Sermon

This country knows first hand how effective the use of fear is in controlling its masses. We are most familiar with the “threat levels” that scrolled on most news stations for years following September 11^th. In the months leading up to the 2004 election, everyone in this congregation watched how successful the use of fear was in winning the election. At the time, only a small number of the populace screamed at the media and the current administration for using such a stupid idiom as “the war on terror” to justify an unprovoked invasion of another country. As a nation, we bought it. Even the Democrats used the term. To this day, very few people actually even think to challenge the absurdity of fighting a war on an emotion.

Why? Because we do not spend enough time thinking about the reason it was effective in the first place. Many are now challenging the war and questioning whether we can win. But how we got here goes deeper than that. It taps into a primal response to fear.

For over 60 years, we have accepted the findings of physiologist Walter Cannon that stress triggers two primordial reactions--lashing out or running away. The "fight or flight" concept has dominated scientific and modern culture’s thinking about human responses to stress, including the emotional, cognitive, behavioral and biological processes that mediate and modify this basic pattern. It has long been believed that this response has been a primary contributor to the survival of the species against threat. We now know in modern humans, this same response in a primary contributor to heart disease, rage, and aggression.

A New Awareness: Tend and Befriend

So what do we do with an instinct to fight or flee when it no longer serves a purpose for daily survival? Are we doomed to attack each other or defend ourselves from attack until we eventually annihilate our own species? (INSERT JEFF DISCUSSION HERE).

There may be a new way of looking at ourselves and our neighbors that may have always existed, but never been valued or studied. Dr. Shelley Taylor, a researcher in the Social Neuroscience Laboratory at UCLA began exploring gender differences in stress response after she and five other researchers listened to a lecture on stress responses in rats. The description of fight-or-flight in response to stress didn't fit any of the findings Taylor had seen in almost 30 years as a health psychologist studying people's reactions to stressful life events. In a follow up discussion, Taylor and the other researchers noted that almost all of the studies of fight-or-flight had been conducted on males.

Dr. Taylor and her team at UCLA began to pull together existing evidence from research with nonhuman animals, neuroendocrine studies and human-based social psychology and found that while the same stress response of fight-or-flight exists in females exposed to stress, there is an additional behavior pattern that they labeled “tend and befriend". They reasoned that the adaptive value of fighting or fleeing may be lower for females, who often have dependent young and so risk more in terms of reproductive success if injured or dislocated. And females of many species form tight, stable alliances, possibly reflecting an adaptive tendency to seek out friends for support in times of stress. It quickly became clear that, compared to males, females' physical aggression and fear-related behaviors are less intense and more "cerebral"--they are displayed in response to specific circumstances and are less tied to physiological arousal. So while both sexes share the capacity for fight or flight, females seem to use it less. Instead, Taylor's team found that, during tough times, stressed females spend significantly more time tending to vulnerable offspring than males.

Many of us already know this, but research conducted by psychologist Rena Repetti in the late 1990's showed that after a hard day at work, women were much more nurturing toward their children, whereas men withdrew from family life. The researchers suspect that endorphins--proteins that help alleviate pain--and oxytocin--a female reproductive hormone--may play an important role in establishing this pattern, while factors like learning and socialization help to maintain it.

Both oxytocin and endorphins may also contribute to the second piece of the puzzle--females' tendency to "befriend." In many mammals, and cross-culturally in humans, females form especially close, stable attachments with other females, often kin. This tendency for females to connect with other familiar people increases during times of stress. Among chimpanzees, this may consist of kissing and friendly grinning; among women, talking on the telephone or "doing lunch." Taylor's team concludes that befriending is "the primary gender difference in adult human behavioral responses to stress." Men (and male animals) also have oxytocin, but testosterone appears to reduce the effects.

The Unprecedented Present

So what relevance do these findings have for us in 2007? For one thing, we are in the middle of a major societal shift. For the first time in the history of the world, women in most Western cultures have a real voice in how their society evolves. According to the 2006 U.S. census data, there are 152 million women in the U.S. and 148 million men. 32% of American women ages 25 – 29 have earned a bachelor’s degree as compared to the 25% of men in the same age group. 26 million women over the age of 25 hold a bachelor’s degree or higher – more that double what that number was 20 years ago.

According to 2002 data, there were 6.5 million women owned businesses in the U.S. which generated 939 billion dollars in revenue. Women still have a long way to go as far as equal power in a capitalistic society. Women currently earn only 77 cents to every man’s dollar. But money isn’t the only source of power in a society. Decision making power also influences who benefits from resources. That puts power in the vote.

Women vote in higher numbers than men, and have in every election since 1964. In 2000, 7.8 million more women voted than men did. In 2004 65% of women who were registered voters voted more than the 62% of men. More women are registering to vote than men. The big question is what do women vote for?

82.5 million women are mothers in the U.S. At the recent Emmy awards, Sally Field was awarded best actress but the audience didn’t get to hear the end of her acceptance speech because it was blocked from transmission by Fox who carried the broadcast of the award show. This is what she said.

“Surely this [award] belongs to all the mothers of the world. May they be seen, may their work be valued and raised. Especially to the mothers who stand with an open heart and wait. Wait for their children to come home from danger, from harm’s way, and from war. I am proud to be one of those women.”

Field then continued, “If mothers ruled the world, there would be no –” But the Fox Emmy cast cut off her sound and pointed the camera away from the stage, silencing the rest of her sentence: “god-damned wars in the first place.”

And she may be right. In a recent poll conducted by the National Council of Research on Women, Democratic women favored candidates who want to bring the troops home by over eight to one (78 percent to 9 percent). Independent women favored bring-the-troops-home candidates by five to one (60 percent to 12 percent). Republican women were slightly likelier to vote for stay-the-course candidates (42 percent to 35 percent).

Education is clearly a more important issue than terrorism for moms in this poll. Women are shifting away from fear to hope as they view the issues. Women want politicians to focus on education and the economy rather than on orange alerts.

Married women with kids are nearly three times likelier to cite education as their top priority than terrorism.

98 % of black women considered education a key issue.

Women are also five times more likely to vote for a candidate who supports full funding of the Violence Against Women Act. Violence is the number one cause of death for pregnant women in the U.S.

Violence against women is especially a concern for our female soldiers. So far in this “war” more than 160,000 female soldiers have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Only 7,500 served in Vietnam and the 41,000 were dispatched to the Gulf war. Today one of every 10 U.S. soldiers in Iraq is female.

Women in Iraq are limited to “combat support” roles – like driving trucks. Because of the nature of this “war” and roadside bombings driving a truck is one of the most dangerous jobs. War is horrible for anyone who is exposed to it. But is appears to be worse for women.

Rape is considered to be one of the most traumatic human events that leads to PTSD. Combat is not far behind. Our female soldiers, most of whom are younger than 25, are experiencing both. A 2003 report financed by the Department of Defense revealed that nearly one-third of a nationwide sample of female veterans seeking health care through the V.A. said they experienced rape or attempted rape during their service. They are not being raped by the “enemy”. They are being raped by their fellow male soldiers.

This may be directly related to the elevated aggression that is triggered by stress and fear in times of war. Unchecked, aggression becomes predatory. This sort of behavior is document throughout the history of history. War benefits no one.

A New Paradigm: Tend, Befriend, then Defend

So we now have two issues at play in our society:

1. Fight-or-flight

2. Tend-and-befriend.

What would our nation look like if we combined the two? What if we committed as a nation to:

1. Tend to each other as members of the same society

2. Befriend other nations, be good neighbors, and mind our own business

3. Defend ourselves only when our vulnerable members are at risk

While stress can spark a war, a kinder and more nurturing response to adversity is also in our nature. It has long been known that social support buffers stress for both women and men.

According to Dr. Taylor at UCLA our biological heritage is not destiny but rather a force that "influences and interacts with social, cultural, cognitive and emotional factors."

In fact, tend-and-befriend may be just as adaptive for men as for women. When you think of longer term stressors, such as hunger, it doesn't make sense to have these gender differences. Men and women need social networks to survive." The most adaptive system would be one in which men and women select from a repertoire of responses depending on the specific stressor.

We have been so quick to study behaviors like aggression and withdrawal we have failed to notice very important behaviors like affiliation. We think it's cute when women call up their sisters when they're under stress. Our focus on fight-or-flight has kept us from recognizing that there are systems that are as old as fight-or-flight and equally as important to the survival of the human race.

I wonder if we can challenge ourselves this morning to begin this here. We have all observed or participated in situations that have spiraled into “who is right and who is wrong” rather that an acceptance of differences of opinion. The objective becomes about winning or being right, not about the issue.

The need to win is the same as fight in modern society.

If we argue with each other and are only focused on getting our way, we are buying into fight or flight. We ignore the bigger picture. We ignore the commonalities we share. We devalue the worth of the other person and lose focus on any common goal.

Gandhi said, “Any attempt to force your opinion on another person is an act of violence”.

Here at All Faiths, we constantly cite a sense of community as one of the major strengths of the congregation. Any community will experience differences because people are different. That’s actually a good thing. But we do not have to mirror the larger society in how we respond to differences. Every week, strong personalities with different backgrounds of faith sit shoulder-to shoulder. It can be done and we are doing it. As we grow, we will face new challenges. Can we adopt an evolved view of dealing with stressors? Can we accept a new paradigm of tend, befriend, and defend? Can we stay and work things our instead of run when things get tough? Can we stay with issues instead of cannibalizing each other when we don’t agree? Let’s try something new when we come against obstacles. Let’s try to Tend-Befriend-and Defend.

Just one more Gandhi quote:

“An eye for an eye just makes the world blind”.

Have a great week, be safe, and breathe.