Epiphany from Guyville

I found the article on Liz Phair (LA Times, 6/22/08 , "Liz Phair's Ambivalent Return to 'Guyville'") fascinating for a variety of reasons. It recounts the reaction many women did and still have to that seminal post-feminist record, but also the backlash and accusations toward Phair since then, in many cases by those same women, for "selling out" and desiring more pop and mainstream exposure. Equally riveting is Phair's own assessment fifteen years later, adding that when she listens to "Guyville" now, "My heart goes out to the person I was."

But there was a comment written by Times Pop Music Critic Ann Powers (who wrote the story) that in particular caught my attention, an epiphany of sorts, about how I see, and how I see Epic.

Powers writes, "What Phair and the rest of the world didn't expect was just how many women would hear "Guyville" and think, hey, I live in a man's world too, and it's a problem. In situations where equality is assumed but men still dominate, women occupy a strange space between the center and the margins. They can express opinions, but they're not dictating the terms of the conversation."

I'm not so dense or blind to realize that it is a man's world still, and that is a problem. What struck me is that even in a community like Epic where we are trying to remedy gender inequality both internally and in the world at large, I had still missed something important. Though unconscious of it, I realized that I was mostly giving women what is akin to expressing their opinions. And to be fair, I do really want to know what they are thinking and feeling. But that is still a far cry from making space for and encouraging women to dictate, inform, and influence what we talk about (our agenda) and how we decide to talk about it (the process).

There's no doubt that there is much inequality at Epic and men still dominate (the illusion of equality is not assumed here), but I thought we were also making some headway. But this quote made me step back and reassess, at least as far as this was concerned. For all my so-called progressive thinking and sensitivity about such things, I feel ashamed that I had fallen so short in this case of valuing and empowering women in our midst. I had failed in letting them be equal partners in showing us the way forward. Somehow I thought giving everyone an opportunity to share their opinion was empowering, and to a degree it is. But I suppose that's part of the problem. It is only a degree, not a shift of power. It is one thing to ask women for their opinion no matter how sincere, quite another to allow them to dictate the content of conversations and determine the way we should have them.

This was not for a lack of want, I don't believe, on my part. But I had functioned with a sizeable piece missing (some may say it's my brain!) from my viewpoint and pragmatism. In that way, the article has changed the way I'm beginning to see, and hopefully, act, too.

I'm not there yet, but I've begun to quote Ann Power's comments to women and asking them to share with me how true that viewpoint is or is not from their experience. And I've enjoyed every minute listening to their stories, their reflections, their feedback, their suggestions. I've begun encouraging women to suggest to us what it is they think we should be talking about and how exactly we should go about having those discussions.

As I think about our church board and our community as a whole, I have a feeling that there is a good probability that we would talk about different things at Epic and talk about those things differently if women determined too what it is we should be discussing and the best way(s) to have those discussions. I have a hunch that the women would produce a different kind of agenda. And then maybe we'd also be a different and better kind of church community because of it. And maybe, just maybe, at least here at Epic, our man's world would be less a man's world and more equally a woman's world, and we would all be the better for it.

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