by slow_dazzle » Tue Nov 14, 2006 6:08 pm
It is regrettable that an otherwise cogent commentary about the validity of why that body politic represented by Pelosi should ask her to sit up and take notice is marred by language that is borne out of decades of male dominated society. I say this as one of the menfolk btw.
Come on menfolk, we have grown up in a society where gender-specific slurs have no impact on sensibilities to us menfolk but we cannot, for one minute, see how such learned behaviour might offend the female of the species. In order to understand that we would have to be a woman.
So how do I know this if I am male? The argument I have advanced might appear to make any commentary on how women feel redundant. All I would say is that decades of being slapped down by womenfolk, in response to comments I regarded as perfectly in order, made me realise that my learned behaviour was just that. It was behaviour borne out of a male-dominated society where the agenda, the commentary and perceptions of what is acceptable presume so much but do not take the other half of the species into consideration. In effect, our responses and comments are borne out of male presumptions. Come on menfolk, admit it.
None of this is intended to slam anyone - that is pointless because to each and every reaction and all that. All I am saying is that it is very difficult for a man to see the world through a woman's eyes, not least because society as we know it is almost wholly a male construct.
As for Pelosi's mendacious comments as regards impeachment, and related issues, they are shameful. But anyone who knows how the system works should not be surprised...it is a self-perpetuating elite that is set up to stop any challenges to its authority. If Ms Pelosi was likely to change the pecking order she would not have been allowed to get to her current position. A few did, some got close, but most paid the ultimate price.
I don't want to hijack this thread although the subject of gender influence within society is damned important in a historical context. How about a discussion on the Nazarene Church and its eventual subjugation by the Catholic Church? Now there is a topic for discussion. Was the concept of gender equality in society snuffed out after the ascendancy of the Roman Church and what are the implications for spirituality today? This is not to introduce God, at least in the populist sense, via the back door btw...I am not a Christian. However, a little research into the early Christian Church reveals a little about gender power. The whore or Madonna dichotomy that characterises Christianity, and thus influenced our perception of woman, for example, emanated from that period. Maybe that reverberates today as women struggle (cry out perhaps) to be heard and not boxed into male constructs of who and what they really are.
John Lennon was right - woman is the nigger of the world.
On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
John Perry Barlow - A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
