My brain is scrambled right now; there is so much to say on
the issue.
This is a human issue, not a sex/gender issue.
The problems begin when we allow ourselves to
pick sides and lose sight of the fact that it’s not a matter of “who has it
worse?” Let’s face it: we are all human - life sucks for all of us from time to time. It’s like Darren Radcliffe (a contributor to
the discussion thread) pointed out:
“Understanding men and women is different than understanding them
individually.” And, individually we all
have our own struggles.
And, really, if we get honest about sex/gender politics we
are our own worst enemies.
Women, for example, are their own worst enemies when they
call each other down because they don’t share each other’s politics, body
shape, sexual habits, or choices to work in the home or out of it. Men are their own worst enemies when they
call each other down because they don’t share each other’s politics, body
shape, sexual habits, or choices to work in the home or out of it.
We make things worse for ourselves when we:
-buy
into the social myth that women are victims, women are held back by glass
ceilings, women have to act like or try to be men in order to succeed in the
traditionally “male spheres”
-buy in
to the social myth that men are rapists, weak when they choose to stay home
with their kids, the sole keepers of opportunity
-put up
with maltreatment of any kind anywhere
-become
a complicit member of shame-based culture (body size, gender identification,
sexual activity, career choices, life choices)
-subscribe
to and perpetrate narrow views of parenting/child rearing/child care
-lose
sight of compassion and let anger, hate, and fear speak when love is needed
-allow
our damaged souls to paint everyone with the same brush and:
-assume that those who have hurt
us (one sex or the other) are all the same, that the whole sex wears the mask
of the person who hurt us.
Now, please don’t think for one second that I am a hand
holdin’, Kumbayah (sp) singin’, “everything is rainbows” kind of person…and big
ups to people who are… Believe me I am
no stranger to the trials of being female: survivor of childhood sexual
traumas, sexual bullying in high school, and sexual harassment in the work
place. I was a vociferous feminist in my
20s…and I mean vociferous: marches, petitions, classes, book stores – I even went
a year without reading anything written by a man. (Interestingly, my vociferous
feminist years coincided with my recovery of the memories of my abuse.)
Then I gave birth to a boy.
I spouted phrases and ideas about the inherent evil in men until I actually
stopped to listen to myself. I remember
the day clearly: I made some kind of statement about how women would rule the
world better because men were incapable of compassion, global thinking, blah,
blah, blah and I looked at my little boy’s face and I realised that if I wanted
the world to be better, I had to raise a human being who was compassionate to
the hurts of the world. This small male
child did nothing to hurt me. Until that
moment every man I met wore the mask of my abusers, rapists, and tormentors. I realised that those men did those things
because they were wounded, hurting HUMANS, not because they had cocks. People hurt other people because they are
deeply, profoundly wounded themselves – NOT because of their genitalia.
If we continue to run with the dangerous, damaging energy
behind the statistics around men as perpetrators of whatever and women as
victims, then we are creating more of what we want to eliminate.
Don’t you see? If you have a society that is working under
the umbrella of energy that “x” number of men rape and beat and kill, then “x”
number of women will be raped and beaten and killed then are we not moving
through the world subconsciously interacting with men and women under those
premises?
When we live in fear, all of our relationships are tainted
with it like ink clouds water…
When you scratch away the gender/sex
component and tease out the common themes you see they are actually human
concerns:
1.
Sexual
safety and freedom: ask a boy trapped in
the sex trade if this is an issue specific to women.
2.
Body Image
3.
Work/Job/Career equality
4.
Freedom of Choice re: body/reproduction
5.
Violence: domestic/sexual
6.
Homelessness
7.
Poverty
8.
Support for victims of anything
9.
Etc., etc., etc.
These are societal issues and when you turn the lights off
on the gender/sex politics, we solve the problems for everyone and we become
people with individual stories rather than merely the sum of our parts. The power is only there for one group or
another because we choose to imbue them with such power.
Maybe it’s time we create a movement that cares for us
all: Compassion First Movement or
something.
Because the only way I can
see clear of this battle of sex, race, or position is to hear and honour individuals, not body parts.
