If you're expecting me to draw a connection between this war and that war, you'll have to keep reading. Some of you already know the connection. Others may come to understand.
I have just finished reading Marilyn French's 'The War Against Women.' Sadly it is a subject I know well. I am a woman. The astonishing thing is-- (I was explaining this to my two daughters at dinner last night)-- that, other than not having time to have done the qualifying research or the global documentation, I could have written this book. I know the subject well. It is abundantly clear that we all do. Whether or not it is above conscious level or below, it is there, resoundingly.
I am a single mother: a very special category I often like to think. One that is bartered and used as yet just another commodity in the cultural commerce of political patriarchy. So I spend a great deal of time witnessing and practicing the life of female in contemporary patriarchy. I couldn't avoid it if I wanted to despite the fact that after decades I have managed to establish my own female oasis. The problem with oasis is that it is solitary, isolated. And one thing I have come to believe is that women are not by nature solitary creatures. Not to say we don't require privacy, we do, but we do tend to gravitate toward the communal. The communal anything. I have a theory, which I will chip away at here and on blogs that will follow. This idea of 'Communal Woman' is but one component of the theory.
Back to The War Against Women:
Not only could I have written much of the content of the book. Many of my women friends could write it. If we weren't consumed by the stunted lives we've been conditioned to receive with resignation and acceptance that this is truly what the world is meant to be, that this world, we as a species have reached the pinacle of our achievement, ignoring all indications that we are but on a progressive, if not circuitous path toward some as yet, hazily designed future . As if there is no other way. But there must be.
And I've been searching for another way actively for at least the last 15 years (reading late into the night, following bibliographies, instinct, searching the internet). I can honestly say that this life has never felt normal to me. Never. Not once. From the beginnings as the third child, second daughter to a working class family. In fact and in retrospect, much of my world's response to me often felt like a kind of asault.
My favorite, coming from the lips of my own mother: "Little girls don't look so pretty when they cry..." Message received. Unwarranted emotions make us less attractive. Dissent in the form of tears that refuse to accept the dictates is unacceptable. You will be shunned. Prettiness, attractiveness is far more important than one's feelings and by extension, one's belief regarding self in the world.
I have been looking for the answer to what until the last few months felt like an unsolvable mystery. Why can't the sexes get along? I don't mean some detente. I don't mean for one side to resign. I am talking about harmony and balance that given my relatively scientific orientation, I am convinced is more than possible. It is necessary.
My generalized answer is that we live in a neurotic, dysfunctional, stage of evolution as a species. Something went wrong somewhere along the way. If we can assert that there is a natural flow and harmony to all life on earth (except of course our own human culture), then it is abundantly clear there has been a wrong turn somewhere.
All of my evidence arises from personal experience supported by both deliberate and casual research.
First Point: After some 50 years on the planet, most of them fairly conscious, I have never doubted for a minute that on an individual basis Men Just Love Women. Now I know that is an inflamatory declaration by feminist terms so I intend to explain what I mean.
Patriarchy is evil incarnate. It is a mistake. It is a wayward path on the species' evolutionary journey. It is a cultural illness. It is a neurosis on a species wide level.
Men beat, rape, mutilate, defame, degrade, ridicule, demean, violate, insult, ignore, abuse, defile, misundertand, neglect women. All of that. I have either experienced some of the above mentioned consequences of our cultural 'illness' or I know any number of women that have experienced the same. When saying Men Love Women, I do not in any way mitigate the more than well-established history of patriarchy from a feminist perspective.
What I mean is that they are naturally inclined to love and enjoy Woman as Woman. They too, as a sub-species, harm themselves with the manifestation and maintenance of patriarchy. Willingly in some cases, unwillingly. Consciously (not often) or unconsciously.
But there is that draw. There is that magnetism, there is the natural desire to commune with Woman.
So, I've been asking myself for a few decades why, if we are meant to be 'together' on whatever level, we cannot find the harmony that SHOULD be natural. My short answer is Patriarchy is what happened. But as Marilyn French and many many others have elucidated very clearly, the Patriarchy is self-perpetuating. The mechanisms that maintain it are diffuse, slippery, circular and have nearly obliterated all palpable evidence that another system of communal structure and exchange is even possible.
Just as with any competitive sport or political contest, one of the primary strategies is to demonize the opposition by whatever means works in the short term to achieve short term advantage. Always, short-term advantage allows further plotting to gain longer term advantage.
Keep 'em busy, keep 'em fighting amongst themselves and we'll take over the world while they scramble, bicker and fight to survive.
It all boils down to a Boys' Club mentality which is nearly entirely populated by the White Male Dominance Club. And they play a very elaborate Shell Game in order to keep us al guessing, scrambling, scratching our heads as they shuffle the shells and run off when the culture police get a little close.
So the extended metaphor becomes this. Patriarchy functions on nearly all levels like a Boys' Club. There is always a 'Club House.' In our country the most prominent is The White House. There is also the established Church. Something like the Vatican. There is also the Mafia. All three organizations function and are structured much the same way and use much the same covert tactics to remain an exclusive club. Some are santioned. Some not. But as we proceed with our examination we'll see that they are often in some kind of explicit or implicit collusion with one another. The Pope knew two years before the Allies did anything about the Holocaust. I'm sure officials could offer palatable reasons why the Pope had to wait for any global intervention. I would personally reject them all. One of Patriarchy's most often used tactics is Justification. In fact, Patriarchy uses Freud's seven self-defense mechanisms so thoroughly and skillfully that they have become ingrained as an established form of cultural jurisprudance.
It is exclusive. It has stated rules for admittance and of course has secret rules and pacts in order to keep the ranks closed. Non-conforming members are sometimes allowed in but only if they play by the rules and ultimately function as if they too were Dominant White Males. Hence we have people like Condoleezza Rice. By all outward appearances she is an African American Woman. But she long ago turned in her individual identity so that she could play in the 'Big Show.'
She is but one glaring example. Our world and history are replete with examples of others who have joined rather than be beaten at the game. The reasons for this seem apparent. But I would like to add that at some point an individual reaches a point of personal exhaustion with trying to beat the system. They simply want a piece of some pie before they die.
More later. This single mother must feed her children dinner and supervise homework and chores.
No comments:
Post a Comment