Blue and Khaki: Women in Authority

As I mentioned in a previous post, I grew up in an extremely supportive Christian environment when it came to my leadership ability and high achievement levels as a woman. When I went to Harvard, I was also in a very supportive environment, and when I joined the Navy, the Officer in Charge of the first school I went to, my superior officer, and the Commanding Officer of my first ship were all female. Being a strong female leader was perfectly normal.

Sometimes, though, your battles choose you, and as a woman who 1) is in the military, and 2) oversees a division composed entirely of males, many older than she is, I find myself in the midst of controversy in my own denomination. Is what I’m doing improper? More importantly, is it unethical?

This is a huge topic. I’ll look at women in the military in a couple of weeks. For now, I want to focus in on some ideas I’ve read concerning women in authority over men in the workplace. Consider the following statements from a book by John Piper, representative of a significant movement among American Evangelicals. They concern women who find themselves supervising men at work.

“There are ways for a woman to interact even with a male subordinate that signal to him and others her endorsement of his mature manhood in relationship to her as a woman… Her demeanor—the tone and style and disposition and discourse of her ranking position—can signal clearly her affirmation of the unique role that men should play in relationship to women owing to their sense of responsibility to protect and lead.”

After all, “it is simply impossible that from time to time a woman not be put in a position of influencing or guiding men. For example, a housewife in her backyard may be asked by a man how to get to the freeway. At that point she is giving a kind of leadership. She has superior knowledge that the man needs and he submits himself to her guidance. But we all know that there is a way for that housewife to direct the man that neither of them feels their mature femininity or masculinity compromised.”

I don’t have space here to list my objections to the assumptions in these passages, although I will say that anyone who feels his “mature” manhood has been compromised by having to ask for directions from a woman should 1) learn how to use Google Maps and 2) get over himself. At the moment, I’m more interested in a key aspect of the workplace dynamic that these passages miss.

Namely, while my relationship to my superiors, colleagues, and subordinates is affected by my gender and theirs, this is only a very small part of how we interact. Our relationships are overwhelmingly defined by our professional positions. Everything else, including gender relations, comes in a distant second at most.

When I speak to a man at work, I speak to him as the executive officer, or as a fellow division officer, or as my chief, or as my sailor. In the military, especially, rank and position define social relationships, and there are very defined rules for those relationships that take the place of civilian social norms.

For instance, traditionally, a man stands up when a woman leaves the table; he only shakes her hand when offered; he stands aside to let her pass in the hallway. In the military, the lower ranking person does this for the senior person. When I stand aside to let the captain pass, I’m not violating his manhood. I’m relating to him as one professional to another, following a particular set of social norms that override the male/female dynamic.

The lead/submit dynamic should, according to Christianity, correlate to the husband/wife relationship. It does not apply to the relationship between any male and female; different kinds of dynamics, like the colleague/colleague or leader/follower relationship, take the center stage instead.

Put simply, leadership is overwhelmingly a function of a person’s profession, personality, or skill level compared to those of others. It is not primarily a function of being male or female. I say again, leadership is not a distinctly male trait. Thus, for a female to lead does not require acting masculine or usurping the male’s position (and does not threaten truly mature men). Once we realize this, the problem with women leading men in the workplace disappears.

In short, while I agree with John Piper that gender will always show up in some way, shape, or form in the workplace relationship, I don’t think it has nearly the importance he places on it. Generally speaking, in a professional environment, we relate as professionals, not as men and women. Or as my chief puts it, “I don’t see male and female. All I see is blue and khaki.”*

*junior enlisted and senior chiefs/officers

Photo from my commissioning, taken by my aunt.