Women's Reality

I pulled an older book off my shelf - Women's Reality by Anne Wilson Schaef published in 1981.  This book is subtitled "an emerging female system in the white male society."  I am not sure that I ever read it.  So why did it catch my eye last week?
I have been working with a life coach - Beata Rydeen - for almost one year.  She is a member of my congregation and my staff support person.  I decided that I wanted to do some reading about women and leadership.   She challenged me to pick a book that would be the most challenging for me to read.  I decided on this one.
So why might it be challenging?  As a lay women in a church system that is still is dominated by male pastors and bishops, I have struggled for 20 years.  In what ways do I support this male dominated system?  What can I do to change this?  How do I relate to male pastors and female pastors as a lay woman?  I have lots of questions and not many answers.
One of the ideas rattling around in my head is to write a book about lay women in church leadership.  All the books that I have seen or read about leadership in the church are written by male clergy.  What would a church leadership book look like written from a female lay perspective?  Beata suggested I interview other women in lay leadership roles in the church. What a great idea!  I have to put that on my to-do-list.
But any way - back to the book. 
Insight for today - One of the four myths of the white male system is that it is possible to be totally logical, rational and objective.  I bought into this myth big time as a young woman in high school who was going off to college.  I had an image of myself as a brain being carried around by my body.  I studied hard and buried myself in books as I was afraid of all my emotions and the earthy body within which I was encased.  That image broke apart the fall of my junior year of college at a spiritual retreat.  I had a vision of Jesus laughing at me and a group of accepting people.  My self-image changed but 40 years later I realized that I need to go back to think about that some more.  I wonder how that self-image of being a brain carried around by my body affects me today.
To be continued.