Looking at My Own Gender Biases
The recent wave of sexual assault and harassment claims against prominent people and celebrities has made me to think more deeply about my own sex- and gender-related biases.
Looking back at high school, being a social recluse I treated everyone pretty much much the same, doing my best to avoid being noticed or giving offense, in particular trying to avoid passing on any of the bullying and teasing behavior I had experienced.
That changed when I enlisted in the US Navy, which at the time (mid 1970's) was challenged on a few key fronts: Recovering from the Vietnam War, and combating racism and drugs. This was also near the start of the new "all-volunteer" US military with the end of the draft in 1973, which resulted in more women being recruited to meet staffing goals.
At the time the Navy had a terrible sexism problem, not solely toward it's own female members. The cultural view of many (most?) male sailors was that females were prey to be pursued and captured as sources of sex.
I bought in to this view as "just another" part of my military socialization process. I told the same dirty jokes and dirty stories, described women using the same pejorative language, but I lacked the predator nature needed to do the corresponding behavior in bars and clubs. Oh, I tried, to be sure. But I failed miserably, always getting shot down as if I were a biplane trying to attack supersonic fighters.
This frustrated me in the extreme. What was I doing wrong? I wasn't ugly or anything, and I had a decent enough (if quiet) personality. After a prolonged time of self-critique, I realized there simply had to be some major clues I was missing, that others possessed but were invisible to me. Despite watching and trying to emulate my more successful peers, I finally gave up trying to be a predator.
My one saving grace was dancing. In high school I realized I could be on the dance floor and have a great time around women with no need to converse (beyond the frightening invitation to dance). When I dropped the predatory goals and simply focused on dancing, things started to change.
By the time I had left the Navy and started college, I had developed some simple rules that allowed me to freely dance without becoming a predator.
These rules spun out a number of smaller behaviors. For example, some women would flash a look of fear when I approached, not wanting to fend off yet another man's aggressive dance request. I'd immediately stop (to respect her space), smile, and wave my arms to silently make the invitation from a distance. This rarely worked, but hopefully it made it clear I wasn't going to intrude where I'm not wanted.
In any group of women going out together, it seems there is always one who will get the fewest invitations to the dance floor, based on nothing more than her appearance. When I saw this happening, I'd always ask if she'd like to join her friends on the dance floor, and I tried my best to make her dance as special as I could, to try to ease the isolation I had known all too well.
This, along with my other dance club rules, eventually earned me a reputation as a good person to dance with, and I started to gain a circle of female friends, all of whom were in my ever-increasing "no predator" zone. A number of these women simply assumed I was gay, which was fine by me: I knew I was hard-wired straight, but I slowly realized I had no need for my external behaviors to overtly broadcast it.
In turn, this led me into the gay community, starting with the gay dance clubs. I was in heaven! You mean it was OK for a guy to get onto the dance floor alone and just dance? And to dance with anyone who wanted to dance, irrespective of any sexual rules or social conventions?
My greatest lessons in gay clubs were off the dance floor. For the first time, I had my butt pinched. I had people drape their arms around me uninvited. There were folks staring openly at my crotch or butt. But I also had men buying me drinks, which would seem great, but I soon realized were the first steps in "buying" their way into bed with me.
Basically, I was being treated just as women are treated.
In my case, it turned out to all be in fun: I never appeared on anyone's gaydar, and I was being teased as the straight guy in a gay club, more of an initiation hazing than real predation. As I made friends, I was sometimes introduced as: "This is Bob, who isn't gay. Yet."
Still, I had to seriously think about what the "right" response was to unwanted advances or intimacy. For me, it was a firm "No" that was free of rejection: I'd implicitly try to get the thought across of: "If you behave with respect, we can be friends."
And that's when I started to realize I was becoming a feminist. And an LGBTQ-ist. At least in social contexts.
But what about professionally? In college, I was fortunate to have classes with awesome people whose brains and personality outshone any external or physical details. My study groups and lab groups were amazingly diverse from an external view, but internally we were intellectually very much the same.
However, when I entered the engineering workforce after college, I found myself surrounded by folks just like me: White males. While we made a great team, and they were great to work with, I couldn't help seeing how uniform we were, and I missed the energy and diversity of my groups in school.
As I gained seniority and participated in interview and hiring decisions, I explicitly sought out good candidates who would change our team composition and chemistry. But I failed every time to get such people on our team. It took decades until I saw real change, when government contracts started to mandate diversity goals.
Now I'm seeing the sexual harassment and assault disclosures being made against prominent figures, and the #MeToo Twitter phenomenon. I'm delighted this is happening! But there is a small voice inside me asking if I'm still part of the problem.
Back in my Navy days I was absolutely an instigator of harassment and maybe even assault. My evolution since then has certainly been in the right direction. But is my journey complete? How much further is there for me to go? I've done some soul-searching, and there are indeed areas where I could use some more work.
I've had a deeper realization as well: It is very important for me to always keep asking myself these questions. There will never be a place I can reach where the questions will become irrelevant. They must become part of who I am, how I feel and think, and how I interact with the world.
Equality is not a goal. Elimination of bigotry is not a goal. Ending harassment and assault is not a goal. All of these must be ongoing processes. As we do better, the goals will inevitably move further ahead of where we are.
As they should.
Looking back at high school, being a social recluse I treated everyone pretty much much the same, doing my best to avoid being noticed or giving offense, in particular trying to avoid passing on any of the bullying and teasing behavior I had experienced.
That changed when I enlisted in the US Navy, which at the time (mid 1970's) was challenged on a few key fronts: Recovering from the Vietnam War, and combating racism and drugs. This was also near the start of the new "all-volunteer" US military with the end of the draft in 1973, which resulted in more women being recruited to meet staffing goals.
At the time the Navy had a terrible sexism problem, not solely toward it's own female members. The cultural view of many (most?) male sailors was that females were prey to be pursued and captured as sources of sex.
I bought in to this view as "just another" part of my military socialization process. I told the same dirty jokes and dirty stories, described women using the same pejorative language, but I lacked the predator nature needed to do the corresponding behavior in bars and clubs. Oh, I tried, to be sure. But I failed miserably, always getting shot down as if I were a biplane trying to attack supersonic fighters.
This frustrated me in the extreme. What was I doing wrong? I wasn't ugly or anything, and I had a decent enough (if quiet) personality. After a prolonged time of self-critique, I realized there simply had to be some major clues I was missing, that others possessed but were invisible to me. Despite watching and trying to emulate my more successful peers, I finally gave up trying to be a predator.
My one saving grace was dancing. In high school I realized I could be on the dance floor and have a great time around women with no need to converse (beyond the frightening invitation to dance). When I dropped the predatory goals and simply focused on dancing, things started to change.
By the time I had left the Navy and started college, I had developed some simple rules that allowed me to freely dance without becoming a predator.
- When being told "No" in response to a dance request, take it as merely an answer to a question, and not as personal rejection or social failure. Not only that, take it with a smile, and a "Thanks, maybe later?" response.
- Dancing is about dancing. Don't get grabby on the dance floor. Pay attention to the music and what my partner is doing, and work with that to have fun. In particular, don't dance "sexy" unless she starts it first, and then interpret it as flirting, not as an invitation to mating. When the dance is over, don't join my partner at her table unless explicitly invited to sit down. Say "Thank you" and leave.
- Never say "no" when asked to dance. Not. Ever. It's simply the Golden Rule applied in the dance club. If I want more yeses, I must give no noes. Plus, it's the only way I can truly know I'm following the prior rule, that dancing is about dancing.
These rules spun out a number of smaller behaviors. For example, some women would flash a look of fear when I approached, not wanting to fend off yet another man's aggressive dance request. I'd immediately stop (to respect her space), smile, and wave my arms to silently make the invitation from a distance. This rarely worked, but hopefully it made it clear I wasn't going to intrude where I'm not wanted.
In any group of women going out together, it seems there is always one who will get the fewest invitations to the dance floor, based on nothing more than her appearance. When I saw this happening, I'd always ask if she'd like to join her friends on the dance floor, and I tried my best to make her dance as special as I could, to try to ease the isolation I had known all too well.
This, along with my other dance club rules, eventually earned me a reputation as a good person to dance with, and I started to gain a circle of female friends, all of whom were in my ever-increasing "no predator" zone. A number of these women simply assumed I was gay, which was fine by me: I knew I was hard-wired straight, but I slowly realized I had no need for my external behaviors to overtly broadcast it.
In turn, this led me into the gay community, starting with the gay dance clubs. I was in heaven! You mean it was OK for a guy to get onto the dance floor alone and just dance? And to dance with anyone who wanted to dance, irrespective of any sexual rules or social conventions?
My greatest lessons in gay clubs were off the dance floor. For the first time, I had my butt pinched. I had people drape their arms around me uninvited. There were folks staring openly at my crotch or butt. But I also had men buying me drinks, which would seem great, but I soon realized were the first steps in "buying" their way into bed with me.
Basically, I was being treated just as women are treated.
In my case, it turned out to all be in fun: I never appeared on anyone's gaydar, and I was being teased as the straight guy in a gay club, more of an initiation hazing than real predation. As I made friends, I was sometimes introduced as: "This is Bob, who isn't gay. Yet."
Still, I had to seriously think about what the "right" response was to unwanted advances or intimacy. For me, it was a firm "No" that was free of rejection: I'd implicitly try to get the thought across of: "If you behave with respect, we can be friends."
And that's when I started to realize I was becoming a feminist. And an LGBTQ-ist. At least in social contexts.
But what about professionally? In college, I was fortunate to have classes with awesome people whose brains and personality outshone any external or physical details. My study groups and lab groups were amazingly diverse from an external view, but internally we were intellectually very much the same.
However, when I entered the engineering workforce after college, I found myself surrounded by folks just like me: White males. While we made a great team, and they were great to work with, I couldn't help seeing how uniform we were, and I missed the energy and diversity of my groups in school.
As I gained seniority and participated in interview and hiring decisions, I explicitly sought out good candidates who would change our team composition and chemistry. But I failed every time to get such people on our team. It took decades until I saw real change, when government contracts started to mandate diversity goals.
Now I'm seeing the sexual harassment and assault disclosures being made against prominent figures, and the #MeToo Twitter phenomenon. I'm delighted this is happening! But there is a small voice inside me asking if I'm still part of the problem.
Back in my Navy days I was absolutely an instigator of harassment and maybe even assault. My evolution since then has certainly been in the right direction. But is my journey complete? How much further is there for me to go? I've done some soul-searching, and there are indeed areas where I could use some more work.
I've had a deeper realization as well: It is very important for me to always keep asking myself these questions. There will never be a place I can reach where the questions will become irrelevant. They must become part of who I am, how I feel and think, and how I interact with the world.
Equality is not a goal. Elimination of bigotry is not a goal. Ending harassment and assault is not a goal. All of these must be ongoing processes. As we do better, the goals will inevitably move further ahead of where we are.
As they should.
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