Catholic Guilt Won’t End Sexism

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Attending Catholic school from the age of 5 up until the age of 18 has definitely shaped how I respond to conflict, in both my personal and professional life.

I’m sure that anyone who grew up following any organised religion can attest to that.

Mantras like “ladies should be seen and not heard”, “you should always conduct yourself with class and decorum” and “you should all strive to have a soul that is as white as snow” were all drilled into our heads from the moment we learnt to recite our ABCs.

(I never got the last one given that after 31 years on this Earth, I still have never ever witnessed snowfall in the Caribbean. But I digress.)

It was my duty as a believer to remain pure and pristine. This meant that I could never, ever, under any circumstances, question authority, skip mass, hug a boy, wear a skirt that was above the knee, and definitely, couldn’t walk on the grass.

Understandably, these are some of the rules that I still subconsciously cling onto till this day. (I swear it’s still hard for me to walk and sit on the grass at parks.)

“Should I call this man out for his sexist comments or should I just grin and bear it while praying that he’ll eventually leave me alone?”

That’s the first thought that crossed my mind while I was working out on a treadmill next to this man who was old enough to be my father.

“Are you a Christian woman?” He asked.

“Uh yeah.” I responded quite perplexed.

“Yeah, I knew it.” He said quite delightfully, “You look like a good Christian woman that any man would be proud to bring home to his mother. I’m sure you know how to cook and clean and take care of the family.” He continued.

“Ummm…okay.” Was the only thing I could muster up, while I continued to briskly walk on my treadmill hoping that this was the end of this awkward exchange.

Five minutes later, he was still trying to engage me in conversation. Yet, instead of giving him a piece of my mind, I just awkwardly smiled and prayed that he’d leave me alone.

Looking back now, it was obvious that I didn’t call him out because I was scared that I’d come across as rude or mean or God forbid, unchristian-like.

Yes, you read that correctly! In that moment, I was thinking more about his feelings and his impression of me than my peace of mind.

That’s the thing with sexism.

According to Human Rights Channel (2020), “sexism is any expression (act, word, image, gesture) based on the idea that some persons, most often women, are inferior because of their sex.”

When you’re on the receiving end, you tend to blame yourself for the aggressor’s behaviour, whereas, those on the giving end, believe that they’re just being friendly or complimentary or whatever other lies that the patriarchy has shoved down their throats.

“Patriarchy is a system of relationships, beliefs, and values embedded in political, social, and economic systems that structure gender inequality between men and women.” (Nash, 2020)

Honestly, I still think about this encounter till this day, whilst fully acknowledging that this man must have completely forgotten about it the moment he walked out of that gym in Rodney Bay.

Sadly, my experiences with sexism didn’t end that night.

I recently found myself reverting to the “a lady should always conduct herself with class and decorum” mentality while being chastised by a male colleague for doing the same exact thing that he had done a million times before.

Naturally, like any other good Catholic schoolgirl, I started apologising profusely as soon as he called me out. It never even donned on me how hypocritical the whole situation was until he returned to his office.

That’s when I began to reflect on what had just happened. I realised that in an effort to feel like he was fully in control of everything that went on in the workplace, he needed to constantly reaffirm his dominion over me. In other words, he was being manipulative in order to remind me of who had the proverbial “upper hand”.

And, given my previous attempts to not to “rock the boat” during his bouts of rude and childish behaviour, he anticipated that I would just let it slide...again.

He was fully aware that I always made it my duty to show how grateful I was for the wonderful work opportunity that he had afforded me since it was clear to all the women at the office how much he loved to get his ego stroked.

However, this time, I couldn’t let it go. There was this overwhelming sense of hypocrisy that started to engulf me when it became clear what had just transpired.

You see, as a DEI&B consultant, I tell womxn every day that they should always call out sexist behaviour — no exceptions. I’ve even facilitated workshops, spoken at roundtables and given presentations in which I gave detailed advice on how to react to and report sexist behaviour at work.

Yet, here I was, doing the complete opposite of what I had urged other womxn to do.

So, after putting my argument together, I marched right back to his office and asked him why it was so important for him to call me out when he had done the same thing countless times before. I even gave him a list of examples.

Naturally, he tried to gaslight me but I seriously didn’t care.

According to DiGiulio (2018), “Psychologists use the term “gaslighting” to refer to a specific type of manipulation where the manipulator is trying to get someone else (or a group of people) to question their own reality, memory or perceptions.”

We were equals and I had the right to defend myself because I didn’t do anything wrong.

Given his circular reasoning, I was fully aware that he would never own up to his hypocrisy, but I wanted to let him know that I was fully aware of what he was up to, even if that meant possibly losing that contract.

Honestly, although the whole situation was quite frustrating, I was and still am so proud of myself for standing up for myself.

However, I must admit that I’m still quite annoyed with myself for apologising profusely at the beginning.

I guess we live and we learn!

I just pray that by me sharing these experiences, other women and girls will feel empowered enough to call out sexist behaviour, even if it’s months (or years) later in a blog post, because the sad reality is that we still live in a world where it’s not always safe to immediately call out men and their sexist behaviour.

Sources:

DiGiulio, S. (2018, July 13). What is gaslighting? And how do you know if it's happening to you? NBCNews.com. Retrieved February 18, 2022, from https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/what-gaslighting-how-do-you-know-if-it-s-happening-ncna890866

Sexism: See it. name it. stop it. Human Rights Channel. (n.d.). Retrieved February 18, 2022, from https://human-rights-channel.coe.int/stop-sexism-en.html

Nash, C. J. (2020). Patriarchy. In International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (Second, pp. 43–47). Elsevier Ltd.