What is the Role of Men in Combating Patriarchy? By Ryan Smith

As I begin this reflection, I am coming from a meeting with religious leaders and the Director of the North American Division of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The meeting was hosted to exchange the views of Cuba with religious leaders in the United States of America regarding the US government’s increasing hostility toward the Cuban government. There were only three women in the room. Only one of those three women spoke at the meeting. As much as our religious and government institutions make resolutions or laws about gender equality, the system and privilege remain for men. Can one reform a system or does the entire system need to be broken down in order to create a new system?

We know that it was women who announced the resurrections of Jesus, yet we recognize Saint Peter as the first leader of the early Christian Church. Weren’t the first leaders of the early Christian Church the women who proclaimed to the men the resurrection of Jesus? How did the man, Saint Peter, become the leader when the message of the prophecy came from the women?

My own denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) began ordaining women four years after my mother’s birth. That same denomination has yet to have a woman Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, our head of communion. Sixty-three years after women’s ordination was approved, still no woman as head of communion. What would the Church look like had women led the Church?

So—what is the role of men?

I’ll start with the basics from the European Institute for Gender Equality (https://eige.europa.eu/men-and-gender-equality):

Gender (in)equality concerns both women and men and has a strong impact on their daily lives. Historically gender equality policies have been contextualised mainly as a “women’s issue” – as women have been a driving force behind gender equality strategies and struggles.

This view has contributed to the perception that women are the only ones who will benefit from a more equal society. In reality, men would also benefit from gender equality as they too face gender-specific issues such as lower life expectancy, bad health, lower education levels and rigid gender norms. It is essential that both women and men are aware of the benefits that gender equality brings to them as individuals and as members of communities and societies. It is also true that we can only succeed through the participation of both women and men.

UN Women Deputy Director and Assistant Secretary-General Lakshmi Puri said,” The phenomenon of gender stereotypes needs to be countered and fought in multiple areas: in languages and vocabulary, laws and practices, mind-sets of people, justice systems, media and education, in different organizations and public authorities, in enterprises, and in individuals.”

The Church can play an active role in each of these areas. The Church can examine the language it uses, especially the language it uses for God, and using inclusive language in preaching, teaching, prayer, and song. The Church can advocate with governments on policies supportive of gender equity in laws and practices. The Church indeed can work on the mindsets of people. One of the primary roles of the church is to teach people “the way, the truth and the light,” in so doing, recognizing all whom God has created as inherently equal, loved and respected by God. The Church can use the power and resources it has gained through its patriarchal privilege to challenge unjust laws in the courts. The Church is a teacher of people and spreads the Good News. In so doing, the Church can teach and use media to counter binary, heteronormative, racist unjust systems. The Church can use its role as an institutional authority to change the narrative on gender. Namely, the Church, made up of individuals, can change the world.

It’s impossible for me to believe in Imago Dei without believing that governance and decision making shouldn’t be shared by all God’s children. When we think of patriarchy, it is so hard to not default into our traditional patriarchal binaries of male and female. Socially constructed institutions of gender identity surely cannot represent the infinity of who God is. The church can work to dismantle the socially constructed gender norms and recognize that God has made each of us individually and in God’s own image.

We all have a role, no matter what our gender identity, to push our Church and our governments to recognize the infinite beauty of God and all that God has created. We can join movements like #HeforShe (https://www.heforshe.org/en) and Thursdays in Black (https://www.oikoumene.org/en/get-involved/thursdays-in-black). Finally, we can pray (https://kataphatic.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/an-inclusive-lords-prayer/):

Eternal Spirit,
Earth-Maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver
Source of all that is and all that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God who is in heaven:

The hallowing of your name echoes through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by people of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever.

May it be so. Amen.

Ryan Smith is the Director of the Presbyterian Ministry the United Nations.  As the Presbyterian Church’s representative to the United Nations, Ryan advocates for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A’s General Assembly as well as the World Communion of Reformed Churches’ policies to the United Nations community.  Ryan convenes the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s human trafficking roundtable, a cross-sectional group of staff from the Office of the General Assembly and the Presbyterian Mission Agency whose work touches the issue of migration and human trafficking. He works with various UN related committees and advocacy initiatives including the Israel-Palestine Working Group, the Security Council Working Group, Ecumenical Women, Faith and Feminism and others. Ryan has been active in both the advocacy and academic communities on the issue of human trafficking and has written on the subject. In this role, Ryan also represents the World Communion of Reformed Churches, with its 233 member denominations in 110 countries, together claiming 100 million people, making it the third largest Christian communion in the world.

Ryan has bachelors’ degrees in economics, political science and German, a certificate to teach English as a foreign Language (TEFL) and a master’s degree in diplomacy and international relations with specializations in international economics and development and international organizations. Ryan is currently pursuing his Doctor of Ministry in Public Theology. Ryan has also taught and researched as a United States Fulbright Scholar in Germany.