woman's monogamous
hogamus, hugamus
man is polygamous
-william james
Problems
Puratinism, fairy tales, victorian culture
-Some women would rather be treated as sexual objects than be canonized. Women don't like being romanticized or idealized any more than they like being insulted or humiliated.
Imitation of men
-There is far too much imitation of men in the womens movement. That is merely a displacement of power.
-All they succeed in doing is reversing roles. Women have become the predator, the aggressor, But nothing is ultimately changed by this.
Generalization
-slogans do not give strength because generalizations are untrue. Many intelligent women for a work for which some are unfit is not effective. The group does not always give strength, because it moves on according to the lowest denominator of understanding. The group weakens the individual will and annihilates the individual contribution. To object to individual growth of awareness in women is to work against the benefit of the collective whose quality is raised by individual research and learning.
-We ignore the fact that the evil comes from individual flaws, undeveloped human beings.
-Group thinking does not give strength. It weakens the will. Majority thinking is oppressive because it inhibits individual growth and seeks a formula for all.
Victimization and Self Destruction
Women have suffered at the mercy of patriarchy for hundreds of years; physically, emotionally, and mentally. Physical pain however, is temporary. It is the mental oppression, the social conditioning which manipulates our idea of femininity, that greatly concerns me. These false ideas of what it means to be a woman, are passed on from generation to generation. It is learned when daughters mimic mothers, it is learned through archaic fairy tales, it is learned through media representation, it is learned through tradition and religion, it is learned through manipulation. Above all, and the saddest realization to me, is that it is not men who are doing this. The oppression of women is self inflicted. We, as women, are denying our own freedom.
-Each woman has to know herself, her problems, her obstacles. I ask woman to realize she can be master of her own destiny. To blame others means one feels helpless. While we wait for others to free us, we will not develop the strength to do it ourselves. When a woman has not solved her personal intimate defeats, her private hostilities, her failures, she brings the dregs of this to the group and only increases its negative reactions. The real tyrants are guilt, taboos, educational inheritance- these are our enemies. The real enemy is what we were taught, not always by man, but often by our mothers and grandmothers.
Karpman drama triangle,
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- The person who is treated as, or accepts the role of, a victim
- The person who pressures, coerces or persecutes the victim, and
- The rescuer, who intervenes out of an ostensible wish to help the situation or the underdog.
"I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing." ~Katherine Anne Porter
-(35 years ago) The woman of the future will never try to live vicariously through the man, and urge and push him to despair, to fulfill something that she should really be doing herself.
- If we take the responsibility for our situation, we can feel less helpless than when we put the blame on man or society. We waste precious energy in negative rebellions.
-They missed authority, the very thing they had struggled to overcome. Women as dependents.
Resentment and Nihilism- The viscous circle of oppression.
"Philosophy based on resentment"
Anxiety of the woman.
-The fear is in women, not in men, but it was learned from men.
Karpman Drama Triangle
-Women must stop reacting against what is.
"When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form." -Simone de Beauvoir "The Second Sex"
- misandry- hatred of males
- misogyny- hatred or distrust of women
- elitism
monolithic-characterized by massiveness, total uniformity, rigidity, invulnerability - Power struggles.
-How can an intelligent, creative, original woman relate to men of genius without being submerged by them? The conflict of the woman's wish to merge with the loved one but to maintain a separate identity is the struggle of modern women.
"Heroes"
-Too intelligent to be deceived, too wise and too proud to be subjected to this display of power which did not protect them but endangered their existence as individuals.
Reconstruction
-The day that woman admits what we call her masculine qualities, and man admits his so called feminine qualities, will mean that we admit we are androgynous , that we have many personalities, many sides to fulfill.
-Man has been uneasy about this self revolution of woman, but he need not be-because, instead of having a dependent, he will have a partner.
-Not consumed by the passions of romantics which made them prefer death to the loss of love (Lou Andreas- Salome)
-She preserved her autonomy while surrounded by powerful, even overpowering men.
-She took her pattern of life from men but she was not a masculine woman. She demanded the freedom to change, to evolve, to grow.
-They had learned the subtle art of oscillation, which is human. Neither strength nor weakness is a fixed quality. They had learned rhythm, suppleness, relativity.
-The offer of total love was unusual. A love without egocentricity, without exigencies, without moral strictures. A love which did not define the duties of women.
-She is not yet totally appreciative of his tenderness, his growing proximity to woman, his attitude of twinship rather than differentiation.
