Being a Woman

13 comments Written on November 29th, 2016     
Filed under: Testimonies and Stories
img_0223Ellie VerGowe is currently serving as Ministerial Resident for Community Outreach at First Covenant Church on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Ellie enjoys singing at the top of her lungs, being outside and reading a good book on a rainy day with a friend and a cup of tea.

In the weeks following the election I have felt a sinking feeling in my heart…a feeling that I wish weren’t so familiar.

My heart sinks to a familiar place when I hear that so many of my white evangelical sisters and brothers voted for our president-elect. While I love the church I serve (and oh do I love this church I call home!) and I find it to be a place that is working hard to value and respect women in every way, I have found various Christian spaces to be places where myself, my body, mind and thoughts are not fully welcomed in the female form they are in. My body and clothes are commented on and prioritized over the words of my sermons over the years. My marital status causes some to question my ability to serve in a church because some subconsciously believe my worth and what I can offer the world is defined by my relation to a man.

My heart sinks to its familiar place because I have experienced a lot of harassment on my way to work and to school throughout my life. It has little to do with the way I look and much more to do with my gender…I could wear a snowsuit covering my entire body and be catcalled (this has happened). I have been yelled at, grabbed, followed home and my only thought in those moments is to get to my destination safely, no matter the inner revulsion I feel at having to ignore the men who harass me. I want to defend myself and speak truth, but sometimes I must keep the peace to keep my life. I am certainly not alone in these stories…every woman I know has stories, and most of them are more painful than my own.

These are only a few difficult examples of what it means to be a woman in American society… and I while I had hope for a woman president, I wasn’t surprised that it has not yet come to pass. When a woman is grabbed and harassed even in places of worship, I knew a woman couldn’t be trusted by the powerful to lead this country. Even a wealthy, white woman like Hillary Clinton is too subversive and threatening to the powers that be.

We have a new president-elect that causes many women in our churches to feel afraid and even more inferior they they did before. So, my dear brothers and sisters…my friends in the Church (regardless of who you may have voted for)…what does God call us to do when someone in our midst feels alone and afraid? What does scripture tell us to do when one member of the body mourns? What do we do when we see injustice?

We need all people in the body of Christ to do justice for those in our midst who identify as women and girls. Perhaps your church could work to develop young women leaders in your congregation. You can find hymns and songs to sing in worship of our Creator that use inclusive language. You can make sure women around you are heard and you can refuse to interrupt them whose voices have been suppressed. You can call out harassment when you see it and make sure no man in your life ever catcalls a woman. You can listen to women’s experiences and refuse to blame them for the ways they experience sexism. You can read articles by women and seek to learn from their words, even if at first they don’t make sense to you because your story is different.

This may be a post on a blog on Biblical gender equality, but we have a lot more than gender to talk about too. White women like myself are threatened far less by our president-elect than many women of color are…or many immigrants…or many Muslims. I cannot speak for others, but I believe that the present and future witness of the Church depends on how we respond to the current climate through our treatment and valuing of all people created in God’s image, be they women, people of color, Muslims, people in the LGBTQ community, disabled persons, or any other vulnerable populations who have been targeted. This must be our priority. Our (mainly white) brothers and sisters…or perhaps we ourselves…voted unabashedly to elect a man who chooses white supremacists to work in his office, calls entire groups of people rapists, assaults women and openly mocks disabled people on national TV…to name only a few things we’ve all seen and heard. We cannot normalize this hateful behavior (before or after the election). The world knows Christians are called to love and work for justice and mercy. Let us not disappoint again and turn our faces away as this man’s administration continues to harass people and allows followers to do the same.

Please. Don’t let us down. Church: let’s do this together. Our hearts are crying out for it. May our witness be just, courageous, true and always full of love.

 

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13 comments “Being a Woman”

Thanks for your post, Ellie. Your candid sharing as powerful as many levels. God speed the day when these experiences and feelings will be memories.

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Oops. Is powerful on many levels.

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Let it be so! And thanks for reading.

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Thank you for this thoughtful piece. You have articulated a lot of my own thoughts and fears. Praying for all Christians to have the courage to live as you have described. Blessings!

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Blessings to you as well, Gail. I am always so grateful and encouraged to read what is going on at the Junia Project! 

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please be my pastor.

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And this coming from the woman who gives me all the best reading material and music that refreshes my soul.
Only if you’re my pastor! Love you Mary! 

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I completely understand that sinking feeling of learning that those whose opinions we thought, by virtue of a common and deep faith, might mirror my own.  In my immediate family, all of us all voted, or didn’t vote, very differently but,for the most part, for less different reasons.  The one thing we all did agree on was that there were no viable good presidential choice in this election.  (We also mostly agreed that we would rather have all had opportunity to vote vote for someone like Condelisa Rice or Abraham Lincoln.)  I get sad when voter blocks are so blanketly defined by race, gender, and  religion, especially when these are misunderstood and caricaturized.  One evangelical woman I know said she cried when she heard the election results.  When asked how she would have responded if they had been different, she realized she also would also have cried. A father of many precious daughters could not vote for Trump, while his wife and their mother, could not vote for Clinton.  Our pastor asked us (and his daughters) to seek to have a respectful re-election onversation with someone who voted differently about why they voted as they did.  Our evangelical/traditional church blend was probably as split in the voting booths as was the country, but most of us get along and respect each other’s thoughtful, Christ-honoring decisions, (even when a black female is the  most outspoken conservative and the white male is the  most outspoken liberal.) We kneel together at the foot of the cross and are grateful for that opportunity.  I hope it encourages you to know that, in my world, a vote for Trump was rarely an endorsement of his vulgar and harmful words and behavior,  just as a vote for Clinton was not a vote for black-baby genocide.  Deep heart issues, motivated by love, propelled each of us to vote, or thoughtfully abstain.

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Hi Debi, Thanks for reading and engaging! I truly appreciate hearing your thoughts.
I also have a number of people in my life who I love who voted for our president-elect. I know that not everyone who voted for Trump agrees with his character or words or actions (or proposed policies)…people are complex, but I do think we can’t get away from the real consequences many dear people may suffer with his election (and already are through the hate crimes happening…some in my own city and neighborhood). We also can’t get away from the perception that this gives to people. Many people I know feel like Christians must hate them if they voted for someone who mocks and proposes violence against them. I have heard from so many in my life that it feels like a breaking of trust (if they had trust in churches to begin with). While I don’t believe Clinton is everything, I myself feel abandoned by so many of my brothers and sisters in the evangelical church as a whole as a woman. 
Again, thank you so much for your comment, Debi. If you want to keep up the dialogue, I would whole-heartedly receive it…and you’re welcome to find me on my church page too if you wish! Peace to you. 

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Thanks Ellie for the all too common negative experiences that women have had to endure. I am so tired of the conversation that we had two negative candidates for president and so we chose the lesser of two poor choices. As followers of Christ we actually chose these two candidates because we didn’t exercise our vote earlier during the primaries when nominees are chosen. This is when we all had the opportunity to move justice forward. But it is not the country’s choice that is so disappointing, which is the point of your post. It is the response of the church that has left so many wounded. Thanks for sitting in this place of lament.

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Agreed, Rev. Gilliard. And yes, speaking from my own community, the response of the evangelical Church as a whole has left so many in my wounded and without any trust that the people of God are who they are called to be. So we lament! And work again! 
I am grateful for you and your words! 

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oops. Should read “so many in my community wounded”

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Very well written Ellie! You have expressed my thoughts far better than I ever could.

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