http://webtv.un.org/search/malala-yousafzai-addresses-united-nations-youth-assembly/2542094251001?term=Malala

Ideas Anyone?

I'm thinking that those of you who have read my posts so far are as stuck as I am about how men will benefit from women achieving outward equality.  So this one starts with an extract from a letter written by the Universal House of Justice, the world governing body of the Baha'i community, addressed to The Peoples of the World, in 1985:

"The emancipation of women, the achievement of full equality between the sexes, is one of the most important, though less acknowledged prerequisites of peace. The denial of such equality perpetrates an injustice against one half of the world’s population and promotes in men harmful attitudes and habits that are carried from the family to the workplace, to political life, and ultimately to international relations. There are no grounds, moral, practical, or biological, upon which such denial can be justified.Only as women are welcomed into full partnership in all fields of human endeavour will the moral and psychological climate be created in which international peace can emerge."

Many people around the world want peace.  Everyone I have ever spoken with about it WANTS it.  There are varying levels of belief as to whether we can achieve it.  If it weren't for Baha'u'llah's assurance that it is inevitable, I would be one of the people who only believes peace to be possible on a good day.  Nonetheless, it is not only possible, but inevitable.  Since the above paragraph says that equality is a prerequisite for peace, it would seem that achieving outward equality between men and women is also inevitable, and must come first.

Note I say "outward equality".  This is an important distinction for me because the Baha'i Writings say that men and women are spiritually equal.  We don't have to work to attain that - it just is.  It is important to me because, knowing I am every man's equal, I don't have anything to prove to anyone.  The world may want me to prove myself, but all I have to do is remind myself that God says men and women are and have always been spiritually equal, and I let go of the urge to get into that battle.  What makes me sad is how so many women don't understand that basic fact about themselves.

However, the point of this blog is to look for ways that outward equality will benefit men.

As I said earlier, I struggle with this one myself, and the only thing I know to do is draw on my own life.  So let's make it personal:  How does my husband benefit from treating me as his equal?

I've asked him:  He's pretty abstract about it:  "You complement me.  I wouldn't feel complete if you were not my equal."  He also compared us to a mix of cement: the cement without the water is useless.  OK, I'm water.

I create a balance in his life.

On another level:  I help him to deal with his own insecurities.  If you've ever met my husband, you'd know he doesn't have many.

Guess what?  My dear husband can't come up with any concrete examples either. He ended his attempt to help me with, "Hmm.  That's a tough one."   I'll attribute that to him being one of the few men I know who functions more on heart and intuition than most men.  Any other explanation and I'd be tempted to hit him over the head with a baseball bat.

So, all we've got so far is the grander scheme of things:  men will live in a peaceful world when women have achieved equality.  There HAS to be some more immediate reason for men to encourage women to achieve true equality.  Will it be enough for most men that it's because it is what is just?  That is, treat women as their equals because it is the right thing to do?  Maybe it is that simple, but I'd like to think that there will be personal benefit for men to work for equality, that it isn't only about world peace.

Interesting Article About How we Talk to Little Girls

So What's My Point?

Since I shared my introductory post through different places, the comments and responses have come through those.  I am intrigued by the variety of reactions, though mostly positive.

To respond to one question - do Belizean men have any redeeming qualities?  Of course.  Everyone does.  Nobody is all bad.  No culture is all bad.  My childhood hero was not all bad - I loved him dearly and still do, though he has "crossed over" as I like to think of death now.  I did not mention in that essay that one of my two closest Belizean friends is a Baha'i man.  I will always be grateful to him for both being who he is and for making me laugh when I most needed it.  When my mother first went into the hospital in Belize about ten years ago now, he dropped everything and came to look after the house so my sister and I could look after Mom.  The fact that he was born and raised into that traditional male attitude and dropped everything to come and do "women's work" says volumes, about his own choices and the power of transformation.

The point is not that there are individuals who are "exceptions to the rule".  There always are.  The point is that historically, this is the way it has been, and it is the way it is now.  My life experiences in Belize and Canada have also been countered with "women try to seduce men too", "women disrespect men too", "women (including me) put themselves in situations where being victimized is likely to happen."

Don't I know it?  Guilty as charged.  I am not a woman who believes that women don't make stupid choices and as a result become victims, nor do I think that women are never the aggressors.  The problem lies not in that but that the level of our inequality means that we CAN put ourselves in situations, through naivete or stupidity or whatever, where we are likely to be victimized.  It isn't our fault except in thinking that we SHOULD be safe and therefore we WILL BE safe.  Just because I SHOULD be safe walking into a bar by myself where people are consuming a substance that impedes their judgment as soon as they start consuming it - if attitudes towards women were healthy - doesn't mean that I AM safe doing so.  My views on such subjects are not popular - the "rape is rape is rape" argument doesn't wash with me when everyone involved is under the influence of alcohol.  And in this connection, since I many times DID enter bars in Belize, out of sheer loneliness, I've frequently since thought of this part of a prayer by The Bab:

"Guide my steps, O my God, unto that which is acceptable and pleasing to Thee. Shield me, through Thy might, from the fury of Thy wrath and chastisement, and hold me back from entering habitations not desired by Thee." (Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 205)

Also, when women become aggressors, it is often through the misguided belief that equality means we must become like men.  Women haven't got equality figured out any better than men do, including myself.

My life experiences are not prejudice against men, or Belizean men.  They are simply those experiences of mine that confirm what can be seen daily on the news or read about in history.  I like men.  I do not feel unsafe with men - generally.  Truthfully, my experiences with Belizean men were such that it was very difficult to get to know a man any deeper than the sexual innuendo he was throwing at me, often just while walking down the street.  I could not say that I knew well or deeply more than one Belizean man in a platonic way.  Since I wasn't interested in non-platonic for most of my younger life in Belize, that meant that I knew a few Baha'i brothers in a Baha'i-community sort of way, but they never became close, intimate friends, according to my own definition of that.  That could have been as much my fault as theirs.

My perspective is only that - a perspective.  I'm not trying to vilify men.  I'm actually trying to look for solutions, and in particular want other perspectives - not to whine about the present or the past - but to think of small, concrete actions that we all can take to improve what is, as well as to focus on how men will benefit from equality.  If women in general become highly educated on a par with men, what benefit is it to men?  If men take an equal role in household chores (and I know many men that do), of what benefit is it to them?

There was in Belize a popular song that both played loudly from the bars and I heard men singing to themselves as they sauntered down the street.  Had it been a different kind of song it would have been a delight to see, (what's not to love about a culture where people happily saunter down the streets singing to themselves?) but the lyrics were, "Oh my demanding wife, she's going to destroy my life."   The purpose of my having started this blog is to generate ideas on how men will become free by encouraging and respecting and being faithful to women, rather seeing us as a "ball and chain".    I really do want input on this because my own imagination is struggling.  I can easily see what's wrong.  It is harder for me to imagine what the world will look like when things are right.

The Value of Women

Choosing a place to live based on climate alone is as shallow as
choosing a life mate based on physical appearance alone.  Both
choices, in my experience, reflect the same attitude toward women.

My parents, at least, had a much better reason than climate to move to
Belize when I was a child.  They went as Bahá’í pioneers.  I am
grateful to them for that, because growing up in a pioneer post has a
way of making or breaking you as a Bahá’í, and usually it is “making”.
  Deprived of creature comforts and the false sense of security with
which North American children grow up, one learned very young to rely
on God, not on cars that run properly or a clean supply of water
coming right out of the taps.  However, since I left Belize as an
adult with three daughters, praying I would NEVER have to return, I’ve
been asked so many times, “How could you leave that climate?”

My hatred (yes, I use the word carefully) of Belize was not because of
such flimsy things as cars that constantly broke down or unsafe water.
Those were just facts of our lives, and not even everyone’s lives in
Belize.  Unlike most people in Belize, we needed a vehicle and we
weren’t connected to the town water system.  We simply dealt with
those matters as best we could, which was most definitely a far cry
from how North Americans dealt with them.  Safety requirements were
low, mechanics were cheap, and words like “e coli” and “intestinal
parasites” held no fear for me.  No, the reason I hoped never to
return was something far more sinister.

By the time I was ten I was made to feel like a sex object, by none
other than my childhood hero.  I couldn’t even have explained what the
words “sex object” meant.  All I knew was that his response to my
childish silliness made me feel uncomfortable.  It wasn’t even his
fault.  Belizean boys were raised to believe that the sole purpose of
girls and women was to provide for a man’s comfort in all ways – and
we didn’t have the right to say no.  In North America, that attitude
toward girls was called pedophilia.  In Belize it was just recognizing
us for what we would eventually grow up to be, if we were allowed to
grow up first.

At fifteen I was sitting outside the town hall one evening, hoping to
see someone I knew to invite into the public meeting to talk about the
Faith that my father was hosting.  A former neighbour walked by so I
waved to him with a cheerful hello.  He came over.  I mentioned to
him that we were having a meeting to talk about the Bahá’í Faith
inside.  He responded by telling me what a great body I had, using his
hands to indicate my curves.  I brought him back to the fact that
there was a Bahá’í meeting inside.  He said, “That’s it?  That’s the
only reason you called me over?”  His tone made me feel I’d done
something really offensive so I tried to pretend it wasn’t the only
reason I’d called him, but did he honestly think I would call him over

to invite him to sleep with me?

At seventeen, a former high school classmate proposed to me for about
the third time.  However, this time we were standing downtown in
daylight, he was scratching his privates and looking at my chest.  He
never did mean marriage.  “Marry me” in Belize more often meant “have
sex with me.”

Throughout those years there was one boy who I believed loved me after
his own fashion, and I believe I hurt him when I turned him down.
However, it wasn’t really me he was after – it was my virginity.  He
stopped pursuing me after I married.  He didn’t stop after he married,
which happened first, but after I married.  I almost believed, for a
while, that it was who I was that he loved, but after we had both
married he told me once, “I always wanted to sleep with a virgin.”  He
gave up after I married not because I was married, but because I was
no longer a virgin.

The ONLY time I was asked for my opinion about anything by a Belizean
man, he was a Bahá’í who had shown up at an Intercalary Party, high as
a kite.  In a marijuana-induced haze that would have put Jack Sparrow
to shame in his weaving back and forth, he said, “I wan mek YOU as a
WOMAN, check?  I wan mek YOU as a WOMAN, check?  I wan mek YOU as a
WOMAN, check, tell ME as a MAN, check, about dis equality of men and
women t’ing.”  The way he emphasized the WOMAN thing told me he was
far more interested in my WOMAN-ness and his MAN-ness than in my
opinions about the equality of men and women.  I found my husband and
asked him to stay close to me, please.

Perhaps the crowning glory that summed up the Belizean male attitude
toward women was not my own experience, but a conversation that my
father had while standing on a street corner in Belize City.  The man
he was talking to was complaining about the behaviour of his
“sweetheart”, which was the Belizean word that a married man used to
talk about his women “on the side.”  Apparently, this man was
completely indignant because his sweetheart had gotten out of bed that
morning to make him breakfast, “without even asking my permission
first.”

There were countless other experiences.  Belizean girls were told that
it was their responsibility to keep their legs together because boys
could not be expected to control themselves.  One Bahá’í mother’s
attempt to teach her sons chastity was “not to leave a bunch of
children everywhere, even if you have to use a rubber.”  Belizean
girls were also taught to see each other as competition for the boys’
attention.  In Belize, girls were never told they had any value over
their sex appeal, except perhaps as mothers, and that sense of value
did not come from husbands or fathers, it came from other women.

For North American women struggling with fat-phobia in Canada and the
U.S. the Belizean male love of all women was actually a breath of
fresh air.  As one Belizean man told me “a woman is a woman is a
woman”.  Fat, thin, tall, short, women were all great for sex and the
sexier they dressed, the more tantalizing it was, and that’s what we
were supposed to do – compete for their attention.  Add my white skin
to the competition, white being the equivalent to rich in Belize, and
I was the most desirable of all.

It is not the purpose of this piece to talk about just how disgusting
Belizean men could get in their attempts to seduce me.  I added fuel
to the fire by buying in to the competitiveness for a short time, even
though I knew I felt uncomfortable when a man responded to that.  I
didn’t know how to be chaste and desirable at the same time, not
realizing that the whole issue of even wanting to be desirable was a
degradation of me.  I watched the young women, both Bahá’í and not,
dressing in tighter dresses and shorter skirts and encouraging each
other in “sexiness” and wondered why it all felt so wrong.  Why was it
wrong to want to be desirable?

Then I married, and praise be to God for a husband who both loved me
for who I really was AND found me desirable.  We proceeded to have
three daughters.  We were financially stuck in Belize, as well as
prevented from entering Canada due to my husband’s nationality, which
was not Belizean but was of a very similar culture.  He had always
simply been unique in his attitudes toward women.  He wasn’t perfect,
but one of the main things that interested him about me was that I
didn’t try hard to please him and make myself sexy for him.  I told
him if I didn’t agree with him.  He had finally found a woman with
both mind and heart, both of which made me far more desirable to him.
As we were having our daughters, people would say to him or me, “Well,
the next one will be the son.”  “A man always wants a son.”  “A woman
always needs a son.”  We made sure everyone knew we were grateful for
our daughters, and had no desire to “complete” the family with a son.
We were delighted with our three daughters and did not feel that
anything was missing.

However, I watched my beautiful daughters growing and wondered how I
could deprive them of the superior education I had received in Canada.
Then my eldest turned nine, and I remembered being made to feel like
a sex object at age ten.  How could I possibly raise my daughters to
be sexual targets, competing for the attention of men whose attention
wasn’t worth having?  How could I allow them to grow up in an
atmosphere that valued them for nothing more than their ability to
look sexy?

We made a leap of faith and made it to Canada.  Of course, over time
I’ve come to realize both that the Canadian education system is a far
cry from the one that I had known intermittently as a child AND that
Canada’s attitude toward women is different but really not so very
much.  The cosmetics industry is a billion dollar industry for a
reason.  Fat-phobia is as intense as it ever was and eating disorders
abound.  I still try to constantly combat the effects of the media on
our daughters’ self-esteem, mostly successfully.  We have one daughter
whose desire is to save the world by pursuing a career in medicine
with little-to-no focus on marriage.  I cannot imagine how her mind
and heart would have been stunted if she’d had to use all that
wonderful drive and energy to fight off the unwanted attention of boys
and men who valued her only for her body.  Our middle daughter is
gradually developing the talented musician and artist that I knew were
in her from almost the moment she was born, which could not have been
brought out to the same degree in Belize.  Our youngest, a junior
youth now, wants to be a geologist on another planet.  Why not?

Still, the manipulators and predators are out there.  When in Canada,
as a youth, I was told by Bahá’í men who believed they had the right
to comment on my physical appearance that “I would be a knock-out if
only I’d lose a little weight” or asked if I really should eat what I
was about to put in my mouth.  How do I prepare my
beautiful-inside-and-outside daughters to deal with Bahá’í men whose
attitudes toward women are conditioned by the society in which they
live?  I am so grateful to my nephew, whose action inspired the
writing of this, for posting an essay written by a Bahá’í man on how
Bahá’í men can contribute to the equality of men and women.  The
essay was about the subtler, more powerful things, not the grand
gestures.  Sexism, like racism, is insidious.  We don’t even know
we’re afflicted with it.  And like racism, the only way to deal with
it is to recognize how it is manifested in our relationships with each
other, and change it.

My upbringing in Belize was not all beachcombing and dancing to Bob
Marley.  There was very little of the former, quite a bit of the
latter, and a lot of struggling to discover what was truly valuable
about me.  I did come to understand that I was more than a rich white
girl sexual target, but now, at 43, I still haven’t got it all figured
out.  I know that when I look in the mirror, it is a conscious battle
to minimize the importance of the body reflected there.  And then
there’s the battle of seeing how vitally important the person is that
is reflected in the eyes that are looking in the mirror.  A few years
ago I took a class that included the exercise of looking at my
reflection in the mirror and saying, “I love you.”  I couldn’t do it
without giggling.  I still sometimes think of it as a silly exercise.
And then I think it wasn’t.

‘Abdu’l-Baha says, “If [a man] exercises his anger and wrath against
the bloodthirsty tyrants who are like ferocious beasts, it is very
praiseworthy;”

I am angry.  For the first time in my life I am very, very angry with
men, the “bloodthirsty tyrants”.  They truly are like “ferocious
beasts”, emotionally-speaking, and sometimes physically-speaking.  I
am angry because I had it easy.  I didn’t grow up with the fear of
being beaten, I didn’t grow up having to cover myself from head to toe
for fear of being blamed for inciting a man’s lust, I didn’t grow up
in fear of my own father, brother or uncle seeing me as a sexual
target, and I didn’t grow up knowing that eventually I would suffer
the complete helplessness and humiliation of having the most intimate
part of my body violently and bloodily removed from me by indifferent
men, if that process didn’t kill me before I had a chance to grow up.
I had the best, most beautiful examples of men in my family, and still
do, and it makes me angry because I am no different from my sisters,
mothers and daughter in Belize, Africa, India or China.  I am no more
deserving of my blessings than they are of their suffering, and
because of my blessings I can put my hatred of Belize where it belongs
– in the past.  I will not hate, but I will continue to be angry until
men step forward and take responsibility, in their personal lives, for
the wrong they do us every day.

To my Belizean sisters, if your men cheat on you, kick them out.  It
is not ideal to have to support children on your own, but millions of
women around the world do it and it is the only way to get the message
through to men that you are more than a vagina, breasts, cook and
housekeeper.  It is worse to tolerate the disrespect of a man simply
because we are told that it is our lot in life as women, and it sets a
terrible example for your daughters, who will grow up to believe that
they, themselves, are nothing more than a vagina, breasts, cook and
housekeeper, and for your sons, who will learn to treat women with the
same disrespect.

To Bahá’í men, look carefully at yourself, and do what you can to
raise the level of respect in the world toward women.  Stop saying
stupid things like, “I’m a guy.  I think about sex, ok?”  Guess what?
Girls think about sex too – but they have far more interest in what
kind of husband and father you’ll be, and what you’ll accomplish in
service to humanity.  Your focus on sex blows their focus on their
sex appeal way out of proportion to what’s really important about
them.  Raise yourself above that guy, look women in the eye and learn
what’s THERE.  You’ll like us better, and we’ll like you better.