Whatever you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done to me.
Whatever you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done to me.
Whatever you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done to me.
Whatever you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done to me.
Whatever you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done to me.
Whatever you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done to me.
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I just wonder if all this talk about safe has any meaning.
A couple of weeks ago, I was at a conference and in every hallway was a hand sanitizer dispenser with the tagline “clean hands are safe hands!”
It got me thinking about the word “safe”.
I was listening to an Instagram story where the woman was leading her viewers in an embodiment exercise. In the talk, she invited the viewers to feel a certain thing in their bodies, then added, “if that feels safe for you.”
It got me thinking about the word “safe.”
The word safe is everywhere.
There are safe words, safe spaces, safe people, safe rooms, safe sex, radio stations that are “safe for the whole family.”
I grew up in Canada in the seventies. When I was a kid, I just don’t remember the word safe being everywhere. I mean, we talked about safety first, but that was in terms of hand signals when we rode our bikes all over town and looking both ways before you crossed the street. It was nice that we didn’t talk about being safe – we just felt safe.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that this feeling of safety we had, was just that – a feeling. Kids were still abducted, women were assaulted, crimes were committed. In fact, there was probably less actual safety than there is now. More bullying, more violence enacted upon LGBTQ+ groups, more hateful speech that went unaddressed and even unnoticed. For that matter, we didn’t even wear seatbelts!
But, I still wonder if, even though we are perhaps more safe now than then, the more we talk about being safe, the less safe we feel.
I mean, I didn’t think about the germs on my hands until the dispenser reminded me that my unsanitized hands were unsafe. I like to think I’m not a germaphobe and I don’t care about the safety of my hands, but the truth is, I stuck them under the spout and de-germed them just about every time I passed one of those dispensers.
I thought about the Instagram lady and wondered about her choice of words “if that feels safe for you”. It struck me as odd. I was expecting, “if that feels comfortable for you.” ---- but not safe.
If a feeling in my own body is unsafe, what does that mean for me? That I am unsafe and a danger to myself? That my emotional and physical responses are unsafe? This seems like a set up for me to be living with a perpetrator of sorts every moment of every day – me.
I just wonder if all this talk about safe has any meaning.
Are we really safe?
Were my hands safe after the sanitizer? Could I still touch something and pick up a nasty virus?
Are safe spaces safe?
And what is a safe person? Obviously, persons who assault us, rape us, abuse us or otherwise harm us are unsafe. But is a person who says something we don’t want to hear unsafe? Is a person who hurts our feelings unsafe? Is a person who leaves us unsafe?
I mean, is there such a thing as a safe person? A person who won’t ever hurt us?
Are safe people actually safe?
See, the thing about safe is …. it just doesn’t exist - no matter how we might try to protect ourselves from the dangers out there, the people who might hurt us, the germs, the words, the feelings, the drunk drivers, the deranged criminals, the list goes on and on.
So sure, we should work to make the world a better place. A place where there is less assault, less crime, less harm.
But, maybe the word “safe” to describe this world just creates a false expectation.
Because….
We’re just not safe.
And it seems to me the more we talk about safe, the less safe we feel.
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"Why don't girls just ask for help?"
I was speaking to Will. Will is a 23 year old college student. He's a nice looking kid, sensitive, intelligent, well spoken and artistic. Will said, "I don’t understand why girls don’t just ask me for help if they feel afraid. Like if they are afraid to walk to their car at night when leaving a bar, why don’t those women just ask a guy to escort them? I would be more than happy to make sure a girl gets to her car safely. It makes me sad for them that they are afraid of all men. I mean, most guys are good guys and, like me they would be happy to help out. It upsets me to be lumped in with the creeps."
I agreed with Will; most guys are good guys and they would be happy to help. But I explained to Will that there’s just no way a woman can ever know who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. I was married to a guy for almost eighteen years who I thought was one kind of guy and it turned out he was another. Statistically, women are more likely to be assaulted by someone they know than by a stranger. Dads assault their daughters, uncles assault their nieces, boyfriends rape their girlfriends, neighbors rape their neighbors. I asked Will how a woman is supposed to assess which guy to ask for help? If she can’t even trust her father, or her husband to keep her safe – then who?
Statistically, one in five women has been the victim of attempted or completed rape in their lifetime, and nearly 1 in 2 have experienced sexual violence other than rape in their lifetime (rrsonline.org)
Will, imagine you were up against those statistics. Imagine you were in a bar full of men and you knew your odds were 1 in 2 for being attacked. You know that in that bar, almost all the guys are good guys. How do you spin those odds? Who do you trust in that bar? How do you choose?
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"We expect and demand that women be patient, nurturing, forgiving, healing, self-effacing and self-sacrificing. Women are expected to be nonviolent in a violent male society"
In Richard Rohr’s book “Simplicity” he writes:
“In the patriarchal view (1) all relationships are eventually defined in terms of superiority and inferiority, and (2) the all-important need for order and control is assured by the exercise of dominative power…..(this) has served to dehumanize and therefore despiritualize generations of races, nations, professions, women, sexual minorities, handicapped people, the weak and the elderly whom the powerful are able to disparage culturally and dismiss as being of no account. Not only are the rich and powerful able to project their own darkness onto such groups, but the group normally accept that darkness as their true value. “
Historically, in many ways, women have been blamed for and have often accepted the responsibility for sexual dominance, control and abuse at the hands of men.
More from Rohr:
“without success (by his own definition) and control, the patriarch does not know who he is….such a life would not be worth living. The language of patriarchy is always a noble or macho language of patriotism and freedom. Men and their female echoes are always speaking it”
“Jesus would never have broken through (patriarchy)…if he had acted non-violently in a feminine body. ..because we expect and demand that women be patient, nurturing, forgiving, healing, self-effacing and self-sacrificing. Women are expected to be nonviolent in a violent male society… but we are still not prepared for males or institutions or nations to act nonviolently. That is why god had to become incarnate for us in the body of a man. “
If men can blame women for and project their sexual impulses upon women, and women accept this blame/projection , then men need never come to terms with their sexual impulses and desires.
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Why don’t girls just tell guys to fuck off?
It had to happen.
I had to talk about women and sexual assault/ harassment. There's so much to be said and it's hard to know where to begin so this will be a multi-part post. These are all just things I've thought about or things that have made me think. They are based on conversations I've had with men, with women, podcasts I've listened to, echoes of my past, and books I've read. Names have been changed
#1 Why don’t girls just tell guys to fuck off?
Jim is a single, never-been-married, no kids guy. Jim is artistic and free-spirited. He is progressive on most social issues. He votes democrat and is pretty passionate politically. He's nice looking, athletic, and popular with the ladies. Jim and I had a long conversation about all the celebrities that were being outed. Part of what Jim said was the following:
"I just don’t get it. When I was in college, and we were out at the bars, I would grab girl’s asses. They liked it. Usually, if I grabbed a girl’s ass, we would end up making out. Lots of times she would go home with me. I don’t get why, if a girl doesn’t like it she doesn’t just tell the guy to fuck off."
My reply was this, "Jim, imagine you are in a bar, and a guy who outweighs you by 100 pounds grabs your ass. You know your odds of being sexually assaulted is 1 in 2. Do you take the risk that this guy is or is not the type of guy that would assault you? Do you risk pissing this guy off? Do you take the risk he might follow you out to your car later and assault you because you’ve pissed him off? Do you tell this guy to fuck off?"
Jim actually said yes to my question which I found interesting. My daughters would probably tell the guy to fuck off too. More power to them....but I wouldn’t.
I just ignore the guy.
Some girls smile to try to avoid provoking the guy.
Apparently, according to Jim's account of his college days, some girls end up making out with the ass-grabber. I suspect these are girls who had been admiring Jim for a while and hoping to get noticed. Who knows? I can’t speak for them, but I tried to explain to Jim that culture has shifted. Just because things were once ignored, or even accepted, doesn’t mean they should continue to be. We can think of a million examples of this: folks didn’t used to think anything of a man hitting his wife, or of separate drinking fountains for persons of color. We used to have laws against birth control, and we didn’t have laws against drunk driving. You get the point. Culture evolves and changes, often for the better. Grabbing someone’s ass without their consent just isn’t OK. It never was, but many just weren’t tuned into it. Sure, we should have been responding with a “fuck-off” all along. But we didn’t and many times we still don’t. And fundamentally, it's not the responsibility of the victim to correct the problem.
Because we are still afraid.
It made me think of my dog Clyde. The other day he was sniffing and smelling at his dog-buddy Bert’s dog bed and then humping it. You see, Bert used to let Clyde hump him all the time. I have no idea if Bert allowed the humping because Bert thought it was good fun, or if it was because Bert was afraid of Clyde. Clyde is a 110 lb dog. He outweighs Bert by 40 pounds and is pretty intimidating. Clyde has always been the alpha and Bert has always submitted. But sometime during the past year, Bert has decided he’s had enough. When Clyde tries to hump him, Bert goes ape crazy. In his dog-way, Bert is telling Clyde to just fuck off. Poor Clyde is understandably confused. Bert always seemed to like the humping-play before. It was all in good fun from Clyde’s perspective. And now things have changed and Clyde has accepted that. Bert has stopped giving his consent. So now, Clyde just humps the bed.
Post script: I was talking to my daughter the other night about this post. She told me this story. She was walking down the street one day and the wind caught her skirt. A guy on the street saw it and walked past her and told her that was "hot" or "sexy" or something like that. Ordinarily, she will tell a guy to fuck off. My daughters are feisty. But she didn't. She froze. I asked her why. She said it was because she actually felt threatened that day on that street by that guy. She said that usually when she tells someone to fuck off, she feels safe to do so. She is surrounded by people, in public or similar. In this situation she was alone...... and felt threatened.
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An acquaintance of mine recently remarked on the fact that he was having difficulty approaching a conversation with some family members who were concerned about the direction his life was taking. They were “praying for him”. He was put off by their “Christianese” (as he called it). To him, it didn’t feel like a comforting or caring sentiment, but more like an accusation.
These family members may have intended their sentiment “I’ll be praying for you” to sound sweet and caring. But it felt like an affront. It felt condescending and exclusionary. I know nothing about their intent, maybe they truly loved and cared for him, maybe they felt superior and self-righteous. Who knows? They obviously felt he needed praying-for, which led him to feel judged, not loved. “I’ll be praying for you” did not express caring as they may have hoped, but rather it set up an “us” vs. “you” dynamic.
I think this was in part due to the “Christianese”.
The jargon.
Jargon very quickly and naturally becomes a part of the persona we develop without even thinking about it.
Jargon does two things:
It binds together. It identifies us as a group. We all speak this way/use this lingo, therefore we are all part of this group.
It separates. You do not speak this way, or understand this lingo, therefore you are NOT a part of this group.
And because it serves as a means of separating groups, it becomes its own type of violence in communication – regardless of intent.
And whether we admit it or not, that subtle act of violence makes us feel good. It contributes to a sense of belonging, special-ness, or superiority of some type. Perhaps it means we are more spiritual, more hip, more educated, tougher, younger.
It’s power.
We participate in our jargon to demonstrate we are part of the "in group". And we use it to identify who is part of our group and who we can exclude as the "out group"
It’s hard not to slip into your jargon. I kind of love it when one of my Canadian-isms slips out. I like my Canadian past and like being identified with it. It makes me feel unique. I also like to use terms like “PRN” and “QD” when I’m in doctor’s offices, so they will take me more seriously. I hate business jargon, probably because I don’t really identify with my job and don’t want to be identified as one of those “corporate types”. But I work with many who love the corporate jargon. They love to “drill down” and “take a deep dive”. Biologists love to drop an “aptosis” or an “eutrophication” out there. Bible scholars love their exegesis and hermeneutics and philosophers love to discuss epistemological and ontological matters.
Religious jargon
Teen jargon
Academic jargon
Medical jargon
Intellectual jargon
Political jargon
Liberal jargon
Conservative jargon
It builds walls.
If words exist:
to communicate,
to bring people together,
to build bridges…
Then the goal should be to make them as relate-able as possible.
Easily understood.
Inclusive.
Non-violent.
Words matter.
Not only is this true for "those Christians who use that Christianese" but also for intellectuals who use their big words, for adults when they speak to kids, for biologists when they speak to non-biologists, for persons from one country when they speak to persons from another, for doctors when they speak to patients...
Word. ;)
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