The woman paradigm, today is still the past.
By Pascal Rassi
Ever wondered why women are a living conundrum to men? (Come on, don't pretend!) Well, they aren't given much choice. As a matter of fact, men are a similar mystery to women. And for the very same reason.
"The Past is Now." In this fabled futuristic Third Millenium that's eventually come for real, the vast majority of our planet is still made up of phallocratic societies where women are just "not really equal to men", to say the least. "It's a men's world, return to your place in the kitchen." Talk about advanced civilization! In many places, which the Western vision prism belittles as not being the MAJORITY of planet Earth, the females of our species are, more or less officially, owned like objects, treated like cattle, viewed as the unreliable location of their family/men's honor, and commonly deemed as having only the quarter of a man's mind and intelligence (at best). In the Middle-East, that's actually a proverb!
Even in so-called evolved countries, we all know that modern principles are often one thing and reality another... The worst part in this, in my opinion, is that women are imprisoned inside their own minds (the best prison ever) by deep-rooted traditions and life-long systematic indoctrination. Imprisoned in their very feminity.It's a cultural thing in Lebanon, and usually similar in all phallocratic societies: women are socially expected to never want sex, it would be... "improper". So the only way they can enjoy it, is thanks to the excuse of being forced, dominated, etc. Hence the classic "rape fantasy", which is never meant to be fulfilled but acts as a mental safety valve. Add to it the mandatory male fantasy of a very socially proper woman, the kind you'd marry, but who is revealed to secretly be a total nympho (the kind you'd love to f**k with).
Mediterranean male mentality, as I've read and personally confirmed, sees only two completely opposite --and incompatible-- types of women in the world: whores, and wives. (Neither are expected to think much.) If a girl loves sex, especially if she consents to it --or you just believe she does-- before getting married, then she's got to be a whore; you sleep with her, "everybody does", but you don't marry her and make her part of your family. And therefore, it cannot be allowed to happen to your daughter, not even if she's nearing fourty! "Proper", shy and obedient virgins, THOSE you marry. But then, you can hardly have sex with them except to have babies, because a married woman is destined to become a mother, and the mother's figure is taboo ever since one raised you the same way one raised Jesus H. Christ. A proper wife/mother feels no pleasure from icky, sinful sex, she just grits her teeth to fulfill her child-giving duties to her husband. And after that, she'll spend her most fulfilling life raising the tots and getting fat, therefore un-sexy and undesirable. And diabetic.
Before you ask me how this fits with the nympho wife fantasy, remember what I said at the beginning: men too are a living contradiction. They just don't bother to stop and think about the logic of it all, since they get the upper hand of the deal! Men, naturally, have no problem about sleeping with lots of "whores" and then marrying a virgin. Why should they, right? That's what "real men" do: being virile. Where would whores come from then, if everybody follows the same rules? Bah, who cares!
And voilà, this is why Mediterranean societies, and all those built on the same hypocritical model, are so unfailingly messed up between the ears. This also explains why a mistress will enjoy great sex and romance, until the fateful day when that bloddy fool openly expresses that she's expecting to replace the wife. A normally healthy man needs a spouse and a whore, BUT SEPARATE. White in the right hand, black in the left, each in its reassuring place. And the whore should know that her place is forever in the shadows of make-believe secrecy.
There's also this very relevant analysis about why traditional women are so invested into motherhood, and so possessive towards their sons. You could call it the Holy Virgin Mary syndrome. Mary was born without the Original Sin, according to catechism. She remained a virgin, and became a mother, and was made an ideal to all women. Because, "of course", the Original Sin is sex, and not rabidly despising its defilement. The catch is, either a "proper", "respectable" woman becomes a nun, remaining a virgin, or she becomes a mother. Therefore, the most perfect mortal woman can only hope to approach HALF of perfection! Minus the fact that the "factory defect" of being born without the Original Sin was only generously granted to that one impossible role model. Non-christians do not have that reference, but it doesn't matter. The Christians were simply crafty enough to explicitly express everybody's mentality through a glorious holy icon. Ever since judaism, sex was made ca-ca. Even in non-monotheist societies, it is very frowned upon by nearly every tradition. Including in a country like India, who has the world-famous Kama-Sutra sex guide as one of their holy religious books.
Even violence, big and small, is usually linked to this genitocentric paradigm. Rape comes from sexual frustration, and that dominating outlook on women, with the male's need to assert that he's "always in control" when he's failed to "score" by sticking to the rules of the game. (In their minds, rapists simply cheat their way to a deserved victory of the male.) Incest and child abuse is typically a convenient way to secretly go round all these complications. Most homicides are from "love crimes", as they are so elegantly called: abusive and/or jealous husbands/lovers are insecure in their possesiveness, so they prove their masculinity with the very manly act of killing. Bush's crusade is for the "good universal American values", built upon the rock of Holy Virtue and its openly admitted obsession on controlling people's every thought about sex. Islamist kamikazes turn their very life into a weapon, in good part because of the tantalizing promise of an afterlife of eternal orgy with everlasting virgins of supreme beauty, "seventy, all yours". Et caetera.
Typically, the weakest spot of men is their manhood, be it physically or mentally. We all know that a blow to the genitals can bring down the strongest man (even kill, by cardiac inhibition through a vagal nerve reflex). But striking at a man's sense of manhood is just as efficient a cowardly "low blow". The magical formula to defeat a macho is by pushing him to do something dangerous and/or stupid, with the (not so) "secret" words : "I dare you to do it, if you're a man." For as far as I can remember as a child, boys are trained into reacting that way by society's standards. "Be a man. Be strong. Be in control. Violence is manliness is honor."
I can never forget, when I ponder this issue, Al Pacino/Milton's
There you have it, the Ego's Guiltland Theme Park in a nutshell. Emphasis on nuts. ;-)
If you wish to use all or part of this text, please contact me first:
issar_el_aksab[AT]yahoo.fr
22 comments:
I'm just curious, but would people bother to listen if it weren't for the "MD" after the name? It strikes me that the opinions of someone with a title - MD, Ph.D., whatever - are given greater weight than they would be were those same opinions expressed by someone lacking a title.
I'm the last to give somebody ultimate authority because they have a title. But on the other hand, one would hope that five years of expensive education counts for something.
It sort of depends on where you go. And where in your class you finished.
Nine and a half years, actually, but who's counting?
(The crowd in a chorus, altogether now: "APPARENTLY, YOU ARE!")
Okay, seriously now. It's not an intention to brag of some sort. But one has to take into account the conventional aspects of publishing, otherwise anybody could steal it with a click and put their own name on it. This could become part of my CV... I view it as a pro bono professional publication, the fruit of my own experience, which other people might one day use for reference. It's only fair. All professionals publish their research and analyses. And it's useful: you don't expect a sociology student to quote in a thesis "that mumblemumble deep speech by Dwayne Johnson, street dweller I encountered in Minnesota", right?
Social study is part of our standard formation. And the copyright notice is standard procedure.
Then also, facing criticism is a standard risk. You're free to consider that this MD guy is full of baloney anyway. It's only illegal if you say it about royalty. :-)
In fact, if somebody has contradicting arguments or reasoned views to expose, this thread could get quite interesting, and profitable for all! Let the brains storm.
P.S.: I heard of a top-of-his-class prodigy, a few years ahead of us, who stood helpless in front of his first patient in the internship. His only brilliance was in books and tests. So grades and rankings aren't everything. (I was in the top half of my promotion, and that's all I'll say!)
I view the opinion and health of my patients as the only real-life criterium worth considering.
To me, having a degree or degrees or being an "expert" is only part, and a minor part of the consideration. I known some very wise people who had almost no formal education, and also some well educated fools.
A rational person must consider what is being said on its own merits, and not the person who is saying it.
I had a boss who only hired people with Polytechnic Degrees. They used to not have the shine of Uni degrees, but his philosophy was that if you came out of a 3/4 year BSc from a poly with a 2.1+, then you had recovered from a failure, and you now know success.
Typically the failure would be A Levels.
Very strange man. He also had no degree himself, but ended up getting a PhD from John Moores Uni. for life smarts and clever ideas.
Funny how the topic of male-female relationship attracted only "since when is MD better than no-D" comments...
I came to think that our 'modern' society is as much based on struggle for power as any human society ever was - but - these days we are conditioned (and expected) to believe that we have evolved so much that we are completely enlightened dudes, have a completely class-less social structure and very upright statesmen steer our boats to ever loftier goals, blah blah blah...
Domination over women comes from the same place where all other "have to win" do - more money, more Olympic medals, my car is bigger than yours, my way to pray the same God is more correct than your way, the list is endless.
The more people you can impose your set of rules on, the bigger man you are! Whether you're running a religion, corporation or a country makes no difference to the scoring of success.
Cheers,
Andrei
aixWhat nonsense! I've never read emptier generalizations than this. This person singles out "Mediterranean" and "Lebanon" and spins a web of stereotypical ignorance and you publish it!
Imagine if, instead of "Mediterranean" and "Lebanon," this so-called "MD" was generalizing like this about "Blacks" or "Catholics." Wouldn't you feel the stuff is racist or, at best, ignorant?
By the way, I grew up in the Mediterranean and lived many years in Lebanon so I know what I am talking about. In every society there are closed-minded idiots and there are many here in the U.S., but only a fool will focus on some people's faults and generalize from that about everybody!
Regarding the education comments - I once heard, and myself hold by the belief, that "A university education never hurt no one what was willin' to lurn sumthin' later on."
Regarding the main point of the article, I'm an old fashioned man in many ways. I enjoy holding a door open for a lady, but appreciate just as much if she holds it open for me. I have, or have had at some time, all the classic male fantasies, but have acted on none of them. My wife is not Miss Universe any more, and I appreciate the beauty of the naked female form of those all around me, (we are nudists) but I look - I don't touch.
As was mentioned in the DOMAI news letter this week, it is the form of the female body that I admire, not necessarily just the function.
Doug - Canada
Andrei,
Very interesting point there. Thank you for commenting.
What you aptly analyze all comes down to the drive of insecurity in immature people refusing to face their failure to grow up. But I didn't really want to get into a deep-probing psychoanalysis of the reasons behind the problem. That's for another, far bigger and "boringer" article. :-)
I should point out that I got some responses which were not posted here. Some rather private stuff that was directly emailed to me. Maybe this topic is too intimate, sensitive or painful for many women to share all they would have to say in public. Maybe this is why no woman so far has expressed an opinion on this thread.
Also, thanks to Doug for bearing witness that most of us, except some of the youngest ones (if they were fortunate!), have received an upbringing riddled with "old-fashioned" ideas, notions and dogmas. That's just the way the world works. And only special enlightened minds can overcome the clutter of all that mental junk dumped upon us and "clean house" before opening the curtains.
I'm quite amused by the third "Anonymous" comment (the one that ISN'T signed, unlike the very next one by Doug). What, can't a brother criticize the fondness of Blacks for blaming all their problems past and present on slavery and/or the colonial era? Can't an Italian complain about the weight of religion in his daily life? An Afghan woman call fundamentalist muslims "horribly backwards"? This means we should promptly issue a law prohibiting Jews from making all that self-mocking jewish humour on tyrannical mothers, self-pitying and careers set at birth, nu? Chutzpahdik!
Nowadays, most people who make criticisms harsher than mine against their own societies in this region are genuinely, literally, doing so at their life's peril. Most reformists in the arab world were forced to move to a Western country after very serious death threats from people who are proud to be primitives, but somehow resent that fact being stated. "Criticizing a muslim society under Shari'a means insulting the Koran, Islam, the Prophet, and God Himself, therefore you are evil and lose all rights to exist in Creation. Blessed seven times be he who slits your throat while uttering a prayer!"
This attitude is sometimes that of influential and/or powerfully armed groups, or sometimes the States themselves. Here's a small sampling of official sexist laws still applied in Lebanon TODAY:
- Men can give citizenship to their children. Women cannot, no matter what. You are only Lebanese if your father is.
- A woman cannot, may not, travel abroad with her children without explicit consent of her husband. This is not reciproqual.
- A woman may not open a bank account without explicit consent of her husband. This is not reciproqual.
- Domestic violence? What domestic violence? Ain't nuthin' in the law texts about such a contraption. Men have full right to beat their wives, it's none of the Law's business.
- In case of rape, the judge will attempt to achieve a mutual agreement. If the woman consents to marrying the man who forcibly took her virginity, the family's honour is preserved, and all charges are dropped. Guess who handles the persuading part... Yep, the family's men and the all-male, all-traditional religious figures!
The whole legal system considers and treats women as perpetual minors. That's the State's OFFICIAL position, and the ordinary mentalities are even worse. And yet, Lebanon is THE most socially advanced country in the arabo-muslim world, by consensus. Probably even more than Turkey.
What I meant in my article, and explicitly said, is that THE MAJORITY, not all, of the world, officially or unofficially still follows such a mentality. Because the "Western world" is but a small part of the planet. With just China and India, you have one-third of Humankind, and about double the cumulated population of the USA, Canada, Australia and Europe.
I stand by my statement: the majority of the world is still direly backwards in women rights and practical treatment, and machism is still gravely widespread even in Western countries. (Just how many of those do acknowledge women as worthy of priesthood, hunh?) When it's not State law, when it's not all-powerful family/clanic law, when it's not widespread social mentalities (France is getting very worried very officially about the rise in such machist simplistic mentalities and their blatant consequences such as collective rapes), it's the lingering effect of centuries, milleniae of traditions, customs, habits and manners that are still imprinted in women's minds through that nebula entity which is education in all its components. Women's liberation AND the abolition of segregation are only 40 years old. That means anybody older than 45 most probably wasn't raised in "modern" mentality. Don't take MY word for it: take the word of the many sensible and respected best-selling authors and sociology professionals from which I have synthetized and summarized this article. Take the word of the many women who salute these revelations as finally saying publicly, loud and clearl, what they had always thought and felt.
Today, in France, in the poorer parts of most major cities, any young woman who doesn't dress shyly and behave prudely with a clear submissiveness to male opinions, is quite simply and explicitly called a "whore". It's regularly in the national news. Going out at 18 without a chaperone can be more than enough. Because they don't behave as proper virgin "spouses to be". The feminine popular movement "not whores, not submissive" is now known nationwide, and desperately fighting the fight.
In these same areas, the norm is a single-mother home, because the men get them pregnant and then vanish into thin air. Married couples are about as frequent as Aryans in Harlem.
I am both Lebanese and Mediterranean, from two of my several origins and their important impact on my education and surrounding society. Last time I czech-ed, criticizing from the inside still didn't define as racism. On the contrary, it's the best possible means of social reform. I'm not, by far, attempting to generalize. (Well, d'uh!) But a brief article cannot insert politically correct disclaimers at every other sentence: "If you are not like I describe, please be informed that you aren't supposed to feel targeted or offended. And if you ARE like I describe, then you're too thick to be offended anyway, you pitecanthrope! Therefore, kindly note that all complaints about people taking offense shall be disregarded and your email sold to spammers, Scientologists and Jehovah's Witnesses."
In fact, the aim of my article was, very precisely, to help those many who ARE NOT thick, in realizing the deep-rooted mechanisms of the "old-new moral order" which is hammered on practically all of us, more or less. If not by parents, family or school, by local society or the new fundamentalist American worldwide culture relentlessly influencing the rest of the planet.
- Step 1 : admitting there is a problem.
- Step 2 : understanding the mechanisms of the problem.
- Step 3 : patiently and methodically dismantling the gears that keep the problem spinning like a top slung on an endless orbit.
Stereotypes are practically never born "one day, just like that, out of the blue". They are just exaggerations and generalizations of things which are usually very real. "Typically" of the ugliest traits.
Examples of globally true stereotypes: Americans are patriotic to the point of chauvinism. Italians are talkative and love to brag. Lebanese mothers keep interfering in their son's couple and lecturing the daughter-in law. Arabs are blindly antisemite (anti-jewish, more aptly, since technically "semites" includes the Arabs!). British women still consider that the man is to take the initiative in the dating game. All widespread and very genuine problems.
A paradigm is a view of things, an idea of how the world/Universe is, that shapes all the attitute of Society. A paradigm is quite close to the scientific definition of a stereotype. I find it supremely humorous that, by dissecting a stereotype that's plaguing society in order to help dismantle it, I get counter-accused of promoting stereotypes! Newsflash, Olsen: Stereotypes Do Exist. They are defined as what many people believe in about many other people (in present case, men AND women, about women). Like weeds, ignoring them only helps them spread, you've got to dig up their roots.
One of the calamities of today's "modern" world, as Andrei so relevantly noticed, is that Political Correctness is the new Inquisition. Under the excuse that generalizing stereotypes is wrong, it has become "improper" to criticize people who are in good part living stereotypes. Well, I happen to live in a country brimming with those. They are not the entirety of Humankind, not even of Lebanese or people around the Mediterranean, but they still are everywhere, and in far too great numbers to be conveniently, preciosely ignored.
I'm really bothering to say this for people like Andrei. Those who haven't lost the key of their minds. I know that Talibans can't read anyway.
One of the things that prompted me to write this article, is precisely noticing how widespread these stereotypes still are, everywhere I look, in so many of the people I meet. Some daily scenes I witness would feel exaggerated in a comic book. You may have lived in Lebanon, Majhool Efendi, but you haven't bothered to look much around. Seems in all your years here you never heard the sempiternal saying "Woman is a quarter of a brain".
وقل لمن يدعي في العلم فلسفة
حفظت شيأ وغابت عنك أشياء
Knowledge is more than just being there. It is looking at what was always there but nobody noticed before. This differenciates the scientific mind from your afacial exoproctophonia, oh honourable indigenous Pyrophile.
This is "anonymous" again and I can read Arabic and I understand what you say about philosophy and your mockery of my knowledge, etc. Funnily enough I have a degree in philsophy--from a university in the west.
But my considered conclusion is you just talk too much--who do you think has time to waste reading all this?. But you don't make rational sense and you keep spinning your generalizations, peppered a bit with modified softer-sounding stuff, so I am not interested in reading you or debating you any more.
Gee, good thing I wasn't writing all this boring stuff specially for you then, eh? But really, thank you, thank you so much for giving me such a good laugh.
I mean, a philosopher? You? Getouttahere! One of your colleagues defined philosophers precisely as "folks who go on TV". Or the other media, but TV's best. Their name is EVERYTHING. A philosopher so shy that he/she forcibly remains anonymous is like a sandwitch without bread. Ah, you crack me up! Sheer genius, your joke, I swear.
Also, any half-decent philosopher would've decyphered my greco-latin and protested "I do not lurk and talk outta my ass, mister Ventura!" I can't believe you took "afacial exoproctophonia" hook, line and stinker.
There's only one thing in common between you and professional philosophers: the irresistible urge to call everybody else ignorant morons, without ever offering anything to replace the conclusions of scientific minds. But your much flaunted dislike for verbosity, that's not very professional. (I mean, everybody KNOWS that if you can understand what a philosopher wrote, then he's a failure.) But of course you meant to make it so blatant. It's funnier that way.
You're right, this is no debate. This was a stand-up comedy routine. Bravo, maestro. Encore!
A good laugh is always welcome these days in Lebanon. The world needs less grim Batmen and more Jokers.
So... no half-hearted attempt at rebutting my über-lame theories with something more solid? I guess that's a general public approval then.
Even satirists saw it worthy of trashing, that's the surest sign of success! :-)
Make sure you don't miss my next article. It's a monument of hollow talk, complete with pictures. I hope it gets as much of a deserved tribute.
(^_^)
Just to say the issue is still open.
I'm married to a charming lady, well bred and educated under modern standards, in a western country.
Yet she has the idea some behavior are morally unacceptable (eg ranging from divorce, to open sexuality, down to body exposure and decency), and is quite in that perspective where there are, on one side whores and another mothers.
She is transmitting to some extent her model to our daughters, with a difficult positionning of body, mind and soul, due to a strong Catholic belief...
Difficult to cater with them without appearing depraved...
You probably meant to say "without appearing as the Devil's advocate", Old Nick? ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Nick
That very idea got slightly "lost in translation" along with a hyperlink when the article was posted. Here's for reference the text of Al Pacino/Milton's rant in The Devil's Advocate:
"Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all time. Look but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. Taste, don't swallow. Ahaha. And while you're jumpin' from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He's laughin' His sick, fuckin' ass off. He's a tight-ass. He's a sadist. He's an absentee landlord. Worship that? Never."
God obviously doesn't care, since lightning bolts and meteors do not commonly rain on every single person who cusses on Sundays. (Sigh. Where are the good old days of Exodus, when the Earth would routinely open wide to swallow heathens without chewing?) But the Clergies have a timeless paramount need to rule the masses by means of the deepest-rooted fear and guilt. Like all power-mad tyrants. They spread fear because they themselves think through fear, they live in fear. Fear of losing their power over all the others.
I guess this instantly explains why we are taught/indoctrinated/brainwashed to have abject fear of "a God of Love whose forgiveness is infinite"... And carefully deterred from reading and thinking by ourselves, without the mediation of a fiery preacher.
And these discrepancies can only mean that all the blatantly naive, contradictory, paranoid, scientifically grotesque stuff in the Old Testament were purely human additions. Read the Babel Tower myth, I mean REALLY read it carefully: either God is a clinical schizo-paranoid ridiculously worried about humans reaching and conquering His Domain with a humble, prehistoric skyscraper (meant solely as a glorified lighthouse monument), or this story is in reality retold and re-written from a dictator afraid of being replaced. Nowhere is it written "let us build this to reach God and be His equals"!
Genesis 11 :
"4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."
Oh, Yahweh dude, you're so sly. I mean, COME-ON! No wonder they wanted to kill Galileo for saying there's no Higher Sky housing Heaven. He was about to ruin the Mother Of All Rackets by exposing the obvious about Creation.
Please savour the irony: humans wanted to "make themselves a name, lest they be scattered". When there was stil one single people on the planet. What were they afraid of? Oh, wait: the LORD did precisely that, scatter them. I guess their worries were justified from the beginning. Am I the only one to be reminded of the Stalinian mass deportations?...
Oh, and I forgot in God's psychological diagnosis: amnesiac. Incapable of remembering in the tiniest way how He created the whole stuff. Creationnists should have suicide-bombed Cape Canaveral before the first Apollo mission got launched. Now the sabre-toothed tiger cub's out of the bag. Even rock-headed bigot BinLaden now knows there ain't no virgin-stuffed paradise above them clouds, only airliners to jihadize with.
I'm hopelessly a believer, atheists could never convert me. But decreeing the Bible, and worse, the convoluted beliefs of its zealots, as Cosmic Truth? Puh-leeze.
I don't know what's scarier: what I ponder in the above article, or the fact that in the most modern countries of this Third Millenium, insecurity of the masses still gets them to lock themselves in a self-built asylum of utter delirium, Amen-Amen-Amen-Amen-Amen-Amen-Amen.
When I was a wee lass, I used to get thrills by hanging upside-down from a branch and gazing at the endless sky "below". Oh Yahweh Albrucey, how did I manage to survive the terror? ;-)
We have enough to fear from psychotic humans right here. Those who want to kill us, and those who want us to hand over our basic liberties. There's no point in inventing a God more sadistic than Satan in his Hell of boiling cauldrons. Unless Satan is the one you wanna worship, THEN it would all get logical.
It's all a trick of the mind, sisters. You have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Oh, and Pat Robertson's Talibans, lead by General Sarah Palin. Naturally.
Because they have guns.
Hello Pascal
Remember the philosopher (french with same name)....
By the way, ever read Gibran and "the prophet" ?
I've got the book, both in paper and in digital version, but can't seem to manage and find the time to read it. Even though it's on my priorities list! My daily life is psycho-frakulating nuts these days.
I can't seem to do anything significant outside of bed. Even in-bed activities are starting to get affected, and you know that's ALWAYS bad.
Gotta go, enamoured pussy's desperately knocking at my window. Third time tonight.
Hi there, Pascal,
One thing is really bogglin' in my head. If women would have equal rights as men, would it lead to insanity. This is due to the fact that its considered to be natural by many for females to stay at home while for the males its natural for them to stay outdoors. This is due to the fact that women can good homemakers and guys can't do so. Also, it has been practised over generations from one era to another, and most people agree with that so could it still be a wrong viewpoint? Its said that what the majority believes is the best to agree with. Now, how can all this be challenged. People won't believe unless the majority of it agrees with it.
Hi Pascal,
What the delay about in replying back? Please tell me.
The reason is, I'm very sick, AND at the same time I have a lot of urgent work.
It takes a lot of time, answering your many questions, only half-typed yet.
You need to learn a little more patience, Anurag. Ever thought about yoga? It's great for inner balance and serenity.
Really, try it. While I complete youtr reply. :-)
Anurag, you should know that normally personal consultation from a highly educated person like Pascal costs over $100 per hour.
:-)
I see Pascal. I am so sorry to disturb you. Hope that you get well soon. Oh yes, and about yoga, I don't know very much about it but I wanna learn.
Also, Eolake, I think Pascal's advice are so valuable that're priceless. ;-).
Anurag,
You shouldn't ask me to free you OR your parents from the tight frame of rigid traditions. Only yourself hold the key to your own freedom. In fact, it's quite similar to stripping naked from tight clothes after a whole day of wearing them standing up in formal ceremonies. You don't have to do it outside the privacy of your own home, but still it feels incredibly liberating!
Ever noticed how it feels to take of tight-fitting shoes? Traditions are the same: they look very nice and all for your official appearance, but only when you get out of them do you realize how unhappy they made your life. *IF* you dare walk barefoot.
Sure, women and men are not identical. Men between themselves are not either! The insanity is forcing a specific life choice on any person with no other reason than "that's the way it's always been done". Crossing the world very slowly "has always been done" before cars and airliners were invented, too!
People are afraid of change, but LIFE is change, from birth to death. Stillness is death, and mind stillness is spiritual death.
Men have always wanted to control women, "that's the way it's always been done". Women can give life, so men see this as some mysterious magical power that inspires fear and must absolutely be controlled. Ignorance breeds fear, fear breeds violence, and it is all disguised as "tradition", which of course is very respectable because it's very old. Or so they teach us.
"Tradition"? My father always washes the dishes at home. Not only is it harmless for his honour, but it means he shows respect for his wife's dedicated efforts by sharing the housework. Plus, a wife that feels appreciated will feel more affectionate. (Use your imagination...)
Also, to answer your comments elsewhere, my mother never covered her hair with a scarf or the likes, but it doesn't affect the respect I have for her.
I got to see my best friend's mother tanning topless on the beach. Do I consider her less for it? No. (But I can tell you, she IS quite pretty. :-) I've seen most of my patients naked, and touched them everywhere as part of the physical examination. Well, I can tell you this, they always KNOW that I retain complete respect of them at every moment. And this respect brings a unique trust. This "miracle" comes entirely from an attitude of simple sense towards all humans. Regardless of gender, or age, or origin, or intelligence level, or physical capacity, or whatever you like. Always THE SAME respect.
Such standards around the body and the dressing style are by no means universal, it's all in the person's eye, and mind. Therefore, the sensible attitude is to be tolerant of as much as you can feel okay with. And that is (or should be) anything which doesn't hurt people.
As for what truly hurts people, what turns out harmless and what is one day revealed to cause suffering... you need to learn it by yourself. True wisdom comes from experience, and experience is a personal matter, there's only so much that I can teach you.
Arbitrary moral standards, about what's "proper" or "unfitting", regarding things that do not cause human suffering, are ultimately pointless. They serve purely as a social cement, for people to stick together because they dwell and act together. But people are not identical, they never behave exactly the same, we are not like ant drones! To do so, to hammer oneself and everybody else inside a single cookie-cutter social cast, is atrocity. Just like the wrapping of the feet in traditional China. It causes incredibly ugly feet, which become useless for walking. But hey, "it's a tradition, it's considered proper, that's the way it's always been done".
I have, not one, but several relatives who, in typical Lebanese tradition, took it upon themselves, totally unrequested, to "better my education". Extremely strict moral "traditional" rules, often incompatible with other rules from another person or the same person, and sometimes the same person contradicting themselves and blatantly violating their own rules. To be brief about it, I'm still not completely recovered from that relentless childhood trauma. These rigid people want to be clear as crystal, but they only manage to end up as brittle as smoked glass. Today they are old, lonely, bitter, and utterly unhappy. A fate that'll last forever, because they'd rather die from all that pent-up stress and depression than reconsider their absurd "traditions".
And yet, of all the people who do the opposite of "fine moral standards" and act most despicably, I've witnessed that the majority are from families and societies where morals are officially the strictest. Moralists cheat on their wives or husbands the most, they just do it in secret and pretend the gossip isn't there... or launch other gossip to cover it up. Incest, abused children within their own families, are samely most frequent, and by far, in the places where the mere mention of "these dirty things" is taboo. How come? Because the victims are afraid to speak up, and the tormentors know it, while themselves being overwhelmed by the frustration of all those forbidden things. When you repress natural and universal instincts like freedom, laughing, and sexuality, you create inner monsters.
Nobody's all good or all bad, nobody's all wise or all stupid, and that includes one's very respected parents. I mean yours too, Anurag, face it! Tradition has spent great efforts at imposing this dogma that parents know all and are always right (the Bible insists heavily on it)... but since parents of two different persons VERY OFTEN disagree, this has to be wrong somewhere!
Your mother may very well be intuitive and intelligent, but she's also clearly stuck into outdated traditional positions that warp her natural judgement. I can guarantee you, stop trying to change the opinion of such people, you're sure to fail. She was educated to view the body as something evil (even though nobody OTHER than God created the body OR sexuality, and we are all born naked), that idea is naive and false, but she'll never change her mind. And she calls people who threaten the comforting security of these beliefs with many nasty names, because challenging these beliefs immediately frightens her, and so she responds with anger. See what I mentioned earlier about ignorance, fear and violence. Your mother becomes verbally violent towards what makes her afraid, it's as simple as that. Her very attitude is unconsciously a confession. Every time you threaten her traditional beliefs, she stiffens, fears, and attacks what she perceives as a danger to her deep-rooted thought habits.
Please, have the wisdom to leave people who are wrong STAY wrong, they absolutely do not want to change their minds, they're very happy to remain miserable that way. Do you think I try to change my strict relatives? Just like they tried to change me? That would mean I'm as naive and blind to freedom of choice as they are. I never even advise : I suggest. Even to you, who so desire my advice. Sorry, but I have no right to think in your place.
The islamic scarf is also an old tradition that has no logical foundation. "Proper" women "have" to cover themselves because of men who are sex-obsessed. Ask yourself: how illogical is that? Some of the wisest and most educated women I know never cover their hair. Because there IS no relation. It's just a social norm, and a backwards one at that. What is kept hidden becomes "different" and a magnet to curiosity. When it happens with the body, repressed sexual instincts will automatically focus on it.
I know some areas of the world where everyvody lives completely naked. Yet there is FAR LESS crime in these societies, sometimes none at all. In fact, they happen to have far less hang-ups than the places that obsess about "morality" and covering up women. They don't have sex more often, BTW. And most of the time they are very happy. Depression is a notion they wouldn't even understand.
The problem of women lies with the education of men. And what they convince/force women to believe.
In a vast part of Africa, women undergo what is called "excision". I'll blog about it in detail some day. Basically, they get their sex cut up by force (without anaesthesia!!!), to "remove the source of impure desire from their bodies". It is ALSO in the name of morality, religion and "the good of society". Every time the husbands of these women (married also by force) have sex with them, the scar mass that their intimate parts have become cause them atrocious pain instead of any pleasure.
So I ask you : Why would Allah have created anything evil or dirty in the bodies of men or women? How arrogant is it, for humans to claim the privilege of improving the standard model of God's blueprint, or calling parts of it "evil, ugly, dirty"? Isn't this the definition of blasphemy?
This, *THIS* is the mad nonsense. Evil comes from the only part that humans create themselves: their mind. And some of the social traditions they put or allow in it. Don't blame God, he's not the one being stupid.
You asked "How could that be?" Well it "be" because people who make foolish mistakes hate to admit it, unless they have exceptional maturity. They prefer to claim that it's God's orders that they be violent and oppressive and cruel, wage "holy war", beat your wife, sell your daughter in marriage before puberty to an old stanger, exploit the Pariahs... There is a name for that. It is called moral cowardice. "But if everybody is cowardly together at once, let's call ourselves brave and feel like we're doing the right thing."
The islamic scarf as a sign of shy women, being declared as "educated" (mostly educated in a certain form of tradition!) is purely arbitrary. Like naming two sports teams Blue and Red, with matching clothes. Why not Yellow and Black, or Green and White, or Brown and Purple? "Because." Somebody has decided a very long time ago, and now that's that. And some people have decided that since a woman's hair makes her look pretty, it is necessarily a sign of sexual sollicitation. Men who are unable to behave better than lustful beasts blame the devilish witchcraft of the spell in a woman's beauty, "it's her fault, the Devil made me do it".
Pent-up "traditional" people keep shaking this threat like some scarecrow, that if women do not "stay at their proper place", the entire world will crumble into madness. Any idea of change from their habits equals absolute terror. But tell me, does the femininely-emancipated West seem to you like the place in the world that's MOST crumbling into poverty, famin, rampant crime in the streets, widespread political corruption, military dictatorship, civil war, and people being blown apart every day by terrorist attacks from their own fellow countrymen?
The only consequence of equal gender rights, is that those men too primitive to accept it will try to attack women in frustration. Because they resent the loss of their domination, like a rooster resents any moving creature entering HIS chicken coop and approaching the females considered as his jealous property.
"women can good homemakers and guys can't do so"
Tell me, who are the world's most famous and esteemed cooks? How many are MEN, and how many women do you find in world-top French cuisine? And what about haute couture, fashion clothes designing? Also, a lot more MEN. So much for "feminine" natural aptitudes.
People are always less handy at things they've never done. When some things get segregated since early childhood, it's normal that girls who've never learned to work wood, and boys who've never tried cooking or sewing, feel they are less apt for it.
It is part of the psychological differences between genders, that many will LIKE more to do certain things. But not all, buddy. Not all, if they are free to choose. There is one thing that forever separates men and women, one thing only, and that it the part that their bodies play in making babies. (Okay, and how they can go to the toilet. Big deal.) In the days of cavemen, this meant that women, who got pregnant often because mortality was high, had better stay safely "home" and do the static tasks, while the men went hunting and making war. But are we still primitive cavemen in a primitive world? How about we ask women like Isabelle Autissier, Hillary Clinton, Benazir Bhuto, Marie Curie, Amelia Earhart, Shirin Ebadi, Cleopatra, Venus & Serena Williams, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc? Nowadays, a pregnant woman can remote-control a tank on the battlefield just as well as a Conan the Barbarian. Except for the very brief time when she'll be in labour, and believe me, I know no man brave enough to get through the same without being distracted and screaming in pain when things get complicated.
Let me remind you what we all owe to the incredible and unique bravery of women. Until less than 100 years ago, women have given us life, sons and daughters alike, at the peril of their very own. Before modern Medicine, no woman was sure to survive a pregnancy. Billions and billions of them died as a ransom for giving life, including to every last one of us ungrateful brutal men. As thanks, I've seen rich men from the Arab Gulf throw the scraps of their meal to their own mother, sitting on the floor next to their table like a dog. This is the "beauty" of "educated" islamic tradition, the same which says that a woman's place is in the kitchen, and that her body is irresistibly, supremely lewd. So decree the men, by abusing their war-trained muscles to behave like beasts. But, the clever trick is, they also persuade women since infancy, through systematic brainwashing, that "it is all normal, and in fact Divine order". What a shame!
How many coward men, still today, vanish like a shadow the instant they learn that they have gotten a woman pregnant, because they want no part in the responsibility? Is that among the feminist West? No: it is, mostly, among the traditionalist immigrants that go settle in the West! The exact same traditionalists will abduct young girls whom they resent being too independant, for instance those who won't wear a head scarf, and then they'll call them "whores" and gang-rape them 20 or 30 at a time. Just two days ago, one of them tradition-educated men was sentenced to 20 years for attempting to burn alive the girl who refused to marry him. Not in India, in FRANCE. Read the news.
So, WHO exactly is the immoral one? Leave them on their own, and those "traditionalists", stemming from the very references you mention and proudly claiming them, reveal what it is exactly they believe in. Total domination of women as their sex things. Those who won't yield or get brainwashed become a threat to destroy. I don't view that as moral in any way.
Do you know ONE olympic sport that only men can pratice? No. Because there's no Olympic Standing Pissing discipline.
In Mexico, women are becoming professional wrestlers, and beating MEN in the ring. A woman in her normal state (not pregnant) has no difficulty being the equal of any ordinary man if she chooses to. These same Mexican wrestler women are, the rest of the time, very dedicated mothers and housewives, working hard to raise their children. They just needed to show the men that macho is stupido. Good for them.
A real man does not hit the one he loves: he PROTECTS her. Wife abusing is ALSO extremely widespread in "traditional" misogynistic societies. Are you beginning to see a pattern here?...
Tell me, do you also support Taliban "tradition" that says women must not have a job, or get an education in school, and those who do must get acid thrown in their face or their throat slit? And that showing their very EYES is pornographic, deserving immediate death by stoning?
Fundamentally, it's all about the attitude of viewing human beings as people, not as things to possess or control.
Is that too much to understand and accept?
When I see the world today, it seems the answer is yes.
I think all is practically said. Love is a PARTNERSHIP, between two persons different and complementary, but fundamentally equal in worth, who love and RESPECT each other. Without that respect and spirit of fairness, love and marriage are a lie, a master-servant relationship of possession and domination. When there is such mutual respect, no amount of strength in a woman can give me a problem. I know women, therefore I do not fear them. I like and respect them, as much I do as any man.
You'll notice that this respect is entirely compatible with sexuality. If you're a believer, you'll have to admit that God created man and woman in such a way that they would have sex to perpetuate the species. It's NOT a wicked or evil thing, anyway, what's all the fuss about sex being "dirty" for some stupid reason? When properly done, it's one of the most beautiful things in the Universe. By "properly", again I mean between people who both respect each others as full persons. Love is a bonus which I chose to consider important for my own sex life. But respect is fundamental.
Your parents are insulting God's creation every time they say that there is something ugly about the healthy human body that should be covered, hidden, and inspire shame. But they will NOT change their minds. Because they don't want to. They're afraid to. Scared to death, in fact. People prefer the misery they know to the fear of exploring the unknown, and this includes social habits and lifestyles.
They are like a domestic bird afraid of leaving its cage. "Why change? I have food, water, shelter, and I am behind pretty shiny bars that keep the dragons out. I'm sure there are dragons from Hell that will eat me if I go outside my cage of traditions."
Well, that's their free choice. And you're also free to seek pointless confrontation by rattling their cage. But don't ask me again why they don't like it. You want to fly free? Then take flight to the sky YOURSELF, do your own thinking. You cannot drag another bird with you, or get carried along by one. Every soul has to go on its own journey.
Me, I hope to find a companion who'll like to go the same way as me. As respectful equals.
Check the profile on my blog, where I state my religion. It was all there from the beginning.
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