My mom used to joke with me and say she managed to raise a feminist in a conservative, Southern Baptist household, and she’s not wrong. I made my first stand for equality on the playground at church when my brother’s friend, three years my senior, decided that he was faster because he was a boy. He taunted me and sped off, calling me to catch him if I could. I let out a howl and, on my little chicken legs, shot after him. Once I was close enough, I leaped toward the poor boy and caught the hem of his shirt. Grinning, I threw my 45 pounds towards the ground causing him to sprawl out in front of me. “You win. You win.” He panted. He was right. I did win.
But my victory stretched further than the playground. It wasn’t simply a battle of better footing or speed. He made it so much more than that. It was the right to maintain equality on the grounds of gender. I humbled his superiority when I challenged his perception of manliness---that is when I challenged the idea that men were innately stronger and faster (ie. better) based on gender rather than hard work.
Recently, I reflected back to that pivotal day and wondered why a 12-year-old thought he was better than me based solely on the premise of gender. It could have been an inner cockiness that caused such a complex, but I’m not quite sure that was all. In fact, I challenge the notion that a belief in gender superiority is a priori. Rather, I think that it is, to some degree, perpetuated by the culture. “Let’s have a competition.” my Sunday School teachers preached, “Girls versus boys. Are the girls better, or are the boys better?” When my gym teachers called for line-ups, they barked, “Boys over here. Girls over there. Let’s play dodgeball.” I remember my choir camp director goading on her staff members to beat each other. “C’mon, Freddie, you’re not gonna let a girl win.” As if a girl winning is the worst possible thing to ever occur.
I spent the majority of my youth defending my gender due to this. When the girls lost, for a moment, our lives became hell as a sinking powerlessness came across us. When we won, the luxury was brief, and with games such as dodge ball or flag football, we almost always lost.
Is this really the best answer? Our culture works hard to empower women to be just as strong and powerful as men, yet, as a parallel, we propagate a battle of the sexes in our games. We teach children to view people first through their gender, and then to use that information to formulate an answer to the question: friend or foe?
Does that really fix the problem? Does it help lessen the tension between the sexes if we’re using gender-wars as a teaching tool to encourage perfection? Or do our actions enforce the belief that one gender is inferior to the other? That our successes are solely defined by our genitals? And, if that’s the case, is that truly what we, as educators, want?
