Misogyny

[Blessed2]

In the past few weeks and months I've noticed more and more that I hold misogynistic thoughts and beliefs. For example, I've noticed how heavily I objectify women.

 

It's not that I would want to restrict womens liberty of hurt them. Always been symphatetic toward feminism, at least to some degree. Though after the recent insights and uncoverings I'm way on board with it and realizing how by objectification etc. has clouded my judgement.

 

Basically I noticed that I kind of automatically, by default see women as objects of personal gratification, something that I can have or not have, something I can miss out on. This is why at times I've felt uncomfortable of how much sexual freedom women have gained in the past centuries. I've felt jealous of other men who women desire, who I percieve "having something I might miss out on". Kind of a FOMO. So then I've felt resentful of women who have a lot of sex with different partners, because I've seen them as objects I would like to have, not fully human. I have not paid attention and acknowledged their own desires and likes and search for happiness.

 

This is just one example. There are countless discordant thoughts like that.

 

Though I noticed that holding these beliefs and perspectives actually feel really bad. I noticed that it feels A LOT better to acknowledge that women have their own lives, they have their own desires and prefrences, and their own happiness. And it feels A LOT better to wish good things for them - for their desires and hopes to be fulfilled and for them to be happy, without my selfish motives.

 

Misogyny and objectification is no joke guys. It's real. Feminism is totally a legit and justified endeavor. For me there is really no doubt about it anymore. Life-changing insights.

[Blessed2]

1 hour ago, Devin said:

Objectifying someone is just the typical human state, misogyny is hating women, it sounds like you love them to me, not that you hate them. Most parents objectify their kids, friends do it, employees, .....

 

No, I think it's misogyny. I'm using the word in a sort of feminist / sociological context. Not hate per se, but prejudice, resent, "othering", objectifying.

 

I'm using quite strong language here. It's not like I wanted to hurt or didn't like women before... This is more like realizing that there has been underlying toxic beliefs at play. Subtle, but still very real and discordant.

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Blessed2

[Phil]

@Blessed2

Good for you. This is really great hear. 👊🏼 

[Blessed2]

This is African Renaissance Monument, located in Senegal. Saw a picture of it today and felt kind of sad.

 

It's probably an important symbol for the people of Senegal, nothing wrong with that, happy for them. 🙂

 

But I felt sad about the obvious patriarchy. See how each of the three people are looking in the same direction... Probably symbolizing an abundant future for peoples of Senegal. What's sad for me though is how the characters are placed. The woman on the left, lowest and furthest away from where the eyes are fixed. Man in the middle, holding up the baby, symbolizing holding up the future, holding the power. And the baby, furthest right, pointing towards, highest of them all. It would seem like it's all for the future, for the children and all people, but really not... See, if the baby happens to be a girl... The future is really not for her, is it?

 

Makes me sad. Is the monumet really for all the peoples of Senegal, or just for the men? Is the future for all the people, or just for the men? Is Senegal for all the people, or just the men? 😕

 

When we talk about abundance, when we do politics and relationships and future, is it really for everyone, or just the men? 

 

IDK, just really seems to me like the only one seen as fully 'human', only one whose perspective is 'objective' or 'trustworthy' so to speak, is the masculine cis man. Anything else... Is woman, or womanly. Somehow untrustworthy, unobjective, even dangerous. "The other". The 'objective point of view' of our collective is really the man's point of view.

 

 

 

Edited October 10, 2022 by Blessed2

[Reena]

That's great. The first step to healing is recognizing. 

[Mandy]

@Joseph Maynor What if there isn't actually a hiearchy? 

[Blessed2]

@Joseph Maynor Sure, but not at all the same ballpark as widespread misogyny and patriarchy.

 

 

[Mandy]

19 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

In the  work world there almost often is a hierarchy.  I’m familiar with the field of law.  If you work in a law firm there’s power hierarchies.  There's the official and unofficial power hierarchy(ies) too.

But isn't that world modeled after an understanding of ourselves as separate, then feeding into the perceived need for hierarchies and the belief that power can be the possession of a separate self. 

[Blessed2]

There's a quote I once heard from a Contrapoints video (can't remember which) that really stuck:

 

"Misogyny is the most universal prejudice."

 

It does seem like that... Almost every culture, almost every society, is patriarchal. Women seems to be oppressed, objectified, abused, all around the world. And for hundreds and thousands of years. Why? 🤔

 

[Mandy]

@Joseph Maynor Do you mind watching this and giving me your thoughts? It's a lot different from the Dr. Phil thing. 

[Serenity]

I suggest everyone who want to get a taste of what misogyny is like to try to pass as female on a forum. 

 

A pink icon, and a girly name will open the door to being infantilized, mansplained, and being on a regular basis not taken seriously.

 

Some come as far as harassing you because their ego gets bruised when they feel diminished by you as a woman for X and Y reasons. A strong need to put you back in an inferior position will arise.

 

@Blessed2

 

We live in a patriarchal era, which means yang values (everything that is perceived, felt, seen as masculine) is worshiped and most of the yin (everything that is perceived, felt. seen as feminine) is repressed. Though, it is not totally true because a fragment of what is seen as feminine is worshipped (beauty, youthful female bodies, motherhood to some extend, etc), but most of the rest is seen as unpractical, dangerous, or undesirable (connection to nature, emotions, and pretty much everything that gives her power that comes from yin energy).

 

The belief is that yin makes your yang weaker, so everyone who wants to increase their yang level repress and are somewhat subconsciously disgusted by the yin. 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Serenity

[Mandy]

@Joseph Maynor

Forgot the link in the previous post, sorry. 

[Serenity]

1 hour ago, Blessed2 said:

"Misogyny is the most universal prejudice."

 

It does seem like that... Almost every culture, almost every society, is patriarchal. Women seems to be oppressed, objectified, abused, all around the world. And for hundreds and thousands of years. Why? 🤔

 

It's all about keeping everything that is perceived as feminine under control. Mother nature gives and takes life. In your infancy, your mother and yourself where the closest to unity, and you realized you were all dependent on her, at her mercy. She would give you all you'd need unconditionally. But we also understand that mother is almighty and we are powerless next to her.

 

As we grow up (3, 4 ,5 years old and +), we understand that another part of reality is conditional. And the current society we live in is highly polarized towards the yang principle which holds in it the value of doing, and competition. So we grow away from the figure of the mother, and often suppress or lose how it was like to be with her and her more yin values.

 

The unconscious still remember how mother was almighty, and how loving she was. When we evolve in a patriarchal society and we polarize ourself towards more yang, there is a deep longing for the love of mother, and a deep fear of how she reminds us of the absolute power of nature.

 

Patriarchal societies were designed to shelter us from the almightiness of mother nature, so we find ourself psychologically in a double bind.  Everything we do in a patriarchal society is for self-protection and control... We both want the feminine, and reject the feminine. The feminine undermines the patriarchal values... but the polarization towards too much masculine values in society increase the attraction for the it.

And so a lot of desire, frustration, fear, and anger occurs.

 

And we end up seeking for a non threatening, non powerful, sweet, beautiful, version of it. Most of the misogynie one will see is nothing else but men or women trying to put it back in the box, where it's safe and non-threatening.

 

 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Serenity

[Serenity]

A witch is nothing more than a feminine person who is a vehicle for Yin energy. 

[Serenity]

12 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Interesting.  I have a somewhat similar yet different point of view.  A witch is the feminine leading with the masculine.  You have the masculine, the feminine, the masculine leading with the feminine, the feminine leading with the masculine, the divine marriage, and the integration of Man and God or the relative and the absolute.  A witch is strong in the feminine but is also leading with the masculine.  That's why witches are particularly dangerous to the masculine.  It's like chaos being channeled into order.   It's a feminine flank move to the masculine.  That's not Yin energy, that's Yin energy being channeled through Yang energy.   This particular flanking threat to the masculine is why witches have been and are are killed by the masculine.   Flanking just means an attack where you're not expecting it.  Compare that with a head on attack which is what the masculine is otherwise anticipating.  It's an attack to your side, it's a kick to the balls, a set of fingers to your eyes, an attack by chaos to order.  Of course this is only my opinion, anyone is free to disagree with me.  I encourage you to find whatever explanation of things resonates most with you.  

 

Oh, I see you've heard about the sacred mariage and all of that. It's great to see you are interested in these matters. I have been very interested in daoism and the divine feminine/masculine through diverse approach in the last years. It is truly a powerful framework.

 

Whenever one chose to align with yin, the feminine comes first. The idea that the masculine should lead is a patriarchal conception. The masculine's job is to protect the feminine, so it can deploy itsel. 

 

In a patriarchy (which is the organization of almost all societies since the the discovery of agriculture and of the plow ), women integrating and aligning with masculine values, or even leading with their masculine is encouraged. Very little of the feminine principle is accepted. It's contained, and put in a box, to be surveilled and controlled.

 

A witch in the traditional sense of the term used be a woman aligning with the power of the yin principle. During the renaissance in Europe, you could have been a regular woman plucking some flowers and brewing yourself some tea with herbs and been subject to the repressed projection of the threatening yin energy by the patriarchy.

The fearful, dangerous aspect of the witch you are referring to is the heritage of that conception. A feminine person seeking to align with the feminine in a worldview where the feminine is a threat is ... a threat. Hence the idea that she's leading with her masculine, because people conflate the idea of power with masculinity, when in fact what makes her threatening is her aligning with the rejected feminine values.

 

To come back to my point and illustrate why the feminine comes first, Daoism, which is an ancestral philosophy a lot of people are familiar with states the yin comes first, and after comes the yang. Many are familiar with the concept of yin and yang.  And yin and yang are not called yang and yin, because while naming it, the order is shaped after how this model function. Also, And this is because it is an observable constant in nature.

 

An exemple could be the following:

Humans are gestated in the beginning all female. Only after comes the permutation into a masculine body.

 

Some other  exemple: Reality, actuality (the feminine) always comes before the mind, the ideal (the masculine). Or nature comes before the yang principle of civilization or technology. No nature -> no civilization. And reintegrating, realigning with the right order is the collective challenge we are going through at the very moment.

 

The feminine is creativity, love, compassion, alignement with reality, cooperation, being. If you look at  masculine values, it is what contains, compete, protect, organize, and do.

 

When people lead with masculine energy, dysfunction occurs. Being should come before doing. Cooperation should be chosen over competition if possible. Etc.

 

Our currents western civilization are a prime exemple of the masculine taking the lead over reality. Last centuries extreme politic movement were due to an extreme polarization of yang which lead  us through dreadful collective events.  I have always been wondering how so much madness was possible, but one shouldn't underestimate how dense can be an overlay over what actually is.  When one is excessively caught in the head, values the mind and intellect above all the rest and then get caught into non sensical thoughts processes and beliefs, the suffering inflected on beings can be endless.

 

This would not happen if feminine values would be put first, and then the masculine value would be also fully honored. This is what the secret mariage is about. Creating a balance between the two polarities.

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by Serenity

[Mandy]

@Joseph Maynor ❤️Yeah, it's a beautiful video, it's such a subtle yet POWERFUL thing he's pointing out. I see a lot of "masculine style" fights end something like this. https://wgme.com/news/local/maine-hunter-bags-a-9-point-buck-after-finding-it-stuck-to-a-dead-deer-hunting-season-interlocked-buck-entangled-adam-blanchette-surroyal-tines-mating-season-dominance?fbclid=IwAR2QmHScLZkKEtY95sA0wZpmo0c_DqmwjJZgvVYQUijDjA7AqBiob49wfPs The two male deer locked antlers in a fight during rut and couldn't separate themselves again, so they both died. For a glimpse in time it may look like there's a clear victor and a loser, but it's just a battle, it's never the way, and both have to surrender in the end.  The way of the Tao is kinda like surrendering before you need to, before your death or loss and that's also exactly the way of true leadership, if it really can be called that. 

 

I think that a lot of what we encounter that feels like fighting is when communication has been avoided so long it's broken down to the point where it can't happen easily. I think that constantly trying to be better or smarter than another (often because we feel insecure) is what inhibits true communication, and really being honest and authentic with one another. And that's where the real power lies. 

[Serenity]

54 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Great post by the way.  Here's where I would disagree with you.  I don't think the feminine is superior to the masculine.  In my experience the divine marriage along with taking the human out of the shadow is the optimal path.  And this is just my current thinking after having done this work for a long time.   It just depends on where you're at on your path as to what philosophy or integration is healthy for you or good for you.  If you're very feminine, then you could benefit by integrating the masculine.  If you're very Godly, then you could benefit from integrating the human.  If you're very masculine and feminine, then you can benefit from integrating the divine marriage.  It's just a model that helps with finding your strength and weaknesses so you can work on stuff that actually helps you grow instead of doubling down on philosophy,, pushing what you dislike into your shadow, and ultimately staying the same for years and years without much growth.  You just have to find things that resonate with you where you see actual personal growth when it comes to theory.  

 

I am sorry but this is not correct. The concept of hierarchy is a yang concept. The feminine principle is wired towards equality. It comes first, but isn't superior or better than the yang principle.

 

It happens that people who see yang as superior to the yin principle will have this type of misconception, and will feel resistance at the thought of yin coming first. It's yin and then yang. Yin, and yang. It's just how it is.

 

I have a very well integrated masculine side. One has to understand that for having taken an interest in philosophy and self-help for years at a serious level, this is a mandatory element. Reading Jungian psychology and practicing shadow work has been also for a few years one of my main hobbies (if one can say integration your shadow is a hobby 😪🥺😂). So I am pretty well round up on the matter. 

 

Like many people in our civilization, my wounds are primarily feminine wounds. Too much insecurities (which stem from not enough unconditional love), that prevents me from leveraging with full strenght my masculine side. I frankly also have more aversion to the feminine than the masculine.

Reality, life and death, or nature are on a recurring basis resisted. I find them much more uncomfortable and scary. Though, it's only because my mind spins so much narrative on it. 😌

 

The reason why I am spending so much time studying Daoism and Jungian psychology is in order to align my relationship to the world according to these principles, in the divine mariage. I value both aspect of the spectrum equally and try to align with it.

Edited November 24, 2022 by Serenity

[Loop]

11 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Imagine trying to do this if someone were threatening you with deadly force. 

When I train martial arts it has a more yin focus, it has to do with surrendering to and then helping the other person trip over themselves. It is a lot easier to move someone when you just go with their force and use it to pull/ push them out of their grounding to get them to fall over, then you can get out of the situation. But ultimately the best defence is the more yin ability to cool a fight down from ever happening. The best way to end a fight is to be the one who doesn’t even see a fight occurring, keeping your eye on the prize in a sense, Love.

Thought you might find this perspective interesting.☺️

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by Loop

[Serenity]

21 minutes ago, Loop said:

When I train martial arts it has a more yin focus, it has to do with surrendering to and then helping the other person trip over themselves. It is a lot easier to move someone when you just go with their force and use it to pull/ push them out of their grounding to get them to fall over, then you can get out of the situation. But ultimately the best defence is the more yin ability to cool a fight down from ever happening. The best way to end a fight is to be the one who doesn’t even see a fight occurring, keeping your eye on the prize in a sense, Love.

Thought you might find this perspective interesting.☺️

 

What martial arts are you training 😃, if I may ask?

[Blessed2]

I don't resonate with this 'feminine and masculine' thing at all. Not sure why.

 

For me it feels like 99% of the times people talk about it is just total misunderstanding of the subject. It sounds a bit like pseudo-science.

 

Each time someone mentions masculine or feminine I feel icky. It triggers me for some reason.

 

Yall talk like "both are needed for delicate balance" and then describe masculine as just... The usual ego. Hierarchy etc. is just ego.

 

Ew. The whole thing is just repulsive to me for some reason.