Gender Bias & Abuse

This episode explores the relationship between gender bias and domestic abuse. 
The more we understand the factors that go into being in an abusive relationship, the more we can understand how to avoid being in them ever again.

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Transcript

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Hey my friends! Did you know that there are certain languages in which you will not know the gender of the subject or object that you're talking about? Right in English we always know what gender. Our language is evolved to make gender known. That is why we have gendered pronouns like she, he, her, him. Most of the European languages you have to know whether a noun is masculine or feminine. Our language and a lot of European languages revolve around gender. But there are some languages, like the Yoruba language, in which there there isn't gender in the language in that way. There is age markers, so you would refer to someone differently based on their seniority versus on their gender. The reason for this linguistic difference is status. In the West, in English, or European languages, it matters what gender someone has in our culture, because that is how status is ascribed. Male identified people have a higher status than female identified people in our culture. And you can see the evidence of that hierarchy in our history, in our cultural facts. You need only look at the fact that women could not get a credit card without a man signing off on it until 1974. Status. Hierarchy. Male identified people have always enjoyed a higher societal status in our culture and our language is just a reflection of that. Whereas, for the Yoruba people, status is determined by age. You give deference to your elders, right? You give respect to your elders. And so their language has come to reflect that hierarchy. It couldn't matter so much the gender of a person, but what would matter is their age so you would know how to treat them. Like how in our society we don't care about someone's age so much as their gender to know how to think about and treat them. So why are we talking about this? Other than it being an interesting tidbit of information, I think it is important to be aware of this hierarchy and gender that exists in many of the world's cultures, including my own, because that hierarchy contributes to domestic abuse. It lays the foundation for it. And obviously, there are many more factors that go into it. Otherwise, all men would be abusive. But I think we ignore this foundational element to our detriment. Because that hierarchy exists in the world and unless we are actively working to combat it, unless we purposely teach the younger generations that it is nonsense, they grow up with a sense of males mattering more than females. And anytime you can look at someone and think of them as less than, even at a subconscious level, you can treat them as less than. You will do and say things to them that you wouldn't do to someone that you consider an equal. If you ,even subconsciously, see yourself as less than, you will accept treatment that you might not otherwise accept if you believed you were equals. And it lets you ignore the way women are treated because it's And I think it is important to recognize not only that it just how it is. And I think this affects a lot of men because even if they aren't actively harming women, I guarantee they know someone who does. And they are able to ignore it. It becomes Dave talks to his wife that way because that's just how Dave talks to his wife. Instead of oh my god, Dave, why are you being so fucking mean to your wife? Even if they're not participating, they're still okay with it on some level. And this is because that hierarchy exists and has created this as an unconscious bias for all of us who live in a culture like this. And I think one of the most sinister parts of this is that it is largely invisible. We don't see this hierarchy all the time actively, even as we are participating in it with the very language that we speak. Unless you make an effort, a conscious effort, to step back and look at it, it just lays the foundation of your life. exists and is influencing us whether we realize it or not, but also that it is optional. It isn't capital T truth that women are less than men. We can know that because there are 7 billion people on this planet and not all of them operate under that assumption. It is an optional way to live. It is an optional assumption to have. And I think it is extremely important to look at how this bias plays out in your own life. How has how you view yourself been affected by this? I've seen how this shows up for me. For a long time I never realized that I was deferring to men in making decisions. If I was in a meeting at work, and I said something, and then a man said something else, I would defer to him. I subconsciously assumed that he knew better than me. And it took me a long time before I really looked and asked myself does what this man is saying actually makes sense. And I started to see that sometimes what they said was bullshit nonsense, and I did know better. But I still felt this urge to defer to them. How did this hierarchy contribute to being gaslighted? Are you more susceptible to gaslighting performed by men than women? How has this influenced what you believe you are capable of? All of these things are ways that we could have been affected by this hierarchy that exists in our society. And they're things that we have to look out for ourselves. When I was growing up, there was this bullshit idea floating around that boys were better at math than girls. And so I just didn't focus that much on math. I thought if I wasn't going to be good at it anyway, I might as well focus on my strengths. So I held myself back from learning more math. In my working life, I have had jobs where I had the same responsibilities and functions as the engineers. However, I couldn't claim an engineering title that comes with way more pay because I didn't have an engineering degree. And the only reason I didn't get the engineering degree is because I thought it'd be too much math and I wasn't going to be able to do it. When my abusive ex husband acted like I was horribly incapable of everything that I did, I didn't question it very much. It was easy for my brain to accept that he knew better than me. That's how this societal hierarchy hurts us. It definitely laid a foundation in my own life for abuse. It's worth looking at the way it influenced your abusive relationship because if you understand the factors that went into being in that relationship, you can understand what needs to change in order to stay out of relationships like that. And I think it's meaningful to see that the abuse that happened to you wasn't your fault. It wasn't that the problem was you. There were literally societal factors that were working against you. And that's not your fault. And it is our responsibility now to become more aware of these things and learn more things and gain knowledge and insight so that we can better protect ourselves in the future. So I would invite you to examine how your own unconscious gender bias may have contributed to your abusive relationship. And as always, if this is sticky and you feel like you're not really seeing it, bring it to a coaching session and we will definitely shed some light on it. All right my friends. Until next time, be well.