"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
A crash course in changing the world.
Tame the dragon before entering it's den ( to set up a fire extinguishing business.)
If you want to enter the dragons den, it's wize to tame the dragon first, especially if you want to use that den as a fire extinguishing business.
FACT: In the womb, we are assigned GENITALIA AFTER we are assigned/recognised as human - which is why you can only get to see the sex of your baby from about 25 weeks.
We are human before we are male and femail or transgender or whatever.
We are born into a culture.
Some societies are matriarchal. These societies have low prevalence of unequal opportunities, sexual violence and problems with division of labour.
Where a society/culture has male hegemony, the reverse is applied.
In a male dominated society you cannot just give women power and expect the men not to try to retain power.
Therefore, any 'solution' for women has to take the male population's emotions into consideration. Their pride will be stinging, they will feel less stronger, they will not like this feeling - MOST LIKELY = they will punish the women for seeking to dissolve their power. Any power problems they now experience will be resolved by punishing the woman more they did before.
Women know this. This is one of the main reasons that women chose the status quo, seeking to hide the fact they are getting educated - to avert themselves from punishment in the private domain.
THEREFORE: It is foolish to seek to change social power for women before it is tackled in the private home. RATHER THAN SEEKING SOCIAL SOLUTIONS TO EMPOWER WOMEN WE MUST EDUCATE MEN AND SEEK THEIR UNDERSTANDING IN THE PRIVATE SPHERE OF THEIR LIVES.
It's basically a 'HIS story vs HER story problem. To understand change, you MUST seek to change/educate the person in control, if not first, AT THE VERY LEAST, at the SAME TIME.
The big question is how? Perhaps we ask powerful bad men to come up with solutions for the women - to make them think they are exerting their power? Advertising in places that are men-managed? Get a man to 'make his woman' go to college and give him a nice car as a thank-you for being such a powerfully intellectual man? Perhaps an award for the man, like a respect award from the male population when his woman is unopressed by society - all helped for by him? :o)
If you want to enter the dragons den, it's wize to tame the dragon first, especially if you want to use that den as a fire extinguishing business.
Views: 51
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Comment by Mark Mulkerin on April 8, 2010 at 11:15am
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It is ironic that you view men as dragons. My wife's Korean name means Dragon Lady. My daughters - Beautiful Dragon and Happy Dragon. Me - I'm just dragon bait. And please don't tell my wife she is oppressed - having reached about pinnacle of her career path, she'd be quite shocked to know that she wasn't supposed to climb over the boys to get to the top.
But for those who still face dragons, you have the support of this house husband.
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Comment by Lynn Caldwell on April 8, 2010 at 11:46am
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I don't view ALL men as dragons! Most dragons tame themselves - However, in private households where lady dragons are judged as unequal, how can they hope to join a fire extinguishing group in society when they get back home to be burned privately...
Okay...I don't like the analogy anymore now - fed up of writing "extinguished"! LOL - however....I think the basis of what I'm saying has legs.
It's a solution so simple and eay to implement, but I don't know? Perhaps womens groups think that it;s a bad idea???? which is why I've bought it up here...
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I respectfully disagree. In household's where female members are respected and valued and have equality, there is less to gained in trying to improve relations even more. In households in which women and girls are regarded with less value, it becomes hard to convince the men of that house any different. Only by bringing matters into the public sphere and creating a mutually supporting group are you likely to bring effective change to the enlightened households.
Through organization like the YWCA and others that uses the strength of empowered women to help those who don't enjoy such advantages, disenfranchised women can find a refuge from abuse and hopefully the power to stand on their own. By all means, fight the good fight on the home front, but do it on every other front to.
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Comment by Conor Drums on April 8, 2010 at 1:34pm
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I'm going to side with Mark on this. Firstly, I understand it is kind of funny that there are only two men commenting on this, and no women... however lets leave that to the side.
While statistics show that -on average- Matriarchal societies are more "civil" than Patriarchal ones, we also need to consider how there have been fewer ( and smaller ) Matriarchal societies. Women and Men are equal but different, two complimentary parts to create a wh***.
We are in an age where when a man stays home and the woman brings home the bacon then people give it a judging eye, but it is accepted. Progress is being made, and lets face it... we are all winning.
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@Mark, the womens groups that I'm thinking of are about sexual and domestic abuse - if a household is untouched by this, then yes, going in and preaching the law of equal rights IS rather silly. However, in households that do suffer from this awful stuff, then you can't really expect a woman to embrace this new found opportunity and come home and then get the crap beaten out of her because the man hasn't given his permission. However, if this man was presented with contrary info from people he admires (like his heroes on the telly, or from music people, or from adverts down his pub, or from grandprix stuff, or leaflets that get delivered alongside his porn etc) then the idea of womens rights might be more easily assimilated. The public sphere can be ignored due to the amount of info we absorb and ignore throughout the day, but if information dripped into mens mags - everywhere this guy hangs out, it might work? Okay, these guys are really hard to get to, so giving them power/rewards for 'allowing their women' to do this might work?
@conor in western society, little pockets of domestic and sexual violence exisit, but I'm talking here of societies where these problems are of a very high volume....and yes...we do need some womens groups, or anyone with appropiate knobbly bits to comment as well! :o)
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Comment by Sarah Shaw Tatoun on April 13, 2010 at 8:40am
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Lynn-- as usual, I'm going to take the middle path. ;-) I'd say that the two approaches go hand in hand. Men who have been taught to deal aggressively with 'upstart' women are more likely to change their attitude if the society itself shifts-- and other men let them know that that kind of behavior is no longer acceptable, than if the women themselves try, however, gently, to change the views of their husbands and fathers.
And that societal shift is most likely to come about because everywhere there are men -- some like Mark who have progressive views-- but some, also, who are generally conservative, but love their own wives and daughters and are brought to realize that the traditional environment is preventing them from becoming who they could be. These are the people who I think will create the social change- for the sake of their wives and daughters- that will make those still inclined toward aggression modify their behavior.
As for specific means to change attitudes-- I'm always reminded of the film 'Salt of the Earth' done by blacklisted writers in the 1950's. The film talks about the miners-- many of them Mexican-Americans - against the Empire Zinc Company. When the men were forbidden to strike by an injunction, the women, previously passive and traditional, took over picketing. Since the women were gone all day on the picket line-- some of them being arrested as well-- the men were forced to look after the children and do all the work that their wives had done. For the first time they had a real appreciation for all that the women of their families had done -- and how hard it was. Having 'walked a mile in their shoes' the men began to realize the importance of issues-- like water carrying, fuel gathering etc.-- that before they'd dismissed as 'womens' problems'.
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Comment by A.V.Koshy on April 13, 2010 at 3:52pm
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hey lynn i agree with you
i saw a lot of posts here about not tampering with culture but its culture that has to be tampered with lol
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Comment by darklogos on April 24, 2010 at 2:03pm
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Just saw your blog post. Here are my thoughts. The problem you bring up is interesting but most of the responses are p.c and have been said before. The issue is that sex roles were established first on biology and second on sociology. Physical strength and durability overtime is a way of managing risk. This gives men an advantage in physical situations. Yes there are super strong women out there that train and body build so on and so forth. If you take the average male and the average female of the same age and have them on weight lifting programs the man will 9 times out of ten would be stronger then the female. When it comes to physical labor jobs the inclusion of women has been a concern due to lack of physical strength.
But we have jobs that are not so much dependent on physical strength. So why hasn't the job market even out. Most point to education that there are not enough women getting educated. If we read this (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/fashion/07campus.html) the shift of higher ed institution in the U.S is shifting towards women. The issue is not that women are not being educated. The problem is that women are not working for other women. If you look at all the non-fictional (i will argue amazons are not real) matriarchal cultures you will see some key things. The first is that women organized other women and the men go off and do tasks. Each sex is unto themselves. In some African tribal situations there were examples of men who had a wife in each village but the wives had all the money. The men provided defense when they were on patrol. The system did not move the society toward a technological utopia but it was stable. The wife had economic advantage and the male had a focus for his power.
I give you credit you point to a real need of men that many counselors have pointed out. It is that men on average are task oriented and have a high desire to be respected more so then loved. I think that creating an emotionally healthy male is not what we are creating today on either end of the philosophical spectrum. The in-touch with his feeling male, while high self actualization is seen as week by many women. While the extreme machismo man, whose only outlet is violence, causes physical harm to women more times then not.
I think the best option is a division of powers and rolls that have to be undertaken while realizing that the sexes are going to look at them differently. If a male wants to work in a domesticated sphere his methods have to be respected no differently then a female viewpoint should be respected in a corporate sphere. The wife looses the right to nag about the house while the husband looses the right to nag about the paycheck.
In the end it comes down to the division, application, and respect of power for sustainability not necessarily for happiness.
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Nice comments darklogos....I don't think all men have this misogny problem, but the ones that do are the ones that harm women...
Another point is, if the male and female gender roles are in place - the mentally strong and manipulative women can also cause psychological abuse (men are stronger, use their strength against women, whereas women are thought to be mentally stronger, and can use this against men). The psychological abuse against men is hidden in this type of divided situation. Men feel unable to report incidents which are downplayed as nagging - many men rightly feel emotionally abused under this daily 'nagging', and because women are seen as weak - the strong male feels unable to cope - and more likely to seek other pleasures (a lot of prostitutes act as emotional advisors, listening to mens problems that they can't talk to their wives about...it's mental abuse from their wives)
these comments are a tangent to my post though....if there IS a strong division, then the powerful need to be able to direct their power in a positive way...with good consequences. If power is taken away from them the results won't be good....the personal is political
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