If you have a mother, a sister, a daughter,
an aunt, a wife, a girlfriend, or simply happen to be a woman, read on.

Once again, Chadds Ford Days were the
happening in my neighborhood over the weekend. Participating in this annual
celebration of colonial and revolutionary history has become a tradition in our
family for the past 24 years. Clare Bowersox, the “Queen of Funnel Cake
Making,” has been like Tom Sawyer and the white washed fence: every year she
enjoined my kids (‘til away at college) to the Lure of the Lard. Family fun was
and is what Chadds Ford Days represent.

However, this year something occurred that I
found not only perplexing, but downright disturbing. A volunteer male
re-enactor appeared dressed as a woman being punished for “gossip” (go??ip).
He, as a colonial woman, wore a metal head covering that disabled speech.
Called a brank, or “gossip’s bridle,”
it is described as a “shocking instrument, a sort of iron cage, … great weight
… with a spiked tongue of iron … if the offender spoke, she was cruelly hurt.”

Mind you, this punishment was meant for women
who “scolded” or “gossiped”—that is, spoke out in any way in a society in which
they had no say. Historians remind us that colonial women had no legal rights
as individuals. Judge and jury were all men. What may be one man’s being
scolded, may be a woman’s speaking the truth.

Would that I could now say that the
re-enactment of the so-called town gossip stood to remind us of how far we have
come from such degrading, humiliating, and cruel treatment of another human
being. Unfortunately, the re-enactor’s silent stance appears to have become a
symbol for some men to long for the “good old days.” I was appalled to overhear
(ooh, am I gossiping?) one man (who looked, for all intents and purposes, like
a regular family man) wax on with some men behind a food counter, “Hey, did you
see the guy dressed as a woman gossip?” His words were something to the effect
of that’s effective punishment for a woman.

The group didn’t disagree. I later asked one
of the men who had taken part in the conversation, “What was that woman gossip
stuff all about?” His response was, “Well, it doesn’t hurt anybody”—implying
that shame and humiliation is a fair and just punishment. His parting comment
was, “Just don’t gossip.” (Hmm…)

Later I noticed the “gossip” was in the
vicinity again standing silently under a tree. As I was asking the re-enactor
if I could take a photo (he nodded assent, not being able to speak), another
man walked by, commenting and laughing at how funny the gossip was. Another
“Great way to shut a woman up,” so to “speak!”

Later that evening, I showed the photo to a
young woman, now an M.D., who grew up in the area. She was appalled and noted
that if she had seen this re-enactor as a child, she would have been horrified.

What is so horrifying to me is some
men’s response to the “village gossip.”

I’m not about to do a study to see if these
same men watching another man be pilloried or flogged would think that humorous
as well as well-deserved. I don’t know if this recent experience has more to do
with men denigrating women or with the fact that we are all far more primal and
less civilized than we’d like to believe. We pride ourselves on liberty and
justice for ALL, yet we continue to believe that shame and humiliation and
cruel punishment of other human beings will “learn’em.”

Shaming and degrading another human being is
about as far from the ideals of a truly free nation as you can get. This is the
learning we need: How about a revolution of heart and mind?

* Kayta Curzie Gajdos holds
a doctorate in counseling psychology and is in private practice in Chadds Ford,
Pennsylvania. She welcomes comments atMindMatters@DrGajdos.com or (610)388-2888. Past
columns are posted towww.drgajdos.com