For their sake

Imagine I worked with a female co-worker, a black woman. The two of us are equally experienced in our field, have the same level of education and training, and are both excellent communicators. And imagine, as part of our commitment to the funders of our work, that we have committed to visiting them about once every two years. Imagine we would tour the country, reporting on our work, telling stories, sharing insights, demonstrating that the funders’ money was being well-spent, assuring them that their investment would reap dividends in ways seen and unseen.

Somehow nearly all of the communication leading up to this trip has come to me. Only one of the funding groups thought to copy my colleague in on the emails. Perhaps she is considered a tag-along, or maybe I am simply expected to keep her in the loop. Subconsciously this gives me the sense of being the primary player; information is power after all. This is how the sense of entitlement begins, unwittingly, to take root.

So, my colleague and I come to one of the venues along our route. Without knowing us, our skills or experience, I am invited to address the main gathering while she is tasked with giving a talk to the children. We share a wry smile - neither of us considers ourselves very good at children’s work - and we make the best of it. Rightly or wrongly, the children’s talk is considered a more lightweight, less demanding job. Is my colleague less equipped than I am to present our work to the adults present? We know this is not true, so how has this decision been made?

We come to another venue. There’s a lunch, an opportunity to meet and greet the funding group. Somebody comes to direct me to a seat next to the group’s leader, they make a comment about it being the ‘right’ thing. My colleague and I are a team, equally responsible for the distribution of funds, equally engaged in the overall project. Yet she is seated with a group of women, doing her best to chat brightly about inconsequential matters, while I engage in the more weighty subject of our work and where it’s heading. 

At the next venue I am called to the front of the gathering to receive a cheque towards our work. The cheque is made out to me personally, and no mention is made of my colleague and co-worker. Has it been assumed that I am responsible for the finances, that my name is on the project bank account, that I am the more senior of the two of us? Apparently so.

Nearly everywhere we go, we are introduced as ‘Miranda and her colleague,’ continuing to give the impression that I am somehow the boss, the director, the one in charge. While I feel honoured, I am becoming increasingly unsettled. It would seem that there is some covert prejudice at work here. When two similarly educated, similarly experienced, similarly effective communicators arrive to do a job and it is unfailingly assumed that one is the senior partner, one has to assume that there are hidden dynamics at work. 

In the imaginary scenario of me working alongside another woman, where the only difference between us is that I am white and she is black, it would not be far-fetched to conclude that racial prejudice is at work: that perfectly nice and well-meaning people are behaving in ways that betray their colour-coded worldview. And we would not stand for it, would we? We would politely yet firmly insist that we are equally skilled co-workers, coming to do the job together. Where the unequal treatment continued, we would need to communicate this more clearly, more firmly, surely? Racism, in all its guises, must be addressed and rooted out.

And yet, here we are. And this imaginary story is in fact a true one. Only I am working alongside my husband, and he is the one called to the front to receive cheques made out in his name. He is the one seated next to the most senior members of whichever group we are visiting, he is the one asked to address the main meeting, while I speak to the children. 

If we could call this racism were skin colour involved, then surely we can call this sexism when the only reason for such prejudice is gender? As women, and especially as Christian women, we have been taught to take it on the chin. Just toe the line, smile at the well-meaning people and excuse their behaviour, however it makes you feel. This is the Christian approach, apparently. Meekness and mildness in a woman is part of our heritage.

I beg to differ. Our common calling as part of the Body of Christ is to partner with Him to establish His ways here on earth. That means justice for the mistreated, and it means treating every image-bearer, no matter their colour or their gender, as a co-heir alongside Jesus and with a significant and unique contribution to make to the work of the King.

The small injustices outlined above may seem too subtle to get stirred up about. But they are, in fact, only the thin and more presentable end of the wedge. Rooted as they are in a sense of a difference of inherent value, this sort of disrespect and disempowerment opens the way for the greater wrongs of salary disparity, glass ceilings, and indeed more violent abuses of women.

When I think of raising my two daughters to send them out into the world as independent adults, I confess to a feeling akin to dread. For all the distance we have travelled to permit these two young women to make their mark on the world through voting for government, attending university, or holding jobs in most professions, we cannot avoid certain realities. If they choose to marry, in all likelihood they will be expected to give up their surname for that of their husband, they will receive bills in the post addressing them by their husband’s initials, and they will be treated in a thousand subtle ways as the lesser partner in the relationship. 

And if my daughters choose to go to church, they will be more likely to encounter these thousands of subtle mistreatments, not less. If I choose to keep quiet for the sake of not rocking the boat, I am complicit in the prejudice they will face. And that is where I draw the line.