"Most (if not all) of the effects of patriarchy that we see "rebounding" against men are not occurring to "weaken men," but are artifacts of oppressing women."
I would revise that and say they are artifacts of oppressing the feminine, not women in general, although women are a target. The feminine role in the old cultures that neo-colonialism is still stamping out was a thread that ran through both men and women. This is at the root of the oppression women today experience..yet it is is something oberserved to span our culture end to end, supressing all peoples. This has been going on for a long long time.
Women of european descent who desire true equality and liberation would do well to learn as much as they can about the roles women held in the old cultures and why gender was more of a blurred line at times. There is something far more empowering in rediscovering where we actually come from, because we then understand what was stolen from us.
I cant speak about other cultures, because they are not mine. The oppression of women in the east is discusting to the degree of women being stoned in the street, comparable to women(and at times men) being hung and burned by the catholic chuch for accustations of witchcraft. These lines of thinking all seem to go back to monotheistic patriarchies that stamp out the feminine, yet extend from a place of dominance over what was once goddess worshipping cultures, comprised of both men and women.
I see a full on assault on both men, women and the family/tribal unit that held us together. It's an attack on the culture of the folk, which sustained us for many thousands of years. It is an attack led against people to disempower them, led against both men and women..not the archetypes of men and women. I see an agenda of homogenization that is morbidly afraid of both diversification and decentralization. It is much easier to govern a homogenized, disempowered group of people than it is a diverse group of empowered individuals complementary in they're pairing, because those groups of individuals are those who become resiliant enough to become autonamous in they're own right. It threatens corperate interests.
The whole counter culture of the 60's was filled with CIA opperatives, hijacking various movements to twist them around to fit alterior agendas. The Womens Liberation Movement was not immune to this. Womens liberation as a whole is something that is necessary but I cant honestly say that I feel where it has gone is where it NEEDED to have gone. It has taken a weird turn that I think is divisive and destructive and will never yield true liberation in that form. A return to the divine feminine does not yield a furthering of the commerce mono-culture. It is something far deeper than I hear the majority of people talking about, weather from womens liberation or neo-tribalism. We have mistaken trees for a forest.
I see a culture now, where both men and women have to run off to work just to support one child..where children are often left to daycare while both parents scrounge around just to make due. Is that liberation? It was not entirley uncommon for women to work before the 60's..but there was not the economic struggle to survive that drove both parties to HAVE to work. The womens rights movement was twisted around to feed corperate interests to a degree IMO, as were other aspects of the new age and counter cultural movements. I think in some ways much of this has also backfired and spawned very fertile ideas and movements, but the damage was done.
For women to have true liberation, and all people in general, requires one to not have to give up other rights concerning the welfare of the family and homestead etc just to gain the liberation that should be a baseline right. Liberation is not a trade off.
It's the same agenda that attacks local organic farmers, cow sharing circles and unregulated systems of folk medicine such as traditional herbalism. These things threaten the state, as does the empowerment of both men and women together.
I would revise that and say they are artifacts of oppressing the feminine, not women in general, although women are a target. The feminine role in the old cultures that neo-colonialism is still stamping out was a thread that ran through both men and women. This is at the root of the oppression women today experience..yet it is is something oberserved to span our culture end to end, supressing all peoples. This has been going on for a long long time.
Women of european descent who desire true equality and liberation would do well to learn as much as they can about the roles women held in the old cultures and why gender was more of a blurred line at times. There is something far more empowering in rediscovering where we actually come from, because we then understand what was stolen from us.
I cant speak about other cultures, because they are not mine. The oppression of women in the east is discusting to the degree of women being stoned in the street, comparable to women(and at times men) being hung and burned by the catholic chuch for accustations of witchcraft. These lines of thinking all seem to go back to monotheistic patriarchies that stamp out the feminine, yet extend from a place of dominance over what was once goddess worshipping cultures, comprised of both men and women.
I see a full on assault on both men, women and the family/tribal unit that held us together. It's an attack on the culture of the folk, which sustained us for many thousands of years. It is an attack led against people to disempower them, led against both men and women..not the archetypes of men and women. I see an agenda of homogenization that is morbidly afraid of both diversification and decentralization. It is much easier to govern a homogenized, disempowered group of people than it is a diverse group of empowered individuals complementary in they're pairing, because those groups of individuals are those who become resiliant enough to become autonamous in they're own right. It threatens corperate interests.
The whole counter culture of the 60's was filled with CIA opperatives, hijacking various movements to twist them around to fit alterior agendas. The Womens Liberation Movement was not immune to this. Womens liberation as a whole is something that is necessary but I cant honestly say that I feel where it has gone is where it NEEDED to have gone. It has taken a weird turn that I think is divisive and destructive and will never yield true liberation in that form. A return to the divine feminine does not yield a furthering of the commerce mono-culture. It is something far deeper than I hear the majority of people talking about, weather from womens liberation or neo-tribalism. We have mistaken trees for a forest.
I see a culture now, where both men and women have to run off to work just to support one child..where children are often left to daycare while both parents scrounge around just to make due. Is that liberation? It was not entirley uncommon for women to work before the 60's..but there was not the economic struggle to survive that drove both parties to HAVE to work. The womens rights movement was twisted around to feed corperate interests to a degree IMO, as were other aspects of the new age and counter cultural movements. I think in some ways much of this has also backfired and spawned very fertile ideas and movements, but the damage was done.
For women to have true liberation, and all people in general, requires one to not have to give up other rights concerning the welfare of the family and homestead etc just to gain the liberation that should be a baseline right. Liberation is not a trade off.
It's the same agenda that attacks local organic farmers, cow sharing circles and unregulated systems of folk medicine such as traditional herbalism. These things threaten the state, as does the empowerment of both men and women together.
) different than the fundamentalist component you are attempting to ascribe to it. In fact, I would posit that this particular example is antithetical to a fundamentalist approach.
