Gender Roles

Last week after work, I went to Wednesday night young-adult group at church as usual. Before we got started, a few announcements were given. One of which was that the women's ministry fun-group was getting together to watch the movie "Anne of Green Gables."

Then one of the guys piped up and said "I thought you said it was supposed to be 'fun.'"

Oh my. Where do I start?

Why must some people express disdain toward events not intended for them?

The church has a lot of things going on that are targeted toward specific sub-groups of people: men's ministry, women's ministry, single mom's activities, youth (jr. high and high school) activities, kids, etc.

Not everyone fits in to every sub group. Duh, right? But if that was so obvious, then nobody would have any need to express a negative opinion about an activity for a group they're not a part of, right? Yet this guy didn't hesitate to express his opinion about "Anne of Green Gables." Somehow I have a hard time imagining that same guy making fun of some kind of activity geared toward any other group he's not a part of. How would that go?
Leader: "The kids fun group is getting together next week to watch DVD episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba"
Guy: "I don't like Yo Gabba Gabba, why aren't the kids watching something more fun?"


If it doesn't interest you, don't go.

I don't seem to have the same interests as most of the women in my church. They've organized group shopping trips out of town. Unless we're going to the Home Depot, I have no interest in a shopping trip. They usually pick movies I don't care about. Like that guy, I have no interest in seeing Anne of Green Gables. I'd rather watch Iron Man, or Tron. But as much as I wasn't into that movie, I wasn't about to open my mouth to rain on their parade like that guy did. Who cares if they want to see Anne of Green Gables? If that's what they want to do, let them do it. That doesn't mean I have to go if I'm not into it.


But why do we have to be exclusive anyway?

If some guy wants to see Anne of Green Gables, he's still not welcome because it's the women's group. I never did, and still don't understand the exclusivity of segregating groups by gender. And if we're into segregating, then why only on that one particular dimension? Wouldn't it be better to segregate based on interests or needs instead? For example, why is there a single mom's ministry? Wouldn't a single dad have the same needs? I know, there are not as many single dad's as there are single moms. But why exclude the single dad? Why?

Occasionally, once a month usually, our young adult group will divide up men and women and meet separately. More often than not, the guys are doing something I'd must rather be doing than the ladies are doing. Once, the women were getting together to do crafts. The guys were getting together to grill and eat meat. But I wasn't allowed to do the thing I was more interested in: eating grilled meat. I have no interest in crafts. So I stayed home that night. It's not always the case. One month the girls played games like Cranium, and I had fun doing that.

A few weeks later, though, the guys were getting together (on their own, not as part of the official group) to play Risk. The guy announcing it specifically said "if any of the guys want to come over to my house to play Risk, we're getting together this Friday." I felt like I had to intrude to be invited. But I timidly asked "is it just for guys?" Turns out it just never occurred to him that any of the girls liked to play Risk or would want to come. I was more than welcome to come, and he felt bad for not inviting everyone. And I went, and I was the only girl there, and I didn't care, and I had a blast.


"I thought you said it was supposed to be 'fun.'"

Oh yes, back to that. Is it just me who felt that was an incredibly rude thing to say? It felt like it was just me. And I feel like I'm the only girl who doesn't want to participate in most of what the girls want to do. And I feel left out when the guys talk about things they'd like to do instead, and they're things I'd like to do as well. And I feel like I'm not "supposed" to prefer their activities over the girls' activities. It's as if there's something wrong with me.

Stuck in between can be a rather lonely place to be.

Why are anniversaries of bad things so... bad?

I've been in such a funk the last couple of days. The weather in winter gets me down, but this felt like more than that, but I don't know why. But I think I figured it out.

Today is 2 years since my house was broken into. Hard to believe it's been 2 years. In some ways it feels like it was maybe 2 months ago, not 2 years ago. It still makes me paranoid sometimes. It still makes me sad. Some days it still makes me hate where I live. Especially in winter when I don't have gardening and landscape and nature to distract and appease me.

When I left for work this morning, I checked twice that I set my home alarm correctly. Part of me wanted to stay home. All of my stuff that I left out, or put away, I did so specifically thinking about how accessible (or inaccessible, hidden) I wanted it to be were someone to break into my house again. I do that a lot though, not just today. Still, it made me sad to do that today.

And it makes me angry that I have to wonder whether New Year's eve day will ever be a happy day for me ever again. It is definitely hard to focus on work today.

On a more positive note, I was recently able to replace some of the sentimental-value jewelry that was stolen that day. I will never be able to replace the items I got from both of my grandmothers since they are no longer living. Sadly this past summer my aunt Devona died of ovarian cancer. My cousins (her daughters) were not sure what to do with all of her jewelry, so they brought it to our family Thanksgiving gathering and let my aunt's siblings, sisters-in-law, nieces, etc. look through it and pick what they wanted. I took one ring and one necklace at first. Then after everyone had a chance to get what they wanted, and there was still a lot left, my cousins encouraged people to take more items if they wanted to, because they were not really sure what they were going to do with the leftovers anyway. It was a nice way to replenish some of what I lost in a more meaningful way than just buying stuff to replace it "just because." I'm sure my aunt would be happy that it turned into a positive thing for me.

A New Idea for Vacation Trip Logging

I've never been one to keep a trip log. I've taken some trips where I wish I would have. I'm usually too lazy to take the time sit down once I get home & write something about it. I'm too forgetful to bring a notebook with me to write in. Besides, if the notebook had details of past trips, I would be too afraid of losing it (thus losing all my trip logs) if I lost the notebook. I also never think to just bring paper to write on, that could be added to a notebook later.

Another issue is that I tend to get wordy when journaling. So, I have a hard time motivating myself to start writing. Even though I have the best intentions of keeping it short & not spending much time on it, if the perfectionist in me takes over (and I know it will) then I know it will take awhile & be lengthy.

I just came up with an idea to extend a vacation tradition that I have had for a long time, & combine that with a way of journaling that will force me to keep it short.

The tradition

Every time I go somewhere on vacation, I buy a postcard. Not to send; this postcard is for me. I have a wall in my computer room that I hang each postcard, in chronological order left to right, like a border near the ceiling around the room.

Why do I do this?

I think it started by something in the back of my mind that was put there by my mother as a kid. When we would take family vacations, we were each allowed to pick out one souvenir. I would usually pick out something that I liked & knew I would use or play with. Inevitably, if it did not have touristy words on it, she would say something like "Are you sure you don't want to get something that says [name-of-place-where-we-went] on it, so you remember where you got it?"

I'm sure there were times I put it back & picked out something else that did have [name-of-place-where-we-went] on it. I'm sure there were other times I insisted that was what I wanted, & didn't feel good about the fact that I really had to justify it. I'm sure there were subsequent times where I would not pick something I wanted, but pick something that said [name-of-place-where-we-went] instead, just so I wouldn't have to spend the time defending my choice.

As an adult, buying a post card is an inexpensive way for me to "get something that says [name-of-place-where-we-went]" on it, & at the same time freeing me to pick out a souvenir that I really like or would really use, or freeing me to not pick out some other souvenir if I don't find anything I want. I've found that I tend to remember where I got the things I really like anyway, regardless of what is or isn't written on the item.

The extension of the idea

I just thought of this during a vacation I took about 6 months ago with some female friends to Cancun. I thought it would be fun to jot down on my post cards some of the inside jokes that happen during a trip, or nicknames people got for the duration of the trip, or places that we went that we particularly liked (or didn't). The inherent size of the post card then forces me to keep what I write short & simple. Sadly, I never got around to writing down any of that after I got back.

My next vacation was a cruise with some friends where we had 4 ports of call. I bought a postcard at each port, & had full intention of writing down what we did on each of the separate postcards. I did not get around to that after I got back, either. Too much time spent catching up on stuff at home after my return.

Last weekend, James & I went down to Cape Canaveral, Florida to see a space shuttle launch. Then spent the rest of the long weekend trip going around various places on the East coast of Florida, like Cocoa Beach Pier, Melbourne Beach, Kennedy Space Center, etc. I bought 2 postcards, one that just says "Florida" & one that says "Kennedy Space Center."

The brilliant thing I did this time was to do my writing on the plane on the way home, instead of waiting until I got home.
1. it's freshest in my mind
2. helps me reminisce on the trip as it's winding down
3. I'm tired, so in addition to the postcard being small, the tired contributes to my wanting to keep what I write short.

I hope I can keep this up in the future. It will be nice to be able to look at one of my postcards at any time & know I can flip it over & reminisce about a trip in more detail than my faded memory allows.