The confirmation hearings over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, along with the accusations of sexual impropriety in his younger days, represent the latest act in a drama that has been going on since recorded history began. It has to do with the imbalance between the sexes in Western and Eastern cultures, with women gradually emerging from the position of chattel to more respectable roles. In the late 1800s, it was still legal in the UK for men to beat their wives. In the US, women got the vote with the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution in 1920. But probably nothing has freed women like the introduction of the birth control pill in 1960. We–all of us, men and women—are still adapting to that.
Demonization of women is deeply rooted in Western monotheistic traditions, beginning with the Biblical Book of Genesis and the Garden of Eden. Eve, the temptress, is blamed for Adam’s fall from grace. Since then, women, representative of the earthy, intuitive side of humanity, have been deemed inferior to the abstract, spiritual male principle. Under this scenario, sexuality is suspect, to the point where Catholic priests are not allowed by marry, and even between married couples, sex is supposed to be confined to propagation.
The notion of original sin thus puts man (and woman) at odds with their own earthly natures and has contributed to distorted ideas of sexuality ever since. It translates into a disrespect for women and, by extension, a disrespect for the earth from which we all spring and depend on for our existence. Even such notions as “survival of the fittest,” attributed to Charles Darwin in the 1800s, presumes that “fittest” refers to the most physically powerful members of a species. In real terms, the fittest for survival are those who are best equipped to produce and raise healthy young.
The idea of women as necessary evils pervades modern thinking. Even the most liberated of women, for instance, still wear make-up and shave their legs, two concessions to sexual desirability no one expects from men. Women who disparage men for overstepping sexual boundaries must realize that these men were usually raised by mothers, who by words or behavior taught them to disrespect women.
Animals have no shame about their sexuality. They mate in the open, yet for man, with the shame and secrecy inherited from Adam and his fig leaf, sexuality is fraught with guilt and circumscribed by rules that create their own problems.
Our distorted views on sexuality play out in every area of our lives and seem to be especially prominent today. The women’s “#metoo” movement is an example of the solidarity of women who claim they have been harassed by men, but it also signifies a coming of age in terms of women’s recognition that sexual balance is long overdue. The “fittest to survive” will be those who can anneal the spiritual with the earthly in respectful appreciation for all the attributes of both.
katharineotto 
“Our distorted views on sexuality play out in every area of our lives and seem to be especially prominent today.”
~ So true. I believe it’s become more prominent as more and more women speak out. Also, social media has provided us with the means of communicating with a wider audience.
Rosaliene,
Perhaps they are not more prominent, only more conscious, and social media helps. Awareness is the first step towards change.
There will be no real solution until the patriarchy is realized and understood for what it is: a misogynist monster upon which all three of man’s ruling powers: religion, the state and money, therefore man’s entire civilization, is firmly based. To destroy the patriarchy its source must be discovered. Once that is done, admission of its life-sucking attributes must happen. Result: end of organized crime, as in organized religion – all and sundry; organized government (the State and its “protection forces); organized banking cartels (capitalism). Nothing short of the end of this civilization can ever hope to bring about a lasting balance. Any form of feminism or female empowerment within the patriarchy turns women into dominant male clones for that is the only way they can garner the kind of power (power over) that is recognized by the patriarchy. Any study of historical women of power and an honest appraisal of current religious, political and corporate powerful women will support my claim. It’s back to before the beginning or it’s all for naught. To speak of equality for women (and the poor, let’s not forget the direct link) within the patriarchy is to bandy about an unsolvable contradiction. Those women who rely on “gains” made by women in recent times within Western, Middle-Eastern and Eastern patriarchal systems are deluding themselves. As society becomes increasingly chaotic and quality of life uncertain for rising numbers, those gains will be lost, in fact are already being lost. Within the patriarchy any constitutionally guaranteed “right” is written in sand, witness the current downfall of the “greatest” democracy in the world as the patriarchs who have hijacked its government and economy are for all intents and purposes destroying the flimsy base which propped up the pretend democracy.
To return to my opening salvo: how do we discover the real source of the patriarchy? Ah… time to grow up and begin to listen to those inner voices that have been crying in the wilderness for perhaps longer than a half million years on this world alone. Time to shake the programming and dare think for ourselves. Time to admit that something as corrupt as the patriarchy has no fix. Time to invent something entirely new, something that does not have a box to contain our thoughts.
Sha’Tara,
I believe the patriarchy is being undermined now, imploding from within. The old methods no long work the way they used to, and the US government, for instance, is becoming a joke.
Maybe we will have to start from scratch, but give the patriarchy its due. It has lasted a long time, throughout many cultures, and wouldn’t have done so if it didn’t satisfy some needs. I do think the birth control pill has liberated women more than we know. For one thing, it allows women to claim legitimate identities apart from wife and mother. There is no historical precedent for this.
I’m sorry but no, I will not give the patriarchy its due for it is nothing more than a horrid predator, always been, always will be. We need to understand our enemy and not fall for the handouts. The patriarchy sees all of life as race horses, cattle or turkeys in the holding pen. Entertainment and food, that’s it. The patriarchy lasted because it found a way to take control of the power of life and turn it into fodder for itself.
I was taught a cosmology that few, if any, Earthians can relate to, and that is, since the invasion of the Time Lords – male and misogynists – apart from imposing time upon life they also imposed three Powers which they would always control: organized Religion, organized Government (State) and organized Economics (Money). These three rule the realms of the Time Lords and they rule earth. They are the tools of patriarchal control. Once this is understood and accepted as fact (no evidence to the contrary!) then it must also be understood that they were deliberately established as inimical to each other. They are forever struggling to be the ruling Power on top of the pyramid. Today it’s Money, capitalism, the debt economies, that rule. The State is in a state of flux and weakening. Religion is fighting hard to regain first place while making temporary and hypocritical “deals” with the other two, all of them fully aware that any cooperation between them is pure BS: there can be no peaceful coexistence between these forces. So there’s the source of the patriarchy and on a universal stage, no solution to our own earth social problems possible until the defeat of these Time Lord entities. The war, which we can understand by simply thinking, “as below, so above” is on-going. They control much of this universe but there are pockets of resistance that are very active and not without some successes. Help also dribbles in from outside this universe despite TL security measures and Draconian punishments against those found helping the rebels – think Star Wars – not only a piece of entertainment, but a real story, our story.
The TL’s will be defeated, of that we are certain now. Their imposition of time as a method of control over life has its consequences: they aged and became stilted, stuck in old patterns that no longer work as they did at the beginning when sentient life here was innocent and helpless against the invasion. The tables have turned against “the Empire” and even here, on earth, we can feel the eddies and back-wash of change. But know this, that any gain made by the slaves of the TL’s (or Matrix or System or God/Satan or whatever you want to call it) can be but temporary and will all be reversed as the System becomes aware of those changes and re-programs the slaves’ soul implants to turn against their own gains. Witness the incredibly swift fall of the power of the labour unions for one. Now you are seeing the fall of the earth’s greatest “land of the free” or democracy into a military-homeland security empire and feeling the effects of that fall. Women, through their own programming, ignorant of the real forces against them, are not immune to this reversal – they have failed to establish their own counter-power to the patriarchy while it was at its weakest, probably just after the Vietnam war. There was a window, it is now closed. The reality of religious bigotry; of racism; of homophobia; of xenophobia or misanthropy and intolerance, of misogyny, all these are boldly resurfacing and no matter how shocking some of it seems, it is steamrolling into positions of power. Need I remind any woman that the president of the greatest military power on earth is an admitted misogynist? Then there’s judge Kavanaugh… I rest my case.
Why now? Because we let ourselves be driven back into the holding pen and while we are focusing on “climate change” or arguing over the economy or the terrible performance of certain sports teams we are failing to realize there is a power shift taking place, but it’s only between the Powers. We will continue to be fodder for them, particularly if we fail to recognize their too real presence.
Sha’Tara,
Are you saying you have no compassion for the perceived enemy?
Ah, Katharine, compassion is neither blind, stupid nor naive. The patriarchy is not sentient life as we would describe it; let me say it isn’t human, anymore than “the military” is human, even if there might (note I say might, not are) humans within it. Compassion is discerning and can tell the difference between a container and its contents. “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against authorities, against powers, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” I quote that fairly regularly as a reminder of how “we” (the walkers between heaven and earth) fight our battles and continue our war. The sentient, intelligent, self aware creatures of earth calling themselves “Man” (or erroneously “human”) were invited to join the war against the enemy of sentient life in this universe many times over the past millennia. They chose to follow their programming and not respond. As a result, they are kept out of the loop, ignorant of greater events; unaware of what is going on in the greater reality. Instead of fighting in a meaningful struggle for freedom of the mind they are endlessly fighting each other over made-up concepts, bits and pieces of land and finite baubles. I find that incredibly sad.
Sha’Tara,
I can appreciate that individuals and institutions are different, but institutions are composed of individuals who are capable of waking up at any point. I also contend that fighting defeats the purpose of peace, if peace is what you want.
Even if you and I don’t like the patriarchy, I have to admit that it has been extremely powerful for a long time. That deserves acknowledgement.
As to the patriarchy, certainly it deserves acknowledgment, as does the holocaust, for in fact it has been a holocaust of women and children for millennia. As for fighting and peace, life is nothing if not a series of battles. We fight, like it or not. How we fight; what we fight; whom we fight, that is what matters. Peace is an inner state, not something seen outwardly. Absence of war does not equate peace, just absence of war. When I speak of “the” universal battle, that is a realm very few “Earthians” are qualified to comment on. They might shrug and smile knowingly, thinking what wonderful science fiction it is. Although I will continue to speak about it, I accept that the idea is persona non grata on this world. Programming? Yes, it is due to programming that people remain so blind to social problems that make absolutely no sense when considering Earthian life as strictly the product of natural evolution. One would have to be certifiably crazy to believe that. Yet there are still basically but two channels of faith on this world: religion and science, or scientific materialism. Unfortunately for all, the patriarchy resides outside both of these faith-based concepts. Source. We need to get serious about finding the real source for our problems for as long as we insist on playing our games of snakes and ladders within the programming, never stepping outside the allowed boundaries of the social box (civilization) that is how long we will continue to hack away at our environment and at each other and as pressures mount, so will the violence. Perhaps this helps a bit in explaining what I mean as I expound on things not usually a part of normal Earthian conversations.
People are people are people and I don’t shave my legs! Sex features far too much in human thinking. If we stopped thinking of it as a competition and realised we need the qualities of both to succeed as a race we’d be a lot happier.
Julie,
Thanks for reading and for your comment, and I agree. I should do a poll on leg-shaving. You sound very liberated. We need more women speaking up and saying such things.