BIAS IN FAVOR OF SELF

Hour four in the car on a road trip left me so tired, I had to change the radio station to talk radio rather than music.  

i can dream

I wound up listening to this pastor talk about the difference between males and females and how they interact. Inside two minutes he illustrated the difference in arguing styles based on what he observed between his four children.  

Pastor Joe said that his two sons, when they get to a certain point of disagreement, they stonewall one another and walk away. Pastor Joe proudly related that his sons have learned that they shall not cross a certain line of respect. They know if they go past that line of respect that a fist fight may follow. So they go their separate ways then resume their friendship after they've cooled off.

Pastor Joe said that his daughters, on the other hand, will say absolutely any hateful thing that comes to mind, going well past the point of respect. He said it’s unbelievable what they’ll say to one another. But, he said, they will eventually get over it and hug one another later the same day and go on as if nothing has happened.

Then Pastor Joe went on to say that men get married and are shocked by what a woman will say to them. He said that men newly married think, "If a guy said that to me, I'd punch him in the nose."

Now, I could look at his two sons and two daughters and see the very same interactions and come to a totally different conclusion about what this means. 

Having worked in a 90% male environment for 15 years, I can say that men, and not just boys, will refuse to have a full discussion on what they disagree on because they are indeed afraid they will get into a fist fight if the disagreement is but so big.  

The field I worked in? All the people were especially "assertive" So I still tend to hope that the Pastor is wrong about most men being like this. But I DO notice that what he says is true about men backing away from each other long before there is a real disagreement.

But thing we disagree on is that this shows that "males are taught to respect" each other while 'females are not taught to respect each other' I also disagree that this walking away as the first step in a serious disagreement "good."

This disagreement I have with Pastor Joe is based on my thinking that *fear of getting into a fist fight* and "refusing to cross the line of respect" are no where near synonymous.


And if a man, not a boy, thinks he should be able to hit his wife when his wife says something about him that he doesn't like, but restrains himself then wants a cookie for that, well that explains a lot about the high levels of domestic abuse, now doesn't it?

Furthermore, I believe that it is wisdom and self-control that stops a woman from saying too much during a disagreement as she moves from girlhood to womanhood --not fear of a fist fight. Girls can have fist fights but it's true that girls tend to use words to fight a lot more often than they do fists. That's why they can go further and deeper into an argument, respectfully, without fear of that the other will try to knock her teeth down her throat.

And in my mind, this is a good thing.

Yes, it could be I'm just as biased in favor of self as the pastor.  Female ways of doing things seem better to me, at least half of the time.. But this tendency of men to "not talk past the point of respect" to not question and disagree with one another openly is the core factor in a number of negative events, not the least of which is causing what's been called the worst airplane crash in history. 

The Tenerife Crash of 1977 caused a small cities worth of people to die.

You won't read that "refusing to cross the line of respect"  caused  two fully loaded 747s to run into each other on the runway. Each and every article I've read on this famous crash over the last 38 years was written from within a strongly patriarchal society. But male pilots "not talking past the point of respect" and the refusal of one grown man (Air Traffic Controller in 1970s) to correct another grown man (Pilot) is fairly obvious in this article linked below:

  http://www.businessinsider.com/deadliest-plane-crash-in-history-2014-3

Though it's not in the article, the "not talking past the point of respect" is even more obviously problematic in the cockpit recorder transcripts.

Years ago, as part of a training, I read that the male co-pilot, Klaas Meurs,  stopped the big shot pilot, Jacob Van Zanten, from taking off when he wasn't supposed to the first time he tried to take off without Air Traffic Clearance.

There are still a couple dominos yet to fall, but now the final act is in motion—literally. Because the route clearance comes where and when it does, it is mistaken for a takeoff clearance as well.

First officer Meurs, sitting to Van Zanten’s right, acknowledges the altitudes, headings, and fixes, then finishes off with an unusual, somewhat hesitant phrase, backdropped by the sound of accelerating engines. “We are now, uh, at takeoff.”

Van Zanten ...is heard saying on the cockpit voice recorder. “Let’s go.” And with that, his mammoth machine begins barreling down the fog--shrouded runway, completely without permission...

“At takeoff” is not standard phraseology among pilots. But it’s explicit enough to grab the attention of the Pan Am crew and the control tower. It’s hard for either party to believe KLM is actually moving, but both reach for their microphones to make sure.

And when the air traffic controllers make it clear that the pilot does not have permission to take off, Van Zanten stops the plane from moving but does not answer the air traffic controller.  And the air traffic controller doesn't force Van Zanten to answer audibly despite the fog rolling in. 

Again, on the cockpit recorder transcript Meurs clearly hints or tells the pilot he's not cleared for take off and gets the pilot to stop before or just as Air Traffic calls out to the plane. And if I'm not mistaken, Meurs stops that arrogant pilot from taking off without ATC clearance twice.  But Meurs was clearly afraid to question Van Zanten's judgment a third time, possibly assuming (hoping) that the runway was safe despite not being cleared for take-off by Air Traffic Control.

You'd be shocked at how many times NTSB and 1970 to 2000  cockpit transcripts show that one man or both men in the cockpit knew something was wrong long before they crashed but refused to ask a question as soon as they thought of it.  More than once I noticed that the meeker one deferred to the arrogant one so as "not to cross the line of respect" then died in a fireball for the trouble.

I know it seems perfectly logical that anybody would question another person if they think their life is at stake. But that's the point, isn't it?  People, especially male people, do not want to question one another male person until there is no other choice. And men don't want to appear panicked. These men simply didn't think their life was at stake YET.  

In most cases, male pilots did not wait too long to question one another.  But some of these long dead pilots thought they could wait a little longer to challenge the other man in the cockpit. They thought they could wait until the other man saw the error for himself. And sometimes they simply waited too long.  

Women, once the niceness barrier has been broken, do not feel as challenged if they want to question another woman. Women are socialized to ask for help and direction more easily. Disagreement isn't as frightening. For a woman, generally speaking, the thought that she might be wrong doesn't undermine her femininity. In fact, many women are raised to believe that taking correction IS feminine as it shows "humility" -- especially in the church.

(Church teachings indicate that men are supposed to show "humility" too but somehow that doesn't translate into sitting down, shutting up, and taking instruction from others, especially if that other is female.)

 After the Tenefire crash, pilots had to be retrained away from this male tendency to "not disagree to past a certain point" in order to make commercial flight safe. Nowadays, no matter who is in pilot chair and who is the co-pilot chair, both pilots now know they can and should question one another if they think something is wrong.

And I'm thinking Christian Pastors need to be retrained away from the same thing and a whole host of other things. I couldn't believe how much male superiority Pastor Joe managed to communicate in 15 to 20 minutes. And the piece I've just discussed? That only covered 5 minutes tops.

A church sermon shouldn't 30 minutes covering 7 to 10 lessons on how sexism and misogyny is good and normal.

The best thing I ever heard a visiting pastor say is this: The worst thing about feminism is that it was absolutely necessary. I wish I had kept track of his name. I'd sent Pastor Joe and a bunch of others to him for deprogramming.

Once half had been deprogrammed, I'd replace the untrainable men with women. Half the clergy needs to be women. There are things passed from man to man to man within the Christianity that only seems to makesense because there aren't any female voices EQUAL IN POWER, to say, "This is half-baked" or "bias in favor of self" or just plain "superiority."

Women ought to be holding up half the sky in the Christian World and every other world. Incestuous thought among people too alike always breeds contempt for others, no matter how well meaning and angelic they see themselves.