A fellow coach wrote and shared the following fable with me.
The story is a great analogy for how we put people into containers, i.e.,
traditional gender roles.
There were jars and bowls and pitchers and various
containers all around the land. Everyone knew that container know-how was the
most important competence anyone could have.
In early days of school, even in preschool, the teachers
began container lessons. For the littlest children, the most popular way to
teach was to help them choose just the right container for a caterpillar – or
later for a butterfly – and to help them pay attention to which food belonged
in exactly which shape and size of container. Everyone knew by age six that
jello always belonged in a 9-oz round or 32 oz round basic containers with
round lids in milky white color that still let you see a hint of red or green
or orange or yellow color based on what flavor of jello was in the container.
It was equally important to put olives and pickles in small square 3-oz
containers with clear lids that let you see inside but kept any errant liquid
from leaking out.
Leaking was a sure sign that one’s container acumen was
lacking or that their pride in their containership was low.
There was a specific container for socks in one’s dresser
drawer, too, to keep them neat and tidy and easily accessible. Even dinner
plates had containers built in so that each food would stay separated while you
ate.
There were specific containers for transportation depending
on how much money a family had to spend or where they chose to live. And
containers for living space, too. There were containers within containers so
that little Johnny and little Susie knew their place and space when it was time
to go to bed.
It could be tricky for container illiterates, especially
when people came together in large container spaces – sometimes called family
rooms or dining rooms. The most popular strategy to help people manage was to
have each person assigned a particular chair container in a particular space
around the table. If a family was consistent in their container practices, the
times when people came together stayed appropriately contained.
These are just a few examples. Be assured that in some way,
shape, or form, everyone and everything could be contained.
One bright spring day, upon her twelfth birthday, Susie
Smith had a dream that shook her to her very soul. In her dream, dinner plates had
NO containers, so the juice from the peas ran into the juice from the roast
beef. People stared in horror at their plates, forks and spoons suspended in
mid air. Some picked at areas where the food was still contained. Others just
stared at their food and looked around uncomfortably to see what they should
do.
Now Susie, in her own dream, was coaxing the peas into the
roast beef and purposely making sure some of each was in her spoon. Then to
everyone’s astonishment, she put her spoon in her mouth!
“Yum!” She exclaimed. “This tastes really good.”
Then Susie noticed everyone staring at her in disgust.
“How could you?” said her father. “Have you no sense of
shame? No sense of honor? No loyalty?”
“It would be better to not eat at all,” said Susie’s father,
“than to blatantly ignore rules of containment!”
“I’ll die if I don’t nourish myself”, replied Susie, her
momentary joy of the new taste replaced by fear and sadness.
“I know,” said her father. “At least you would die
honorably.”
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