Sexism and Community Building

At the AGM

I sit on the board of a community group and I participated in their AGM last week. After presentations from the Chair and elections of board members, the group was split up into three groups to brainstorm some ideas for our next steps.

I was working to facilitate one of the groups, standing at the flip chart taking notes. I made a few suggestions myself and tried to help people elaborate some of their ideas and tried to moderate some conflicting opinions, while capturing all the ideas on paper.

I was the only woman in the group and also the youngest person there – there was only one other person under 50 in a group of 8 or 9 people.

I felt that everything went quite well in the group. We elicited some good ideas, heard some interesting feedback and made some connections.

"You fail as a leader."

As the time drew to a close, our Chair stepped over to the group and asked me to wrap up. I told the group we just had about a minute left. It didn't really register with the group. The two other groups in the room were still talking and ours kept going too. A couple of minutes later, the Chair came over again and asked me to wrap up. I apologized to her that I hadn't already gotten the group to finish.

One of the men in my group said, "You fail as a leader."

"What?" I said, shocked.

"You fail as a leader," he repeated.

I froze

I didn't know what to say. The request had been to return to the main part of the room, so we all did. The meeting ended. I chatted with a few people there about some ideas for future plans. I went home and seemed fine. And then I couldn't get to sleep. I was haunted by this seemingly unprovoked hostile comment.

The aftermath

I stewed and fussed. Had I failed as a leader? Had I somehow left this man feeling unheard in the group? Or did he simply hate being in a group that was being facilitated by a woman three decades his junior?

My first reaction was one of self-righteousness and rage. Here I was putting hours of volunteer time into this worthy cause only to be shot down by some jerk who came to one meeting and felt entitled to try to undermine me. Then, I began to doubt myself, my own intentions, my own abilities. Perhaps I had failed in some way and this was this man's way of telling me that I had offended or slighted him. On the other hand, maybe he was just sexist or agist and wanted to put me in back into the place he thought I should be in.

What to do?

I spent a few hours feeling like I never wanted to volunteer or try to lead again. Then I thought, well, I could just work within my own community where there is a lot of trust and love, where I know people and am known and I don't have to deal with sexist strangers.

Then I thought about it some more and realized that that is not realistic. I care about things in my bigger community. I have opinions and energy and I want to make a difference.

And what I really want to do is learn how to un-freeze in the face of sexism – or apparent sexism. I go into shock – partly because I have never been very good at reconciling my Free to Be, You and Me 70s childhood indoctrination with how sexist the world really is. And I freeze partly because the patriarchal nature of our culture has always felt pretty crushing to me. I'm hurt by it and I instinctively try to protect myself.

How to change?

I wish now that I had asked that man what he meant and tried to find out what was behind his comment. If it was intended as a joke, I might have been able to explain to him that it was an unwelcome joke that felt demoralizing to me. If it was meant as a sexist comment, I could have told him how I felt about that. And if his comment was in response to a legitimate grievance, perhaps we could have worked that out and I might have learned something about my facilitation style and how I could have helped shape a better experience for that man.

Help!

What's your advice? Do you have any tactics for dealing with sexism that you'd like to share? Do you meet it head-on? Do you have a snappy comeback at the ready? Do you freeze and stew later, like I did? I'd love to hear your insights about how to be a better leader, volunteer, activist and feminist.