Grasping The Nettle

In a post written yesterday, I found myself happily and gladly advocating the place of women in a given sphere (here, blogging). I am delighted to do that, but I count myself as one who really doesn't care about gender, but rather quality of being. Yes, there are things that I appreciate about women as distinct from men, and vice versa. For me, that is where it ends. In my post, I argued that there is no disparity between male and female bloggers (none that is imposed, or caused, at any rate).

After writing that post (and then defending myself a fair bit elsewhere) it occurred to me that in my defence of my post, I was, de facto, defending men as a whole single group. There has been much written about how much women have been and are discriminated against. Some is right, and some is wrong (from my own perspective as a human being). 

Let me say to all of you reading this, it is bloody hard at times being a man in the church today. 

Why? For the vast majority of us men who support everybody and anybody despite gender, we are still the implicit baddies in every article written on the subject of the discrimination of women. We are disarmed to comment about how we feel for fear of accusation. We daren't match the plethora of women-specific interest groups with men-specific interest groups. The vast majority of men in the church are not the ones who have drafted difficult legislation, marginalised women in the expression of their faith. Yet we are bound and gagged, at grass-roots level. I want to celebrate how it is to be a man in the church, to celebrate what we bring to things. I want to talk about what makes me tick, what floats my boat without fear of a pointing finger (I started writing this blog partly for that reason). Little wonder that men fear church life, or frankly refuse to engage except for being the taxi-driver on a Sunday or the obedient husband or ferrier of kids. Not a million miles away from here, men are sought like rare beasts under the titles 'un-churched' or 'de-churched' - such unhelpful labelling as I could imagine. (For clarity, I should point out that I am speaking about church local as distinct from Church institution - in other words, day-to-day church at community level)

I can hear a chorus building now. "But Cloakey, this is how it has been for women for centuries", and yes, that would be correct, and an appalling truth and one I acknowledge freely. But what have women quite rightly done? They fought past it towards a place of equality which in some ways is not yet fully realised. But part of me wonders if it not 'payback time', a little of our own medicine. Well, at times that is how it feels. 

I acknowledge that some women have cause to feel discrimination, and there are men who for many reasons, some sincere, some misogynistic, seek to maintain a disparity between men and women (and let us not forget the women who hammer those nails too, of which there are plenty). They are a slim minority of men. The rest? Barring a couple of percent of them, they fled (because that is what men do, sadly) for ever. 

So, not all men are bastards. Some of us aren't so bad. Many of us get it wrong at times, but want to get it right all of the time. Yes, some of us even wear black clerical shirts, practice their faith under the banner 'Anglo-Catholic' and find a way to accept women as equals in life and in ministry. Actually, the majority of that group are that way inclined, if the truth were known. And so too, it is the case that most women are not discriminated against in the Church. If you want to be a bishop and you happen to be female, you may make that claim, for example. My experience of being male in church life is that on a Sunday we are the tiny minority, and the other six days of the week. 


(Postscript - This post in no way seeks reduce the pain caused to women through discrimination. I acknowledge is effects at alive in some quarters today. Discrimination of all types, and against anyone is wrong and should be identified and countered by us all)