“Me too”, the movement of this year which opens the world’s consciousness about the abuse of the power of men towards women in our “patriarchy” (which is a NoNo word, a symbol of oppression !?). This is a good thing, for sure. I hear men saying that they, only now, can really feel for themselves how it must be for women to suffer from sexual aggression. Before, they just “knew” it, now it becomes embodied. Hurrah! This would be a very good outcome of the accusation series, if it opened men’s ideas and compassion to what it means to live in a female body.
But then STOP here!
First of all the whole campaign happens in the Western world where women, for many decades, have all the possibilities to lead a self-directed and autonomous life. We don’t have any religion which forces us to succumb to men, as it is still the case in many countries of the world or their immigrant population in the Western world. Who talks about those women? Nobody. And they cannot stand up and blame the men in their society without undergoing severe danger. So why is all the blame and accusation directed to powerful men in the Western world alone as if sexual aggression was the norm here and only here?
Only women?
There is hardly any adult woman who hasn’t experienced a situation of sexual harassment or even violence in their lives. What about boys? Maybe not all of them have experienced sexual harassment, but harassment or violence of all other sorts for sure. What makes the sexual violence so different from all the other forms?
Is it because generally women have less physical strength than men and therefore are less able to defend themselves? To say that is certainly not politically correct as there are University Professors who claim in public television that “there are no biological differences between men and women”, coming from an equality/equity movement which seems to ignore even their own personal experience, let alone scientific facts.
Who cares about really oppressed women in this world?
In many countries of the world women are not allowed to go out into the public without a male accompaniment – to protect the woman. Maybe. From what? From aggressive males in the society, from violating the social codes and bring dishonour on the family? From living their own ideas about life? Who in the western World complains about PATRIARCHY where it is really at home? I don’t hear any outcry and solidarity with women who really have no rights for an autonomous and self determined life. But alone the poor Western women are the victims of this bad thing called Patriarchy. Come on!
Yes, there was a time when, also in the Western world, women couldn‘t freely decide about their own life and what to do or not to do and they sought out marriage as a safe haven to survive in exchange for giving up certain personal freedoms. But now?
We have all the freedoms we need. It is up to us if we use them or not – and also HOW to use them.
Women are choosing – believe it or not
It is an old story that women from a lower social rank try to “marry up” and men regularly “marry down”. Many stories are told about the nurse who succeeds to marry the doctor. But a female doctor marrying a male nurse or a truck driver? That doesn’t seem to be the case very often and is somehow not acceptable socially. Why?
Women still are the ones to have children and it is a biological and evolutionary necessity that women try to get the “best” fathers for their offsprings – whatever is valued as “the best” in a given society. If you, woman, had the choice to have a child from a super intelligent and wise man or from a vagabond or criminal: what would you chose? You make a choice according to your values and there is a hierarchy of values if you are aware of it or not. And don’t tell me that, because you reject hierarchies, you consciously would chose to have a sperm injection from a convicted mass murderer instead of from a Nobel Prize winner! There is a clear hierarchy operating in a woman’s mind when choosing a mate!
Patriarchy is hierarchy and status – so what?
And here we come to the reason why, today, so many people hate patriarchy: because it is organised in a hierarchical manner. There are people who have better jobs, live in better places, are smarter or otherwise privileged over others and that is considered BAD. But, honestly, if you woman have the choice between two lovers and future father of your children: wouldn’t you aim for the one who has more status and more money and all of that? Don’t pretend that you would prefer the one who leads a miserable life in a slum with no food and no hygiene. So you are perfectly aware that your actions are guided by hierarchical values – while you complain about their existence at the same time. Think a little more about that before you open your mouth again in wild accusations.
So back to sexual harassment by powerful men.
As I said before, this was a normal thing in previous stages of societal development in the Western World and it is still the case in many other countries of the world. It definitely happens that some men abuse their power for their sexual or psychological self-esteem. But
WHAT IF MEN DIDN’T FIND A WOMAN TO BE HARASSED?
How do women ALLOW men to harass them?
Women accuse men and hide in the victim role. But what did THEY do to allow the harassment happen? When did they give away their genuine feminine power? And when, if not most of the time, they indulged in exercising the very ancient expression of female power? What do they think that would happen in a man when they show up with super short pants, hardly covered breasts and seductive ways of moving? He probably responds like the animal part in humans responds: with being sexually attracted. HAHA! Now he is caught in the web of his biology and things proceed as they proceed.
At any moment both, the man AND the women, have the CHOICE to say STOP in one way or the other. If you are an actress and you really want to get the big role than the “normal” way has always been to get the attention of the producer or whoever in charge and you both traded the issue. Women traded – and still do – sexuality in one form or other much more frequently than the feminist warriors want to admit – or any woman who now cries out about the perpetrator men who have made them suffer.
Be honest, woman: you will find at least one episode in your life where you got advantage for the fact that you are a woman which was granted to you by a man whom you manipulated into that.
It is so deeply ingrained in women’s history that most of the women don’t even notice when their behavior is manipulative towards men, in the same way that men often have no idea how their behavior can be understood as violence.
Power and Empowerment
Life is about empowerment and power. To say that we need to make some very important distinctions: Today the word “POWER” has become a synonym of “abuse” and “morally unacceptable”. This doesn’t justify the dismissal of power all together. “POWER OVER” is completely different than “POWER FOR”. People, men and women alike, can exercise power over others by reducing them to a sort of slaves. Thankfully this use of power is stigmatised and hopefully will be overcome soon with new structures of co-creation and communication – if people grow up sufficiently to be able to live in this different way.
What we certainly need is PERSONAL POWER to be and do what is right for us to do. Without our personal power we are transforming ourselves into the slaves where others can dominate us. There is no abuser if there is nothing or nobody to abuse. When we are embracing our personal power – which fundamentally consists in saying NO or YES in the right moment and really meaning it – we cannot be abused in the way of the present accusations. Somewhere along the line all those women who claim to have been sexually abused by men with whom they had a personal social contact have given up their personal power and chosen to be the victim, probably for good reasons. Even if the man is “guilty” 95% in a specific situation, but there is no woman who couldn’t detect these 5% or more of her own contribution to what she declares “abuse”. Being the victim and abdication of personal responsibility seems to be the easier way: all guilt and shame to the other. But at the long run those women have missed the chance to be truly free from their own conditionings and somewhere inside they perfectly know their own complicity in the ancient game between humans especially of different sex.
The evolution of Patriarchy
So “Patriarchy” is a name for a period in human history which is evolving like everything else. It is not to be blamed for all our personal shortcomings in the evolution of our personal self and of our societies – which are formed by people like you and me and not by some malevolent entity. If you and I discover shortcomings than it is our duty to bring them forth in the most possible unbiased way and to collaborate without shaming and blaming to create a better future for ALL of us.