Mars and Venus ARE just planets, aren't they?

I've noticed a burst of blogging about gender equality lately -- primarily a series (which I haven't had time to read in detail) defending egalitarianism vs. complementarianism at Christian Feminism. My gut reaction at this point is that I'm bored with the whole conversation. It's one of those issues which, as far as I can tell, generates very little interest except within the church. In our society at large, the question (as a matter of principle, not necessarily as it works out in reality) of whether women are of equal worth and should have equal opportunity has pretty well been answered by now.

Then today, I came across this post from Jenny Baker (HT Grace), in which she reviews The Myth of Mars and Venus by Deborah Cameron. (There's also reference to a very good article by Jenny on the supposed feminization of the church, which is worth a read.) The book apparently unmasks a number of myths about male and female communication popularized by John Gray, and then taken up by Christian writers such as John and Stasi Eldridge. Most of these myths have little or no scientific evidence to back them up, but they persist nonetheless because we tend to see what we expect to see -- chatty women; stoic, gadget-obsessed men. Jenny concludes her review:

One of the things that concerns me in this whole debate is that Christian writers, such as John and Stasi Eldredge and those writing about the feminisation of the church, have latched onto these communication myths with little critical analysis and use them to uphold equally pernicious, but now Christianised, myths about men and women that maintain the competitive and divisive status quo and ignore the real issue of power. There’s a need for deep thinking, solid research and informed critique that recognises what we have in common, celebrates our diversity and honours the image of God in women and men.

This issue struck a nerve today because of a conversation I had the other day with my business partner, a man who is about to plunge into matrimonial waters quite late in life. His fiancee desires to feather the nest (a condo my friend has owned for over 20 years) in her particular style, and since we're in the midst of a remodel ourselves, he asked me how hubby and I decide about things like paint and carpet colors. At the moment, such decisions seem a very long way off, and I don't think either of us have given them one bit of attention. But I gamely offered that hubby doesn't seem to care much; so far the decisions along those lines that have had to be made (exterior stucco and roof colors) have been left to me and my mother-in-law. I pointed out that while I have never invested much of my sense of well-being in home decor, it is obviously an important issue to the woman he's about to marry.

That's when he came back with something along the lines of, "Well, we know you aren't a typical woman because you're a programmer and are analytical and logical and not simply ruled by emotions. Not that you aren't a real woman, just not a typical women-are-from-Venus one."

If I had been in the mood to be prickly about it, I could have pointed out the rather backhanded nature of that complement, but I let it pass. Instead, I reminded my friend that there are no hard-and-fast rules in marriage, no stone tablet that says she should cook dinner and you wash dishes. If the color of your walls and carpets are important to her feeling happy and at home in the place, maybe you should pay attention to that. Not because women always get to decide such things, or because they are by nature more emotional, but because you love this particular woman and she cares about it.

But the comment lingers like a pebble in my shoe, just irritating enough. I tried reading the Eldrige's Captivating after an acquaintance raved about it. I couldn't get past the notion that every woman wants to be a princess in some man's heroic fairy tale adventure -- well, that's a bit of a crass summary, but it's what lingers in my memory. I also got the impression that although both John and Stasi have their names on the cover, John was doing most of the talking (and I thought women were the verbal ones). Needless to say, I was pretty much annoyed to the throwing the book across the room level.

In truth, there's a part of me that wonders if my friend's words contain an underlying truth -- if I use the left side of my brain, I'm not a real woman. Well that's a bit of a crass summary, too, but you get the point. It's always been hard for me to articulate emotions; I don't cry on a dime. On the other hand, if you asked me to describe my approach to programming, I'd say it's very intuitive and holistic. I don't generally sit down and break down the pieces logically (just ask my husband, who started out working in software QA and shakes his head at my hacker ways) -- I get a picture of how the problem can be solved and sketch out the overall flow.

The point is, I am a woman who like every other woman on the planet exhibits complexities in real life that defy all stereotypes. I agree with Jenny Baker that the Eldridge's and company perpetuate myths about men and women that are pernicious because they perpetuate the exclusion of half the church from exercising leadership. I think they are pernicious, too, at the level of simple human relationships, because they blind us to the person in front of us because we're so busy fitting them into the stereotype of how males or females are supposed to operate. My friend was so busy casting about for a rule to guide his negotiations with his fiancee that he couldn't see the flesh and blood woman in front of him or hear her tell him, "This is important to me."