I've always gotten along well with boys. I feel at ease talking with them normally, and when respect is mutual I feel comfortable. Often, I feel less pressure being around guys, and prefer being around them over girls. As a moody young teen at the age of thirteen, I had already been subjected to many gendered spaces. The homeschool community flourishes with gendered activities, spaces, and stereotypes. But, I first noticed this when my family started attending a Baptist church, and I regularly attended a youth service. Walking in the first time, I saw that boys sat on one side of the room, and girls on the other. I'm not in the least confident about my body, and wasn't then either, so I went to sit with the people I felt would least judge me... the guys. That got shut down fast. Rapidly, three or four mentors rushed to my side to "address" my wrongdoing. "Honey, you're on the wrong side." "That side's for boys, you're not a boy, sit on the right side." That was when I first comprehended that there were spaces for boys, and spaces for girls. Intermixing wasn't encouraged, Throughout the year I was there, the guys would crowd into one corner, and the girls likewise. The games we played as a whole were girls versus guys, and our lessons were separated by gender. My church experience was a gendered one. Wednesday night was "guys night", and girls had a night of their own. We were both encouraged to worship and follow the same God, but we were kept apart.
Every church I have ever attended, a male pastor leads, refers to the males directly and overlooks the women. It was my first realization that religious spaces, spaces that should be open and free to everyone, are separated and gendered. This is a reason why I am a feminist. Men and women are said to be treated equally in these spaces, but the idea of equal opportunity is giving girls what girls are expected to grow up and attain... being a mother? Once during a marriage lesson at that Baptist church, a mentor asked who I wanted to marry, and I answered with "I'm going to marry my career," and she cried. I remember when my mom wouldn't buy me a green bible because it was the "boys bible", and that I needed to get the purple sparkly bible with a crown on it.
The next church I went to, I volunteered in the kindergarten department, and during worship I again saw this separation of boys and girls. Half the play area had firefighter costumes and plastic power tools and the other half had baby dolls and cooking tools. Everything was kept separate. While the church classroom was the same room, there was an obvious divide. Church screams for children to stay in their own gendered category.
Church is a gendered space, and the ones I have attended are not inclusive. It is one building housing two very distinct clubs. I believe that religious spaces are often gendered, that they stifle growth and encourage us to follow stereotypical patterns of behavior. This "you think pink" type of mentality forces children to judge the world without appreciating difference. By making these places strict and rule based, children see themselves as so different from the other gender. This disappoints me, as I have a close friend who feels he cannot express himself based off of the stereotype that men cannot show emotion or weakness. These ideas are perpetuated through religious places, parents, school, and the media. We need to attack these ideas and focus on understanding each other and not separating based on something that hardly means anything. My friend suffers from severe depression, and while I as a girl have a bit more leeway to express my depression, he doesn't. He is mocked and told that he needs to "man up".
So, I noticed a common gendered space that commonly goes unnoticed, and also sadly untouched. If we could mix up children everywhere, we could see more collaboration and harmony. Many children go to church, and some only to church and not to school (or a gender separated school). Overcoming this could help inspire us to notice our similarities and not our differences.
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