The Woman's Touch
I think most of the Caucus here is old enough to remember that phrase.
I also feel that as time has passed, a great many of us have evolved when it comes to how we understand gender.
So I can say the phrase "The Woman's Touch" is very sexist in its wording, yet at the same time feel comfortable believing the phenomenon that phrase describes is very real.
I've been blogging a long time. I recall several male bloggers I got to know, mostly hippies (authentic ones, imo) say in various ways that only the women can save us.
Women using their power.
I've reflected on this and can't view it that the "women" referred to are identified by gender so much as by female energy, which exists in all of us regardless of gender.
So what is this power? And how can we reach this kind of energy in ourselves without getting hung up on gender?
I dunno. But I do have some fragments of thoughts about the subject that I'd like to share.
I believe female energy is reflected in the notion that has begun to take root in our culture that we are all interconnected, and the Buddhist teaching that takes it further to say there is no separation at all between us.
Acting under that view would, I believe, be an example of female energy. It's receptive, rather than creative.
Creativity is a wonderful male energy, in my view, but again, what do I mean by "male energy?"
Yin and Yang. Nah.
Someone once told me about the "yielding" tactic in martial arts, not attacking, not defending, but yielding to the energy in order to make a counter-move. I'd call that female energy.
In order to be receptive, one has to be open. It's a different power entirely.
What has inspired me to write these disjointed thoughts is my frustration at the whole "first woman president" meme and the supposedly feminist employment of supposedly female "power" which is based upon gender, not upon the nature of the power which is employed.
To imitate the aggression of male energy, a negative, isn't using female power. It's imitating a false notion of male energy. It bugs me.
I read a wonderful article a year or so ago, about a monastery in either Tibet or Nepal, I don't recall which. For generations, female nuns couldn't obtain the same teachings as the male monks, but slowly over time, nuns have fought to gain the same ability to learn and teach as the monks.
So one of the nuns, now a venerable teacher in her own right, is talking about what the monastery is like for the nuns, and she said something like, "before, these women were in their place - now they occupy their space fully."
She said it better, trust me. It's the difference between conscious choice when given freedom and frustrated reaction to severe limitations.
Being present. Being open. Oddly, Bernie showed more examples of female energy than Hillary has. Makes me sad for some reason.
If all of us are given that seat at the table, then this energy that we need will indeed have a space to occupy. That's the issue that seems to mean the most to me these days.
Comments
A: The phrase "female energy" is meaningless.
B: Gender is somewhat plastic, but not entirely, or even primarily, so -- if it were, there would be no "transgender issue" about which to argue.
C: Most of the internal quality of identity that we identify as "gender" is something an individual is born with.
D: Yet, strangely, some behavioral qualities that we identify with gender are cultural. There is no evidence that I know of that female Homo sapiens individuals prefer pink and purple to blue and brown. Yet, in our culture, individuals who identify with a particular gender tend to exhibit the culturally-imposed attitudes and tastes of that gender. (On the other hand, I think I may have read that males really have less affection than females for pastels. If so, it may have to do with the actual biology of the eye -- meaning, we might very well not observe the same phenomenon in transgendered individuals with a Y chromosome. Weird.)
E: Notwithstanding D, it is crystal clear to any remotely objective person that on average, certain behaviors and qualities of personality show an innate gender bias.
F: Notwithstanding D and E, if I were to ever suggest, in polite leftist company, that amongst the innate differences between males and females, any of those having a male predominance were "preferable" -- or "superior" -- on any basis imaginable (practical, economic, philosophic, moral, whatever), I would be figuratively relieved of my reproductive organs; whereas, it is perfectly acceptable to praise and elevate qualities perceived to trend female. Males might or might not be better on average than females at abstract mathematics -- the jury remains out, i think -- but if they are, you had better never fucking dare to suggest that there is any particular virtue or value in having an aptitude for differential calculus.
G: Related to D, E, and F, it is impermissible to speak simple truths, if they reflect an attitude of preference for maleness. A lot of vitriol seems to get tossed around over the question of whether women are, or are not, capable of being funny. Personally, I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't think that Jennifer Saunders is wicked fucking funny -- I think she's a genius -- or Judy Tenuda, or Samantha Bee. Or maybe, best example of all, Sarah Silverman, not because I think she's all that funny, but because her comedy seems -- if you'll pardon the adjective -- to have a rather male quality about it (Specifically, a 15-year-old male quality, but ...).
With that said, here are two simple truths: I have known a lot of very funny people, and I've observed a lot of very funny professional comedians, and if I made a top-ten list of the funniest people I have known and the funniest professionals I've seen, I doubt if there would be a single woman on the list.
That statement stands on its own, and it is simply true, whether that pisses anybody off or not. We cannot have an intelligent discussion about the statement itself, or whether I'm evil for having said it, or for holding the idea of it in my head. OTOH, if anybody thought it were worth arguing about, we could discuss exactly how it comes to be that that statement is true. Consider:
1. Maybe I just haven't had enough close female friends.
2. Maybe women -- even really funny women -- have trouble releasing their inner Tenuda when in the company of men (like me).
3. Maybe my sense of humor has its own internal biases, and these internal biases have a gender-based component; indee, maybe much of one's sense of humor is learned, and I learned mine in the company of other young males.
4. Maybe for most of my life, our popular culture hasn't really accommodated the funniest aspects of the funniest female entertainers (see the three videos below for an example of what I mean, from another era and another form of entertainment -- the woman in the first video never became a superstar because the gatekeepers of our culture simply would not let her be her. the woman in the second video was VERY popular in Europe, but never hit it big in the US until she released a catchy soft-pop love duet. the woman in the third video lifted pretty much her whole shtick from Woman #2, but 10 years later, when post-Wendy-O-Williams American music was ready for just about anything.)
5. Etc.
The conundrum for the left is that it unacceptable to speak in stereotypes ... yet, the only way to deny stereotypes in general is to deny that there is anything at all called "culture" ... yet, the left is almost neurotically devoted to celebrating cultural diversity.
As a man, I can tell you that there are some "things about women" -- which is to say, behavioral tendencies that skew female -- that I do not understand at all. And there are some that I do not like at all, whether I encounter them in a man or a woman. And others that I do. And that's just the way the universe is. Vive la difference, I guess, because what choice do we have, really?
Finally, notwithstanding anything else I've said, remember that we are talking about statistical tendencies. Human behavior is complicated and mysterious. Even if there were a thousand males who are better mathematicians than the most mathematically capable female, that female would still be a better mathematician than 4 billion men. For some reason that baffles me, people of all political stripes simply cannot wrap their heads around this concept. They particularize the general, and they generalize the particular. As fallacies go, those are baddies.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
I feel that what you've outlined ...
... illustrates the enormous obstacles we face in our dominant culture when it comes to gender.
I agree that the words "female energy" in themselves are meaningless because we all have different views of what "female" even is. I wish I had a different word to use but I'm also a creature of my time and culture.
I'm not interested so much in feminism and how we feel about men or women but in the energy that is in all of us, both men and women, the energy that is receptive and the energy that is creative. What is yielding and what is penetrating. Our culture may warp those drives in us, but I don't believe any of us lack the ability to tap into either of those energies.
Beat in the USA.
Yin and Yang perhaps, NPK
Ooops - read your essay too quickly and missed your reference to yin and yang! But I still stand by my statement, as I think it's a better descriptor.
Being that they represent the two opposing but integrated modes, and although nominally aligned with the genders of feminine and masculine, all people have both yin and yang qualities, so they are not quite so black/white as is implied by the feminine vs. the masculine.
So yin energy is what Western culture, in particular, is extremely short on and what's worse, completely devalues. It's not that Western culture devalues only the feminine, but they also devalue periods of decline, fallow states, times of decreased production, darkness, etc.
Yin energy can be present in men, in certain professions, in certain businesses, etc. It is not necessarily female... but it is sorely needed in our imbalanced, overly yang culture.
Untimely, it's not that certain "masculine" qualities ...
are inferior or wrong (and of course, both men and women can exhibit these qualities) - it's that our culture is out of balance.
I'd even say that our Western women are in general much more "masculine" in quality than perhaps in other cultures, because of the perceived superiority of those attributes - such as logic, cold reason, physical strength, being unemotional, etc.
It's not that those things are bad or that intuition is superior to reason - it's that both have a use and a place in the human experience, but Western civilization has emphasized those stereotypically considered masculine over those considered feminine.
And your point about society is so accurate but doesn't go far enough. When a society impresses so strongly on its members what it means to be female or what it means to be male - its hard to know what people would be like without that influence. Yes, men would still be statistically physically stronger, but without cultural conditioning, would they necessarily be less openly emotional? How would we know? There are certain behaviors that many females exhibit that I also don't like (although there are certain behaviors more also exhibited by males that I don't like, too) but most of those are a product of societal conditioning and NOT intrinsic to gender in any way.
But for instance, the dominance of men in comedy is also a societal conditioning phenomenon in many ways. Not only because men are perceived to be more funny, so more men make it in comedy. I will say that one or two of my female friends are some of the funniest people I know. But then so is my dad. To assume that the gender makeup of the top performers in any field is due to intrinsic qualities and not as a function of our societal biases is naive. The ten top welders or construction workers are also probably male - not because women are incapable of welding or being construction workers, but because our society does not promote that field for women (outside of Flashdance)
I'd be 100% fine with doing away with the gender labeling altogether, and simply saying that we need more compassion in society, or more intuitive thinking to balance logical thinking. I think people tend to get offended when they hear we need more female energy, as they take it as some kind of indictment of males, and that's not it at all.
I agree... meaningless
Arbitrary assignment of gender identity to human behavioral trait. Check.
Negative attribution to that trait when associated with males. Check.
I'm more inclined to let individuals be individuals and consider their behavior in context. I might be inclined to agree with some assertion like:
"While populations have a huge amount of overlap, males are more likely than females to exhibit certain types of aggression and, like all human behaviors, when not that behavior comes out in inappropriate circumstances it causes harm." The problem with that statement is that it's too vague to be actionable. That's why I prefer to deal with specifics people and specific behavioral traits in specific contexts. I generally hold that any statement about "men" or "women" is going to be more wrong than right and will only cloud useful discussion.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
Bringing it all back home...
The closing paragraphs of Richard Tarnas' The Passion of the Western Mind:
Thanks for this!
Beautifully written and illuminating. I agree that we're at a point of no return when it comes to an evolution of consciousness.
Beat in the USA.
"Female energy" I believe is a Buddhist concept.
We all have both male and female energy. Look at a female of any species defending her young: Very aggressive, many would say masculine. Look at a human male walking a young child down a sidewalk: Very nutritive, some would say feminine.
The point is, we all have choices, all the time. We can choose to be supportive or we can choose to be aggressive.
The world, and especially the US, has had too much aggressiveness for a long time. I'm tired of it. Let's choose to do something else for a while.
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.