Why do people want to know the child’s gender?  Does the answer really tell them anything factual about the child?  Or does this FAQ simply allow for assumptions to be made that are based upon stereotypes?  Do we find comfort in identifying the appropriate binary checkbox because we can then simply follow the “boy” instructions or the “girl” instructions and move forward with confidence (as misguided as it may be) about how to socialize and communicate with this other human being?  The truth is that a parent knows the gender assigned to a child at birth based upon genitalia, and this “assigned” gender may not be consistent with the child’s gender identity.

We seem to polarize so much in life, to talk in terms of either/or, and to think of things as mutually exclusive.  But very little exists at each end of the spectrum.  Most of us exist and have experiences that fall somewhere between the extremes, somewhere in the middle of the continuum of life.  Isn’t it about time that we recognize that girls and boys are not opposites, that there is significant overlap of the characteristics possessed by males and females?  Can we stop trying to cram everybody into one of two possible gender checkboxes?  Wouldn’t it be nice if, instead of asking the gender of a child, we asked the parent to tell us about their child’s interests, abilities, and qualities, and then the parent responded without feeling compelled to mention whether the child possesses a vagina or a penis?  I know it’s a leap, but imagine if we were secure enough to get to know others without first encaging them in stereotyped boxes.

For some, eliminating the wage gap would mean the difference between a living wage and living in poverty.  The highest poverty rates are for families headed by single women, especially if they are women of color.  That means a lot of children are growing up without basic needs being met and with fewer resources and options to support them to meet their full potential as healthy, productive citizens.  This has lasting impact on our communities.

For some, eliminating the wage gap would mean a few less obstacles to face between being trapped in an abusive relationship and getting out.  Women with children cannot just flee their batterers without a means of providing for their children.  Women who cannot financially support their children may actually lose their children to their abusers in custody battles, and batterers use threats to this effect to maintain power and control over their victims.  Escaping an abusive relationship is complex and requires adequate resources and support.  Economic self-sufficiency is one of those necessary resources.

Every woman who earns less than her male counterpart is losing income in the here and now as well as in the future.  That $10,622 per year might mean the difference between being able to afford a college education, a reliable car to get her to and from work, a home of her own, or medical insurance.  What people often do not recognize are the accumulative and domino effects of the lost wages.  A college education, reliable transportation, medical insurance, and many other resources can actually support increased earnings potential.  After a lifetime of earning $10,622 less per year than her male counterparts, a woman will have lost about $500,000 in earnings.  These losses are then translated into smaller retirement benefits for the remainder of her life.

What would it mean if there weren’t a $10,622 wage gap?  It would mean that we value equally the work and contributions of women and men.  It would mean that we recognize women as human beings who are worthy of being self-sufficient, of having options, of being autonomous.  It would mean that we as a society have decided to take one more step towards ending our abuse of our power over others and to more fully embrace the ideal of equality that we Americans so love to think we have already embraced.

Let’s face it.  We have expectations of people, and often those expectations reflect our understanding of their work roles.  Many of us have sinned, broken laws, and harmed others in one fashion or another.  Nevertheless, we expect the sins of priests to be significantly fewer in number and much less abhorrent than the sins of the general public.  We expect police officers, legislators, and judges to uphold our laws.  We expect childcare providers to protect and to take good care of our children.  We expect members of the multitude of helping professions to support, nurture, and facilitate growth and healing in those in need of assistance.  In short, we seem to feel pretty strongly that people should practice what they preach.

And what does it mean when professionals don’t practice what they preach?  Well, it could mean that:

1. They aren’t willing to stand up for their convictions.  But if they aren’t willing to do so, who are they to expect anybody else to do so?  Don’t they automatically lose credibility in this scenario?
2. They actually don’t value the principles that they purport to hold, which immediately makes them suspect and untrustworthy.  If they don’t support the ethics of their profession, aren’t they just impostors?  And then don’t we need to worry about what they are getting out of being an impostor in a particular profession?
3. They believe that they are exempt from upholding certain standards and that others are not exempt.  Maybe there is a legitimately good reason why a person is exempt from a specific rule, but usually this kind of thinking is the result of someone seeing others as less than the way they see themselves.  Now doesn’t that raise some red flags?

When people display professional hypocrisy, they are abusing the power of their position or status.  They do what they do simply because they can.  Sometimes this behavior has legal implications, but often the abuse of one’s position, while contemptible, is not illegal.

We really need to be clear about our own principles and to consistently uphold our convictions.  We must understand our own power and ensure that we are not abusing the power that comes with our professional roles.  We have to recognize when others are violating professional ethics and be willing to speak up.  If we all do this consistently, fewer and fewer professionals will be able to abuse their positions, our children, and the rest of us.

Why?  Because it falls short, and we can’t afford to fall short.  Despite all the progress made, women continue to be underpaid, brutalized and abused, underrepresented in positions of power, dismissed and undervalued in countless ways.  If we are going to effect meaningful change (and we really do have a lot of work left to do when it comes to human rights), then the messages we send have to convey this need.

Yes, we must have equal rights.  But those rights must be consistently upheld and enforced.  In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution assured the legal right to vote for each citizen regardless of race, color, or previous enslavement.  In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment assured women the legal right to vote.  Lots of people in power still found ways to deny individuals, especially African-Americans, their right to vote, and the National Voting Rights Act of 1965 was established to end voter prerequisites and other discriminatory practices that denied or abridged citizens’ right to vote.  Despite all of these efforts, a voter registration gap still exists between white Americans and minority Americans, and many states have created procedural barriers to voter registration that impact minorities today.

This all segues very nicely into the topic of equal opportunity.  Certainly, equal rights are not enough.  Possessing a right without the means to exercise that right is nearly identical to not possessing the right in the first place.  You might have the right to vote, but if you aren’t able to register to vote or navigate the voting systems themselves to actually cast your vote because of barriers (purposefully or unwittingly imposed by our historically sexist, racist society), then you still don’t get to vote.

Sure, equal access to opportunities, information, and other resources is crucial to ensuring human rights, but is it enough?  Let’s say you and I are running a marathon.  I show up for the race with my moisture-wicking outfit, my high-tech running shoes, and my well-nourished body.  I’ve run many marathons, the crowd is really cheering for me, and I’ve got a network of people who are going to support me in many different ways along the marathon route.  You, on the other hand, were just barely able to scrape together what was needed to be a part of the marathon.  No fancy gear, no previous marathon experience, no supporters at the race, you are relying on spirit alone to get you to the finish line.  Many would argue that this is still a fair race.  What if the reason that you don’t have the same resources that I have is because I and/or my affiliates sabotaged you every chance we could?  Some of us have privileges obtained at the expense of others through abuses of power, past and present.  In short, we’ve made certain that some people are not on an equal footing with others, and rectifying that requires more than equal opportunity; it requires equity in opportunity.

Progress for all, the last piece of this year’s theme, feels one part hopeful outcome and one part plea to convince people that, yes, being fair in our interactions with others is good, not just for them but really, really for us too.  These three little words convey such a sad, discouraging commentary on who we are.  Are we so self-interested that we can’t fathom the idea of doing something that benefits someone else without necessarily seeing a clear benefit to ourselves?

Once again, I’d like to push for a bit more than the “progress for all” idea.  Progress for all isn’t going to happen without progress by all.  That means you and me, in our ordinary, everyday lives.  We must do more than remember and applaud the efforts of extraordinary individuals—like Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony, Dorothea Dix, Sojourner Truth, and Prudence Crandall.  We have a responsibility to actually behave as if each of us is an extraordinary individual—because each of us is.

I’m all for curiosity, asking questions, and wanting to learn more—just not in the way that turns us into gossiping, boundary-crossing, resource-wasting people.  I think that we need to keep asking questions—but in a manner that makes us better citizens of the world.  We need to use more critical thinking skills.

Here are some of the questions that we would all do well to ask ourselves about what we do, what we don’t do, and what’s happening in our world every day.

1. What’s the message? Everything we do or don’t do supports some kind of message.  Once this is truly acknowledged and accepted, it becomes more difficult to act in ways that lack good conscience.  Also, it’s important to remember that actions have different meanings for different people.

2. What’s the impact? Our action and inaction consistently result in some impact.  The type of impact and the intensity of the impact vary.  Consequences may be small, positive, significant, and/or harmful.

3. What’s the goal? Our behaviors are motivated by intentions.  Like impacts, goals can range in size, support health, or be detrimental.

4. Who profits and who loses? Too often, somebody gains at another’s expense.  Furthermore, this fact is frequently hidden or at least not made blatantly obvious, which means that we can be unwitting participants in harming others.  Understanding the answer to this question provides information about who has power and is abusing that power.

5. What do I value and what makes me value those things? Recognizing what we value is important because it influences our goals and behaviors.  We also need to identify if we value something because we are supposed to (external pressure) or because it is truly important to us.

6. How am I part of the problem? We must honestly ask ourselves how we are reinforcing harmful messages, supporting negative impacts, seeking personal gains that are detrimental to others, and abusing our power.

7. How can I be a part of the solution? Once we know how we are a part of the problem, we can begin to make improvements in what we say and do, how we spend our time, and how we spend our money.

These questions are interrelated.  Messages can influence values and goals, both of which have impact.  Impacts can be measured by who profits and who loses.  Many points exist at which we can contribute to the problem or solution.

What pressures?  The blatant, subtle, personal, and generic pressures faced by women in this society to adhere to a narrow standard of beauty—a standard of beauty that reinforces our society’s ageist, racist, sexist, able-ist views.  For example, ads for products provide constant reminders that attempt to convince me that aging is ugly and to be avoided at all costs.  I am told to use formulas that reduce signs of aging, soften skin, make skin firmer-looking, make skin radiant, make skin flawless, keep skin hair-free, eliminate prickle, shave skin smooth, color gray hair, protect artificial hair color, make hair shine, plump hair, plump lips, make lips kissable, make lips outlast, make lips flirty, make eyes look younger, light up eyes, make lashes bold, make lashes flirty, make lashes thick, make lashes perfect, color nails, and smell sensuous.  You may think that this list is over the top, but I compiled it from the ads in one magazine.  Couple this with ads on the radio, television, internet, and billboards, as well as media coverage of the wide array of increasingly popular cosmetic procedures—from botox to surgical lifts—and the message is clear:  I am supposed reject my body as it is and as it naturally changes.

Sometimes people mention the gray hairs on my head as if this is a surprising, shocking, maybe even embarrassing finding.  People tell me as if I don’t know that I have white hairs—because if I did, I would be getting rid of them, of course!  Many—from family members to my ear doctor!—have let me know that my white hair is showing—in the same way that someone might let you know that your slip is showing in years past.  I typically respond with a friendly smile and tell them without a trace of defensiveness that I’m trying to keep up with my husband.  It’s interesting to see how many people then look to my husband (if he’s standing by my side) to see how many gray hairs he’s sporting and whether he is okay with my choice to go au natural with my hair color.  When my husband is not present for the conversation, it’s fascinating to see the changing expressions on people’s faces once I respond so self-confidently to their white-hair indictment.  It’s as if they would like to tell me that graying hair on a man makes him look distinguished and that this is not the case for a woman, but they think such an argument would be lost on me, so they say nothing more about the subject.  Sometimes I feel that I’ve made my point.  Sometimes I’d like the opportunity to call attention to the clear sexism in such a double-standard perspective.

Sometimes the message is in what people do not say.  Before I had accumulated very many gray hairs, people would be surprised by the ages of my children.  They would tell me, “You look too young to have children that age.”  They were right.  Since I married my high school sweetheart when I was 18, and we had our first child 13 months later, I am only 19 years older than our firstborn.  Nevertheless, as the white hairs continued to propagate on my head, the “you don’t look old enough” comments evaporated.  Since the graying hair is my most obvious physical sign of aging, I’m fairly certain that all I would need to do is color my hair, and the “young” comments would return.  The truth is that I miss those comments sometimes—not because I think looking young is an accomplishment but because I am proud of effectively overcoming the challenges that accompany teen marriage and teen parenting.

If I colored my hair, I would also likely attract greater attention from males.  Don’t get me wrong; I do not need or desire more attention of this kind from the opposite sex.  I mention this only because I think that I would be remiss to not mention it as one more way that women are reminded to defy aging, to remain desirable, to be noticed.

Now that I’ve described some of the pressures for coloring gray hair, let me clarify my reasons for not covering up the white strands on my head.  I consciously choose to retain my natural hair color in all its graying glory because coloring my hair supports an industry and ideas of beauty that I believe are mostly harmful.  Women should be appreciated for their knowledge, skills, abilities, and values rather than for their appearance.  One way to encourage women to accept themselves as they are is to accept myself as I am.  My smiling face surrounded by graying locks serves as a reminder that doing something because everybody else is doing it or expects it is not a good enough reason to follow the crowd.  My living a happy, healthy, successful life despite my nonconformance to well-accepted standards of female “beauty” invites others to do the same.