HIGH HEELS AND THE "V" WORD

HIGH HEELS AND THE “V” WORD

            According to an AP article this morning, today the British Parliament is debating a proposed ban on a corporate dress code that requires that women wear high heels to work.  Although British law forbids companies from discriminating against women, practices such as this fashion requirement are commonplace.  As we begin Women’s History Month, I am reminded of the “power of the prince of the air,” the title of last week’s blog.  That stark metaphor from Ephesians 2:2 is a proclamation of the depth of captivity in all of us in regard to these communal standards and expectations that men are superior, that white people are superior, that money is the center of life, that people who love people of the same gender are a distortion, and many others such as these – the list seems endless. 

             I am a white, straight, comfortable male, and thus I have many captivities.  Thanks to many women and men who have engaged me and challenged me and loved me, I am at least aware of some of the depth of captivity in my own self and in the larger world.  In regard to race, my friend David Billings calls it IRS (Internalized Racial Superiority) in his fine book “Deep Denial.”  In Women’s History Month, perhaps we should call it IMS (Internalized Male Superiority).  From the image of the “power of the prince of the air,” it is not only “superiority” that is part of the issue – there is also the inferiority that is breathed in by the people whom society wants to oppress and suppress.  In regard to gender, perhaps we should call it IFI (“Internalized Female Inferiority’), and this intersection of IFI and IMS is part of the root of Women’s History Month.  The first demonstration organized around Women’s History Month was in New York in 1909, in celebration of the International Ladies Garment Workers Strike of 1908.  In 1977 the United States General Assembly adopted the resolution, and it began in earnest.

            I was thinking about a lot of these issues as Caroline and I went up to Athens, Georgia, two weeks ago to see one of our friends and church members Bemene Baadom-Piaro, act in Eve Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues,” sponsored by Project Safe in Athens. Project Safe is an organization working to end domestic violence.  Though I had seen sketches from “Vagina Monologues,” I had never seen the play in its entirety.  I was struck by many things in the play.  First was its adaptability – it seems to be more a work in progress rather than a play set once and for all.  In its earlier form, it seemed to speak only about white women, but the production that we saw in Athens had a diverse cast and flavor, and indeed there were two interpretive pieces written and performed by two of those diverse cast members in the play.  What engaged me in the play, overwhelmingly, was the refusal of the women to adopt IFI.  There was a direct engagement of the “V” word, of vagina, and of women reclaiming their bodies and their selves from the oppressive structures of males.  It was a strong celebration of women and their selves as “embodied spirits.”  They even sought to get the audience to appropriate the “C” word for vagina in a positive way, but I only heard a few call it out when the cast asked us to do so – just too much negative stuff attached to the “C” word, especially in light of the Presidency of one of the most blatant misogynists.

            As we start Women’s History Month, with Women’s Day on March 8, let us all, especially we males, examine the many places where our hearts and imaginations are captured by the power of the prince of the air in regard to the humanity and equality of women as human beings.  All of us males suffer from captivity to Internalized Male Superiority (IMS), and we are asked to come to recognition of that captivity and to seek to move towards liberation.  Let all of us celebrate the greatness and power of women and to help those women who suffer from IFI to begin to find their voice.  I’ll continue on this next week, but for now I give thanks for those women who have engaged me and helped me to begin to find some liberation.

            There are many places to read about these issues - I'd suggest my
friend Marcia Mount Shoop's book "Let The Bones Dance" as an entry
point.  For an interesting intersection of high heels, gender, and race, read the book “Hidden Figures,” by Margot Lee Shetterly, upon which the movie is based.