Saturday 24 November 2012

I'm not being sexist but women can't be bishops

vintage-sexist-ads (36)As the result came in from the General Synod's vote, against women bishops, the air was rent by the sound of an almighty facepalm - not the hand of God beating her omnipresent brow, but the simultaneous arm-to-forehead muscle spasm of millions of English citizens in utter disbelief. The Archbishop's sphinctral contraction at the thought of the oncoming furore would have dwarfed a catastrophe at CERN.

In reality, the decision says far more about the Church's peculiar political structure than it does about anyone's views on the actual issue. The vast majority of Church of England leaders and followers want to kick out this archaic tradition of sexism, but the way the Church works means practically everybody has to be happy with any changes to the status quo. Such a system has its merits - it encourages compromise and debate and prevents the back and forth between opposite extremes one tends to see in systems where the majority (or the biggest minority) rules - and those who have called for it to be thrown out should pause to consider that the alternatives have problems of their own.

Regardless of the majority view, there remains a significant minority in the C of E who believe in complementarianism, the belief that 'God has created men and women equal in their essential dignity and human personhood, but different and complementary in function with male headship in the home and in the Church'.  Interestingly, it seems the people who hold this view don't like to be called 'sexist'. I discovered this by reading Krish Kandia's blog post Grace, Truth and Synod.

The OED definition of sexism is 'prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex'. So the definition of complementarianism abolutely fits that of sexism. If you're a complementarian, you - by definition - believe God is sexist.

This is a bitter pill for people to swallow, as we all know is it bad to be sexist, and if someone calls you a sexist you feel insulted - even if you are sexist. The thought of God being sexist gives a Christian a right headache, because God is supposed to be perfectly good, but sexism is seen as a bad thing. There is only one way to deal with this problem, which is the standard authoritarian trick of partitioning your mind: in the 'bad' partition you put sexism; in the 'good' partition you put your own beliefs; you never let the two partitions overlap.  So you are complementarian AND you're not sexist.  You love and respect women as equals AND a woman cannot do a man's work.

This kind of thinking goes on all over the place.  It is not far from: 'I don't mind gays, I just hate campness'; 'Nothing against immigrants, but they don't accept our culture'.  Even as these arguments deny being homophobic and racist they manage to be exactly that. There is a parallel in the offence taken by homophobic Christians at Stonewall's Bigot of the Year award: if you are offended by the title 'bigot', why would you continue to be a bigot?

Perhaps the offence these people feel is the key to changing their minds, a chink in their psychic armour. Deep down, they know the views they hold are wrong, and they only continue to hold them by artificially separating their own ideas from the bad stuff. How strong can those mental barriers be? Even if sexists will never be changed, it is important to shine a light on their self contradiction. Nobody is born a sexist. The more we publicly challenge sexist ideas, the fewer people will be persuaded to accept them.

Complementarians are dinosaurs, struggling to survive in a world which will no longer support them. Even with the Church of England's 'rock in a storm' approach to values, change will come.  There'll be a woman Archbishop before long.