The Making of a (Male) Feminist. II: Home and Church

By dr ngo

I grew up the son of missionaries whose doctrinal position could be characterized as evangelical, even fundamentalist. They (we) believed in the literal inspiration of the Bible, in a number of basic theological precepts that I came later to recognize as Calvinist, and in rules of behavior that included not only prohibitions on smoking, drinking, and dancing, but on reading the newspaper on Sunday and attending movie theatres at any time. But ours was a loving family, and although we were monetarily poor, we never went hungry, as my current girth will doubtless testify. Generally we didn’t miss what we didn’t have; it was only when I went to college [university] that I really became aware that most of my peers were from much wealthier households.

My father, born in England early in the 20th century, was the last Victorian gentleman. He was immensely dignified, reserved, and conservative in habits and demeanor, though he could be quite funny, even foolish, in the privacy of the family. Both he and my mother accepted completely the idea that the man was the head of the household, and she (like most women of her generation) included in her marriage vows the promise to “obey” him, which I have no doubt she did.

Within the church, each stuck to their assigned spheres: he was ordained and could preach, she was barred from the pulpit and could only (only!) “teach.” I was perhaps lucky that these gender roles were not openly contested in those days, so I was not exposed to the elaborate theological and ideological arguments for this distinction that have come to characterize many churches since. Out in the mission field, my father, like other men, was given an extra year of Chinese language training, because he would be preaching and conversing with educated Chinese men. My mother, like other female missionaries, had just enough language training to get around and talk to simple peasant women about Jesus.

And yet in many respects she was the dominant partner in the relationship. She had been to college (majored in Latin, minored in Greek, and graduated cum laude); he had not. She was energetic, loquacious, and outgoing, instantly making friends wherever she went, whereas he tended to be stiff and formal in social circumstances. She was, quite literally, joyful; he tended to melancholy. She was the one both her children and outsiders approached when they wanted something. It was she who told stories not only about her own past, but his; what little I know of my father’s early life comes almost entirely through her.

Around the house she cooked, cleaned, and managed the household, including three children, various domestic servants (in China), and the guests who perpetually drop in on mission homes, while he was away on business or shut away in his study, preparing his next sermon. (He was an excellent preacher, relying on intense preparation rather than spontaneity.) To be fair, he also took responsibility for the car and the garden – the traditional male duties “outside” – and I believe that they went through the accounts together. But everything else revolved around my mother.

This remarkable woman had learned to drive in Texas at 12, moved to California and graduated from Hollywood High School (with Fay Wray, among others), played the ukulele on the radio (performing with her sister as “The Sunshine Sisters”), matriculated at UCLA at 16, and after graduation headed off to Bible Institute in Chicago.

As a child of 3, we learned later, she had vowed to go to China as a missionary, and she actually was sent, as a single woman, just before she turned 24. She spent the next six years tramping around the war-torn Chinese countryside, learning the language, managing servants, walking up to 30 miles in a day, playing the portable organ at services, and teaching women and children the Gospel, while on the side throwing parties for her missionary friends (where she played the piano, and sometimes even the ukulele) and doing whatever else was needed in the field. I was amazed to find, years later, that once she had actually “coached” some Chinese children in basketball! (For more on my mother’s China years, see “This One Thing I Do’: A Single-Minded American in China,” forthcoming.)

She could have had an active social life if she had wanted. She had already been engaged – and had her fiancé dump her and marry her sister – and she had turned down various other proposals of marriage (including from my father, originally) while waiting for the “LORD’s will” (always capitalized) with regard to her future. Twice in these years she lost everything she owned, except what she was carrying with her, to the Japanese invaders. She claimed she never regretted anything she lost except the letters from my father, posted even deeper in China where he was serving. (He wrote her every day for more than five years until she gave in and agreed to marry him.)

It was thus my mother who laid the groundwork for my later feminism, though she herself was slow to identify as a feminist. Many years later, when my sister – of whom more next time – became an ordained minister, and my brother a professional opera singer, we could sense my mother struggling with these facts. In her eyes (we thought) it would have been so much more appropriate if he had been the minister, and she had been the musician. When I was growing up in the 1950s, however, feminism was never an issue, so I was aware more of my mother’s capabilities than of her gender ideology.

Thus, years later, when I finally encountered feminism, it took very little to convince me that women could be as competent, as talented, as fully human, as men. My mother had already proved it to me.

dr ngo has kindly agreed to act as a guest blogger on this site, to provide an alternative take on feminism (in terms of age, sex and nationality). dr ngo is an American historian, recently-retired, specialising in South-East Asian history, particularly the social and economic history of the Philippines

The Making of a (Male) Feminist: I: The Parameters

By dr ngo

I regard myself as a feminist, but before I start reflecting on the road that brought me here, I should probably make a few things clear.

There are many definitions of feminism, but for these purposes, I’ll stick to the simplest. A feminist is a person who answers "yes" to the question, "Are women human?" (This particular formulation is from “Rabbit’s Feminist Support Pages” at http://members.iinet.com.au/~rabbit/femsup.htm) I believe that women are essentially equal (in talent, etc.) to men, and should be equal in rights and opportunities as well. That’s basically it; the rest is all complication and elaboration of/on this premise.

I do not, however, believe that women are superior to men, or that there are special women’s ways of thinking/feeling that are beyond the powers of men to comprehend or replicate. When academic feminism gets into a critique not just of “dead white men” (fair enough) but of all systems of thought they have created, including history, philosophy, and the scientific method, it’s not for me. If “phallogocentrism” is a plot against the Goddess, count me among the plotters.

At least three further caveats should be entered before I begin my narrative:

1) I have no particular wish to dispute those who say that only women can be feminists, since feminism is grounded in the female experience. For those who define feminism this way, I’m perfectly willing to call myself a “feminist sympathizer” or “fellow traveller.” Definitions aren’t true or false; they’re tools, more or less helpful to our understanding. So if my calling myself a feminist is unhelpful, let it go.

2) I make no claim whatsoever to be a good feminist, however the term may be defined. I differ from orthodox feminist thinking on various points, particularly in areas related to sex and sexuality. My life – including my married life with my wife of 37 years – still reflects some of the gendered role models we grew up with, and I would not for a moment suggest it is an ideal feminist marriage. (My wife does say that I’ve improved over the years and am not nearly as much of a male chauvinist as I once was, for whatever that’s worth.) I am not an activist, on this or any other issue, and so I don’t really participate in the struggle for women’s rights that some see as the heart of feminism, which is as much (or more) a movement as an abstract ideology.

But since I, like most historians, regard a bad Christian (who doesn’t believe in the Virgin Birth or attend church regularly, who eats meat on Friday and plays golf on Sunday, &c.) as a Christian, so I believe that a bad feminist is also a feminist. Those who are fierce and narrow in their criteria for membership in the movement – as fierce and narrow as the fundamentalist Christian sects I grew up among – may remonstrate with or even excommunicate me. I can live with that. In my own mind, I’m still a feminist.

3) One critique sometimes heard in male circles is that men only pretend to be feminist in order to impress women – to get laid, in fact. It’s hard to honestly assess one’s own motives for anything, but I know that everything I write is at least partly an effort to impress someone – professional colleagues, potential employers, students, unknown reviewers, members of my club or choir, and, of course, women. That’s why we (humans) communicate: to have some impact on others. (As I tell my students: “This table is flat, as we can all see, but no one ever says ‘This table is flat’ simply because it is true. We only say something – true or not – because we are hoping to achieve something by doing so.”)

So doubtless professing feminism (which is likelier to appeal more to women than, say the demographic history of the 19th-century Philippines) is at some level an effort to impress women. And at some even deeper level, I probably am dreaming of inspiring some kind of sexual attraction; men do this kind of thing automatically. (Do women? I’m not sure.) But among the women I’m hoping to impress are my sister and my daughter, who definitely do not feature in any such dreams, so that’s obviously not the whole story. And in a more mundane, intellectual sense, I actually do believe in the basic principles of feminism, and could no more easily revert to believing in a simple version of male supremacy than I could believe in God. Which I don’t.

(To be continued.)

The BBC and the Guardian are reporting demonstrations by Christians, Jews and Muslims to protest against new regulations outlawing discrimination in the provisions of services on the grounds of sexual orientation (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6243323.stm). At an initial look, many of the claims being made by the protestors are bogus. As examples of what the changes might mean they cite:

 Critics say they would mean hotels could not refuse to provide rooms for gay couples, and religious groups would be obliged to rent out halls for "gay wedding" receptions.

They also argue a Christian, Jewish or Muslim printer could be forced to print a flyer for a gay night club, or a teacher would have to break the law to promote heterosexual marriage over homosexual civil partnership.

 I have looked at the Northern Irish regulations (the only ones currently published). These are The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006 (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/sr/sr2006/nisr_20060439_en.pdf). I don’t pretend to be a lawyer, but there are fairly wide-ranging exemptions in the regulations for religious organisations and organisations promoting religion (s 16), so that seems to me to eliminate the church halls bit. The education section (s 11) is mainly concerned with not denying gay pupils places at schools. The only way in which promotion of marriage in schools might conceivably be seen as breaking the regulations is if it could be taken as ‘harassment’ (creating an intimidating or humiliating environment). Unless teachers are dealing with the issue with particular insensitivity, marriage discussions are safe.

On the issue of services, it is now unlawful for companies and individual traders to refuse on principle to provide services to gay people. However, the provision is ‘on the same terms as are normal in relation to other members of the public’. Printers don’t have to print material for gay night-clubs if they don’t do it for straight night-clubs. Magazines don’t have to take advertising for material that they think is unsuitable for their magazine. I think, however, they are right that it will be impossible for hotels and bed and breakfast establishments to refuse to take gay couples.

Having disposed of most of the bogus assertions about the regulations, what about the underlying argument? It is being presented by Christians arguing against the regulation that they should not be forced to do something that is against their religion. For those who do not adhere to any religion, religious reasons for any moral decision obviously give no basis for discrimination. What about if you consider that religious reasons may in some cases justify moral decisions?

Firstly, there are problems in saying that wishing to discriminate is automatically acceptable if it is religiously-motivated. For example, suppose you follow a religion (or a sect) that sincerely believes that mixed-race marriages are sinful or alternatively that Jewish-Gentile marriages are sinful. Should you therefore be allowed to ban such couples from your B&B? Even most religious people would agree that such discrimination is wrong. (Note that these marriages, like gay relationships, are relationships that people have chosen to enter into, so the discrimination is not based on a factor beyond their control, such as race or sex).

The argument for discrimination essentially boils down (as Lord Mackay puts it, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6243949.stm) to:

 What they [the regulations] are saying is if you are offering services you must be prepared to allow people to practise actions that you believe are wrong.

Or as Thomas Cordrey of the Lawyer's Christian Fellowship puts it (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6243323.stm):

 Christians...cannot and must not be forced to actively condone and promote sexual practices which the Bible teaches are wrong.

The idea that Christians are being forced to promote homosexuality, is, as I’ve shown above, pretty much bogus. The real argument is whether individual Christians/Jews/Muslims, when providing services to others, should be expected to tolerate behaviour that they believe is morally wrong. (I would note that not all members of these religions believe that homosexual acts are morally wrong, but let’s assume the case of someone who does sincerely believe this). The problem is that most jobs offering a service at some point require workers to tolerate (or even actively assist) some behaviour that is morally wrong or offensive by Christian standards. If you’re a Christian librarian you will have to do some selection/cataloguing/issuing of books on witchcraft, war porn, dubious get-rich principles etc. If you’re a solicitor you will periodically get clients whose behaviour seems distasteful or immoral to you. If you’re a check-out assistant or waiter you sometimes have to assist gluttony or excessive drinking. In many jobs you’re assisting (in some small way) an emphasis on materialism and an obsession with money. If you are a Catholic owner of a B&B then every time you rent out a room to a heterosexual couple you are potentially aiding them to commit the mortal sins of adultery, fornication, masturbation or using contraceptives during intercourse, not to mention the pride, envy, sloth, gluttony, anger or avarice they may be committing on your premises. In other words, to find an entirely ethically pure job is near impossible. (There are obviously also some jobs where breaches of your ethical code would be so pervasive as to make them unsuitable for you).

What this suggests is that the government forcing some believers to tolerate occasional instances of behaviour that they disapprove of is not disproportionate. It can only be seen as disproportionate if the attitude is taken that homosexual acts are a uniquely serious sin, one with which no compromises can be made. I can see no justification in the Bible to believe that. The classic Biblical condemnation of homosexual acts is probably 1 Corinthians 6:9. (Probably, because there are still arguments between Biblical scholars about who actually is covered). But until the Christians lobbying against the regulations are equally demanding the right to refuse to provide services to idolaters, adulterers, the greedy, drunkards, revilers or robbers, then I am not convinced that it is simply the Bible that is inspiring them. Instead, it is the kind of religious bigotry that gives so much ammunition to the more militant atheists of Britain.
 

 

The new American parenting buzzword seems to be ‘sanctimommy’, used both generally (for Parents Who Judge other Parents) (see http://www.startribune.com/blogs/cribsheet/?p=151),
but also more specifically, for mothers who focus particularly on pure eating for their children (see
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50917F93A550C778EDDAB0994DE404482) (not free). It seems to me, however, that the concept of the sanctimommy fuses several separate concepts, not all of which are necessarily as new as the name.

For example, one blogger (http://mom-101.blogspot.com/2006/11/sanctimommy.html) talks about having a sanctimommy moment when:

Yesterday in the gift shop of the hotel, a trio of boys were whining for "just one Snickers" before breakfast. "Well, okay, just one," the mom said finally giving in. "I don't want you too hyper before breakfast."

And I couldn't help myself. I rolled my eyes big--really big--with the hopes that anyone looking in my direction at that moment could see just how awesome I am.

Now to an English person, the whole incident has strong class overtones (I would immediately stereotype the watcher as middle class and the family as working class). In the US things may be different, but I suspect that in Britain as soon as the idea of methods/styles of child raising came in, so did the conviction that the other classes were doing it wrong, whether it was feckless working classes, anal middle classes or emotionally cold upper classes. (There are probably also finer class gradations as well).

What is distinctive about the sanctimommy phenomenon is that it’s disapproval being applied within a class as well as between classes. I suspect it happens within all the classes, but I’ll focus on the middle class, as the only one I know well. The phenomenon of competitive mothers isn’t new (or indeed confined to the West). Anyone who remembers being told as a child by their mother ‘Why are you as clean/helpful/hard-working/well-behaved etc as X’s children?’ will recognise this. And boasting about one’s children’s achievements is a cliche of many cultures, from Jewish to Indian.

One significance change is the rise of internet discussions, which, as far, as I can see, intrinsically encourage harsher comments. (The rise of the internet comment may have done more to contribute generally to world hatred than all the specific hate sites put together). But the other important factor is the rise of intensive parenting (see my previous post). One side of this is that intensive parenting is a harder (if not impossible) job to get right, which intrinsically leads one to insecurity and the urge to belittle others as compensation.

But the other important change about the sanctimommy concept that ties in with intensive parenting is its focus on inputs (what the parent does) rather than outcomes (what the child is like). This has two effects. One is that judgement can start much earlier on in a child’s life/mother’s ‘career’. It’s not really possible to judge (except at the more extreme ends) whose 3 year old is doing ‘well’ and whose is doing ‘poorly’, since there is so much developmental variability. And it’s really only when you get to the exam/certificate stage that you can boast conclusively about your child’s superiority. On the other hand, you can feel positive about pureeing your own carrots from age 3 months.

The other reason why there is a switch to focusing on the inputs is one of the sad (or possibly happy) facts of parenting. What you do as a parent has only a limited effect on how your child behaves, despite all the efforts of us intensive parents. This is infinitely true at the micro level, particularly for young children. Anyone’s pre-schooler, however normally reliable, may, at an embarrassing moment, wet themselves, hit someone else, cry hysterically or balk at some minor task. But it’s also true to a certain extent at the macro level. L is (on the whole), bright, friendly and able to sleep through the night, but however much I might pretend this is due to our parenting, I’m aware it’s also partly down to genes, her intrinsic personality and dumb luck on our part. If mothers end up focusing on our own achievements and are prone to becoming snactimommies in the process, it’s because it’s something we have control over, at a time when we’re uneasily aware how much control we’ve otherwise lost

A relative sent me some information about the new American term the ‘sanctimommy’, which I hope to discuss soon. But looking at it, the concept only really makes sense against the background of the changing style of parenting/motherhood, so I want to start with a post about the rise of ‘intensive parenting’.

I’m not sure that intensive parenting is the best term (Annette Lareau, a US sociologist uses the term ‘concerted cultivation’ (http://crookedtimber.org/2006/03/12/david-brooks-on-unequal-childhoods/ - I haven’t actually read her book, since I’m too busy cultivating my child). The same phenomenon is being described, however: parents making concerted efforts to provide learning experiences and to develop their child. It tends to be caricatured as parents who spend all their time sending their school age children to extracurricular activity, but in fact it’s the attitude, more than the means taken to it, that are the key factor.

What is so interesting about this contrast with the alternative parenting style, which Laureau calls ‘Accomplishment of Natural Growth’, is that although one is now associated with the upper middle class and the other with working class children, this is a historically recent phenomenon. A lot of the comments made by middle class adults on these articles is that they too received this less intensive style of parenting as children. Intensive parenting is a relatively new parenting style, maybe not even a generation old.

Most articles I’ve seen discussing the concept of intensive parenting seem to denigrate it and see its roots as purely competitive. For example, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/4ab0242e-5aa8-11db-84ce-0000779e2340.html, promoting a book ‘The madness of modern families’ sees three reasons for the phenomena:

Reason one is that our generation believe they have almost total control of their lives. We choose when we get the car, get the mortgage, get the baby and, like a business project, we expect our children to follow our projections. A study by the government think-tank The Future Foundation confirms middle-class parents are bringing business-like attitudes to parenting.

Reason two is that we live in a self-improvement culture. Being “good enough” isn’t good enough any more, and we run ourselves ragged in pursuit of the unobtainable: 24/7 happiness, success and air-brushed perfection.

Reason three is that we are the most inexperienced generation of parents ever, with little contact with children before we hold our own for the first time. So when they do come along, we are paralysed into indecision by a tidal wave of “expert”, often contradictory, advice.

I would agree with the business-like attitude to parenting: we are probably still in the first or at most the second generation of middle class mothers who worked substantially after marriage, let alone parenthood. But this in itself isn’t the only change. (One thing that isn’t mentioned in this article is that intensive parenting is in some way the opposite of extensive parenting: it’s easier with a smaller family). But the emphasis in the article on expertise raises a question. Why aren’t new mothers going to the obvious ‘experts’: the parents and grandparents who raised them? Why doesn’t the search for ‘evidence-based parenthood’ stop there?

I think the reason is a broader social phenomenon: liberal sixties and post-sixties ideologies about feminism, nurture versus nature and the importance of child development. Some of us relatively new parents are still reacting to ‘pre-1960s’ parenting. I was born in 1965 and my husband in 1964, but liberal ideas had not made much impact in the rural areas we grew up in. The child-centred form of parenting I have adopted is a reaction to my own childhood, not a continuation of it. Similarly basic to intensive parenting is the idea of the potential of all children. Your child too can learn languages, play music, enjoy sport, succeed at school; it is not limited to those with unusual innate talents. This belief has been reinforced by academic studies which stress the importance of the environment for child development. It is noticeable that despite all the (middle-class) slurs on intensive parenting, it is the style of parenting that is the basis behind most attempts to improve the outcomes for deprived children (SureStart, BookStart etc). Intensive parenting, as I see, may have the systematic application characteristic of business-like attitudes, but it is applied to humanistic/liberal goals. It can, of course, be taken too far, but I don’t think the principle should be ridiculed as simply middle-class competitiveness. My hope, in my semi-intensive parenting, is for a child who has both broader experiences and opportunities and also greater happiness than I got from my ‘natural growth’ childhood.