Do I Join?

So do I join this group? Let’s call them the Board of Directors or BD group. I don’t think it will be an easy group to enact changes in. Here’s why: two male members have been on the board for three years and are very close friends. They have seniority, belong to the more politically powerful gender, are older than everyone else, and there are two of them. Arnold Mindell, Process Work Institute, talks about rank as the hidden denominator in groups and I think he is right on the money. These two men have lots of rank and are the de facto power in the group. The only woman member had the courage to point out some issues that the other men perceived as criticism. I watched the men pepper her with questions and she looked like she had run into a boulder. Her posture was rigid and her face looked like it had been flattened into a stiff sheet.  She needed some empathy that’s for sure, but none was forthcoming. The men felt attacked and they pushed back.

Later, she said she felt heard, so obviously she is so used to boulders she doesn’t register them as blocks anymore. Earlier, when she was asking for a facilitator to help make the conversation safer, I got all excited, because that is what I do. I make it safe for everyone to talk in a group. But the men didn’t think that would be necessary, they were doing it already, they said. I about wet my pants with frustration, but since I was a visitor I kept mum.