#metoo

“It’s not the lips of a prince that will save us, but our own lips speaking.”

—Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds

Over the past year, the victims of sexual assault and harassment were finally given a microphone. Where so many, for so long, were silenced, a collective sigh was felt as finally truths were spoken. Light was cast on not simply one-time offenses, but rather repeated patterns of abuse and misuse. And men who were made gods in our culture, toppled from their pedestals.

Suddenly oblivious men posted on social media that it wasn’t safe to be a man in America. Not realizing women feel unsafe everyday. That even though I can’t fully own the #metoo because to do so would be to downplay my sisters’ (and some brothers’) very real scars, I know what it is to feel unsafe. To experience the common fear of walking out to my car by myself at night. Or of finding myself alone at the gym in our complex with a guy who doesn’t feel safe. And not being sure wether it is better to keep running faster on the treadmill, or to risk leaving and having him follow me. (I wish these were the only examples I have, but they’re not)

No, men don’t understand what this kind of unsafe feels like.

Only this is not the injustice I want to talk about today. Though, it is related. As people cried out in shock at some of those accused—those we thought were the “good guys”—all I could think about was the silence. The days, months, and even years of silence. Of these women carrying the pain, and feeling the responsibility to keep it quiet. Thinking no one will believe them. That what they have to say isn’t important. That what has happened to them doesn’t matter. Because, though I don’t know the weight of all of this,

I do know what it is to be silenced.

After #metoo gained traction, people in the church started #churchtoo. Tragically, the church has never been immune to sexual assault or harassment. And as someone who spent over a decade working and volunteering in churches, I want to point out part of the reason why. To say that sexual assault and harassment are horrific symptoms of a systemic problem.

The system I am talking about is Patriarchy. So many of us live and breath in this system that we don’t even realize it’s all we know. Essentially it is the hierarchy of our society—men at the top, women at the bottom. But in the church, we’ve spiritualized it. We’ve taken certain scriptures out of context and used them to make women small. To tell us over and over that we are inferior, not meant for leadership, and not to be trusted. Taking away from us any solid ground from which to speak our truth.

In an environment where one group of people are given the power, and the other group made suspect, all kinds of injustice reigns. Though I do believe in the church, there are good men seeking to do good things, abuse still happens. At times unintentionally, and others, overtly so.

I left church ministry as a part of an unplanned exodus of women leaders.

A significant amount of women leaders in the church where I served left, all within a few years span. Though we didn’t have real conversations about our experiences until after each of us left, the similarities in our stories where depressing. I don’t know that any of us would put our experiences under the #metoo. And yet all of us, in our own way had been silenced and made to feel small.

By the time I left, my voice had been ignored or shut down too many times. So often in fact, that I thought I had lost my voice and my ability to lead indefinitely. And months later, when asked to meet with one of the pastors to talk about why I left, all my words were once again, shut down.

When patriarchy reigns, men don’t need to listen to what women have to say. They don’t have to look at us as fellow human beings. We are just what they want us to be. So, we are silenced. We are put in compromising situations that we don’t feel safe to talk about. And our ability to fully be ourselves, to recognize our potential and use it for good in this world, is taken from us.

Today is International Women’s Day. If you are a woman who has been affected by a system that isn’t for you, I encourage you to get out if you can. And please, share your story. If you are a man who cares about the women in your life, I invite you—not to feel bad about being a man—but rather to seek to listen to the stories being told. Seek to help us bring about change for your sisters.