The inferior sex (J14-20)

Happy Saturday to you!

I, right about the age of 4, ascended the top of rhe stairs and headed to my room, absolutely melting under oppressive summer heat. I crested the top of the stairs, annoyed at how hot I was. Maybe it’s because I was a summer baby, maybe it’s because I spent my first winters in Wyoming, maybe I’m genetically predisposed to prefer the pinching sting of cold than the oppressive wet of heat, but I was suffering the heat and it was interfering with the way my 4-year-old self wanted to be playing.

The relief of pulling off my shirt and throwing it on the floor was immediate. The air that had been pressing down on the cloth and smothering my tiny little body was now wicking moisture away and relieving the warmth, pleasant to my skin. No wonder Dad never wore a shirt at home in the summer! Reinvigorated, I trotted back downstairs to continue the game I had been failing to enjoy in the heat.

I imagine that what actually happened when I first re-entered the dining room is that neither of my parents paid me any heed because I just went back to playing, and only later noticed what I had done. But what I remember is my mom’s jaw immediately hitting the floor and her screaming at me,

“Young lady, what do you think you’re doing!?!?!?”

I froze, toys barely in hand. I… hadn’t done anything!? I recognized the tone of voice was reserved for the times I had done something truly terrible, like when my 2-year-old brother got stung by a bee that I had antagonized and then run away from, or the time I wouldn’t stop scream-crying in a restaurant after being kindly, and then less kindly, and then warningly told to cut it out. I was even playing nicely with my brother!

“Go back upstairs and put your shirt back on right now!” Confused about why that was the issue, I protested that it was too hot and I was just doing what Dad was doing. Dad, sitting bare-chested as he worked at the table, looked like he wished he could turn invisible while Mom forcefully escorted me back up the stairs, explaining angrily that no matter how hot it was, girls wore shirts.

And that was the moment I learned I was born of the inferior sex.

First: I gotta admit that objectively, that’s hilarious 😂 That’s something you’d see on Malcolm in the Middle, with a laugh track that’s got one mom absolutely losing it and causing everyone around her to laugh more.

But in rebellion to that moment, I grew up as a blatant tomboy. Even though I was just as terrified of spiders as any of my lady classmates in Poland in the 2nd grade (I would scream for my brother or my father to rescue me if I found a spider in our apartment), when the boys decided that instead of playing soccer during recess, we were going to start a spider-fighting ring, I was out in the bushes right alongside them grabbing “zabójcy” (killer) spiders in plastic cups. We would keep the weak spiders and bring them back into class with us to spook our teachers (almost all women) and the rest of the girls.

The fighting ring didn’t last long, as even “killer” spiders were more interested in escaping 8-year-olds than facing off their spider-nemeses. My classmates’ shrieks really were funny when you realized how harmless the poor arachnids were. The most I ever caught in a single recess period was 27 of them, though I never “won” a match. Somehow, the boys managed to catch the bigger, scarier spiders.

I was a faster runner than all of them, though, and somehow that earned me the boys’ respect. I didn’t appreciate that they showed this respect by stealing my hat and making me chase them all across the schoolyard to get it back - but that was mostly in the winters when the other team needed me distracted so I wouldn’t steal the ball and score over and over with my superior speed.

And on the days when it was, for whatever reason, too cold or wet or snowy to play soccer, I would relent and play Chinese jump rope with the girls. Even some of the boys would deign to play with us even though it was normally “too girly” to play. Winter was still my favorite season, because I hated feeling hot - and even more, I hated feeling forbidden to alleviate the heat.

Poland is a very Catholic country today - its political shenanigans in the EU are a consistent source of comedy to me as they, along with Hungary, remain staunchly conservative in the midst of all of the liberal leanings of their fellow nation-states. But when I lived there, it was even more Catholic - so much so that I didn’t learn there were variant sexualities until I visited the states for our furlough in the 6th grade.

I was told that getting my hat stolen or having my arm pinched or being the center of attention was a sign that the boys like-liked me. Needless to say, I didn’t appreciate that, either, because they stole each other’s hats just as often and no one ever seemed to think or say that meant anything romantic. So I declined the suggestion and stole their hats right back, as late as into the 8th grade while I was still faster than most of them. 

By that standard, maybe I was an absolute flirt~

But by then I was in an International rather than a Polish school, so I had classmates and knew of high schoolers who were gay or lesbian or, most commonly, bi. This expressed itself mostly through kissing - everybody seemed to be romantically kissing everybody regardless of their sex. Morally, I was opposed to the variation. Practically, as long as they weren’t trying to kiss me, I really didn’t mind. I wouldn’t hear about transitioning until I came back to the states my senior year of high school. Even then, when my best friend from middle school changed their name, I still couldn’t find it in me to mind. They told me that they’d always felt wrong being a girl, and that being a man felt right. And honestly, having grown up as the token tomboys of 6-8th grade - I agreed that they were probably right, and am happy, if sometimes morally conflicted, for their happiness.

If I’d learned the language of transition when I was 4, I’d have probably come to the same conclusion when I was unjustly shoved back into a shirt during the sweltering summer: I need to fix the way God made me. But instead I grew up in a post-communist, past-oriented culture and so I learned the language of freedom and oppression. We read “And ain’t I a woman?” in 8th grade, taking turns reading Sojourner Truth’s speech in French, Austrian, Polish, and American accents.

“…that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.”

Even in an international school, you couldn’t escape the church in Poland. I had Baha'i classmates and baptized Catholic classmates and unbaptized Pentecostal classmates and baptized Baptist classmates and Hindu classmates and many atheist classmates and forever and always the matter of human dignity, which we celebrated every year on the third Wednesday of October, came down to Christ: who did he claim to die for? Humans. 

So who deserves the respect of being seen, heard, and known? Humans. 

Who needs access to clean water, a roof over their heads, enough food to eat, and an education? Humans. 

Who deserves to be able to walk safely through their neighborhoods at any time of the day? Who deserves access to old buildings with fricktons of stairs? Who deserves to be paid according to their acumen?

Not men. Not women. Not women passing as men or men passing as women. Humans. 

“If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone,” Sojourner Truth said through the mouths of a bunch of 14-year-old expats, “these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.”

At no point did I ever verbalize, “I’m doing all of the things boys are doing so you’ll treat me with the same respect that men receive, and refusing to do girly things because women aren’t treated with that kind of respect.” 

But today’s kids are verbalizing it. 9 out of 10 of the trans kids I met while subbing were girls passing as boys. Even with the bullying they endure, trans boys told me they are treated with more respect and kindness as trans boys than as biological girls. I’m inclined to believe them: when I co-taught classes with male teachers, children listened. When I co-taught with female teachers, children tried to do anything but. 

While I often shook my fist at God and profaned him for knitting me into the inferior sex, he made men and women in his image. So whether or not I enjoy the belittling, the interrupting and ignoring, the blaming for men’s sins, the unsafe feeling in parking lots and gas stations, the monthly crampfests, or the fact that I have to wear altogether too much clothing in the summer because of strictly enforced social conventions, there is something about my woman-ness that is as worthy of dignity as mens’ man-ness.

Because we, the both of us, are human. 

And Christ, to my knowledge, did not die for the spiders.

It’s entirely possible that I’ve just revealed a huge blind spot in my theology. But for now, while I am anecdotally and statistically certain that it is worse to be a woman than a man in 21st century America, I’m content with the dignity I receive.

And. I would love to increase your dignity.

—Beth