What constitutes Misogyny?

[Canadian_watcher]

If Jerry Bruckheimer were to re-write the birth story, this would be how it would come across.
Ri-dic-u-lous.

I have big problems with it myself. Care to comment more in depth?

It should be pretty obvious.

The birth process is natural - there is no earthly alternative. There are man-made alternatives, but these *are* barbaric.

Why Grof, who must be male, would feel the need to make this process sound violent and aggressive belies his misogyny. He cannot stand the idea that a messy, painful process is completely natural and beautiful - Grof must be one seriously polarized and internally divided individual.

I've just looked him up. Seems he was obsessed with that very duality, wasn't he? Experimenting with LSD in order to try and heal it - which I guess is good for him, at least he tried.

[charlie meadows]

If Jerry Bruckheimer were to re-write the birth story, this would be how it would come across.
Ri-dic-u-lous.

I have big problems with it myself. Care to comment more in depth?

It should be pretty obvious.

The birth process is natural - there is no earthly alternative. There are man-made alternatives, but these *are* barbaric.

Why Grof, who must be male, would feel the need to make this process sound violent and aggressive belies his misogyny. He cannot stand the idea that a messy, painful process is completely natural and beautiful - Grof must be one seriously polarized and internally divided individual.

I've just looked him up. Seems he was obsessed with that very duality, wasn't he? Experimenting with LSD in order to try and heal it - which I guess is good for him, at least he tried.

I thought maybe he was merely making use of a rhetorically hyperbolic statement intended to provoke a re-examination of what was, at that point, a stalemated discussion. Even if he wasn't deliberately being manipulative, it could well have the same effect.

Nevertheless, the human birth process, as natural and beautiful as it is, or as it can be, seems to be undergoing the kind of transformation to which Grof seems to be alluding.

Anyone?


Edit: "Why Grof, who must be male, would feel the need to make this process sound violent and aggressive belies his misogyny. He cannot stand the idea that a messy, painful process is completely natural and beautiful - Grof must be one seriously polarized and internally divided individual."

Now, C_w, that's funny stuff.

http://www.scientiareview.org/pdfs/114.pdf

The human species was first set apart from its ancestors when the population began to walk upright. Some believe this change in gait occurred because it made mobility more efficient in open areas, such as the savanna. The bipedal characteristic could have also occurred due to the emergence of gathering as a food source. Evolving from moving on all fours to only two legs caused some changes in the shape and anatomy of the pelvis, which resulted in a narrower birth canal for women. Less space in the birth canal causes a more difficult and painful birth for the mother (Bock, 2009).

The anatomy of the human pelvis is perfectly suited for walking upright. The pelvis balances the effects of gravity on the organs caused by walking on two legs by tilting towards the front of the body. The pelvic bones must keep the internal organs from falling right out of the human body; therefore, the bones are linked by a series of rings all attached at the coccyx, or tailbone. The degree of tilt of the pelvic openings varies throughout the birth canal, leaving a difficult path for the infant to follow. The mother’s body does adapt to prepare for childbirth, which makes the journey a little easier. The ligaments holding together the pelvic bones soften so the openings can increase in size to let the baby through (Mitchell, 2006).

Once walking upright, humans began to work on problem solving and social interactions, which led to larger brains. Eventually, through natural selection, humans with superior brains survived to pass on their genes. As brain size increased, it became more dangerous and difficult for mothers in childbirth because the larger heads did not fit through the birth canal as easily. This tight fit could almost definitely kill the mother and child (Bock, 2009).

[Canadian_watcher]

...

Once walking upright, humans began to work on problem solving and social interactions, which led to larger brains. Eventually, through natural selection, humans with superior brains survived to pass on their genes. As brain size increased, it became more dangerous and difficult for mothers in childbirth because the larger heads did not fit through the birth canal as easily. This tight fit could almost definitely kill the mother and child (Bock, 2009).

I don't tend to believe every theory that every scientist comes up with. There's a whole lot of crap out there.

I took a course at uni that I have remembered forever. It was called "Self, Culture and Society: The Problem of Person Identity" - fascinating.

It looked at various theories from the scientific and pseudo-scientific world and explained how certain of those were ignored altogether, usurped and changed, or held up and the 'new truth' all depending on what the Power Structure needed from people at the time. In other words, these sorts of theories are less based on rigorous science than on reinforcing the money.

In this case, these types of findings would have been used to help steer women towards cesarian sections and that sort of thing I would imagine.

[Stephen Morgan]

I'm not sure how that's supposed to disagree with what I said.

Well, in the modern era men were the first to form trade unions for mutual economic activity, but women tend to monopolise collective organisation explicitly by sex, as a sex, for that sex.

wrong.

see: The pickett: Tasmanian mine workers defend their job " Women didn't work in the mine yet women won the thing for the men. And yes, most of them had a financial interest since a lot of the men workers were their husbands, but that makes zero difference because there *is* no difference in the motivation of union activity no matter who is in the union.

see also: Strikes of the 70s and 80s: the Invisible Role of Women Which tells of three miners strikes in the US where women organized for men.

and this more recent one from Jolly Old England (and Wales and Scotland) You must remember or have learned about the mining strikes there, right chum? Miner's Strike 1984-1985

I never said that female organisation is monopolised by organisation for their sex, only that organisation for one's sex is dominated by women. In other words, women may joins organisations for things other than women's issues, but organisation for one sex in dominated by feminism and women's issues and so on. If you get a list of organisations with the highest proportion of female members, you have a list of women's organisations. If you get a list of organisations with the highest proportion of male members you just have a list of organisations. Because women are more likely to organise for their sex than men.

dude, that is so not what you said.

Look, there is this thing called "collective organisation explicitly by sex, as a sex, for that sex", is what I said, which "women tend to monopolise", and which are something other than "trade unions for mutual economic activity", which are traditionally dominated by men.

I was writing in response to:
a) C_w: and the big one, I think, is that women knew early on that there would be no power unless they got together. Like with unions only for non-economic (as well as economic) reasons
b) tru3magic: Men were the first to gather for the pooling of resources to enhance power (we see how well that has gone and where it has got us).

I think tru3magic(/WUaL) was implying that men had banded together in cooperation to create the patriarchy, but he could have been alluding to trade unions, it wasn't entirely clear. Anyway, I was saying that men had banded together, as tru2magic said, but in trade unions in pursuit of mutual economic advantage and collective action against the powerful, not to pursue the interests of their sex against women, whereas women have organised more recently into organisations aimed at the advancement of women as a class while men haven't done similar. Men still predominate in the membership of trade unions and mutual economic organisations generally, without that organisational ethic transferring into agitation for the betterment of the position of men, or into any sort of class-consciousness for men-as-a-class, rather than workers-as-a-class or the gender consciousness now common amongst women.

that is what I had a problem with, and since you're still insisting that it is true in the face of plenty of evidence (which I provided) to the contrary I *still* have a problem with it.

but twist, brother, twist. It's fun.

I aim to please. Still confused, though:

1) women are more likely than men to form organisations explicitly aimed at the advancement of their sex
2) men started the first trade unions
3) men remain more likely to join trade unions
4) male organisational activity is generally characterised by a lack of sex-identity; while,
5) female organisational activity, although not limited to women's issues, is more likely to be gendered than male organisational activity

Could you please clarify with which of these statements you disagree?

What I haven't said, but which your examples would disprove, is:

1) women organise only for the advancement of their sex
2) only men organise and partake in trade union activity

ETA: specifically, from "whereas women have organised more recently into organisations aimed at the advancement of women as a class while men haven't done similar"

Do you think women haven't organised a women's movement or that there is a men's movement with equal identity amongst men to that of the women's movement among women? I don't think you think either of those things.

[charlie meadows]

...

Once walking upright, humans began to work on problem solving and social interactions, which led to larger brains. Eventually, through natural selection, humans with superior brains survived to pass on their genes. As brain size increased, it became more dangerous and difficult for mothers in childbirth because the larger heads did not fit through the birth canal as easily. This tight fit could almost definitely kill the mother and child (Bock, 2009).

I don't tend to believe every theory that every scientist comes up with. There's a whole lot of crap out there.

I took a course at uni that I have remembered forever. It was called "Self, Culture and Society: The Problem of Person Identity" - fascinating.

It looked at various theories from the scientific and pseudo-scientific world and explained how certain of those were ignored altogether, usurped and changed, or held up and the 'new truth' all depending on what the Power Structure needed from people at the time. In other words, these sorts of theories are less based on rigorous science than on reinforcing the money.

In this case, these types of findings would have been used to help steer women towards cesarian sections and that sort of thing I would imagine.

Thank you, C_w, I'll try to be more rigorous in the future. What did your course have to say about this research in particular and similar research in general?

Anyone else?

[Canadian_watcher]

@ Morgan

1) women are more likely than men to form organisations explicitly aimed at the advancement of their sex
- no. What are men doing with their unions, aiming to improve the jungle cover for baboons?

2) men started the first trade unions
- depends on the version of history you read. Probably so, but not by many years. Besides, this is a function of the patriarchy, in case that needed to be pointed out. Us broads were still trying to be allowed to go into workplaces before that.

3) men remain more likely to join trade unions
- I have no idea, but given that there are fewer women in the trades, I'd imagine so but only by the count. By Percentage per occupation I would doubt there's any difference.

4) male organisational activity is generally characterised by a lack of sex-identity; while,
- Ummmmm, you've got to be kidding. Just on the face of it, if it is male organisational activity then it follows that it is organized around sex identity.

5) female organisational activity, although not limited to women's issues, is more likely to be gendered than male organisational activity
- No.

Do you think women haven't organised a women's movement or that there is a men's movement with equal identity amongst men to that of the women's movement among women? I don't think you think either of those things.

I know that women have organized various movements which when viewed through the lens of history have been grouped together as 'the Women's Movement." Yes. I agree. If the men's movement isn't well known among men, I don't think you can really lay that at anyone's feet. (But maybe your own.. you could look to Susan B Anthony or someone else for a guide on how to drum up support. Of course, it helps if you have sound arguments first.)

[Canadian_watcher]

Thank you, C_w, I'll try to be more rigorous in the future.

meadows it would please me very much if you'd cut that sort of thing out.

[Plutonia]

Hey, don't through Grof into the dustbin just yet!

[Edit: Lol "through"! Read "throw."]

He was doing re-birthing at Esalen (yes, that may be a red flag, but Esalen cannot be disregarded as a highly influential organization), replacing LSD with breath-work and his clients began to spontaneously re-enact their birth experiences in accurate detail. Over years he mapped personality traits to specific aspects of birth experience, which are worth thinking about.

For example, I had a BF one time who would repeatedly get psychologically "stuck" when he encountered an obstacle in his life, just obsessing over his stuckness, not seeing the "light at the end of the tunnel". When I read Grof, it made perfect sense. He was a cesarean baby, so he never got imprinted with the "struggle" of the birth journey and the "ecstatic release" of getting through it.

I think Grof's work is problematic, and may have a social engineering aspect to it so approach with caution, but it's worth looking at.

It's been a long time since I read him, and I can't think off hand how his discoveries relate to gender relations (except the imprint of the mother's sexuality on the child generally) but there may be something there that's useful... looking...

Ah! Here:

...The male consort was usually seen as the instrument of the Goddess in the seasonal rounds of the biosphere: it is through suffering his death and bringing about his resurrection that the Mother participates in the vegetal life of the Earth. Of course, She is also seen to be the Earth, showing that the dying-and-rising Son/Lover myth, seen in the pairings of Isis and Osiris, Ishtar and Tammuz, and possibly Gaia and Dionysus, is a sophisticated gloss on the archaic pre-eminence of the Goddess.

If we see the figure of *Dionysus, historically, as a final vestige of the atrophying Goddess, what does his mythical rise in the late twentieth century represent? What is the significance of the "Dionysian witches’ brew in the upheavals of modern history—in the sexology of de Sade and the politics of Hitler",25 and the subsequent rediscovery of a much older, less agonized Dionysian consciousness—in ecstatic dance ceremonies, psychedelic sacraments, the rise of feminism, and a rebirth of appreciation for the natural environment?

We could think poetically for a moment, and see import in Stanislav Grof’s research into the re-experiencing of birth during LSD therapy. He contrasts the oceanic bliss of foetal existence in the womb with the immense, volcanic ecstasy of the baby as it passes through the birth canal, and labels the rapture often felt during the reliving of this latter phase as "Dionysian". He incidentally notes that this volcanic ecstasy "can be reached in aboriginal ceremonies that involve wild dancing and loud intoxicating music, or even in their modern counterparts…"26 In this tumultuous existential struggle, the motifs of birth, life, sex and death intertwine, Eros and Thanatos locked in a tumbling embrace…

May we see the later, darker rites of Dionysus as the birth pangs and death throes of a European culture experiencing final separation from its old Mother Goddess—a traumatic birth into mechanism, patriarchy, alienation from nature, disgust for our bodies, and sexual repression? May we also see the recent rise of Dionysus as another collective birth, back to our Mother roots? Where will we land?...

http://dreamflesh.com/essays/dionysusrisen/

I've only skimmed this essay, but it looks juicy as can be. Will be reading it soon.

*Dionysus was the most unique of the old pre-xtian gods; he was the last to join the pantheon, for example; he was half mortal; he was androgynous; he had a following of unruly women who were want to dismember impertinent men. His arrival probably marks as shift in the collective psychology of the West. Just the idea of a half-mortal god was totally new. I think, i got that right.

[Plutonia]

Dionysus ...was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy ...He is a god of epiphany, "the god that comes", and his "foreignness" as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults. ... His festivals were the driving force behind the development of Greek theater. [Girard points out that Greek theatre replaced actual sacrifice with symbolic enactment, resulting in similar collective catharsis.]

The earliest cult images of Dionysus show a mature male, bearded and robed. He holds a fennel staff, tipped with a pine-cone and known as a thyrsus. Later images show him as a beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked youth: the literature describes him as womanly or "man-womanish".[6] In its fully developed form, his central cult imagery shows his triumphant, disorderly arrival or return, as if from some place beyond the borders of the known and civilized. His procession (thiasus) is made up of wild female followers (maenads) and ithyphallic [erect, therefore dangerous penii], bearded satyrs. Some are armed with the thyrsus, some dance or play music. The god himself is drawn in a chariot, usually by exotic beasts such as lions or tigers, and is sometimes attended by a bearded, drunken Silenus. ... Dionysus is represented by city religions as the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society and thus symbolizes everything which is chaotic, dangerous and unexpected, everything which escapes human reason and which can only be attributed to the unforeseeable action of the gods.[7]

...

The name Dionysos is of uncertain significance. The dio- element has been associated since antiquity with Zeus (genitive Dios): the -nysos element is cited as of unknown, possibly non-Greek origin. In Dionysiac tradition, the place of the god's childhood and education is called Nysa. Nisah is an epithet of the Hindu god Shiva, and means "supreme". "Nisam" is Sanskrit for bliss, nisâ, joy. Nysa, the Happy mountain, is the equivalent of Kailâsa, the Earthly Paradise, home of Shiva and his current wife, Parvati. [13] Dionysus and Shiva bear many resemblances other than name etymology, and aside from both being gods of love and ecstasy, namely, their association with the bull and the snake.

...

The cult of Dionysus was closely associated with trees, specifically the fig tree, and some of his bynames exhibit this, such as Endendros "he in the tree" or Dendritēs, "he of the tree". Peters suggests the original meaning as "he who runs among the trees", or that of a "runner in the woods"

...

Dionysus had a strange birth that evokes the difficulty in fitting him into the Olympian pantheon. His mother was a mortal woman, Semele, the daughter of king Cadmus of Thebes, and his father was Zeus, the king of the gods. Zeus' wife, Hera, discovered the affair while Semele was pregnant. Appearing as an old crone (in other stories a nurse), Hera befriended Semele, who confided in her that Zeus was the actual father of the baby in her womb. Hera pretended not to believe her, and planted seeds of doubt in Semele's mind. Curious, Semele demanded of Zeus that he reveal himself in all his glory as proof of his godhood. Though Zeus begged her not to ask this, she persisted and he agreed. Therefore he came to her wreathed in bolts of lightning; mortals, however, could not look upon an undisguised god without dying, and she perished in the ensuing blaze. Zeus rescued the fetal Dionysus by sewing him into his thigh. A few months later, Dionysus was born on Mount Pramnos in the island of Ikaria, where Zeus went to release the now-fully-grown baby from his thigh. In this version, Dionysus is born by two "mothers" (Semele and Zeus) before his birth, hence the epithet dimētōr (of two mothers) associated with his being "twice-born".

...

In the Cretan version of the same story, which Diodorus Siculus follows,[28] Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Persephone, the queen of the Greek underworld. Diodorus' sources equivocally identified the mother as Demeter.[29] A jealous Hera again attempted to kill the child, this time by sending Titans to rip Dionysus to pieces after luring the baby with toys. It is said that he was mocked by the Titans who gave him a thyrsus (a fennel stalk) in place of his rightful sceptre.[30] Zeus turned the Titans into dust with his thunderbolts, but only after the Titans ate everything but the heart, which was saved, variously, by Athena, Rhea, or Demeter. Zeus used the heart to recreate him in his thigh, hence he was again "the twice-born". Other versions claim that Zeus recreated him in the womb of Semele, or gave Semele the heart to eat to impregnate her.

..

According to the myth Zeus gave the infant Dionysus into the charge of Hermes. One version of the story is that Hermes took the boy to King Athamas and his wife Ino, Dionysus' aunt. Hermes bade the couple raise the boy as a girl, to hide him from Hera's wrath

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus

It is a myth rich in transgressive sexuality and confusion in parental roles.

Interesting that the dismembering Maenads and the dismemberment of Dionysus, mirror the many for one/one for many aspect of war and sacrifice that I posted about yesterday:
viewtopic.php?p=401594#p401594

Interesting... time to do some thinking.... ... ...


________________________

BTW C_W, i think we've located a mytho-poetic archetype for you!

[Canadian_watcher]

BTW C_W, i think we've located a mytho-poetic archetype for you!

It's REALLY weird that you would say that, because here's the ONLY painting I've done to date that has a person in it:

[Plutonia]

Jaw on floor!!!

That's amazing!!

And beautiful!

Wow. Just. Wow.

[Stephen Morgan]

@ Morgan

1) women are more likely than men to form organisations explicitly aimed at the advancement of their sex
- no. What are men doing with their unions, aiming to improve the jungle cover for baboons?

They work for their class, or at least their fellow workers. They do this on the grounds of their collective economic interests. Sometimes most of their fellows will be male, but they don't do it on the basis of working for men as a class.

2) men started the first trade unions
- depends on the version of history you read. Probably so, but not by many years. Besides, this is a function of the patriarchy, in case that needed to be pointed out. Us broads were still trying to be allowed to go into workplaces before that.

No, the rise of organised trade unionism, and the covert unions during periods of prohibition, coincided with the rise of centralised industrial production, which saw mill owners and other industrial employers quite happy to employ both women and children, and often employing women preferentially specifically because they were less likely to go on strike and cause general trouble. See The Making of the English Working Class by EP Thompson.

3) men remain more likely to join trade unions
- I have no idea, but given that there are fewer women in the trades, I'd imagine so but only by the count. By Percentage per occupation I would doubt there's any difference.

I think tradesmen are the least likely to join trade unions, as they tend to be independent small businessmen. These days state employees form the largest block of unionists.

4) male organisational activity is generally characterised by a lack of sex-identity; while,
- Ummmmm, you've got to be kidding. Just on the face of it, if it is male organisational activity then it follows that it is organized around sex identity.

You may as well say that male sandwich making activity is inherently gendered. Organisational activities undertaken by men are very rarely aimed at improving the position of men vis-a-vis women.

5) female organisational activity, although not limited to women's issues, is more likely to be gendered than male organisational activity
- No.

Then whence the glut of feminist groups among women, a form of organisation aimed at organising women to work for women and the lack of analogous groups amongst men?

It's a simple fact that most serious organisations founded by men have professional and class-based goals, while those founded by women tend to pursue women's interests.

And you think I'm stubborn and refuse to concede points.

Do you think women haven't organised a women's movement or that there is a men's movement with equal identity amongst men to that of the women's movement among women? I don't think you think either of those things.

I know that women have organized various movements which when viewed through the lens of history have been grouped together as 'the Women's Movement." Yes. I agree. If the men's movement isn't well known among men, I don't think you can really lay that at anyone's feet. (But maybe your own.. you could look to Susan B Anthony or someone else for a guide on how to drum up support. Of course, it helps if you have sound arguments first.)

Or I could follow the Pankhursts and take up terrorism. That George Osborne needs his house blowing up, a la the suffragettes and Lloyd George. But I wasn't laying it at anyone's feet, just pointing it out.

[Canadian_watcher]

I love coincidences because I don't think they're coincidences!!!

thanks for the compliment, too, Plu. (blush)

-- I'm busy for the next while, but looking forward to reading the posts later.

ciao for now!

[Joe Hillshoist]

I for one don't like talking. Also, it's much easier not to do something which is quite likely to lead to ridicule, especially from women. Also more than ridicule, feminist political groups generally opposing any sort of men-only club. So, only rich men have anything which excludes women because only they can get away with it. Golf clubs can keep out women, the freemasons can keep out women, the Working Mens' Clubs can't keep out women because they get complaints from women and pickets with signs and angry letters in the newspapers and so on.

Sometimes I find reading your posts aloud with empharsis can be quite humerous.

I swear you are starting to sound like that old bloke from One Foot in the Grave.

BTW The only people ridiculing you on this thread are guys (me and wintler it seems. Bloody colonials must be angry about the cricket or something. And funnily enough we both think you resemble a croaky old fart right now.)

[Plutonia]

Also, as we are in a thread on gender issues and misogyny, the effect of relative premature birth on the mother/child/father relationship and notions of masculinity and femininity.

Charlie this is a huge area of itself. I'm thinking distortions of the Oedipus/Electra complexes, -ie absent father so the boy's rivalrous and sexual impulses both get directed towards the mother. But I'm not getting a vivid image of how exactly that would work yet.

How about you? Any thoughts?