THE GENDER ISSUE: HOW WE AS WOMEN SEE OURSELVES (INCLUDES 7 ACTION STEPS) (ISSUE 68)

By Diane Gold

The gender issue is alive and well all over the world. There are many sides to it and hurdles we can turn to our advantage. I just read in Wikipedia,

“Professional women are still responsible for domestic labor and child care.”

I just sent an email to wikipedia.org that it is supposed to read,

“Often, even in 2013, professional women take responsibility upon themselves for domestic labor and child care, even though they work. They fail to create shared effort with their partners who may fail to see or correct the imbalance of duties. ”

This example, from a 2013-edited open source reference tool. used 2500 times per second for a total of 7 billion visits per month, gives us a clear understanding of how misconceptions, falsities, mistakes are spread.

In general, would someone born in 1970 or before describe women as sensitive, soft and knowledgeable about design, clothing and fashion?

In general, would someone born in 1970 or before describe men as strong, mechanical and able to cope with life’s decisions?

These descriptions are examples of stereotypes created about gender. The children of the people born in 1970 heard these stereotypes and saw many of their parents living them. Stereotypes can ruin lives if we cling to them and let them take over. We can all use a dose of the age old philosophy,

“If it doesn’t apply, let it fly,”

but, what’s tough about this one is that many of us may be confused as to whether a stereotype applies, and this confusion can drag us down.

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, author of Lean In, writes about how women are still not equal and how women may be holding themselves back.
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When we buy into The Gender Issue, meaning we believe we are inferior or we don’t get educated because we just want children and marriage or we believe stereotypes that feel wrong to us, this holds us back.

OVERCOMPENSATION

As a direct result of our having been deemed the weaker sex in the past, women may act with cold, ruthless and inflexible behaviors. If we react because of a perceived vulnerable reputation, we’re living someone else’s perception. If we become strong, capable achievers, we will change old thinking. As the decades pass.

To compensate for our diminished status, we may also train in self-defense and become the best fighters of our time, just to get rid of our self-doubt. However, if the doubt was there to begin with, it will be there now. What won’t be there is the insecurity that comes without personal protection skills. So this, in itself, is invaluable.

PERSONAL PROTECTION TRAINING

Because our families may have bought into the gender issue; we women may not have learned boxing, martial arts, how to stand up for our physical selves. We may be walking around lacking personal protection training with that shaky inner feeling of slight anxiety. This emotion is not gender specific, although many favor the old gender specific attitudes; this insecurity shows up in anyone who has not been trained in strength training, meditation and some type of combat. A big oversight in our school and parenting systems leaves this out. This deprivation of training causes much stress that exists in anyone who has ever been confronted by a bully, a demanding significant other or an authority figure.

THE DRILL SERGEANT LED BY OUR SELF-IMAGE

We all have internal drill sergeants. We drive ourselves to mold our self-images. If we are women whose parents, teachers, neighbor gangs, local bullies, heritage, culture have drilled into us that we don’t need personal protection techniques or to take care of our own safety; we may have been led to believe in ourselves as weak by picking up the attitudes of others with “gender issues.”

It is most appropriate for every one of us to learn how to protect ourselves: girl, boy, woman, man. As they say, knowledge is power. When we are well trained, we doubt ourselves less, maintain awareness of what’s around the corner and are more prepared to interpret and successfully meet physical contact and body language of others.

This holds especially true of those who did not fit into the formula of “girls play with dolls and don’t fight; boys play with guns and fight” of the past.
Going to school for self-protection opens up a world of relaxation and confidence.

One wonders why personal safety training has not been added to “the” required school curriculum beginning in elementary school. This type of training is basic to our ability to build a strong emotional and physical foundation. How could it be left out? It also tempers the spirit so that violence is met with temperance. Go figure.

DRESS

Whether we wear a veil to cover our heads with long sleeves and floor length shirt or we wear very short shorts and a low cut T-shirt; the way we dress makes an impression on others and on ourselves. The way we dress affects how we feel about ourselves, and it is important to consider this well.

We are not objects to be gawked at dressing for the pleasure of others. We are brilliant beings who can choose the way we look and feel in a world we are involved in changing. If we choose to dress for others, that’s great. As long as it soothes, rather than inflames, our nature.

It’s easy to forget we dress for ourselves, especially if the company we keep dictates our wardrobe. When someone else controls us, we can get lost and forget we are not someone else’s image of us, only our own.

The same occurs for anyone who doesn’t fit into the “frills are for girls, football is for boys” convention.

So what can we do to insure that we nurture ourselves and support who we are?

ACTION STEPS

1) Take a few minutes to go over how you feel on certain issues, either digitally or with pad and pen.

2) Write down one of these words per line, leaving white space after each for writing:
confidence, personal safety, gender fitting in, being an example

3) For confidence: rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being high.

4) For personal safety, rate how safe you feel on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being high.

5) For fitting in, rate how well you fit into the gender situation you have established for yourself with the same rating scale.

6) For being an example, rate how well you set an example to exemplify your perception of a woman.

Here comes the real fun!

7) Pick 1 of your scores and talk to yourself about it. The action step is to figure out a way to bring it up by 1 scale number within the next month.
Here’s how:

For confidence: tell yourself,
“I am super fantastic,”
3X while looking at yourself in the mirror every morning for a month. Don’t forget to laugh and smile. If you haven’t seen this video, take a look: youtube.com/watch?v=qR3rK0kZFkg

For personal safety: from now on, talk with your hands by always having your hands a foot in front of you as if you were holding the front of a beach ball – so that no one can come closer than that to you, unless you choose it. This is a simple way to start thinking about the space around you and how to maintain it.

For gender fitting in: find a group of anonymous buddies online by typing in your issue. Start reading how other people feel and deal. Jump in if it moves you. If identity is an issue, 1-888-843-4564 is the help line at glnh.org.

For being an example: to upgrade the way you are a good example, write down what you would like your daughter to learn about being a woman, getting a job, being a partner, facing prejudice. Talk with a friend about 1 of them. Or, if you have a daughter, focus on discussing 1 of these items with her.

CONCLUSION

Sometimes we see ourselves through others’ eyes. We look past the goodness that we are and hear the worst things people have said to us based on our womanhood, such as,

“You’re only a woman,” “you’re not worthwhile,” “there’s no need for you to get an education.”

We remember the impressions from our childhood, the good, the bad, especially the ugly. There are many we haven’t even actualized into words. They form us, though.

Therefore, we need to put new impressions onto ourselves, those that spell out the way we are and aspire to, the way we want to be treated, the way we want others to see us. Through discussion with others, through fortifying ourselves with protection training, support groups, personal work and gratitude; we can better our own lives and be part of moving the gender issue to change.

FEEDBACK

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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition.

She believes we all can pay a little more attention to the gender issue. She says,

“If we are women, we can take a good close look at remnants of old ideas that may be floating around in our head and motivating us. If we are men, we can consider what is fair and just in the world and how we would feel should we be belittled.

“We can all be more aware of diminishing stereotypes as well as how stereotypes diminish us. This reflection will help us in every way.”

MOTHERHOOD: 5 COMMON MISTAKES, (2 SEEN IN TYLER PERRY’S GOOD DEEDS)
(Issue 33)

By Diane Gold

The nurturing qualities of Motherhood are resident in all of us, whether we are male or female, whether we have our own children or whether we know this feeling from supporting friends, loved ones, students, elders, juniors, or even, ourselves. It is a vast combination of traits including these that we utilize throughout our lives. They are inherent in us, some more than others. Therefore, whether we actually have children or whether we are supportive of those around us, motherhood is universal. Plus, everyone has a mother.

Let’s talk about actual mothers and how, except in extremely rare cases, we all want our daughters to thrive. We make sacrifices for their comfort, and we put them first. And, speaking personally, the privilege of motherhood is unfathomably great, and those of us in the position are uber fortunate.

In tough times, it seems, when we are out of money, love, support, time, companionship, stability, nourishment, partnership; it turns out that good mothers can become controlling, desperate, belligerent, overcome, high-strung, unbalanced, even abusive. The very daughter we love more than anything in the world, the one for whom we set out to provide food, shelter, comfort and protection becomes the one who gets the brunt of our frustration.

Our daughters are deeply affected by our actions and attitude. They know it when we cherish them above all else, and they know when we are led astray.

Just the other evening, I saw Tyler Perry’s movie, Good Deeds. Two of the characters are moms, one, an unmarried janitor and mom of a 6-year-old, newly evicted from her apartment, who is at her wit’s end needing to hide her homelessness from children’s services. The other mom, who married into wealth, expects her Ivy League son’s behavior to mirror the stereotypical Ivy League country club lifestyle. The fact that the boundaries placed on him removes his spontaneity is lost to her. The fact that he is the good son who does what others expect of him at the expense of himself is not on her radar.

Both these moms truly want the best for their children but have lost sight of what is right as they get caught up in various issues that make us human. In one case poverty, in the other case, riches, blind both moms from seeing the effect their actions have on their children.

The reason I bring up this movie is that it portrays certain mistakes we make as moms that, if we heard others talk about, we would click our tongues against our teeth in disgust and say,

“Doesn’t she know better?”

Even though we might cruise by either of these scenarios at some point.

The truth is we all do our best, or what we see as best at the time. We are not machines, and hindsight is 20/20.

THE MISTAKES
1) STRUCTURE

a) TOO MUCH
It is easy to understand how we want to protect our daughters. There are many stories about moms who keep a very tight rein on their daughters. In some countries, daughters are chaperoned until the day they get married.

What this can cause is the inability for our daughter to make personal decisions for herself since someone has always made them for her.

b) NOT ENOUGH
So many daughters run their moms. We see this more in Western society as many moms want to give their daughters the freedom they didn’t have or want companions who like them rather than daughters who need guidance.

This lack of discipline does not offer daughters the experience of understanding the importance of boundaries and may impair decision making abilities.

2) DAUGHTER RESPONSIBILITIES

In order to prepare our daughters for school, business, government involvement, community; we are supposed to give them life internships. They need to take care of their everyday living in  ways that will develop their independence.

Whether we assign our daughters chores at 3, 5, 7, 9 or 11; we are doing a good thing. Sometimes, because we want to be in a higher class than we were raised, we don’t dole out chores. Other times, in order to create infrastructure for the future of our daughters or because we were raised to let children be children and never had a chore; we burden them with too much.

3) GIVING TOO MUCH ATTENTION TO A SPOUSE AT THE EXPENSE OF OUR DAUGHTERS

As sorry as I am to admit, I gave too much time to the needs of my live-in male partner which gave too little consideration for the needs of my daughter. Fortunately for her, my ex-husband, her father, with whom she lived most of the time, ALWAYS kept perspective on time spent with her.

This behavior is one of the worst things I have ever done in my life.

It was not like the time I left my daughter sleeping in her carseat, locked in the car, in the bank parking lot when I went into the suburban bank in New York, and forgot she was there for 2 minutes. Back then, I thought that was the worst thing I had done, but it wasn’t intentional, and everything was OK. No, the behavior I am talking about was deliberately spending time with the man of the house when I should have been reading a good night story to my daughter.

I will speak more on this in my book URGES when it is finished.

There is no use in regret, and it’s usually freeing to acknowledge our actions. I am working on self-forgiveness in this department and think my daughter forgives me, too. But behavior such as this leaves lasting impact on our daughters.

4) GENDER STEREOTYPES

In modern society, the role of our daughter is not as cut and dry as it was 100 years ago. It is common knowledge that our daughters will be gurus, CEOs, single by choice, President or all of the above.

Each family has its own way of discussing what is expected. There is much evidence that we, as mothers, must be sensitive to the dreams of our daughter so that she feels comfortable to flourish in her own way, not ours.

5) REACHING OUT

Often times, we, as moms, don’t reach out in our own crisis. (Can you hear the SuperMom music?) We are often ready to lend a hand, but we work on handling our burdens ourselves. This runs the gamut from working on some emotional problem, the dire circumstances surrounding just having been evicted (as in Tyler Perry’s movie) or what to do with our problems with our daughter.

We want to teach our daughters how important it is to reach out, trust others, deserve comfort. We must do this by example.

CONCLUSION

There is a fine line between how much is too much or how little is too little. As mentioned before, we do what we think is best at the time. We also do what we can. If we have an emotionally healthy relationship, we can confer with our partner and flesh out mistakes before they happen. If we go it alone, our days are probably very busy making one plus one equal two.

The rules of motherhood cannot be written down because there are human dynamics in every situation. If the book says to give our daughters enough freedom so that they will feel relaxed enough to confide in us, the book cannot force this confidence and it cannot frame the freedom we allow.

If our circumstances are falling apart and we forget to consider our daughters carefully enough, disaster might strike.

If we are too involved in impressing our fellow Senators at a dinner, and we forget to structure life for our daughters carefully enough, we could be as negatively impacted as the previous example.

Do we give up when we make a mistake? No. We work at becoming better, stronger, more forgiving and more humble. When we look back, it seems impossible that we could have made such poor choices. We go on.

We do our best in motherhood. It’s important to keep our training wheels on, even if we think we are masters. We can usually become better equipped, even though our grandmothers’ way has much merit.

With new technology and environment, we have new circumstances into which to become sensitive. We can create second lives in virtual realities; we carry extra body weight; we stop eating the usual way and have not enough body weight and a whole lot more issues that are common to the past 25 years.

As our humanity evolves, we must be aware of what our daughters are exposed to. This might affect our mothering. We can never become too experienced and there is always something to learn. And hopefully, we will learn from our mistakes.

FEEDBACK

We welcome your comments below.
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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert and a dedicated mom. She has made many mistakes as a mom, and works to understand what methods can help others avoid the same ones. She says,

“By sharing with each other, we get a chance to purge ourselves. We also get the opportunity to help someone else who might see the light through our mistakes. This is also a path on the road to forgiving ourselves.”