Ch The Gender Equation in Human Contexts

Since my life as a Christian didn’t start until I was in college, my thoughts and perceptions about females were already formed without theological input, though not necessarily without some church influence. At that stage, I was somewhat aware of how my biological family shaped how I felt about being a female. For example, I knew that I didn’t like having an identity as ‘daughter’. Any further self-awareness had yet to unfold. I didn’t pay as much attention to how my immediate social contexts shaped me, much less society at large.

The gendered society, however, was essential to forming my thoughts and perceptions about females, most of which were incompatible with God’s design and purpose for me/us as persons in God’s image. I have no doubt that this is true for most if not all of us. It is thus critical for us to account for the gender equation we use in our lives, that is, both for how we feel about being a female and how we address gender issues as Christians in our theology and practice. The gender equation is a composite of how we see, think, and act on what it means to be female (or male) in terms of identity and function in everyday life, and the result this equation produces. For us to sufficiently address the issues surrounding gender and get to the heart of the underlying person, we urgently need to examine the gender equation we use; this means unavoidably that we must challenge lifelong assumptions about gender. This examination is imperative because in God’s view, females in the church overtly or covertly experience inherent injustice involved in those assumptions. With such a gender equation, God’s global church will continue to founder without its distinguished witness to the world until we take this bull by the horns.

This is all to say that where God’s global church family should have been the unmistakable light and leader against prevailing discrimination in all its forms against females, the church has utterly failed. Not only has the church failed, but its gender equation further reinforces and sustains the human condition underlying any and all discrimination. Later in the study, we’ll hear Jesus’ words rebuking us, holding us accountable for our individual and corporate responsibility for the condition of fragmentation (both of persons and relationships) of his church. Awareness of this fragmentation is directly correlated to our theological anthropology and view of sin, both of which are key component in our gender equation. Moreover, the existence of this fragmentation is the consequence in large part of an obstinate refusal or benign resistance to address the gender equation used, all the while entertaining the illusion that we abide by his commands concerning women. Due to gender discrimination against females, in a very real sense girls and women have become ‘lost’ in the church, though still in it.

It is indispensable for us to understand the gender equation that informs our theology and shapes our practice. The first and thus primary gender equation emerged at creation (Gen 1:26-27; 2:18,25). The prevailing gender equation, however, evolved from the dynamics of reductionism in the primordial garden, as a consequence of the inaugural persons reducing their identity and function in the primary gender equation (Gen 3:7,10,16). From this beginning, gender distinction and discrimination have prevailed throughout all human history, and the scope of gender discrimination has pervaded our human contexts. If we cannot clearly distinguish the primary gender equation in our theology and practice, how can we be confident that we aren’t involved in the prevailing gender equation? No, if we cannot clearly distinguish the primary gender equation in our life (individually and corporately), by default we will continue to reinforce and sustain the other one, the prevailing gender equation that is a distorted, reduced identity and function in our persons (female and male), relationships, and churches. This default mode becomes a bias that is easily mistaken for the truth of God’s design and purpose.

This study unfolds uncomfortably, because God holds us accountable for the gender equation we use; and being held accountable by God upsets the status quo and our comfort zones, and requires us to change. Jesus consistently challenged persons’ assumptions about the bases on which they shaped their identity and function, thus Chapter 2 specifically addresses us to the gender equation we use for this purpose. This is the intrusive and disrupting effect of Jesus’ vulnerable involvement with persons while he lived in our human context. Therefore, as we follow him today on his intrusive relational path, we should expect and welcome the Spirit’s intimate involvement with us as well for his relational outcome. My sisters and brothers, if the church is ever to undergo turn-around change from its practice of discrimination based on gender, and be transformed to practice that is new and whole, now is the time.

You may have wondered: What more is there to say about gender issues in the church that hasn’t already been said? What we should all be earnestly asking instead is: Why haven’t things turned around for the significance of women in the church after over two thousand years? That is to say, why haven’t gender identity and function been transformed in both Christian women and men? Jesus already accomplished the relational work necessary that broke down barriers between all persons, and equalized us all (as Paul made conclusive, Eph 2:14-22; Col 3:10-11). Why are we still dealing with gender distinction and discrimination in the church? There is something deep that we have been missing.

For starters, church leadership urgently needs to become much more sensitized to the prevailing gender equation that permeates our society and churches, and how this is so common that we assume it’s just normal—like a habit in our brains that we don’t think about and thus aren’t even aware of its presence. Church leaders, especially men but also women, need to come to terms in their churches with their operating gender equation. It is undeniable that the prevailing gender equation, in both society at large and churches in particular, is constituted by sexism.

Sexism encompasses attitudes and behaviors of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination against persons based on their gender, usually against girls and women. This discrimination against females takes place as hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism is the overt verbal and physical treatment of girls and women that demeans us, such as physical sexual assault (unwanted sexual groping, attempted and completed rape) and verbal assault using sexualized names and innuendo. Hostile sexism is obvious.

Less obvious, however, is benevolent sexism, which encompasses patronizing attitudes and expressions toward girls and women that we are by virtue of our female gender weaker (needing protection from males), submissive, passive, and deferring to males (as in the prevailing gender equation). There’s a vast difference between being patronizing, on the one hand, and being sensitive to females’ real needs and capabilities, on the other hand. Male pastors are often patronizing toward females, in my opinion and experience. Recognizing benevolent sexism is especially critical in Christian contexts because it is justified in much practice, if not in theology—and this includes acting paternalistic and serving as benefactors. While we need to become much more vocal against hostile sexism in the church, I suspect there is more benevolent sexism in churches than we realize. This includes recognizing the gender distinctions we make and understanding what underlies those distinctions.

Wherever we encounter gender discrimination, we must clearly name and call out the obvious situations and circumstances of gender discrimination against girls and women, such as unequal opportunities for girls and women, unequal pay for equal work, and sexual misconduct against females. But that is just the first phase in the process of our own transformation to wholeness. That process of becoming aware of gender discrimination (the process of conscientization) is a necessary starting point, and from there we can then examine more deeply the roots of the prevailing gender equation that never get sufficiently addressed.

The biological basis upon which prevailing gender equations are formed is only one aspect of persons, females and males; yet on account of that one difference, femininity and masculinity have assumed great importance to our self-understanding. The bad news is that to essentially construct a gender equation on this singular basis of gender both fragments females from our integrated wholeness (as God created all persons), and reduces females to less than whole persons (as created in God’s image). Narrow and constraining stereotypes are inculcated in us from childhood (both females and males), and those stereotypes continue to be internalized, expressed and perpetuated—even unintentionally or unknowingly. This prevailing gender equation we use comes from outside our person, yet we internalized it, and treat ourselves and others according to its norms for females and males.

Being feminine means dressing a certain way, smiling a lot, being “nice and kind, calm and quiet,”[2] and being attractive and submissive to males—to name a few cultural norms (read requirements) for us. Being masculine means having physical strength, being fearless, not showing emotions (emotions signaling weakness)—and, especially, not being feminine. Norms such as these shape our identity, that is, our self-understanding of who we are supposed to be (how we define our self), together with our function in how we are supposed to behave, notably how we engage in relationships with others. Under this determination, females essentially surrender their will to be different, or are stigmatized for exercising their person to the contrary.

Reduced identity and function comprise our theological anthropology (TA). Therefore, we need to think about how our TA is largely defined by the prevailing gender equation, and not God’s primary gender equation. This is why we need another study on women and gender. Specifically, we need to be more honest than we have been willing to be about just how this reduction of females subtly manifests itself in our persons (even among feminists and egalitarians) and the negative impact this reductionism has on our self-worth and perception of our integrity and capabilities as persons. Critically for us as Jesus’ followers, we need to ask ourselves vulnerably: How does the prevailing gender equation diminish our relationships with God and others, and our place in the church? And face: How is God affected? The next chapter addresses this question.

I strongly encourage you, as you go through this study, to stop as often as necessary along the way and think about your own experiences growing up. Using a “lens” focused on gender, think about what you felt and thought about being a girl (or boy), how your perceptions of yourself and others might have changed during your pre-teens, teenage years, and so on. Even though some of this study might seem conceptual, it is meant to get us to think about our everyday life and practice. Some of this examining will be uncomfortable, at times painful, bringing up feelings of shame, guilt, sadness, and anger. These are the feelings we need to ask the Spirit’s help to be honest about and share with our Father.

Historically (and even theologically), efforts at changing the prevailing gender equation so that females are treated and able to live as equal to males have failed to correct the existing human order—notwithstanding important but hard-won gains along the way (e.g. women’s right to vote in the U.S.). This is why we need another study on gender and women: We obviously need to address the issue of gender discrimination with a different lens and deeper understanding, or, as Albert Einstein might say: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Chapter three examines the theology that shaped much of current thinking, thinking that has been both insufficient for God’s family to undergo the redemptive change necessary for all persons to become whole together in the image and likeness of the Trinity—as Jesus prayed for us to be (Jn 17:11,21-23), and as Paul clarified as the redemptive change of transformation (Rom 12:2).

The theology discussion includes a critique of the complementarian-egalitarian debate, both sides of which promote the prevailing gender equation. I think egalitarians will be more surprised at the critique (and I am not a complementarian). That discussion then articulates a whole theology for our practice to be and live whole our identity and function as whole male and female persons in whole relationships together in the Trinity’s likeness—defined and determined by nothing less than and no substitutes for our whole persons (or ‘nothing less and no substitutes’ for short in this study).

Before focusing on the church and other Christian contexts and concerns (Chaps. 2 and 5)—including examining and critiquing our prevailing theology (Chap. 3) and practice (Chap. 4), it’s necessary to get a firm handle on our prevailing sociocultural context—our human context—which Jesus referred to as “the world” in the opening Scripture of this chapter. We need deeper understanding of the human context and its fragmented human order in order to fully understand God’s opposing relational context and contrary relational process. This distinction between the common “of the world” and God’s uncommon (holy, i.e. set apart from common usage for God) is critical to hear and receive Jesus’ words and what he fervently prayed to the Father for (Jn 17:14-26). What does it mean to “belong to” or “not belong to” our human context as it relates to the gender equation we use? While most of this discussion focuses on Western society (and especially in the U.S.), the general themes are pertinent to the Majority World’s global contexts, both general societies and the church in those contexts.

The notion of the gendered society means that when we are born into this society, we enter a life context that uses gender distinction between females and males in nearly every aspect of life. That is, the everyday life we experience in family, education, employment, politics, culture, and religion is ordered according to terms defined by what belongs to the categories of feminine and masculine. In variable ways, every society has these categories to define persons, so who can claim to not be from a gendered context? The prevailing gender equation from the primordial garden simply nullifies any such claim. The binary categories of feminine and masculine dominate our society, although there is some blurring of these categories with the growing visibility of LGBTQ persons. This study focuses on the feminine-masculine binary because it is still the dominant fissure in human relations that pervades the human condition—including our condition in the church.

Life in human contexts worldwide is for girls and women a complex mix of experiences of gender distinction (difference) which leads to discrimination. Difference in our societies always connotes less for persons considered different, as in less in worth and importance; therefore, in comparison, girls and women are less deserving than boys and men of opportunities (privilege), respect (prestige), and authority (power) in countless areas of life. This notion (i.e. stigma) that difference means less is called the deficit model in a comparative process, and its use in Western society applies to any minority group vis-à-vis the white male dominant majority (i.e. not necessarily the majority in number but having majority control over others). The deficit model is the gender equation prevailing in all human contexts, and is, simply, a lie—a lie composed and perpetuated by reductionism. I grew up having internalized this perception of me as less, and it has taken me ongoing effort to reject this lie and embrace God’s truth about me. Engaging in this sin of reductionism (to be discussed in depth in the next chap.) may seem normal and will not be apparent to Christians unless their view of sin encompasses reductionism. Thus, in contrast and likely in conflict with the status quo, dealing with the lie of the prevailing gender equation is what all of Jesus’ followers—both females and males—must face with the Spirit in order to ‘not belong to the world’ just as Jesus does not.

As we begin this study, let’s clarify some key terms. I have most often heard the words gender and sex used interchangeably, where ‘gender’ seems more polite or less embarrassing. ‘Sex’ in our overly sexualized modern culture often denotes sexual intercourse (or related). Therefore, in everyday conversation, I use ‘gender’ to mean female or male. But for this study, I also use the following distinction by sociologist and gender expert Michael S. Kimmel:

Sex refers to the biological apparatus, the male and the female—our chromosomal, chemical, anatomical organization. Gender refers to the meanings that are attached to those differences within a culture. Sex is male and female; gender is masculinity and femininity—what it means to be a man or a woman….And while biological sex varies very little, gender varies enormously. What it means to possess the anatomical configuration of male or female means very different things depending on where you are, who you are, and when you are living.^{^[3]}

The purpose for distinguishing the difference between sex and gender in this study is simply to highlight the fact that gender distinctions are constructed in and by our human sociocultural contexts, and define the attributes that get ascribed to persons.

Gender combines with other attributes of what persons have (e.g. other physical features, possessions) and what they do (e.g. roles in family, in jobs, in church) to form and thereby define their identity (ontology) and determine their daily behaviors as they carry out their roles (e.g. function). Gendered attributes are defined as essentially feminine or masculine, and are reinforced by cultures and societies. But these gender distinctions are not neutral, as Kimmel states here:

Gender is not simply a system of classification by which biological males and biological females are sorted, separated, and socialized into equivalent sex roles. Gender also expresses the universal inequality between men and women. When we speak about gender we also speak about hierarchy, power, and inequality, not simply difference.^{^[4]}

These assumptions and ascriptions are biases by which we define persons from birth—or even before—in our families and among friends. Parents may try to intentionally raise their children apart from genderized cultural norms, but it is contradictory to do so if the parents themselves unknowingly practice gender distinctions for themselves. It is also impossible to counter children’s peer pressure and other forms of genderized socialization—including genderized technology and social media. And, although there are variations from culture to culture about what is feminine or masculine, as well as diversity of sexuality, “virtually every single society differentiates people on the basis of gender” and “virtually every known society is also based on male dominance.”^{^[5]}

Genderization refers to making unjustified distinctions falsely based on the physiological makeup that we are each born with, such as our chromosomes, genitalia, hormones. These are the distinctions that classify persons into narrow categories of feminine and masculine, which unfold in the inevitable comparative process with the deficit model. Gender distinction segregates females and males into separate groupings, such as female-dominated jobs like nursing and housekeeping over against male-dominated jobs like public officials and construction. In particular, gendered distinctions have to be critically examined for all the ways those distinctions are used to compose gender discrimination (sexism), the universal consequences for girls and women. The dynamics are outlined as follows:

(1) Gender distinctions carry a value of better or less measured on a comparative scale, where female gender is ‘less’ and male gender is ‘more’, thereby creating unequal relationships.

(2) Unequal relationships by nature function with relational barriers and relational distance, countering intimacy of heart-to-heart connection between equal persons. Unequal relationships between males and females prevail at all levels of the human order of life in personal relationships, families, within tribes/communities, cultures, and in societies’ institutions.

(3) The result is the gendered social hierarchy that ensures preference, power, and privilege for males (in families, cultures, and institutions) kept in place by males exerting power through dominance and control (e.g. suppressing females through physical, emotional, and economic coercion/violence). Not all males are prejudiced against females, nor do all males discriminate against females. That is, some boys and men may not be sexist or practice sexism in their personal relationships, but they are complicit by going along with, participating in and benefiting from gendered institutional contexts—and remaining silent.

(4) Gender discrimination has created this inequality that is practiced universally as patriarchy in families, cultures, and institutions (including religions). All of human life is gendered; this world is a gendered world. The only good news is that this genderized-ness of the world is not what Jesus belongs to, nor should we—but the church hasn’t yet been redeemed from it in most of our theology and practice.

In this study, I use gender discrimination and sexism interchangeably. The following is a thorough definition of sexism from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Sexism, prejudice or discrimination based on sex or gender, especially against women and girls…. Sexism can be a belief that one sex is superior to or more valuable than another sex. It imposes limits on what men and boys can and should do and what women and girls can and should do. The concept of sexism was originally formulated to raise consciousness about the oppression of girls and women, although by the early 21st century it had sometimes been expanded to include the oppression of any sex, including men and boys, intersexual people, and transgender people.

Sexism in a society is most commonly applied against women and girls. It functions to maintain patriarchy, or male domination, through ideological and material practices of individuals, collectives, and institutions that oppress women and girls on the basis of sex or gender. Such oppression usually takes the forms of economic exploitation and social domination. Sexist behaviours, conditions, and attitudes perpetuate stereotypes of social (gender) roles based on one’s biological sex.[6]

Misogyny literally means hatred toward women. Much of recent news about sexual harassment, abuse, and sexual misconduct in general has brought to light the blatant disregard on the part of males toward females as persons of equal value and equal stature. Are these instances of misogyny? My perception of misogyny used to be that hatred toward women was restricted to the extreme expressions of violence against women, such as rape and sadomasochism. My understanding has since broadened and deepened, however, to now view misogyny as any dehumanization (i.e. fragmenting reductionism) of females, as any expressions that treat females as less than the whole persons that God creates us to be and seeks to redeem us to. By the same reasoning, misandry (the hatred of males) covers all forms of dehumanizing of males to less than the whole persons that God sees. In this sense, it can be said with significance that males who practice misogyny also engage in misandry; and this subtle hatred of persons is inherent in the prevailing gender equation.

Several examples from current events are worth noting to illustrate how women, along with their voices, get diminished, or put another way, their whole persons get ‘lost’ due to prejudice, discrimination, and suppression. Women have to strive against the status quo that favors males across the sociocultural spectrum of everyday life.

The first example was illuminated in the movie “Flint,” about the still-current problem of contaminated water in Flint, Michigan. The movie showed in condensed form the process that some Flint women residents undertook to bring change to a dire situation. Children and adults were getting seriously sick as a result of bad decisions by government officials about Flint’s water supply. A group of mothers spearheaded community action to correct the severe health crisis caused by those decisions, which meant also to hold officials—mostly men—accountable for their ill-intentioned decisions. In key scenes where mothers testified about illnesses caused by Flint’s contaminated water supply, the male officials simply dismissed the women, offering them excuses disguised as their responsible choices.

In one scene at a public meeting, the officials dismissed the women’s statements, but listened to a male pastor supporting the women. And it wasn’t until a male scientist (and his assistants) gathered and presented evidence of widespread evidence and high levels of contaminated water among Flint households that things began to change. The dynamic to notice here is the dismissiveness with which the women were treated by the men in positions of power and authority. By being ignored, this is how the women got lost initially. The women’s concerns were of critical importance and clearly were in the right, but the men were content with the status quo that disregarded others’ lives.

The women’s voices were initially silenced, but finally found expression and got results. Fortunately for the citizens of Flint, the women persisted and are now getting some results. I have no doubt that the male officials in power didn’t suddenly become dismissive of women in this situation. Rather, the situation merely exposed their previously formed attitude of dismissiveness.

The second example is also from current events in the U.S., and illustrates a double whammy against women—women being sexually assaulted in the workplace, then further demeaned or threatened to be fired when they protest. A number of prominent men in politics, entertainment, and tech (who possess both power and privilege) have been publicly accused of sexual harassment, abuse, assault, or rape. Certain of these men flatly deny the women’s accounts, calling them liars, or simply claiming that the sexual relations were consensual. Many of the accused men dismiss and disparage the women’s voices who “tell truth to power,” again calling the women liars, thereby publicly demeaning and silencing the women. One of the aspiring politicians, judge Roy Moore, identifies himself as a Christian, and other Christian leaders openly supported him—or at least remained silent (implying agreement) on the matter. In all the cases, the women (and girls) who have been victimized are sacrificed for men’s political and egotistical aspirations and goals. How common a behavior is it for accused men to try to silence the women who accuse them, by publicly disparaging them or by paying them to keep quiet? Even the current U.S. president has done so.

Part of the status quo treatment of women is when women speak up against sexual abusers, they are ignored, disparaged, threatened, and retaliated against (i.e. ostracized). It remains to be seen how well this current #MeToo movement will help bring very basic change to our male-dominated society. Or will this moment fade away and women continue to be silenced by those in power?

Gender discrimination against women in the workplace includes all the ways women are treated unequally and unfairly. In addition to unequal pay for equal work, workplace discrimination favors men over women in hiring, reserves promotions and other career-enhancing opportunities for men, and sustains the ‘old boys club’ which is vital to building social networks—evidence of male privilege and power. A notable example is evidenced in the recent lawsuits made by three female scientists at the reputable Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The issue at the Salk Institute is particularly stunning because the three women are full professors (there are only five women senior professors to twenty-eight men), and have garnered much more grant money than have the men. Yet gender discrimination has continued to persist there in spite of two studies on gender disparities (2003 and 2016) that found the institute’s practices alarmingly discriminatory.[7]

The sexual harassment of untold numbers of women in the workplace is not publicized, as it has been for Hollywood celebrities, politicians, high level scientists, and academics, or even reported. A current survey of Los Angeles city workers found that 18% of the females experienced sexual harassment and that nearly half of them never reported it.[8] Many women are in minimum wage (or below minimum wage) jobs in service industries (waitresses, hotel housekeepers, and room cleaners), but even well-paid truckers. So many of these women are often just getting by financially and are desperate to keep their jobs, making them vulnerable to abuse.[9] It is usually men who are managers and supervisors holding power over women, and who intimidate the women into either going along with sexual, physical, or emotional abuse, and not reporting the abuse. There are certainly male co-workers who witness abuse, but many don’t say anything because they are also afraid for their jobs. The women in these jobs are also sexually harassed by customers in addition to their work superiors. Other vulnerable women are domestic workers, (nannies, house cleaners), garment workers, fast-food workers, and farmworkers.

The third current example is the sexual abuse of U.S. young female gymnasts by their doctor. Larry Nasser regularly abused hundreds of girls and young women under the guise of medical treatment. Nasser would tell the girls not to disclose to others the “treatment” he was performing. Whenever one of them complained, they weren’t just ignored, they were silenced by Nasser’s employers (Michigan State University and the USA Gymnastics).[10] How many other so-called doctors are abusing girls and women under the guise of medical care? Part of the problem with much of sexual assault is that the victims don’t know they’re being abused, yet they feel guilt or shame, and they fear some form of consequence if they came forward.

Another entire chapter can be written about sexual abuse of girls and women globally concerning sex trafficking and prostitution, girl infanticide, genital mutilation, honor killings, and slave labor to name the most visible cases. Traditional cultures typically render girls and women to inferior status in their families, in marriage, and in their communities. Men continue to dictate how women must live, as in South Asia and the Middle Eastern countries. Even in Sweden, whose reputation as egalitarian is well-known, the curtain on sexism is now being pulled back; the recent turmoil over sexual abuse and male abuse of power in the Nobel literature prize body is only the most prominent evidence of the illusion that Scandinavia is nobly egalitarian. This study focuses more on sexism in the West, specifically in the Western church, because that is what I’m most aware of. But the dynamics of what gender equation we use apply universally to God’s global family.

The problem of sexual harassment and abuse, including domestic violence, also exists in Christian contexts, but receives much less general news coverage, although there is some reporting in Christian publications. One prominent case involved revered Anabaptist theologian, John Howard Yoder; only after decades did the Mennonite seminary (where Yoder sexually abused and harassed many women) take full responsibility for its failure to deal with Yoder appropriately.^{^[11]} Sexual misconduct by male leaders against women in the church by church and ministry leaders must be exposed for its dehumanizing—again, the subtle hatred of persons by fragmenting reductionism—and hurtful consequences on females (and males), and on the integrity and identity of God’s church. Such practices expose the presence of the prevailing gender equation.

Importantly, Christian women recently have begun to speak up more publicly about their experiences (e.g. #ChurchToo and #SilenceIsNotSpiritual), but it is not yet clear what the church as a whole will do about it. Alarmingly absent is the Christian academy’s forceful, just and compassionate response and action, thereby failing to heed Jesus’ admonition not only to not look down on females, but to challenge and correct shameful treatment of God’s own daughters. The next chapter will expand on this disgraceful condition.

The prevailing gender equation indeed exerts a stranglehold on Western society. Gender stereotypes that define femininity and masculinity have become extremely polarized in overt sexual terms. Women are constantly portrayed as sex objects across the cultural board, on the internet (e.g. pornography), in music (e.g. much of rap music), in movies and television, in fashion, and in advertising. Parents of little girls involve their daughters in the problematic activity of child beauty pageants, where the girls are made up to look like adult women and act “sexy.” As counterpart to the hyper-sexualized female, masculinity is portrayed as “hyper-masculinity” as sexually dominating, warriors, violent, and disregarding the humanity of females. Pornography is included in this dynamic of objectifying women.

According to recent studies, porn consumption not only interferes in relationships, but also “‘pornography consumption [is] associated with an increased probability of the use of threat of force to obtain sex’, and that both violent and nonviolent porn are implicated.”^{^[12]} Pornography also becomes addictive as it rearranges neural connections and behaviors in users, thereby seriously biasing those persons’ perceptions of females as sex objects. Females become further dehumanized, and it’s important to grasp that as men objectify women, they are also objectifying their own person by giving primacy to their sexual impulses.

This problem exists in the church, including in seminaries and among pastors. Porn addiction’s effects aren’t only on the individual, but porn users’ engagement in porn involves reducing others to sex objects. With this bias wired in their brain, how does that engagement, especially as it becomes an addiction for pastors, not affect how they treat other persons in their church?

We all live with biases, our own and others. There is no human person who has no biases—including scientists—although persons may insist they are not biased in any way (as one friend of my husband and mine believes, who also served as a judge!). It is obviously a critical issue when anyone doesn’t recognize and acknowledge their bias. But it is also problematic when our perceptual-interpretive lens is subconsciously controlled even by biases we are aware of.

Consider your own gender bias. What are your biases, your assumptions about girls and boys, women and men? What do you assume to be inherently feminine and inherently masculine? I grew up with the bias that males were overall smarter than females, therefore I wasn’t smart—at least not as smart as males. This life lie influenced my choice of major in college, notably that I chose a humanities major (English), then later switched to linguistics (considered either a humanities or a social sciences major, depending on its emphasis) over one in biology, although I was acutely interested in biology as long as I can remember. This is one area where I didn’t pay attention to my father (a physician) who wanted me to become a doctor. I now think that the thought of going into medicine was intimidating, and I was really avoiding failure more than anything. It’s difficult to tease out how much my inferiority complex was due to being female, and perhaps also bearing the double jeopardy as a woman of color, but I have no doubt that my life lie affected me deeply.

Gender bias (prejudice against an individual because of their gender) and gender stereotyping (ascribing limited characteristics to females and males) begins in early childhood and even despite parents’ best efforts at raising their children without the feminine and masculine assumptions. To counter traditional sociocultural ideals, modern parents often try to help girls grow up to be independent, strong, and self-confident, and boys to be sensitive to others, nurturing, and to express emotions. However, children’s perceptions of themselves and others will become genderized by virtue of living in our gendered society. And countering this genderized lens is an ongoing process, which even progressives must address in themselves.

One enduring gender stereotype is that boys and men are more likely than girls and women to be ‘brilliant’ (as in a genius stereotype)—and more likely than females to succeed in careers requiring high intelligence, say neuroscience or astrophysics. When does this bias start to form? A recent study showed that 5 year-old girls and boys are equally likely to think that people of their own gender can be “really, really smart,” (the study’s kid-level vocabulary to mean ‘brilliant’), but by age 6, girls are 20-30% less likely to believe their gender can be brilliant. Also at age 6, girls were less likely than boys to show interest in “smart” games, but were equally likely to be interested if the games required working hard. Interestingly, girls believed that their gender did better than boys in school achievement and grades. The study established the age at which gender bias about intelligence emerges, but cannot pinpoint the factors that cause girls to change their self-perception. As they conclude:

It will be important to test whether these findings extend beyond a middle-class, majority-white U.S. cultural context and to comprehensively investigate the sources of the “brilliance = males” stereotype in children’s environments. Nevertheless, the present results suggest a sobering conclusion: Many children assimilate the idea that brilliance is a male quality at a young age. This stereotype begins to shape children’s interests as soon as it is acquired and is thus likely to narrow the range of careers they will one day contemplate.[13]

The disturbing fact remains clear, that girls internalize inferiority about their intelligence at an early age, even now when there are women excelling in fields requiring being really, really smart.

In spite of much focus in education on steering more girls into science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) tracks, the number of females in high-paying STEM jobs as of 2017 has decreased from 25% to 20%. Of further added concern is that females in Generation X (born between 1965 and 1981) are faring worse than baby boomer women, and that millennial women fare even worse than Gen X women in overall well-being measured by a number of categories, including earnings, education and health.[14] More women aged 30-34 are living in poverty (12% for Gen X women, and 17% for millennial women). These generations in the U.S. have to deal with economic recession, which is a factor for decreased well-being of women. Yet we can be certain that persistent gender bias has exacerbated their lives, certainly imposed on them by others, but perhaps also self-imposed.

Awareness of one’s gender bias, as with other biases, is curiously invisible to whoever is in the majority group. I mentioned earlier that a friend believes strongly that he has no biases, none at all. He (a white male) is a former judge and truly believes he’s always right in his judgments, including about himself; therefore, he has neither gender bias nor racial bias. Consider what sociologist and expert in gender studies, Michael S. Kimmel, discovered about himself as he writes of this experience in a seminar on feminism. During that discussion, the question was raised “When you…look in the mirror, what do you see?” Kimmel’s response was telling:

“Well,…I see a human being. I’m universally generalizable. As a middle-class white man, I have no class, no race, no gender. I’m a generic person!”[15]

Kimmel learned in that moment that he “enjoyed the privilege of invisibility.” He further concluded:

The very processes that confer privilege to one group and not another group are often invisible to those upon whom that privilege is conferred. What makes us marginal or powerless are the processes we see. Invisibility is a privilege in another sense—as luxury. Only white people in our society have the luxury not to think about race every minute of their lives. And only men have the luxury to pretend that gender does not matter.

These are important insights to consider as Christians, along with the operation of bias—gender bias, race bias, and all others. We need to honestly address the gendered biases we’ve internalized and project onto others. These genderized biases reinforce gender stereotypes that form not just our own identity and determine our function in fragmented and reduced terms, but that also form assumptions and expectations of others that diminish their wholeness. Again, reduced persons are not fully present to experience deep meaningful relationships with others, including with God; and this consequence exposes the underlying root dynamics of what is primary and thus most significant in human life. The existing and often subtle consequences of so much genderization is that our society is full of relational orphans (the human condition), lacking meaningful relational connections that we all deeply need to fulfill our inherent need as persons. We bring our overly genderized selves to church, and together form the gendered church, which in many ways simply mirrors the gendered societies we come from. Yet, this gender equation eludes our notice or simply is ignored by misled conviction or misguided convenience (discussed further in following chapters).

Compare these two newspaper headlines for articles that both addressed sexual harassment in government:

These two articles both discussed the problem of sexual harassment by men against women among government leaders in California state government and in federal government, respectively. Notice the subtle difference in the headlines. Who is the problem, that is, the perpetrators in most cases of sexual harassment? Males are. The first article focused on sexual harassment in Sacramento (CA state capitol) in order to widen our view of the issue beyond Hollywood. Why then does its headline (the title of a Los Angeles Times editorial) use the words “women problem”? This is a common use of language that misleadingly connotes that the women, not the men, are the problem, and thus inadvertently reinforces the subtle lens of gender bias. Compare the difference in meaning that would have been conveyed by reworking that title to “Sacramento’s man problem.” The article did go on to state that “sexual harassment and intimidation in the workplace” is a “human problem,” but that statement still fails to name the problem, namely, the men who perpetuate it. I would be surprised if this article (and editorial) were written by a female editor.

In the second newspaper article headline, the contrast isn’t between ‘a woman problem’ and ‘a man problem’, but rather between ‘a partisan problem’ and a ‘man problem’. The writer presses the point that in politics, men on both sides of the aisle are guilty of sexual assault and other forms of harassment. Thus, the headline correctly names the problem as a male problem.

Language creates bias, reinforces bias, hurts feelings, and abuses persons. The reality is that:

Language matters because language both forms thought and makes functional any thought (notably human consciousness) antecedent to language. It has become increasingly apparent to modern scientific research that the language we speak shapes the way we see the world and even the way we think (not necessarily producing thought). This points to the function of language not merely as a means of expression but also as a template imposing a constraint limiting what we see and the way we think.[18]

Think of your experiences—either giving or receiving—about messages related to gender. “Just a girl” and “like a girl” are used by boys to disparage others, as if it is a bad thing to be a girl. A girl may not run or throw a baseball very well, but with a little coaching she can learn. And “boys will be boys” has excused male sexual misconduct against females. Some people say admiringly, “he’s all boy,” and “he’s a man’s man,” but no one says “she’s all girl” and only rarely “she’s a woman’s woman.” Why is that? How has the language we speak shaped the way we see and even think about gender?

A common example of the biased/biasing use of language is blaming the victims of sexual assaults, as when a perpetrator and their supporters blame the women on the grounds that the assault was essentially the fault of the woman’s attire and flirting, going into men’s fraternity or hotel rooms. Perpetrators use words like “she was asking for it,” “she liked it,” “it was consensual sex” in order to exonerate themselves. These are overt examples of common language by which males have long constructed and perpetuated the storyline of women (as opposed to themselves) having questionable morals. In doing so, they thereby refocus others’ perception from perpetrator to victim, but not only redirecting the focus but justifying that trickery by recasting victim in an unfavorable light. To qualify these comments, I am not excusing women who are irresponsible in their behaviors and their suggestive/seductive appearance, and who must be accountable for their own complicity in sexual misconduct, but I believe the greater part of the blame lies with the men and sociocultural context we live in.

Everyday use of language is often thus gendered to paint a verbal portrait that demeans girls and women while it shields or promotes boys and men. One very contemporary vehicle for such language is popular music. Music is everywhere in society, and we need to become more aware of and sensitive to how pervasive sexist lyrics are across genres. The major criticism that I have of some rap lyrics is the abundance of misogynist, violent and dehumanizing language against women. Such language is an example of hostile sexism. As for both hostile and benevolent sexism in other music genres, they are just as easy to find.

The influence of the language of music must not be minimized. Music consumption, especially in our formative years, easily is internalized and mixed in with our emotions and even the understanding of our self. This process gets wired in our brains and has subconscious consequences. We grow up with soundtracks in our psyches, and these soundtracks influence our identity, whether we are conscious of it or not. For girls growing up hearing misogynist lyrics, how can this not affect how they view themselves as objects for men’s pleasure or violent displays of domination? Or for girls hearing through their favorite songs that they need to be sexually attractive to males, or weak beings needing protection, or needing to be everything to another person, or that a male needs to be everything to them?

This dynamic in language reflects the embeddedness of sexism in U.S. society, in which women are automatically blamed for misbehavior of men, however subtly that blame in issued. This blaming is not new (cf. Gen 3:12), but has historic ecclesial backing from the early Church Fathers, which is discussed in the next chapter. Many modern feminists have laid a lot of blame for sexism against women at the feet of these revered Christian brothers, because they were foundational for much of Western Christianity and Western values.

When boys and men use derogatory language to define girls and women, they perpetuate not just prejudice against females but outright misogyny (hatred of females). This includes the way that boys and men ridicule other males by stigmatizing them with so-called feminine qualities—as if being female were the ultimate put-down. Such attitudes of scorn are passed on and embedded as biases, the sum of which encompasses misandry and the subtle hatred of all persons. The important point here is the power of language and its misuse, which is expanded on for the church in following chapters.

Visual images—whether projected by the media, in the arts, or as personal expression—are just nonverbal communication of ideas, composing language for the eyes. I had a male seminary classmate whose shirt pattern included those silhouettes of busty women in sexy poses you often see on pickup truck bumpers. What does that convey about his view of women? We have to address the ubiquitous reality facing all of us that our sociocultural environment is saturated with highly genderized-sexualized images, especially advertisements for products and movies. These images drive the polarization between highly sexualized females and hyper-masculinized males. And this defining reality makes everyone (including small children) subject to their presence everywhere. But this is just the norm in our gendered society, which keeps updating the ‘new normal’ for the gender equation in use.

Think about the images you see all around you, and consider what the purpose of those images is. Because females are socialized to place great importance on appearance as a prime measure of our self-worth, we are especially vulnerable to the power of genderized images conveying the measures of physical beauty and sexual attractiveness. We go through daily life trying to enhance and embellish our identity through our life so we can measure up to the images we see, often not questioning the validity of those images and the illusion of their importance to us as persons. That’s what makes us females so vulnerable to genderized consumerism. We have also seen a change over the past decades of increased marketing aimed at males to embellish their physical appearance as well—notably to look young and cool. And many younger men in the church seem captivated by this focus.

Language and images are essential to everyday life, including our lives as Jesus’ followers (individually and corporately). It becomes second nature (as a subconscious brain) to use language and images that we hear and see all around us, defaulting to gendered expressions without thinking about gendered stereotypes that we may communicate or reinforce. As we will see through this study, however, language is so vital, so critical to who, what, and how we are as God’s daughters and sons, so that even our language needs to be redeemed and transformed into the language of God, which is the relational language expressing the whole person for the primacy of whole relationships together.

This study doesn’t examine racism per se, but it is necessary and unavoidable to at times draw the inseparable connection between the sexism and racism because of the fact that they result from the underlying dynamic of the same root sin. The above discussion about the invisibility of bias encompasses the invisibility of racial bias. Recall that bias functions as a lens which determines what we pay attention to and what we ignore. In Western society, white males are the dominant group over females and persons of color; their bias is the privilege of invisibility, so they don’t see both gender and racial bias.

Woman of color in Western societies experience both gender bias and racial bias. Do we women of color really experience a double bias constituting a ‘double jeopardy’? As a woman of color, I say matter-of-factly, “Of course we do. Let’s make this double jeopardy in the church visible at last!” The double jeopardy bias that women of color experience may not seem like a real ‘thing’, but for those who don’t perceive it, that lack reflects either gender bias or race bias or both.

Given Kimmel’s experience of “the privilege of invisibility,” it is likely that most white males would not perceive or understand this concept very well, or not at all. White women would understand the sexism part for women of color, but not perceive the racism part because white women are members of the dominant racial group. This is exactly what came out in the feminism discussion that Kimmel participated in. In Kimmel’s description of an earlier interaction, he writes:

“A white woman and a black woman were discussing whether all women were, by definition, “sisters,” because they all had essentially the same experiences and because all women faced a common oppression by men. The white woman asserted that the fact that they were both women bonded them, in spite of racial differences. The black woman disagreed.

“That’s precisely the problem,” responded the black woman. “I see a black woman. To me, race is visible every day, because race is how I am not privileged in our culture. Race is invisible to you, because it’s how you are privileged. It’s why there will always be differences in our experience.”[19]

By extension, men of color are aware of racial bias, because they don’t belong to the racially privileged group of white persons. They do, however, belong to the privileged gender group, and often don’t see gender bias in themselves, in their race, or in other males.

Double jeopardy is the real experience of most women of color. Yet, sexism and racism aren’t equally yoked. Sexism trumps racism. Within racial/ethnic groups, women are discriminated against, clearly demonstrated by the sexism in the different civil rights movements for justice and racial equality of the 20^th century—Civil Rights Movement, and Black Power, Chicano, Asian American and Native American movements. In all of these efforts, women were constantly relegated to the domestic functions in subservience to the men, or women leaders were pushed aside so that the men received more recognition.[20] More currently, women of color continue to experience double jeopardy in in workplaces, such as in the STEM fields.[21]

Sexism and racism aren’t connected merely as similar outer behaviors of discrimination, but emerge from and reflect the same roots. We could include classism in our integrated discussion, because it too comes from the same roots, and disproportionately affects women.[22] As we proceed into the study, understanding the integrated focus on identity and function (our theological anthropology) will help us understand the common root sin of reductionism shared by sexism and racism, the two prevailing -isms (as well as other false distinctions and discrimination we practice) plaguing the church (local and global) and society at large.

The practice of institutional gender discrimination in the prevailing sociocultural context is vital for us to understand in general but also in particular, because it exists in Christian institutions and affects all females, whether or not we are aware of its operation. These practices also affect men, who are even less likely to be aware of the effects since male benefits come at the shrouded expense of females. It is important for us to understand that sexism isn’t only an individual’s problem, but that institutions have historically been built with discriminatory practices. What are the markers of institutional sexism?

All workplaces that hire and promote less qualified men over equally or more qualified deserving women, and pay women less for equal work—are institutions of gender discrimination. The latest Pew research reports that women earn 82 cents for every dollar that men earn for equal or comparable work.[23] Globally, the World Economic Forum recently reported that it will take 100 years to close the gender pay gap, which had previously been reported to take 86 years.^{^[24]} Even when male leadership makes the conscious effort to promote equality for women, inequality persists because of the institution’s systemic sexism. In other words, institutional discrimination can operate with or without the cooperation of individuals, which informs us that change cannot merely take place at the individual level.

Institutional sexism was highlighted in a recent 60 Minutes television interview, which also shed some light on the barriers to change at the institutional level.[25] The CEO (Marc Benioff) of a technology company called Salesforce was proud of its progressive policies to hire and promote women and men equally, which set the company apart from the typical male domination in the tech world. When he was urged by the female head of the company’s human resources department to do an audit of the company’s pay scale because she suspected a wage gap, he initially didn’t believe that was necessary. Finally he relented and did the audit, and was shocked to discover that the women employees were paid less than the men doing equal jobs “just everywhere. It was through the whole company, every division, every department, every geography.” He ordered the pay gap to be closed, and ended up paying out millions to the women. Closing the pay gap in the workplace has now become his new project, but has met with resistance from other CEOs.

We get three further important takeaways from this conversation. One, the wage gap persists in part due to the unconscious bias (implicit bias) against women that is increasingly coming to light. For example, the fact that women bear children gives rise to assumptions that they will be more tired and less able to concentrate on the job (the “mommy penalty”), and are assigned less challenging tasks, which reduces their chances for advancement and promotion. Two, women are afraid to ask for raises for fear of being labeled complainers. Three, as with any challenge to the status quo, there is pushback, as Benioff said, “There is a lot of resistance” from fellow male CEOs. Benioff is now crusading for these changes: “There's never been an easier time to make this change. CEOs with one button on one computer can pay every man and every woman equally. We have the data. We know what everyone makes. There's no excuse. Everybody can easily do this now.”

What is behind the resistance to change, the change so that girls and women are treated with the same respect and value given to boys and men? It isn’t just the obvious economics; of course businesses are always protecting their bottom line. But there is also an absence of moral and ethical urgency, allowing to prevail the resistance to change—change that will certainly create discomfort by rearranging the status quo. Even with a moral imperative, the church has been resistant or slow to change its gender status quo.

The church always has the opportunity to show that major change is possible, that it doesn’t need to take a long time. Rather, it takes willingness to be vulnerable to whatever change is required of us, and whatever is necessary to deconstruct the church (or “clean it out” as Jesus did with the temple), and reconstruct it whole. Yes, vulnerable—vulnerable to individual change and corporate change. This unavoidable process must take place integrally by redemptive change in which the old order of human relations—namely the prevailing gender equation—must die so that the new relational order can emerge whole in God’s primary gender equation. This is necessary for the church to distinguish itself as not belonging to the world, but distinguished as God’s own new creation family, as Jesus prayed for (Jn 17:16,21,23; cf. Mt 5:13-14).

According to Shareforce’s Benioff during the 60 Minutes interview, achieving gender equality involves four doors:

“This is part of a total package. You can't look at one of these things independent of the other. You know, at some point you're gonna ask me about #MeToo [sexual harassment in the workplace]. Because that's the fourth door. You know, you can say equal opportunity is one critical part of gender equality. Then you can say equal advancement, that's a critical part of gender equality. Then you can say equal pay, that's the third door. And the fourth door is preventing sexual harassment. All of these things together is gender equality.”

These four doors must be opened, entered and resolved in order to achieve gender parity in the workplace. It might be tempting to apply the four-door model to the church to resolve gender inequality, given the church’s willingness to apply lessons from the human context to church practice. There may be some value to Benioff’s total package, but it is insufficient for the transformation of the church. Certainly equitable status and relations are necessary, and Christians should work for these, but God’s primary gender equation goes further and deeper than equity for women in the workplace. This unfolds in the discussion ahead.

The question—What gender equation do you use?—is more urgently critical than I realized before I started this study. Through listening with the Spirit to God’s Word, reflecting on my life experiences and those around me, by hearing others’ stories, and during conversations with my husband, the overall picture that emerges regarding gender is startling; and I’m convinced that many of Jesus’ words (and Paul’s) have gone unheeded. Contrary to and in conflict with Jesus’ prayer, we function as those who ‘belong to this world’. The prevailing gender equation from our human contexts is incompatible with the primary gender equation in which God created all persons for intimate and equalized relationships—whole persons for whole relationship together. Since the sin of reductionism composes the prevailing gender equation, both persons and relationships have needed to be redeemed and thereby transformed to the wholeness necessary to be one (whole) in the image and likeness of the Trinity. The relational outcome of the Trinity’s relational response of grace is the new creation of persons and relationships as the Trinity’s family, which is distinguished in the world only when whole and uncommon (holy)—distinguished whole-ly just as Jesus prayed for his family.

Based on the gender equation in use, the relational outcome of the Trinity’s relational response has eluded churches and their persons and relationships. This is not surprising when we are not clearly distinguished from the world. Our churches, persons and relationships are gendered, and will remain gendered until we are distinguished according to Jesus’ prayer. The startling reality is, however, that in our surrounding human contexts (both locally and globally) there is no basis for the necessary turn-around change to constitute the significance of intimacy and lasting equality among persons we long for and may even work for as peacemakers and justice activists. Some remedial steps may be accomplished, like participating in implicit bias training for workplaces. Yet, if persons in the dominant groups are resistant, they may only show politically correct outward behaviors; but this doesn’t address the deeper biases that will inevitably leak out because they haven’t undergone the inner-out, turn-around change of real transformation.

The same dynamic will hold true in our churches, and we should not be misguided and misled by reforms in theology and practice. The prevailing gender equation of discrimination and male dominance with continue in some way in our practice (if not in our theology) as long as we don’t intentionally undergo inner-out turn-around change necessary to restore our persons (female and male) to the primary gender equation of God’s design and purpose for all human beings. Therefore, we are faced with the significant truth of this unavoidable reality: the gender equation we use will be the person and relationships we get, and it will be obvious whose gender equation we embrace.

[1] This study uses the NRSV unless noted otherwise. Italicized words are my renderings.

[2] Nancy Lammers Gross, Women’s Voices and the Practice of Preaching (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2017, 63.

[3] Michael S. Kimmel, The Gendered Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 3.

[4] Kimmel, 1 (my italics).

[5] Kimmel, 2.

[6] Https://www.britannica.com/topic/sexismBritannica.com.

[7] For further reading, see Michael Hiltzik, “An ugly problem in the ivory tower,” Los Angeles Times, Business, February 4, 2018; Meredith Wadman, “Salk Institute hit with discrimination lawsuit by third female scientist,” July 20, 2017 at http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/salk-institute-hit-discrimination-lawsuit-third-female-scientist

[8] The survey was reported in the Los Angeles Times, April 24, 2018.

[9] Refer to “My Reality: A Hidden America,” 20/20 with Diane Sawyer (aired 4/20/18).

[10] See the full victim impact statement by Rachael Denhollander, www.cnn.com/2018/01/24/us/rachael-denhollander-full-statement/

[11] https://www.ambs.edu/about/ambs-response-to-victims-of-yoder-abuse.

[12] Zac Crippen, “Another sex crisis: the consumption of porn,” Los Angeles Times, Op-ed, November 26, 2017.

[13] For the study findings, go to http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6323/389.full

You can sign up for a free AAAS membership to access the article by scrolling down to the link “You can sign up for free to access this article.”

[14] According to a report by the non-profit Population Reference Bureau cited by Ann M. Simmons, “Young Women are losing ground,” Los Angeles Times, June 7, 2017.

[15] Kimmel, 7.

[16] Editorial, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 19, 2017. This headline was quite jarring given the usual liberal bent of the newspaper.

[17] Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times, Californian Section, November 21, 2017.

[18] T. Dave Matsuo, The Person in Complete Context: The Whole of Theological Anthropology Distinguished (Theological Anthropology Study, 2014), online at http://4X12.org, 16. These insights are discussed in depth in Iain McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Modern World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).

[19] Kimmel, 7.

[20] See for example, Jennifer Holladay, “Sexism in the Civil Rights Movement: A Discussion Guide: A closer examination of heroes in our culture” July 7, 2009; online at https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/sexism-in-the-civil-rights-movement-a-discussion-guide.

[21] See for example the report by UC Hastings College of the Law, “Double Jeopardy? Gender Bias Against Women of Color.” Published online at www.worklifelaw.org. © 2014 Joan C. Williams, Katherine W. Phillips & Erika V. Hall.

[22] Discussed further in Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thornton Dill, eds., Women of Color in U.S. Society (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1994).

[23] Https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/04/the-narrowing-but-persistent-gender-gap-in-pay.

[24] See https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/01/closing-the-pay-gap-for-good/.

[25] See transcript of the 60 Minutes interview by Leslie Stahl with Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce “Leading by example to close the gender pay gap.” Https://www.cbsnews.com/news/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-leading-by-example-to-close-the-gender-pay-gap/. The interview aired April 15, 2018.