Rowland,

You started off (in the article What Women Want: see http://shoshanna.org/priscillasfriends/womenwant.html )discussing some statistics of women’s ‘public’ life. i.e. * By the year 2005, 40 percent of all American firms will be female-owned. * Four out of five Japanese small business owners are women. * Western women control 80 percent of household spending. * Women purchase 75 percent of all over-the-counter drugs. * In the year 2000, women bought 50 percent of all Personal Computers, and reached parity in the online community. * Women influence 90 percent of all car purchases. * Women own 53 percent of all stocks.

The rest of what you have to stay relates to the ‘private’ or ‘domestic’ life of women – or should I say the ‘private’ life of women who are in stable heterosexual relationships.

The church, and – in the main – this follows the style of Paulian epistles, tends to emphasise the ‘private’ and seldom the ‘public’. There is an emphasis on personal morality expecting, it would seem, an automatic transferrence to public morality. While there is some transferrence from the personal to the public it cannot be automatically assumed. There are numerous instances of social sins being indulged in or ignored by Christians of personal virtue. The sin of slavery would not have continued as long as it has if our sense of morality were not so limited and limiting.

This is my major difficulty with your piece about male-female communications. It makes generalisations about what men and women are good at and then discusses within the limited space of the private. It treats (as the Scriptures and the Church frequently do) as invisible single women.

There are difficulties with male and female communications and viewpoints but they cannot be simplified in such a way. Nor are they the domain of the private. To indicate this I relate a recent incident. If you repeat it, please do not make any reference to me or to place or any other identifier.

I sat in a meeting at work. I was there to take the minutes and so was not a direct participant, although a keen observer. I was the only female in the room other than my CEO. The meeting included people from our company and an associated company. It was chaired by a person from the associated company. My female CEO is 61 years of age. She is a gifted woman who has built a multi-million dollar company from nothing and on a shoestring. She has done this because she is a very strategic thinker. In addition, she has the natural ability to inspire loyalty in the majority of both her female and male employees. She knows the industry in which she works inside out. Her knowledge is unique and individual and highly accurate. The industry has many cutting edge aspects, including technological issues, related to it.

The five males at the meeting were all in the thirties with, perhaps, the exception of one who was in his forties. At one stage in the meeting the IT person from the associated company reported a 14% match rate on data he had tested. My CEO said that this was clearly wrong. The data used was of substantial quality and should have provided a higher match rate. She asked for samples to be sent across to us for testing. The body language of the males was incredible. The person from the associated company chairing the meeting and who is ever polite and unflappable half turned away from her. The beauty of body language! It can reveal what would otherwise be disguised by civility!

The next morning at our Weekly Managing Committee Meeting (which I minute)

which takes place between ourselves and the associated company, my CEO complained to the person who chaired the previous meeting that she should not have to be made an ogre for stating facts. After a considerable pause, the person replied that he didn’t know why this should be so, that she should consider that she be thought of as an ogre. I knew the reasons why my CEO had been subjected to such a reaction. They are: 1. Gender 2. Ageism 3. Elitism

1. Gender Males have problems working with older women. I believe it is a mother complex thing. They feel like they have their mothers still there telling them what to do. However, even older women in subordinate or same-level roles can experience the same difficulty.

2. Ageism There is no respect for the wisdom and experience of years from younger people. This is bad enough for the older male – for the older female it is even worse. There is a phrase for it – gendered ageism.

3. Elitism Who was this old duck? What could she possible know about IT issues? True – my CEO is only just coming to grips with email and hunts and pecks across the key board. But so what? She knows how it works, what it does, what it is going to do, and how to implement etc.

What happened later? A few days later came an email from the IT person of the associated company. He had retested the data with results in excess of 50%. Did she think she still required the samples for testing? No, she didn’t. The point had been made and, as usual, she was right.

At the next meeting, in the course of a discussion, my CEO said, “We have the ===co-ordinates to do this.” The same IT person interrupted, “You have the ===co-ordinates?”. “Yes”, she said, going on with the topic under discussion. Again he interrupted “But if you have===co-ordinates that will make all the difference.” One awe-struck IT person in his thirties brought to heel.

But, as my CEO, said, “Why did this have to be so?”

This is public life for women. I complain about my situation in an administrative support role yet here was a CEO who had built a multi-million dollar company faring no better.

The fundamental problem is not men trying to ascertain what will keep women happy, men not catering to the needs of women, not just changing the way men say things to phrase them more appropriately for women. There are deepseated problems here which at times give an indication that men and women are two separate species with little complementarity. Interwoven with all this is power.

Until recently, men have controlled everything uniformly and unilaterally. The universe danced to their tune. This power has been exerted in both the public and the private domain and the force of church, state, and law was used to support this power across both domains. The church, and its scriptures, do not discuss power unless it is God’s or how we, as individuals, should subject ourselves to man’s power and God’s power. I’m not sure whether I will ever hear a sermon discuss power with any intelligence or depth – it is not polite and it can be political.

Yet power – even more than economics – is the most penetrating factor in all human relationships. Power is not gender exclusive. In other words, even while men have – as a generality – wielded private and public power, it is not foreign to women. Power can be constructive and destructive but most important and worthy of study is the balance of power between the genders.

We are in a time of great social change. Women (back to the top of the email) are penetrating all sorts of structures. In the western world economies are undergoing such vast changes that different skill sets are now required – and increasingly they are the feminised skill sets. So, even if the employees are male they are required to have the skills which are, as a generality, found in females i.e. communication and interpersonal skills, creative/right brain/intuitive skills, fine motor skills. These are topics don’t seem to penetrate Christian discussion at parish level.

Where is the male in all this? Some are as wonderful as ever and are quite adaptive(another process the Christian church seldom, if ever, discusses), better educated, and thoughtful. In my experience, these are a minority.

These are my thoughts, Rowland, for what they are worth. Quite a strength of feeling underlies them but they come out great depth, breadth, and length of experience.

Blessings and Peace

Brigid O’Carroll