Tag Archives: women

Misogyny

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Family, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 17, 2024- I watched the first episode of “Lioness” this evening. It is a spy thriller, centered on women secret agents and fighters, in a Middle Eastern backdrop. Each of the women has a male advocate, if not a lover. They just don’t really need those men, day to day. One of the central characters comes to the Lioness program by way of escaping from a gang of disaffected, misogynistic men.

I thought back to how I was raised-to be a gentleman (by my father), countered by male peers who were alternately respectful of our mothers, sisters, grandmothers and aunts, while carrying a veneer of seeing other girls and women as means to an end. It was the stuff of adolescence, certainly, but subliminally was carried forward into our group psyches.

My wife became my equal, my partner, by dint of her sheer intellect and tough personality. Penny grew to become nobody’s fool. I became someone who did not need a fool. As the first true love of my maturity grew into a fully independent woman, so I began to grow into a fully independent man. From there, we both became interdependent.

In the years immediately following her passing, I found the sticky residue of my adolescence clinging to my psyche. As sheer will power and prayer had helped me shed alcohol dependency, thirty years earlier, so did they help me shed the stench of misogyny that was trying to get out. I let it out, along with the lack of self-esteem that is behind all such negative dust. True maturity had been reached.

Young men, around the world, face challenges to their self-concept that have historically been faced by posturing, adopting a dominant position towards their female peers and subscribing to a false sense of entitlement. This is the ethos of The Pack. There is an alpha male, but his “true strength” is only evident when the rest of the peer group is present, for reinforcement. The public face of misogyny is the Incel (“involuntary celibate”), who takes the stance that abstinence from sex is being forced on him by a conspiracy of women and other men.

In truth, though, focusing on one’s sexuality is dealing with only the outer trappings of insecurity. Procreation has an important place in the order of society, but it is only a place. A person, male or female, who has been raised to truly value self, who is focused on his/her totality: Intellect, variety of interests, physical stamina, dreams and goals, social skills, spirituality-will be more likely to know success, to be resilient in the face of challenges and less likely to blame others when things go wrong.

These are things I have come to fully realize, over the past fourteen years.

Rising

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Education, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 26, 2018, Prescott-

I attended a gathering, yesterday, at the Native American Baha’i Institute, which is 4 1/2 hours’ drive from here.  The occasion was an intensive flute making and playing workshop, by a long-time flautist, who is a friend.  Kevin visited our home, years ago, when Penny, Aram and I lived on the Navajo Nation.  His work is always worth supporting.

I will have more to say about the flute, and about the event, in my next post.  Today, though, a brief word is in order about the rising of those who have been subservient.

In the mid-1990’s, my mother-in–law would insist on the Victorian dictum, regarding children maintaining silence.  She would later come to regret that stance, but at the time, it was her way of keeping our son and his girl cousin in check. I disagreed, vehemently then, and do now. Children should be seen, heard, believed- and properly educated and guided.

Women have largely been relegated to a subservient role, over the centuries- across the globe.  Thankfully, this nonsense started to unravel, as far back as 1965, though people like my mother have never been content to have their voices go unheard.  The presence of so many strong women in my life has made such a state of affairs seem totally absurd to me, forever and a day.

When I was a senior in high school, one of the seminal events was the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., fifty years ago, next week.  In my social studies and English classes, I would raise the issue of civil rights, to a largely deaf audience.  My school, at that time, had five African-American students.  I knew two of them, brothers, who were kept at home, the day after the senseless murder.  There were hoots and hollers, expressions of satisfaction, by young men who have long since overcome their prejudice, born, as all prejudices are, by ignorance and fear.  There were tears shed by more enlightened young women, who dared to date young Black men, from the next town over.  My hometown is a more open-minded place, nowadays, and people are increasingly, though not completely, expanding their circles of friends.

There is a new world, a better place, rising from various ash heaps.

This Living Dream

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Posted by on in Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social

February 4, 2016, Prescott- It’s been nearly three weeks since the nation took time to honour the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  It’s been three weeks, since we heard this year’s iterations of the speech he gave, sharing his dream of a nation whose people were at peace with one another.

I have thought, long and hard, about the years that have passed since then, and the years that have passed since his slaying.  We no longer, thankfully, have full-on urban riots, at least not since Los Angeles, and 25 other cities, in 1992.  We no longer tell people of colour that they cannot live in certain neighbourhoods, or parts of the country. We have, on the one hand, made an attempt to include people of colour more fully in the outward cultural fabric of our world-with HipHop and rap becoming de rigeur, worldwide.  On the other hand, there is so much unfinished, and even some progress at risk of being undone.

I have to say this, sans hard hat:  There are still several areas of daily life, mostly involving how I, and people who look like me, are perceived by law enforcement, especially on the road at night, that are not experienced the same way by people of colour.  As a nation, we buy too easily into stereotypes, still.  It was not so long ago that I would lapse into a lilt, when speaking with African-Americans.  That had to rankle the people with whom I was speaking and I apologize, profusely.  It said volumes about my own gap in self-identity and deficit in self-confidence.

I am over that personal roadblock.  The Dream that Dr. King shared with us, while speaking at the National Mall, those 53 years ago, was meant for all of us.  It was meant for Blacks, Native-Americans, Latinos to claim a place in the true life of the nation.  It was meant for women to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with men.  It was meant for Caucasians to recognize that sharing the full life of the nation with people of colour, in no way diminishes who we are as a dynamic force in the progress of mankind.  It was meant for those of both sexual orientations to be afforded the opportunity to share their God-given strengths and talents, in making the world a better place.  It was meant that the Dream be truly universal. I believe the Dream is alive.  I believe that this is truly the Day that will not be followed by Night.

The Road to 65, Mile 302: Pontification

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Posted by on in Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Matters of Faith

September 25, 2015, Prescott-  I spent the day with groups of students, in a couple of Band Rooms- one at Prescott High School, the other at Mile High Middle School.  Supervising band, for someone who can barely read notes, is an interesting stretch of my exchequer.  Two or three students lead the class, actually, and I am there mostly to maintain order.  There are always a few who challenge the authority of whoever is leading the class.  Today, however, I needed only remind the assemblage that it is the upcoming concert that matters, and not the whims of the moment.  The young people set back to work.

Challenges to authority have always been the lot of the common man.  They most always result from a disconnect between the aspirations of the worker and the “Big Picture” agenda of the overlord.  So it is with our current crop of candidates for President, with their immediate predecessor and with the Pope of Rome.  Seven billion souls are each going to see things differently from their neighbours, from their family members, and even from their former selves-or later selves, for that matter.  Baha’u’llah states, with regard to a married couple, “Between them is a barrier, that they overpass not.”  By this, He is referring to the DNA-rooted individuality of every soul who ever lived on this planet, and of every soul who will ever live.

I think of this, while pondering the current visit to the United States, by the philosopher king formerly known as Jorge Bergoglio.  Pope Francis I is astride two worlds, and receives advice and criticism from those in each world, and from those who regard themselves as living in neither.  On the one hand, he seeks to define humaneness as ‘seeing each and every person as a true human being, an individual worthy of respect.’  On the other hand, he, along with every other man who is in a position of sectarian authority- with the possible exception of the Archbishop of Canterbury, sets limits on 50 % of the populace.  Women are given only a certain place in the papal firmament- and there is, to his mind, to be no deviation.

Everyone of us has a duality about us.  We have higher aspirations, most of which have to do with doing right by other people, and by the environment in which we live.  Then, there is the “Me” factor.  Self-preservation is a constant weight on our upwardly-springing feet.  From time immemorial, this self-centeredness has been given a countenance:  The demon.  Putting a face on something, especially on a vile something, separates it from us.  We go to great lengths to lengthen this distance- with talk of Satan walking the Earth and infesting the minds of the wayward.

In the end, though, it falls to the individual to rescue him/herself.  The only one who can take me out of my lower nature is yours truly.  The only one who can overcome the deeply-ingrained senses of racism, sexism, class prejudice and nativism that infest so many, is the person who is weighed down by them.  Others can only stand aside and criticize, point fingers, or turn their faces away in disgust.  They may also offer constructive criticism, which is welcomed by any sincere soul.  The change, however, comes from within.

As Krishna is credited with saying:  “Point a finger at another, and, behold three fingers pointing back at you!”  Godspeed to Senor Bergoglio, and to all who seek a better world.  Let them continue to push away the weight that ties them down.