told me that I was famous and that he got so nervous each time I came around that he tried not to look at me because he wouldn’t know what to say. (Obviously he couldn’t have been truly intimidated since he was able to tell me all this – but the lightning speed in which he talked and his obvious nervousness made me realize there was some truth to what he was expressing). Joe went on and on talking about how famous I was and how everybody knew me. He had visited our campus last year as a prospective student and sat in on a class in which I had been invited to be a guest and was interviewed. During that visit he also saw me working and walking in and out of different offices and saw me interact with a lot of different people throughout our school. And now as a student at our school he sees a lot more of me; he sees me coordinating this event, sees that I am an officer of Sacred Worth (our LGBTQ student group) and an active member of other groups, sees my picture on different websites, and again witnesses me greeting many different people by name. And to top it all off, as Joe was going on and on the academic dean came by and interrupted us to ask me a question, prompting him to further exclaim, “See, even the academic dean comes to you with questions!”[2]
I stood there awkwardly, half laughing, half not knowing what to say, and finally saying the words that have become my default ‘go to’ words, which are, “How funny.” I finally found a way to change the subject and got him talking to some of the other people who were at his same table. But I have to be honest, besides feeling awkward, I did also have a moment of being tempted to feel important, tempted to feel good about myself – think that maybe I was just a little bit more important…
As I later reflected on the exchange I realized what went wrong in our interaction. I realized how I wish I would have responded differently in that moment of receiving so much attention and experiencing the temptation to feel more important. I wish I would have stopped his gushing and affirmed that there was nothing to be intimidated about – that even if I know a lot more people in this setting than he does and am involved in different things at our school, I am in no way any more or less valuable or important a person than he is, or any other person for that matter, and that there is no need to be intimidated.
You and I and he, we are all vulnerable, valuable, powerful people with our own particular gifts and talents to contribute and offer to one another in this world. The important thing is that we actualize, make real and bring to life, those particular talents and gifts. The important thing is that we both share our own gifts with one another and encourage and affirm each other’s gifts. We all have our different gifts, none more important than another. (And, at the very same time, we are all just as flawed – but that’s a whole other post!).
Why am I making such a big deal about this? Does this small interaction really warrant a whole blog post? Obviously, I think it does – because even the smallest, seemingly insignificant interactions carry within them seeds of complete systems of belief, theory, structure and/or reality. You see, I think this small interaction between Joe and I holds within it the seeds of hierarchical thinking and valuing of people, the kind of thinking that has taken deep root in our collective consciousness. These tiny moments serve to slowly embed and reinforce patriarchal, hierarchical ways of thinking. They represent moments when we learn to elevate and value some people over others – the one who seems most connected, most known – and value particular gifts and talents over others – being extroverted and social over being on the more introverted side. To allow these moments to go unexamined – even the smallest or most transient among them – is to allow the perpetuation of hierarchies of human valuing in its inchoate form. We cannot allow this – hierarchical ways of valuing people are what enable us to allow and be comfortable with the disparity of resources and opportunities that exists among different people in our country and our world…not to mention our churches!
What we practice and embody in small ways, we practice and embody in larger ways and extend to wider contexts. The little things matter.
Sonia Johnson states, “The means are the ends…how we do something is what we get.”[3] She continues, “we can predict the future by what we are doing in the present. What we are doing in the present is creating the future, is the future.”[4] And so my thought is that if we want a different future, a nonhierarchical one, then shouldn’t we start practicing that in even the smallest of moments?
[1] Sonia Johnson, Wildfire: Igniting the she/volution. Albuquerque, NM: Wildfire (1989), 38.
[2] All this detail may seem superfluous, but it helps recreate the scene, my experience of the interaction, and my consequent need for this reflection!
[3] Johnson, p. 35.
[4] Johnson, p. 38.
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Feminism and Religion 
One of my favorite quotes is “The means are the end in the process of becoming.” I believe it was Jacques Maritian.
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Xochitl,
I absolutely love your post and everything you say here. We all have different gifts and none are more important than others. Also, as you mention, we must start in the “smallest of moments.” It reminds me of “A Feminist Ethic of Risk” by Sharon Welch. She explains that we must be mature in our thinking and realize that total change will not happen in our lifetimes – but that doesn’t mean that the work we do now will not participate in effecting change in the generations to come. Thus, there is no time to waste and we must make these efforts in every moment – even the small ones.
Thank you for this wonderful post!
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You know, if you work hard, and get out there, of course you are going to be a powerful and effective woman. So what if some insignifant man is intimadated… who cares? There is a hierarchy out there, and some women go for it, others are cowed and destroyed by a male rapist in the house, or a husband that forces childbirth on women. But if you are a radical lesbian who was lucky enough to study with Mary Daly, let the men just get out of the way.
We need strong confident lesbian feminists. A strong woman by nature scares the heck out of men. Men are not used to this strength, and so if you intimidate them it means you have done something right in life Xochitl. The standard is Mary Daly… she kicked the men out of her classes, she never backed down. She outscored and outstudied those miserable pathetic priest students in Europe. We remember Mary because she stole back what was stolen from women, she bowled over male authority…. that’s what lesbians do.
It’s all in a day’s work. Be proud walk tall, and so what you do to continue to be powerful.
I like to think of powerful lesbian feminists as bowling balls going down the lane, scoring a strike as we knock all those male oppressor pins down… I love it! I love to see men fear women, get out of the way, be respectful and shut up. Yeah!! I say!!!
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Dear Xochitl,
I found this a very interesting post to read, because like you say, there are so many little issues built into our small interactions. Its funny to me because I really identify, in so many ways, with the man you were speaking to– I too have felt intimidated by people who are doing a lot and I often find myself valuing certain types of skills over others, particularly those extroverted skills I have to work very hard to muster up in my own interactions.
But for me, often, it wasn’t so much that I thought being an introvert was less; my intimidation and my valuation often had a lot to do with my own difficulty connecting. I saw the way other people were able to connect, and found myself…. unable? … I don’t know, I guess I thought I just wasn’t doing it right or wasn’t doing the right things or…. didn’t have the skills. I also know now that I was trying to work through the part of me that was taught I was less valuable through abuse, which made connection scary. I spent the entire first year of graduate school turning bright red and shaking every time I spoke, physically wrenching my voice out of the silent place it was hiding in my body.
I think the way you talk about everyone’s value is such an important thing and such an important feminist principle. I also think encouragement is a great response to someone’s feelings of intimidation.
I also have to say I though, I was a little taken aback when you talked about the temptation of feeling good about yourself or important as a negative. I do understand checking ourselves when we think of ourselves as better– and I get that’s what you were saying. But I also immediately went to the place: but you are important and it should feel good. Part of saying that we are all important and valuable is also saying,”I am important!”
I have been struggling with the space in-between what’s ego/tistical and what’s knowing who I am and being proud of her. For example, when school questions come up, I’ll often say: “Oh, I have a graduate degree,” because I’ve found my doctorate makes people feel intimidated. On the flip side, it can also make me feel isolated. But, what I’ve been discovering emotionally, is that I have actually been acting ashamed of my doctorate, as though its connection to a hierarchical system that’s in place somehow makes it bad. When, you know what, I’m proud of it! And I want to be able to say that I’m a PhD proudly while also resisting and responding in a feminist way to the privilege (and difficulties) the degree entails.
All the different kinds of hierarchies and the ways that they interact are so complicated to me… writing this response I’ve been thinking about all the different places “hierarchy” touches in my immediate life and its overwhelming. You bring up some very important issues in your post! Thank you :)
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I think feminism classically (60s and 70s version) has always struggled with hierarchy. But the truth is, there will always be varying degrees of hierarchy out there. Why, because not all of us are the same, nor does society value all people equally. We have this mistaken notion that this occurs, but I have yet to witness it on a consistent level.
Women need to be proud of our accomplishments, and we need to celebrate confidense.
No great achievements occur when women act like timid mice, or self-ephasing self-erasing beings… men do this enough to women as it is, so we don’t need to buy into the false gods of “humility” — a word I just detest.
It we are talking about a Christian context, we have to be aware that all this emphasis on selflessness and humility is men talking to each other. But when women go into this mode, it spells disaster. A male self effacer is meerly a patriarchal act, to mask the inherent false face of the oppressor class. Women need not be fooled by this. Of course you’ll have fearful ambivalent feelings in academentia… a PhD is a stripe on your shoulder. All academic and professional credentials are about gate keeping.
When women are strong and confident, this IS threatening to all those who aren’t this. Men are threatened anytime women achieve great gains, and certainly we are finding out that when a playing field becomes a little bit closer to leveling, men drop off like flies. Women are getting more advanced degrees now, and are the majority of college graduates now.
This wasn’t this case earlier in my life. I am most proud of the lesbians who stood up and achieved. Leave the humility at the door and push forward. Lesbian nation needs to have its proud take no prisoners stance in the world or we will be bulldozed by the arrogance of heteternormative slavery.
Women grow up. Speak up. Be adults. PhDs are credentials, like anything else in the world. Academentia is one large hierarchy of degrees, so be aware of this. Adult women need not blush and shrink from accomplishment and achievement, that’s the domain of self inflicted internalized womanhatred.
The feminist movement and the cause of women’s freedom was not started by wall flowers and cowards. Women stood up and broke through. Believe me, everytime I walk into a room filled with hetero women, I do not need to feel like I am less than. That would be counterproductive. I need to be a proud leader in the fight against patriarchy, against the oppression of women, and het women live as house slaves to men. I don’t have to do that, because I was aware this is a fight for absolute freedom without compromise. It’s a fight men are not capable of understanding and can only undermine.
Let men be ambivilant and lacking in confidense…. let that sex class fall down of its own corruption, but let women be loud, proud, confident and confrontational…. you’re paying a forture for those PhDs anyway, why not be proud of that at least!
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Your experience reminds me of a leadership training at MCC San Francisco years ago where an outsider facilitator made us practice better ways of handling compliments. We got in pairs and took turns giving each other compliments. The person being complimented had to say, “How perceptive of you to notice!” Wow, it was hard! Most of us had been indoctrinated with Christian self-effacing values, not to mention the low self esteem imposed by homophobia, sexism, etc. It was such a different way to respond that I never forgot it. However, it’s not something I say in real life. It did help me get to the point of knowing that a simple “thank you” will suffice.
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