There's No Such Thing as a One Dimensional Life

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March is Women’s History Month, so this month I’ll be focusing on themes relating to women in the workplace, at school, at home, and of course among our peers. Let’s honor one another today and always!

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PREJUDICE? WHO? ME?

You know me. I’ve always got a book in my hand, and this week, I just finished Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg. Tucked among all the interesting research and anecdotes was a little tidbit about women that got me thinking. Because he was talking about identity, I was intrigued. You see, identity is a buzzword in the Christian community, and I’ve always felt it’s been a bit overused. (Like, GAH, talk to me about something else besides identity already!)

But here goes….

In a 2005 study at Texas Christian University, a researcher told a group of male and female students that he was studying GRE performance. The lead researcher told the students that he was studying this because of the well-known theory that men typically outperform women on these tests. (He said this on purpose to ensure that the stereotype would be at the forefront of the students’ minds while they took the test. )

Then the researchers divided the students into three groups.

• Group #1: Went to a room and took the test with no further instructions.

• Group #2: Were told to think about their identity in a general way and were given an example that showed a bubble chart with the word “ME” in the middle and then three or four branching bubbles that included words like “student,” “sister, “ and “employee.”

• Group #3: Were also told to think about their identity, but to use as many branching bubbles as they could muster. This group saw an example that included the words listed above but additional descriptors like “advice giver,” “animal lover,” and “dean’s list.”

The researchers wanted to see if the stereotype threat could be mitigated by reminding individual women of their multiples roles and identities.

WHAT I LEARNED

I didn’t think this would be such a big deal, but even women who are high achievers in the area of math often score twenty points BELOW men in tests where ability is measured. Specifically, they do worse on timed assignments. They run out of time because they’re subconsciously thinking, “I need to double-check. I need to be careful.” Anxiety and distraction slow them down.

So you can probably guess what happened in the experiment I just described. The women who were not told to think about their multiple identities or who were only asked to describe themselves in a very basic way, scored lower than those women who were given ample time to think about and write down their various identities, the clubs they belonged to, the offices they held, their roles in their families, sororities, and sports teams. In fact, the women who internalized their identity scored the same as the men!

According to Duhigg, “the existence of the stereotype generated just enough anxiety and distraction to slow the women down, which resulted in lower test scores,”—twenty points is a big deal!

THE MULTITUDES

I share this story because even though most of the women reading this blog will probably never take another college entrance exam, you will encounter situations where you may perceive yourself as the underdog. And maybe that’s because you’ve spent a couple of decades raising kids at home and now you’re ready to enter a different kind of workforce. Maybe you’ve been asked to join a board and you feel unqualified or unprepared. Maybe you’re leading a volunteer team that’s composed primarily of men who think they have all the answers.

Negative self talk loses its force when we as women think about who we are in as many categories as possible. We can render powerless all those voices telling us we’re not smart enough or good enough if we just remember that we contain multitudes. Our identities are not so one-dimensional.

I’ve talked about this before, but I’ll never forget meeting a new friend after my oldest daughter was born. We introduced ourselves, and then she asked, “So are you just a mom?” Of course, all I heard was that little qualifier..JUST…JUST…JUST….

You’re not a JUST anything, and neither am I. We contain multitudes, and that’s a good thing because that means we can connect with people on so many levels. Remembering that we are more than what we seem and that others are too (and this is key) is a valuable tool for empathy, understanding, connection, and progress in both work and relationships.

Of course, as a Christian, I would be remiss if I didn’t also say that while remembering who we are is important, remembering WHOSE we are is paramount. Any one component of our identity is actually pretty fragile. Your position at work, your role at home, your status in your community—all those things can change in an instant. Even so, my friend, we shall be forevermore children of God. You can take great comfort in knowing that.

For more reflections on identity, read this and this.

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Good Bones

I broke my first bone when I was 33 years old.

I don’t know if that means I’m strong or I’m a coward.

It probably means I’m not a risk-taker.

On this particular day, a child (who will remain nameless) left a pair of shoes on the stairs going out to our garage. Carrying my newborn daughter, I tripped over the shoes, saving the baby in my arms, and sacrificing my third metatarsal in the process.

I still say I have good bones. After all, I did manage to hang on to the baby.

At my age now, the conversation has turned from boners to bones. The Big O stands for… Osteoporosis. Good bones need Calcium and Vitamin D. And plenty of it. Good bones need regular, weight-bearing exercise. Thirty minutes per day or more is ideal. Good bones require maintaining a healthy weight. BMI needs to be under 25. Sparkling water? No thanks. Carbonation is bad for your bones. (My son just told me that last one is a myth.)

Anyway, there’s a famous poem by Maggie Smith called “Good Bones.” A bit disturbing, but worth the read. Poetry is nothing if it doesn’t make us think more deeply about the world in which we live.

GOOD Bones by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
n a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

You could make this place beautiful.

Reading this poem today made me think not about the way we describe our homes, but ourselves. We are the ones who have good bones. In fact, the human body is made up of 206 bones (a fourth of which are found in the hands and feet alone) The largest bone is the femur of the upper leg, which explains why I love squats and lunges so much, and the tiniest bone is the stirrup of the inner ear, which assists in conducting sound waves. Bones are highly specialized connective tissue with a built-in ability to remodel based on the demands placed on them.

That means we humans are highly adaptable.

And adaptability is a prized soft-skill useful both at work and at home.

Adaptability

As women, we’ve been told we need to take care of our bones. But it’s more than that. Women in military service are seven times more likely than men to suffer from musculoskeletal injuries and ten times more likely than men to suffer from hip and pelvic stress fractures. If a woman carries more than 25% of her body weight, she is five times as likely to sustain an injury than a man of the same aerobic fitness and strength. (source)

These statistics are frightening, but are we really the weaker sex?

Let’s not go crazy.

Luckily, our skin provides more than just a house for all our bones. I don’t want to get into a whole thing here, but research shows that women have greater physical endurance than men, a higher pain tolerance and stronger immune systems, and even heal faster than men.

None of this would be possible without the supporting infrastructure of our strong bones.

It’s that Adaptability thing again. When it comes to bones, we can thank German anatomist and surgeon Julius Wolff for his contribution to Orthopaedics. His “use-it-or-lose-it” theory of bone regeneration is famous. All this means is that bones subjected to heavy loads will reconstruct themselves to carry that load. Likewise, bones that don’t get used will weaken, just like muscles.

Rib bones show an unusual capacity to regrow and repair themselves even when a large portion is damaged. Metaphorically, I find this fascinating especially in the context of this passage from the Book of Genesis:

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Together, with our good bones, we make this place beautiful.

Our first-ever human-to-human connection was fused through the sharing of bone. If you believe the story outlined in Genesis, a bone from Adam’s rib launched the human race. That means we were born with good bones. (Remember—God himself said, “It was good.”) We have bones that were literally made for holding one another up. You might even say we have a moral obligation to do so. As bones support and shape your body, so a life well-lived supports society and shapes culture.

This place could be beautiful. You could make this place beautiful.

Are you???

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