First of all, interested parties may want to Google "gylanic" and look for the feminist criticism of it, as well as research the role the matriarchal archetypes of virgin, mother and crone. Otherwise, we'll be working out of ignorance of what role feminists, Riane Eisler, and those archetypes play in daily life.
IMHO it's a joint effort. How it gets done requires that men refrain from doing their thinking with the little head, and that women remember that the male ego is a myth.
Otherwise it may become a battle of wills if either side has an axe to grind.
In order get beyond the objectifying of women, both sides have to acknowledge the role that the patriarchal roots of human society plays in it.
Likewise, the matriarchal archetypes of virgin, mother, and crone also play a role in women-only views of patriarchy and also need to be addressed to help sensitize the men to what women want to help both sides overcome this age-old problem.
Yet it is more than an age-old problem, it is also a challenge for both men and women due to social conditioning.
That is why I suggested that we make use of the extensive research that shows that objectifying women (and men) is due to social conditioning. The only thing that is "hardwired" into the brain is the sex drive.
As well, the terms "man", "woman", "heterosexual" and "homosexual" are artifacts of that social conditioning. The first two terms are genders rigidly defined by patriarchal society, and the latter two are forms of sexuality (sexual expression).
However, I am not suggesting that we try to undo all of our social conditioning. Rather, the focus is on objectifying women (and men).
When a person listens to a story of general interest written by another person without knowing the person's gender, it is impossible to know whether a man or woman wrote it.
Before the 1920s, after which time the genders were rigidly enforced and homosexuality was criminalized, a person's sexuality was nobody's business and homosexuality was condoned, provided that both parties remained discreet.
Once upon a time, transgender people were not subject to rigidly enforced surgical and often psychotherapeutic intervention, depending on the person's socio-economic background.
In other cultures, the third sex is accepted but within context of social rules sometimes being eroded by patriarchal values imposed by first-world nations, much as nationalism was imposed on peoples living in societies prior to the rising of nations both in Europe and in the Americas as well as Asia.
However, objectifying women (and sometimes men) is due to social conditioning. It is patriarchal in nature, and neither gender nor sexuality are immune to its effects. One of many ways to reduce the effects of such social conditioning is to sensitize oneself to the way such social conditioning plays on our relationship with others.
Alone, one does not objectify others, apart from treating oneself to be of sole importance to oneself and considering trusted others to be essential to one's well-being. Thus, one trusts first family and then friends.
Then how does objectifying others work? Objectifying implies that one is presenting the objectified as an object and thus depersonalizing the other. In contract, personalizing then implies that the other becomes known as a person, and subsequently respecting his or her rights as an individual, thus individualizing that person. As well, in language, personal pronouns tend to personalize a person while depersonalizing a person happens when s/he is described as an object to fulfilled the material needs of a person in power. Thus, there is a dominator-submissive dichotomy in the power structure associated with objectifying women.
Thus, maintaining an impersonal idea of a person without careful consideration of that person as a unique individual with the same rights as you or I is also a factor in objectifying other people.
Even so, the system of objectifying a person is not called objectification, which refers to the act of representing an abstraction as a physical thing and is the concrete representation of an abstract idea or thing. While people are not abstractions nor are they an abstract idea or thing, our ideas about other people are abstractions when we do not know them personally.
The only term which defines the process of objectifying is depersonalization, which has both personal (from the point of view of the self) and social (from the point of view of the other within the context of self). Thus, other people cannot be objects without feeling depersonalized on learning that they have been objectified. Likewise, the person doing the objectifying may be unaware of the effect that such depersonalization is having on himself/herself.
Depersonalization has detrimental effects on both the objectified person and the person doing the objectifying. It is morally irresponsible for the latter to deny such effects or to blame the objectified for them.
However, objectifying a woman (or a man) is another case of situational ethics in that within the auspices of a loving relationship, the tendency to objectify each other is reduced by getting to know each other as people. Instead, by making it personal and a shared experience, such a relationship can reduces the tendency to objectify each other. Thus, objectifying another person denies a personal and shared experience.
As well, what defines a personal and shared experience requires communication between both parties on an equal level. Proponents of the view that prostitution is an objectified relationship deny that the prostitute and the customer are on an equal level, despite the fact that in some cases, as the customer gets to know the prostitute that he has chosen as a regular customer, they both may cross from a depersonalized relationship into a deeply personal and loving one.
Even the language used in prostitution depersonalizes each party: a customer is called a "john" and a prostitute is called many kinds of name, including the neutral term "professional".
Returning to the objectifying of women, this is a matter that may be remedied by social interaction both on a public and a private level. It cannot be done informally without facing the risks that depersonalization entails. Nor can it be done by people who are not familiar with the terms I have introduced here.
This is why I have introduced most of the concepts which face each and every person, men and women, as well as heterosexuals and homosexuals.
Originally posted on December 26, 2010 at 9:36 PM
Reference:
Social conditioning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_conditioning
Transgender: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender
Depersonalization: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization
Showing posts with label gylanic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gylanic. Show all posts
20140128
Alice Miller and Transcending Sexism
"That woman, as nature has created her, and man at present is educating her, is man's enemy. She can only be his slave or his despot, but never his companion. This she can become only when she has the same rights as he and is his equal in education and work." — Severin, a character in Venus in Furs by Sacher-Masoch
By writing thusly Sacher-Masoch represented 19th-century mores and the enlightenment prior to suffrage of women circa the 1890s and throughout the first 72 years of the 20th century.
Even today, women are still not treated with equality through education and work in certain parts of Eastern Europe including the Balkans, as well as as Turkey, the Middle East and most of Asia.
Until that happens by allowing girls the choice to choose non-traditional paths of freedom before the age of majority, any inequality is due to a rigid dualism of male-female with men in the dominant role which is artificially constructed as a result of the patriarchalism that underlies each society which practises such traditions.
The solution is not matriarchalism, which itself is a rigid dualism of male-female with women in the dominant role.
Rather, both the sexes must endeavour to transcend the artificial construct of the male-female dichotomy and especially transcend the dominant-submissive dichotomy and truly become democratic and egalitarian without preference for the limited dichotomy be it of the sexes or of control. Although sexism is inherent in any system which supports either patriarchal or matriarchal power structures, it loses its power in a gender neutral power structure where power is shared by capable men and women
Thus there is a way out.
It starts with Alice Miller and goes beyond the December 6 Massacre to the sole purpose to emancipate men and women alike from the perils of child abuse, the root of human violence learned in family. The solution is not to break up families but to provide counselling to let survivors tell their stories without censure.
By sharing it is possible to help heal psychic wounds, thus beginning the road to recovery to help renew a sense of hope.
For gylanic egalitarianism is the way out of sexism.
Originally posted: December 23, 2010 4:27 AM
By writing thusly Sacher-Masoch represented 19th-century mores and the enlightenment prior to suffrage of women circa the 1890s and throughout the first 72 years of the 20th century.
Even today, women are still not treated with equality through education and work in certain parts of Eastern Europe including the Balkans, as well as as Turkey, the Middle East and most of Asia.
Until that happens by allowing girls the choice to choose non-traditional paths of freedom before the age of majority, any inequality is due to a rigid dualism of male-female with men in the dominant role which is artificially constructed as a result of the patriarchalism that underlies each society which practises such traditions.
The solution is not matriarchalism, which itself is a rigid dualism of male-female with women in the dominant role.
Rather, both the sexes must endeavour to transcend the artificial construct of the male-female dichotomy and especially transcend the dominant-submissive dichotomy and truly become democratic and egalitarian without preference for the limited dichotomy be it of the sexes or of control. Although sexism is inherent in any system which supports either patriarchal or matriarchal power structures, it loses its power in a gender neutral power structure where power is shared by capable men and women
Thus there is a way out.
It starts with Alice Miller and goes beyond the December 6 Massacre to the sole purpose to emancipate men and women alike from the perils of child abuse, the root of human violence learned in family. The solution is not to break up families but to provide counselling to let survivors tell their stories without censure.
By sharing it is possible to help heal psychic wounds, thus beginning the road to recovery to help renew a sense of hope.
For gylanic egalitarianism is the way out of sexism.
Originally posted: December 23, 2010 4:27 AM
20090131
War on Terror Not Religious
Regardless of anything to the contrary, the American-led "war on terrorism" isn't really a religious war at all.
Rather, this is the legacy of 6000 years of androcratic devolution of human
civilization.
Even so-called primitive tribals of India are being forced into Hinduism
just because they are more equalitarian than Hindus by not practising the
degenerate practice of child marriage.
This is proof that the so-called primitives are more civilized than the
so-called civilized Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.
Likewise for similar "civilized" practices of Judaism, including biting off
parts of a male infant's foreskin during cricumcision, and equating
anti-Americanism with anti-Semitism (thus pretending to "own" America).
And ditto for similar practices of Christianity such as obstructing traffic
in Vancouver on a busy street so that some protestors get run over
by buses, condemning abortion killers yet not being vocal in decrying such
violent acts which are equally heinous to abortion, Protestants endorsing US
foreign policy, Catholic clergy playing politics in 3rd world nations but
leaving their flock to face trumped up charges when genocide occurs,
continuing the war on drugs whilst turning a blind eye to alcoholism,
cigarette smoking and abuse of legal drugs, etc.
The same goes for other organized religions, including Theravada in Sri
Lanka, where a Buddhist who pretended to be a monk assassinated the head of
state and subsequently converted to Catholicism, thus proving a link between
the See and radicalism in Sri Lankan politics. This is also evident in
Dali, East Timor since the rebellion there was supported by the Indonesian
Bishop.
All of this does not prove that a religious war is in progress.
Instead it shows that Mr. Gandhi was correct in assessing the role of
religion in politics when he declared that those who believe that religion
has nothing to do with politics, do not know religion at all.
Indeed, religion is where politics originated.
Thus it's all power politics in the name of Allah, God, Yahweh, or the other
997 names of God.
It's also a legacy of 6000 years of the decline of "civilization."
For it's all because of men subjugating women and using God to excuse such
misogyny, just because androcratic men in power fear the prospect of
equalitarian partnerships with women!
I suggest people look up "gylanic+androcratic" and see how many hits you
get, and research this matter thoroughly.
Better yet, search for "Riane Eisler" and read her books.
Eisler Riane Tennenhaus
1 The Chalice And The Blade : Our History, Our Future / Riane Eisler.
c1987.
2 The Partnership Way / Riane Eisler, David Loye. c1990.
3 Sacred Pleasure : Sex, Myth, And The Politics Of The Body / Riane Eisler.
c1995.
4 Tomorrow's Children : A Blueprint For Partnership Education In The 21st
Century / Riane Eisler. 2000.
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