"It is the thermal fuse," Phil explained to me as he handed me a small part that he had replaced. Phil is the very knowledgeable and helpful home appliance service technician who came to my home not long ago to examine my broken dryer.
Phil pointed out to me that my dryer vent slowly narrows as it nears the wall and carefully explained that this could have caused the thermal fuse malfunction. He expressed concern that this could cause the new fuse break soon.
"If he has had to replace the thermal fuse before within the past year, I'd get this ventilation replaced," Phil concluded.
Huh?
If he has had to replace the thermal fuse before within the past year, I'd get this ventilation replaced.
I don't remember what Phil said next. I think I might have nodded and signed the paper that he slid my way. But I was stuck on that one word.
He?
Who is he? Where is he? What's his name? Is there a man hiding in my house that I don't know about? If so, what does he have to do with my dryer? Or perhaps Phil has the habit of personifying home appliances and assigning genders to them, and thus the word he actually refers to the dryer itself? Because, really, who else could Phil possibly be talking about? I live by myself, I called the company to request a technician by myself, I opened the door when Phil arrived by myself, I showed Phil the dryer and explained that my clothes were still wet after each cycle by myself, and I paid for the service by myself. There was no he involved.
After Phil left, I sat down. I couldn't shrug off that one little word. It stayed with me as I asked myself why I felt so irked. It was just one little two letter word, right? No big deal.
But I knew why it irked me.
Phil said, "If he has had to replace the thermal fuse before within the past year, I'd get this ventilation replaced," but that is not what I heard. What I heard went something like this:"There must be a guy somewhere who helps make decisions for this little lady. It is highly unlikely and would be borderline absurd to believe that she is actually surviving on her own. Whoever this guy is, she should probably talk to him about whether or not he has had to deal with this before."
Why did he assume that there must be a man involved in this situation? Why was it unreasonable for me to be the person in charge? Was he assuming that I must have a man taking care of regular wear and tear of my household appliances? Apparently being a woman makes me incapable of handling my dryer? Would it have really been that difficult for him to say you instead?
Why did that word flow out of his mouth so naturally? What is in him that made that comment instinctive?
I spent a few days pondering this from time to time, mildly annoyed and not without pride as I concluded that Phil has much to learn about women.
But shortly thereafter, my mild annoyance and pride melted into something closer to humility, perhaps mixed with some remorse and embarrassment. My palm nearing my face, I realized that Phil and I are actually in the same boat.
You see, while reading a book, I became aware that Corrie ten Boom is a woman.
I put the book down and picked up my phone. Google can settle this, I figured. And it did. Google confirmed to me, without a doubt, that Corrie ten Boom is a woman.
Corrie ten Boom lived on this earth from 1892 to 1983. I know her name. I have heard her quoted in sermons. I have seen her name under the quotes on the screens. But I thought she was a man. Not that I have spent any amount of time contemplating Corrie ten Boom's gender... I never had to contemplate it. It was obvious, I thought. Corrie had to be a man.
I know a few people with a name pronounced the same as Corrie ten Boom. I know Kori, she's a woman. And Corey, he's a man. And I always assumed Corrie was a man, not because of the spelling of the name, but because of the context in which I heard it. I didn't know anything about Corrie except that I have heard pastors cite Corrie's profound and deeply theological words in sermons.
My face now fully buried in my palms, I became aware of a blind spot that I didn't know I had. Being a woman myself, I never before considered that my own view of women could be skewed. Why has theological wisdom and the ability to be quoted in a sermon automatically indicated maleness to me? Is there anything in the Bible that suggests that ability to clearly express theological truth is assigned by gender? What lies have I internalized that make me assume that any profound expression of knowledge of God must come from a man? In what ways does my view of women fall short of Christ's model of honoring, hearing, trusting, and celebrating women? Do I hold a man's testimony of truth to be more valid than that of a woman? Why do I do this?
The incident with Phil is one of very few extremely minor incidents that have happened to me, so please don't interpret this post as a woman blowing a small incident out of proportion and using it as an excuse to point an accusatory finger at all men everywhere for imposing oppressive systems upon us females. Rather, this is me recognizing some ingrained misogyny in my own heart and challenging myself and the church to do more to make female voices heard, respected, and valued. I have been both a product of and a participant in a broken system that has silenced women's voices and oppressed women around the world - a participant because I myself have not seen women as Christ sees women nor sought to educate myself about women and hear the stories that are not being told, and a product because the last 28 years of sermons given by men containing references to countless respected men of faith (and the occasional Corrie ten Boom quote) has indirectly taught me to value a man's words over those of a woman.
I do not believe that the lack of references to women of faith is always due to the pastor's belief that women are inferior. I imagine that finding the voices of women of faith takes a bit more digging than finding a man's voice as women have long been left out of important conversations inside and outside of the church. As the church, let us magnify these female voices that we do have, work to uncover the voices that have been lost, and invite more voices to share more stories so that future generations won't have such a hard time finding female voices to learn from.
My blind spot is not gone. It's still there. But I'm grateful that I know it's there. I suppose that is progress. Being aware of a blind spot at least allows me to begin to ask more questions and slowly uncover what I have been unable to see. How do I plan on doing that? One way I have begun is by reading books written by or about women of the faith. Because one way to oppose lies about the inability or inferiority of women is by learning from and about women whose lives defy the lies. So I have started with Corrie ten Boom. After that comes Fannie Lou Hamer. And after that, well, women who look like me and women who don't, women from various countries and cultures and traditions, all whose lives expose the lies that many of us have come to believe. Send your recommendations my way. I want to hear the voices of women, because all of their voices have been muffled, some more than others. While men's voices have drowned out those of women, white women's voices have drowned out the voices of women of color. But I want to hear what these voices have to say.
A note about Corrie ten Boom: Corrie ten Boom became the first female watchmaker in the Netherlands in 1922. After that, Corrie and her family helped approximately 800 Jewish people escape the Nazi Holocaust. Motivated by Christ's work on their behalf, she and her family created a secret room in their home to hide up to 6 people at a time. As a leader in the Dutch resistance movement, Corrie oversaw the network of safe houses across the country. She and her entire family were arrested in 1944 and she spent almost a year in a concentration camp before being released. During her time in the concentration camp, she and her sister held worship services with the other female prisoners. After the war, she set up a rehabilitation center for concentration camp survivors and wrote multiple books.
* * *
A note to Phil: Thank you for fixing my dryer. I suppose I made a lot of assumptions about you in this post. It possible that in using the pronoun he, you could have possibly been referring to the unknown and therefore unnamed and conceivably male home appliance service technician who would have been the last person to work on my dyer. If that is the case, Phil, I misunderstood you and I am sorry.
Phil pointed out to me that my dryer vent slowly narrows as it nears the wall and carefully explained that this could have caused the thermal fuse malfunction. He expressed concern that this could cause the new fuse break soon.
"If he has had to replace the thermal fuse before within the past year, I'd get this ventilation replaced," Phil concluded.
Huh?
If he has had to replace the thermal fuse before within the past year, I'd get this ventilation replaced.
I don't remember what Phil said next. I think I might have nodded and signed the paper that he slid my way. But I was stuck on that one word.
He?
Who is he? Where is he? What's his name? Is there a man hiding in my house that I don't know about? If so, what does he have to do with my dryer? Or perhaps Phil has the habit of personifying home appliances and assigning genders to them, and thus the word he actually refers to the dryer itself? Because, really, who else could Phil possibly be talking about? I live by myself, I called the company to request a technician by myself, I opened the door when Phil arrived by myself, I showed Phil the dryer and explained that my clothes were still wet after each cycle by myself, and I paid for the service by myself. There was no he involved.
After Phil left, I sat down. I couldn't shrug off that one little word. It stayed with me as I asked myself why I felt so irked. It was just one little two letter word, right? No big deal.
But I knew why it irked me.
Phil said, "If he has had to replace the thermal fuse before within the past year, I'd get this ventilation replaced," but that is not what I heard. What I heard went something like this:"There must be a guy somewhere who helps make decisions for this little lady. It is highly unlikely and would be borderline absurd to believe that she is actually surviving on her own. Whoever this guy is, she should probably talk to him about whether or not he has had to deal with this before."
Why did he assume that there must be a man involved in this situation? Why was it unreasonable for me to be the person in charge? Was he assuming that I must have a man taking care of regular wear and tear of my household appliances? Apparently being a woman makes me incapable of handling my dryer? Would it have really been that difficult for him to say you instead?
Why did that word flow out of his mouth so naturally? What is in him that made that comment instinctive?
I spent a few days pondering this from time to time, mildly annoyed and not without pride as I concluded that Phil has much to learn about women.
But shortly thereafter, my mild annoyance and pride melted into something closer to humility, perhaps mixed with some remorse and embarrassment. My palm nearing my face, I realized that Phil and I are actually in the same boat.
You see, while reading a book, I became aware that Corrie ten Boom is a woman.
I put the book down and picked up my phone. Google can settle this, I figured. And it did. Google confirmed to me, without a doubt, that Corrie ten Boom is a woman.
Corrie ten Boom lived on this earth from 1892 to 1983. I know her name. I have heard her quoted in sermons. I have seen her name under the quotes on the screens. But I thought she was a man. Not that I have spent any amount of time contemplating Corrie ten Boom's gender... I never had to contemplate it. It was obvious, I thought. Corrie had to be a man.
I know a few people with a name pronounced the same as Corrie ten Boom. I know Kori, she's a woman. And Corey, he's a man. And I always assumed Corrie was a man, not because of the spelling of the name, but because of the context in which I heard it. I didn't know anything about Corrie except that I have heard pastors cite Corrie's profound and deeply theological words in sermons.
My face now fully buried in my palms, I became aware of a blind spot that I didn't know I had. Being a woman myself, I never before considered that my own view of women could be skewed. Why has theological wisdom and the ability to be quoted in a sermon automatically indicated maleness to me? Is there anything in the Bible that suggests that ability to clearly express theological truth is assigned by gender? What lies have I internalized that make me assume that any profound expression of knowledge of God must come from a man? In what ways does my view of women fall short of Christ's model of honoring, hearing, trusting, and celebrating women? Do I hold a man's testimony of truth to be more valid than that of a woman? Why do I do this?
The incident with Phil is one of very few extremely minor incidents that have happened to me, so please don't interpret this post as a woman blowing a small incident out of proportion and using it as an excuse to point an accusatory finger at all men everywhere for imposing oppressive systems upon us females. Rather, this is me recognizing some ingrained misogyny in my own heart and challenging myself and the church to do more to make female voices heard, respected, and valued. I have been both a product of and a participant in a broken system that has silenced women's voices and oppressed women around the world - a participant because I myself have not seen women as Christ sees women nor sought to educate myself about women and hear the stories that are not being told, and a product because the last 28 years of sermons given by men containing references to countless respected men of faith (and the occasional Corrie ten Boom quote) has indirectly taught me to value a man's words over those of a woman.
I do not believe that the lack of references to women of faith is always due to the pastor's belief that women are inferior. I imagine that finding the voices of women of faith takes a bit more digging than finding a man's voice as women have long been left out of important conversations inside and outside of the church. As the church, let us magnify these female voices that we do have, work to uncover the voices that have been lost, and invite more voices to share more stories so that future generations won't have such a hard time finding female voices to learn from.
My blind spot is not gone. It's still there. But I'm grateful that I know it's there. I suppose that is progress. Being aware of a blind spot at least allows me to begin to ask more questions and slowly uncover what I have been unable to see. How do I plan on doing that? One way I have begun is by reading books written by or about women of the faith. Because one way to oppose lies about the inability or inferiority of women is by learning from and about women whose lives defy the lies. So I have started with Corrie ten Boom. After that comes Fannie Lou Hamer. And after that, well, women who look like me and women who don't, women from various countries and cultures and traditions, all whose lives expose the lies that many of us have come to believe. Send your recommendations my way. I want to hear the voices of women, because all of their voices have been muffled, some more than others. While men's voices have drowned out those of women, white women's voices have drowned out the voices of women of color. But I want to hear what these voices have to say.
* * *
A note about Corrie ten Boom: Corrie ten Boom became the first female watchmaker in the Netherlands in 1922. After that, Corrie and her family helped approximately 800 Jewish people escape the Nazi Holocaust. Motivated by Christ's work on their behalf, she and her family created a secret room in their home to hide up to 6 people at a time. As a leader in the Dutch resistance movement, Corrie oversaw the network of safe houses across the country. She and her entire family were arrested in 1944 and she spent almost a year in a concentration camp before being released. During her time in the concentration camp, she and her sister held worship services with the other female prisoners. After the war, she set up a rehabilitation center for concentration camp survivors and wrote multiple books.
 |
| This is Corrie ten Boom. |
* * *
A note to Phil: Thank you for fixing my dryer. I suppose I made a lot of assumptions about you in this post. It possible that in using the pronoun he, you could have possibly been referring to the unknown and therefore unnamed and conceivably male home appliance service technician who would have been the last person to work on my dyer. If that is the case, Phil, I misunderstood you and I am sorry.
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