Riane Eisler - Page 2

longshot · #6 04-01-2007, 11:10 AM

The Chalice or the Blade: Choices for our Future
By Riane Eisler

History as conventionally written has been literally the story of men. But if we re-examine our past, taking into account the whole of our history, a very different picture emerges.

People all over the world are today questioning matters that only a few generations ago were generally seen as "just the way things are." Everything, from politics and economics to sexual and family relations, is being re-evaluated. People are even reexamining the roles and relations of the female and male halves ofhumanity. And when people ask, "what does it mean to be a woman?" and "what does it mean to be a man?" They put at issue the most fundamental assumptions about our species and its future.
This questioning of "givens" -- particularly the stereotypical roles and relations of women and men--is not accidental. It is symptomatic of what systems theorists call a period of social disequilibrium a time when fundamental or transformational systems change can occur.
But transformation from what to what? What kind of a social system are we moving toward? What kind of system are we struggling to leave behind? And how does today's struggle over gender roles and relations relate to all this?

A new view of our past

We have often been told that a just and peaceful society is merely a utopia-an impossible dream. We are taught religious dogmas of "original sin" and their secular updates in socio-biological theories about "selfish genes." Not coincidentally, in both cases, these notions are embedded in stories about how male dominance is either divinely or scientifically ordained.

We are also taught that Western civilization begins with brutally male-dominant and highly warlike societies and that if there was anything before patriarchy in our prehistory it was so primitive as to be unworthy of serious alienation. For example, we have been told that European civilization begins with the Indo-European invasions - with a way of structuring society in which women and anything associated with the "feminine" is held in contempt and relegated to a subordinate and subservient position.

Indeed, history as conventionally written has been literally the story of men, with only an occasional mention of "their" women. But if we re-examine our past taking into account the whole of our history, including prehistory, drawing from a database that includes the whole of humanity--both its female and male halves-a very different picture emerges.

A good entry point into this new, and more hopeful, picture of our cultural evolution is through a fresh look at some familiar legends about an earlier, more harmonious and peaceful age. The Judaeo-Christian Bible tells of a garden where woman and man lived in harmony with each other and nature - a time before a male god decreed that woman henceforth be subservient to man. The Chinese Tao Te Ching describes a time when the yin or feminine principle was not yet ruled by the male principle or yang, a more peaceful and just time when the wisdom of the mother was still honored.

For many people these stories are merely religious or poetic allegories. But they contain important clues to a fundamental cultural shift during our prehistory. Indeed, new archaeological discoveries (coupled with reinterpretations of older excavations) show that while the earliest cradles of civilization -- going back many thousands of years before Sumer-- were not utopian societies in the sense of perfect societies, they were societies organized along very different lines from what came later. As the British archaeologist James Mellaart reports from his excavations of Catal Huyuk (the largest early agrarian or Neolithic site ever found), their characteristic social structure appears to have been generally egalitarian. He writes how the comparative size of houses, the nature of their contents, and the "funerary gifts" found in graves show that there were no extreme differences in status and wealth.

Data from Catal Huyuk and other Neolithic sites also indicate that in these societies, where women were priestesses and craftspeople, the female was not subordinate to the male. Although the sacred union of female and male was an important religious mystery, the powers that create and govern the universe were generally depicted as a goddess rather than a god.

Finally, dispelling the notion that war is natural, there is a paucity of fortifications as well as an absence in their extensive and considerably advanced art of the scenes so ubiquitous in later art-- of "noble warriors" killing one another in baffles, of gods and men raping women, of "glorious conquerors" dragging back prisoners in chains.

But the archaeological record also shows that, following a period of chaos and almost total cultural disruption, the cultural evolution of societies that worshipped the life-generating and nurturing powers of the universe - in our time still symbolized by the ancient "feminine" chalice or grail-was interrupted. There now appeared on the prehistoric horizon invaders from the peripheral areas of our globe (from the arid steppes of the north and barren deserts of the south) who ushered in a very different form of social organization. As the University of California archaeologist Marija Gimbutas wrote, these were people who literally worshipped "the lethal power of the blade" -- the power to take rather than give life that is the ultimate power to establish and enforce rankings of domination.

Human possibilities: Two Alternatives

When the first evidence of prehistoric societies where men did not dominate women began to be unearthed in the 19th century, the scholars of that day concluded that since they were not patriarchies they must have been matriarchies. But matriarchy is not the opposite of patriarchy: it is the other side of the coin of a dominator model of society. The real alternative to a patriarchal or male-dominant society is a very different way of organizing social relations. This is the partnership model, where, beginning with the most fundamental difference in our species between male and female, diversity is not equated with inferiority or superiority, dominating or being dominated.

Models are abstractions. But societies that orient primarily to one or the other of these models have characteristic configurations or patterns. These patterns, however, are discernible only when we look at the whole picture. In other words, the reason these patterns were not generally seen in the past is that scholars were looking at an incomplete and distorted picture--one that excluded no less than one-half of the population: women.

For example, from the conventional perspective focusing only on the activities and experiences of men, Hitler's Germany, Khomeini's Iran, the Japan of the Samurai, and the Aztecs of Meso America would seem to represent completely different cultures. But once we also look at the situation of women in these societies, we are able to identify the social configuration characteristic of rigidly male-dominated societies. We then see striking commonalities. First, all these otherwise widely divergent societies are rigidly male-dominant. Second, they are characterized by hierarchies of domination and "strong-man" rule, both in the family and state. Third (as is required to maintain hierarchies of domination) they are characterized by a high degree of institutionalized or socially accepted violence, ranging from wife and child beating within the family to aggressive warfare on the larger tribal or national level.

Conversely, we also see striking similarities between otherwise extremely diverse societies where there is more gender equity--societies where to be considered "real men" males do not have to be dominant. Characteristically, such societies tend to be not only much more peaceful but also much less hierarchic and authoritarian. This is evidenced by anthropological data (i.e., the BaMbuti and Tiruray), by contemporary studies of trends in modem societies (i.e., Scandinavian nations such as Sweden, Norway, and Finland), and by the prehistoric and historic data detailed in The Chalice and the Blade and Sacred Pleasure, some of which has been briefly presented in the previous section.

The larger picture that emerges from this gender-holistic perspective also indicates that, contrary to popular misconceptions, male dominance and male violence are not innate. Clearly throughout history not all men have been violent. And today many men are consciously rejecting their stereotypical "masculine" roles -- for example, the men who are today redefining fathering in the more caring and nurturing way once stereotypically associated only with mothering.

In short, the problem in dominator societies is not men. It is rather the way male identity must be defined in male-dominant societies where, by definition, "masculinity" is equated with domination and conquest-- be it of women, other men, or nature.

To maintain this type of society, boys must be systematically socialized for domination, and therefore, for violence. Male violence has to idealized - as we see in so much of our normative literature celebrating violent "heroes" (for example, the Biblical King David, the Homeric Ulysses, and modern "he-men" such as Rambo). Indeed, in these societies violent behavior patterns are systematically taught to males from early childhood through toys like swords, guns, and violent video games, while only girls are systematically socialized for nurturing, compassion, and caring.

Not only that, in these societies sex becomes an act of male conquest and domination, as in the common description of men's affairs with women as "scoring." In addition, the family structure of these societies has to be one where men rule, women serve, and children learn early on that it is very dangerous to challenge orders, no matter how unjust.

Evolution at the crossroads

A clear understanding of these systems dynamics is today urgently needed. Ours is an age when "man's conquest of nature" is rapidly taking us to an evolutionary dead-end. It is an age when the lethal power of the blade, amplified a million-fold by megatons of nuclear warheads, threatens to put an end to all human civilization.

It is therefore not coincidental that our time, when the mix of high technology and a dominator system of social organization poses a danger to all life on this earth, should also be a time when women and men all over the world are increasingly questioning the stereotypical gender roles and relations appropriate for a dominator society. Nor is it coincidental that on the grassroots level groups working for equality, development, and peace are proliferating--even against strong dominator resistance and intermittent regressions.

For perhaps the most critical fact emerging from the new view of our past and potential future made possible by the study of society from a perspective that takes into account the whole of humanity, both women and men, is that all the modern movements for social and economic justice are neither radical nor new. Rather, such seemingly diverse progressive movements as the "rights of man," utopian and scientific socialist, abolitionist, and feminist movements of the 18th and 19th centuries and the anti-colonial, peace, ecology, civil rights and women's movements of the 20th century are part of a resurging thrust towards a social system that is not geared towards man's conquest of women, other men, or nature.

Most critically, rather than being a peripheral, or what is in male-dominant systems the same, a "women's issue," the social construction of gender roles and relations is central to the kind of future we will have. The domination of the female half of humanity by the male half is a basic template for all forms of domination, conditioning children early on to consider such relations normal. A related dynamic is that values such as nonviolence, caring, and compassion can only attain social governance when those stereotypically associated with such "feminine" values are no longer subservient.

These are systems dynamics that those trying to push us back to the "good old days" when all women and most men still knew their place in rigid hierarchies of domination maintained by fear and force intuitively recognize-which is why for them returning women to their "traditional" place is a top priority. It is why for the so-called Christian right in the United States a return to the "traditional family" (a code word for a male-headed authoritarian family) is so critical - as it was for the Nazis when Hitler came to power and for the Iranian fundamentalists after Khomeini seized control. For in every case what we arc dealing with is a regression to a more rigid dominator society, which requires as a cornerstone for its foundations the domination of half of humanity over the other.

It is therefore essential that those working for a more equitable and peaceful world also become conscious of these dynamics. Indeed, the struggle for our future is not between capitalism and communism or between religion and secularism. It is a struggle about what kinds of relations we have, be it in our intimate or our intemational relations.

If those who still believe that domination, exploitation, and violence are "just the way things are" prevail, we face a very grim future, and ultimately no future at all. But if we recognize that a future orienting to partnership rather than domination is a viable alternative, and become conscious of the centrality of partnership gender roles and relations to the construction of such a future, there is realistic hope.

Riane Eisler gives on new view of our past and our future

longshot · #7 04-01-2007, 11:20 AM

By Scott London

When we look back on the history of western civilization it seems clear that our culture has long been dominated by stereotypically "masculine" values such as competition, violence and domination. Our history books are replete with tales of battles, conquests, and the struggle for dominion.
But there is growing evidence that there was a time in early human history, culminating some 5,000 years ago, when the feminine principles of inclusion, partnership, and harmony between the sexes governed human affairs.
What is interesting is that much of the anthropological probing in this area is being done at a time when we are beginning to recognize the need for new models and new ways of organizing human affairs — in politics, in economics, in education, and, not least, in our personal relationships. The old formulas no longer seem adequate to address our mounting global problems.
Riane Eisler has been at the center of the effort to create a more "gender-holistic" society. She is internationally recognized for her work in anthropology, human rights, peace, feminist, and environmental issues. She is the author of the widely acclaimed book The Chalice and the Blade, an international bestseller now in its 23rd printing. She is also the author of The Partnership Way, and Sacred Pleasure.
I met with Riane Eisler to explore her views on women, men, and the politics of sexuality. Our conversation ranged widely from Paleolithic art to pornography, from the trouble with Darwin to the trouble with certain Church doctrines, from the search for more enlightened business practices to the need for less gender-bashing. But it began with the subject of her then newly-published book Sacred Pleasure…

*

Scott London: How did you hit upon the connection between sex and spirituality?
Riane Eisler: I actually began to see the connection the way many people begin to see it — experientially. We know from studying evolution, and we know from studying neuropeptides now (which is such a fascinating area of study), that we humans get chemical rewards not only by being loved but also by loving someone, not only by being touched in a pleasurable way but by touching another, be it a lover or a child, in a way that gives pleasure. So I think that many of us who have left behind this notion that sex is bad and dirty, and that our bodies are somehow sinful, are able to have what we might call an altered state of consciousness experience with sex — an ecstatic experience. So, for me, there was a link there. It's the same kind of experience that you might have while meditating or fasting — that moment of incredible illumination that you cannot put into words.
But there is an intellectual way in which I also linked sex and spirituality — by studying the history of sexuality and spirituality and asking, How did we get here? How did we come to this place of so much confusion? As a culture, we are now trying to reconnect this link. So many people today are saying, "Wait a minute, I want to put them back together — I want sexuality and the sacred back in my daily life right now."
London: The title of your book Sacred Pleasure brings together two words that many people would be hard pressed to use in the same sentence — "sacred" and "pleasure."
Eisler: Yes, we have been taught to associate the sacred with fear, not pleasure. People associate spirituality with the fear of God, or with divine retribution, or with Hindu deities chopping each other to bits — often it's associated with either the inflicting or the suffering of pain. But this was not always the case. The sacred was originally associated with the celebration of life, with nature, and, yes, with pleasure. That is something that many, many people today are trying to move toward. So, that is how the title Sacred Pleasure came to be.
London: One of the things you've set out to do in your work is to dispel some pervasive myths about sex and spirituality.
Eisler: Yes. As you know, a myth, at least in the scholarly sense, is a story that represents some ultimate sacred truth, one that people often take for granted. Because so many myths have been shown to be "illusions," we tend to equate myth with falsehood. I use the term myth in both senses — as a story we have been taught about the ultimate truth, and as a story that came out of the social construction of human relations.
London: So, in that sense, the story of Adam and Eve represents a myth, for example.
Eisler: Yes, very definitely. That is a myth that offers some fascinating clues to what archeology, linguistics, art history, and the study of folklore increasingly regard as the key event shaping culture as we know it. It helps us understand the shift from a partnership way of structuring human relations to a what I call a dominator model.
Look at what that story tells us. It tells us that there was a time when woman and man lived in harmony with one another and with nature. (It got very idealized, but it was certainly more of a partnership model.) But then, about four or five thousand years before the common era, you begin to see signs of severe stress, of enormous climate changes and natural disasters, and horde after horde of nomadic invaders from the more arid fringe-areas brought with them a very war-like, male-dominated, strong-man-rule way of living. Now, all of a sudden, people are ashamed of their bodies. Shame, fear, guilt, we all know, are means of controlling people, aren't they? Woman also becomes subservient to man. This is reflected in the myth of Adam and Eve. And, of course, the very next story after that in the Bible is one of brother killing brother
London: Does Christianity have something to do with the body becoming associated with sin and pain and violence?
Eisler: That idea certainly became one of the centerpieces of medieval Christianity. But if you analyze so-called primitive Christianity and the teachings of Jesus you find an emphasis on caring, non-violence, and compassion. He stopped the stoning of a woman, he fed the hungry and he healed the sick — "women's work," right? He exemplified stereotypically feminine values. Only later did the Church become authoritarian and rigidly male-dominant. The Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch-burnings — these are all chapters of our history that we need to understand for what they were — wars against women by the Church.
So it wasn't simply a question of religion, and it certainly had nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus. It is one of the ways that dominator systems distort this enormous human yearning for bonding and for connection that we have, by constantly associating it with domination and with violence.
So I can't really put it at the door of the Church. But what I can say is that it's shocking that to this day the Church has not condemned violence in intimate relations — be it against children, against women, or against men — as part of its central teachings. That is shocking and highly immoral
London: Another way in which the connection between sexuality and the sacred can become perverted is through domination and control rather than sin.
Eisler: Yes, we see a lot of that in pornography — the linking of sex with domination and violence. It's not natural; it's part of the social construction of sexuality for the requirements of this top-down model, man-over-women, man-over-man, nation-over-nation, race-over-race. Ultimately, of course, these rankings are backed up by fear of pain and violence, as they must be.
London: Alan Watts, in his book Beyond Theology, suggested that the Church's strict disapproval of adultery, promiscuity, and so on was a necessary means of keeping sex sacred. It was also a way to make sure that sex didn't become boring, because if it were freely available it would no longer be regarded as sacred.
Eisler: I like much of Alan Watts's work, but he must have been totally ignorant about Church history to make a statement like that.
London: Or he may have said it partly in jest, as he was wont to do...
Eisler: Let's hope so. But even half in jest it's very misleading, because what the Church condemned was not sexual violence, but sexual pleasure. If sex were so sacred, why would the Church hierarchy be celibate? And why would we have teachings like "it's better to marry than to burn"?
The truth of the matter is that this was a period in which people were being canonized for mortifying their bodies in the name of erotic love. You know, in the mystical writings pleasure was definitely condemned as being sinful. It is crazy — pathological — but that is part of our heritage.
London: I was just talking to a woman the other day who told me she objects to some of the connections you make between sex and spirituality. She said that she doesn't believe in God and doesn't think of herself as a spiritual being. What are your views are about sex between two people who don't think of themselves as spiritual?
Eisler: Well, first of all, the notion of God and spirituality as being inextricably linked, especially this God who is a king and a lord... I mean, I can understand how a lot of people have basically rejected the whole notion of spirituality along with religion. But I would like to suggest that there is a difference between institutional religion and spirituality. And if she objects to the term "spirituality" let her use something else. But there is a dimension in evolution that makes us unique in terms of our yearning for love, our yearning for beauty, and our yearning for justice. We are the only known species which has been struggling to create a more just and equitable society. I think we need to be able to find ways of honoring that through what has traditionally been called the spiritual.
London: You referred to the shift that took place as we moved from a social order based on partnership and equality to one based on domination and violence. Your research suggests that this shift was one of the defining moments of our history as a species. How did you come to that realization?
Eisler: Well, it was really through the process of simple observation, free from what I think of as "the blinkers" that have impeded scientists from seeing the whole picture. My model is one that takes a dynamic view of human society and culture, and what I began to see in my historical research were patterns that had not been visible before — connections between different elements of social systems. For example, I saw that in tribal societies and in highly advanced industrialized societies, the more that society was rigidly male-dominated, the more it went along with a strong-man-rule approach in the family and the state, and the more it accepted institutionalized social violence — from child-beating and wife-beating to warfare — as part of the social system.
As you move to the other side of the spectrum — say, for example, the Scandinavian bloc countries in our time where you have a much more equal partnership between men and women — you find a guidance-system of more stereotypically feminine values. There is funding for "women's work" — taking care of children, caring for people's health, caring for the environment. There is economic and political democracy. It is not coincidental that the first peace academies came out of the Scandinavian bloc countries. Why? Because they are oriented more to the partnership configuration.
This model has been very useful to many people around the world for getting beyond the old categories which don't help us, such as capitalist vs. communist, the developed world and the developing world, and so on.
London: You have synthesized a tremendous amount of data about prehistoric cultures which suggests that men and women in those early days essentially did live in a partnership mode.
Eisler: Yes. And that is another reason why I was able to see these patterns — I drew from a larger database. Most sincere studies concerned with our mounting global crises tend to focus just on what is happening today. That is limited. You don't see patterns and you can't learn from what has happened in history. I drew from a database that includes the whole of our history, including, as you noted, our prehistory. Although, I have to say to you, at the beginning of my work, these patterns... I mean, I saw them without even going into prehistory, but once I understood the partnership and dominator configuration it was so compelling because the evidence was right there.
London: Did we fall from grace as a civilization?
Eisler: There was a period of thousands of years — much longer than the 5,000 years of what we call "recorded history" — when indeed societies lived according to a different set of values. They were not ideal societies and it wasn't perfect — you know, there is always a matter of degree. But there is no evidence that these were societies where men dominated women. There is no evidence that these were societies that were chronically at war. These were also societies that saw nature not as something to be exploited. There was what we today call an "ecological consciousness." They saw the world as a great mother from whose womb all of life ensued, to whose womb all of life returned at death — like the cycles of vegetation — once again to be reborn. It is very much like this supposedly "new" Gaia hypothesis developed by Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock. Well, that is an update of the belief systems of early societies we are now finding out about.
London: So, in a way, we are coming full circle today.
Eisler: I sometimes think of the last 5,000 years as a "detour." But, I must say, my model of cultural evolution is non-linear; it's not a cyclical one. It certainly is a huge departure from the nineteenth-century notion of cultural evolution as being a linear progression upward from savagery and barbarism to "civilization." I mean, look at Hiroshima or the death camps in Nazi Germany. Those were periods of tremendous dominator regression.
London: The image many of us have of our heritage has been handed down from our reading of Charles Darwin and evolutionary theorists who have told us that we are the descendents of cave-men who dragged their women around by the hair. Your work tells a very different story.
Eisler: Yes. The cave-man archetype is a projection of our own society. In the cave art of Stone Age societies, there isn't a single image like that. First of all, there are no images linking sex with domination and violence. In the art of the Paleolithic societies, you find that women's bodies are a form of sacred art. It is part of a view of the world in which art serves to answer questions about where we come from before we are born, where do we go when we die and so on.
What I have tried to show in my work (and once you articulate it, it's perfectly obvious) is that how we learn to think about physical and intimate relationships — not just sexual relationships, but also those between parent and child, for example — is a basic template for all relations. If we are constantly bombarded with images where one person dominates the other through sex and violence, then that unconsciously keeps us trapped. It makes it very hard for us to envision any human relations in which the mutual exchange of benefits — pleasure, if you will — is the primary cement that holds society together.
London: So, you're not talking about sexism here so much as basic, unquestioned assumptions that men and women both share.
EISLER: That's right. The basic model of how two bodies should relate is the male-superior, female-inferior model. Because of this some people may say, "Oh, this is something against men." No, the problem is not men. Women have internalized that macho image as the ideal just as much as men have. Women, like men, have also bought into a notion of femininity that is passive. That is ridiculous because women are no more inherently passive than men. Just look at women; given half a chance they assert themselves. Sure, women will manipulate if they can't assert themselves. All disempowered people will do that.
London: What you are talking about reminds me of the work of Carol Gilligan. In her groundbreaking research, she discovered that men and women basically inhabit different psychological cultures or orientations. Does that fit your perception as well?
Eisler: But I want to make something crystal-clear that sometimes gets fuzzy, and that is that this is learned behavior. We know perfectly well that there are women who can be very cruel and violent, just as there are men who can be very caring. Indeed, today, men are becoming so much more attuned to, for example, doing fathering in ways that stereotypically used to be called mothering — having the immense pleasure of taking care of their little babies in an intimate way, of doing "women's work." If it were all innate, men couldn't do this. And if women were indeed less inherently active than men, you wouldn't see women climbing mountains and flying airplanes and putting out all this energy. So that is nonsense.
Some of the major contributions to science have actually been made by women. However, because we have had such a male-centered approach to science, some of the names of women are not even known to people. That needs to be reclaimed. We need to reclaim our whole history, including the major contributions women have made in non-traditional — that is, male — roles as well as in their traditional roles (and by "traditional" I don't mean "subservient," which is the way it is used by the fundamentalist Right; I mean in the care-taking roles that men are also beginning to fulfill).
London: There is a wing of feminism now, exemplified by scholars like Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, which feels that men are inherently dominating. They talk, for instance, about the fact that men's approach to nature is akin to the approach of a rapist — you know, plundering, ravaging, penetrating, that sort of thing. What has their response been to your ideas?
Eisler: Well, Andrea Dworkin and I have had direct contact and she really likes my work very much. I think MacKinnon and Dworkin — although I must admit that they sometimes get very depressing — have been misunderstood a great deal. I think it's because they are not as careful about constantly saying, "Wait a minute, this is not inherent." I think it would be very helpful if they would do that more.
I think what they are talking about is the social construction of a dominator-mindset. But I think it's a great disservice to all of us to say to that "that is men." Women can share that mindset, and some women actually do, of course. It's a dominator mindset, not a male mindset.
London: Feminists have often used the expressions "patriarchy" and "matriarchy," but you've abandoned these in favor of a different set of concepts. Was this a deliberate choice?
Eisler: Yes, this was a very deliberate choice. When archeologists in the 19th century found evidence that there were societies where great goddesses were worshipped, where women were priestesses, etc., they immediately thought, "Oh, if it isn't patriarchy, it's matriarchy." Even though some scholars, like J.J. Bachofen, made a point of saying that women didn't dominate men in these societies — that they were more mother-centered, or that there were no illegitimate children — they did two things: 1) they called it "matriarchy" (matriarchy is rule by mothers and it is semantically the other side of the coin of patriarchy), and 2) they got caught in this linear model, saying in effect, "yeah, it was nicer living then, but it was an inferior state of evolution." The implication is that patriarchy is a higher stage. Why? Because it came later. I mean, this is the trouble with the idea of linear progression.
And there was another reason why I wanted to abandon patriarchy. It's a very emotionally-laden word. For some people, the "patriarchs" are the fathers in the Bible who begat and begat and begat. Patriarchy for them is all these guys begetting [laughs]. For other people patriarchy is this 5,000-year horror-story. So I just felt that I needed a new terminology. And because the language didn't give us alternatives to "matriarchy" and "patriarchy," I had to invent them.
London: In some respects, your work is rooted in your own personal experience. In the opening pages of The Chalice and the Blade you talk about your own childhood, which one could say was a lesson in domination.
Eisler: Yes. I think that what we study has a great deal to do with us, with our life experiences. Certainly, having been born in Vienna at a time, within my cultural framework, of massive dominator-regression...
London: This was in the 1930s during Hitler's rise to power.
Eisler: Yes, when you heard the motto "Let's get women back into their place," and you had strong-man-rule in the family and in the state. As the historian Claudia Koonz writes in terms of gender stereotypes, the ideal Nazi man was a warrior and the ideal Nazi woman was his mother. There you have pure dominator stereotypes — she had no other function in life except to give birth to a guy who was going to go kill. It's a crazy model when you analyze it from that perspective. It's almost funny. But that's how it was. That was a traumatic experience for me. We had to flee for our lives.
London: What happened?
Eisler: The Gestapo came to our house with some Austrian looting-party types — because coming to a Jewish home and confiscating was also a way of lining your pockets, of course. In those days, "confiscate" was a nice code word for "armed robbery." When they came my mother recognized one of the men because he had worked for the family business. She just got furious. She said, "How dare you come here, we have been so good to you. This man who you have just pushed down the stairs and dragged away from here, he has been so good to you, how dare you come here?"
London: — Referring to your father.
Eisler: Yes, my father. She could have been killed. But something really miraculous happened. Part of it had to do with the fact that the dominator personality responds to authority. And also greed, because she was told, "Bring so and so much money to Gestapo headquarters and we will give him back to you." Now, if she hadn't spoken up like that, both my father and mother and I would be dead, because my mother and I, like so many others, would have stayed, waiting and hoping that he would be released, and would have, in turn, been sent to the gas chambers. Some people feel that I have a great deal of intellectual courage — courage to challenge intellectual sacred cows, and so on. I think that my mother has a great deal to do with that.
London: Your background may also help to explain why your work is so empirically grounded.
Eisler: Yes, my passion for finding alternatives has always been very empirical. For example, the idea of cooperation vs. competition has always seemed a little pie-in-the-sky to me. People can "cooperate" within a dominator system to do the most horrible things to other people. So my work tries to show what we all know from simple observation — that, yes, you can have human relations based on domination backed up by fear of pain; but we can also have human relations based on the mutual giving and receiving of benefits, of pleasure — and that is what we really yearn for as human beings.
We have been trying to find a better way for over 300 years now. All of the various social movements have challenged one or another form of domination — from the Rights of Man movement against the despotic rule of kings, to the women's movement against the despotic rule of men, to the Civil Rights movement, the abolitionist movement, the peace and pacifist movements. These movements have all challenged patterns of domination. What I have tried to do is to really provide an integrated conceptual framework. Part of that is a revisioning of not only our future, but also of our past — really setting the record straight. My work says: This way of living is not the only human possibility.
London: You were trained as a lawyer. How did you make the jump from law to women's issues, and later to history and anthropology and all these other questions?
Eisler: Actually, the anthropology and sociology came before the law, and so also did my work as a systems scientist at the RAND Corporation — doing very different work, war games, rather than the work that I'm now interested in.
But the law was very important in terms of my development as a multi-disciplinary scholar and as a systems theorist, because in law you have to recognize patterns. A client doesn't come to you and say, "Would you apply Section 1222 of the Civil Code." They say, "Hey, I've got a problem, this and this happened," and then it is up to the attorney to see the patterns. So it wasn't just training in anthropology and sociology, and later a tremendous amount of work in the study of myth and ancient religion, but the legal training was enormously helpful.
London: You've said that we're living in a time of "massive dominator regression."
Eisler: Yes. Just to give you one example, Congress just gave the Pentagon $7 billion for new weapons programs — more than it wanted or even asked for. That's fine, except we are told we don't have enough money for so called women's work — feeding children, caring for our environment, caring for people's health. Now, that hidden subtext of gender is not, I would submit to you, a women's issue, it's a central issue of our survival as a species at this point. It's a question of the mix of a dominator-ethos of conquest and domination and high technology. Well, the "blade" in terms of the title of my earlier book is the bomb, it's bacteriological warfare, and man's conquest of nature is about to do us in. So these are central issues. From a systems standpoint, we had better pay attention.
London: Tell me about the response to The Chalice and the Blade. I think I read somewhere that, at its peak, you received some 300 letters a day from readers of the book.
Eisler: Well, it's been a phenomenal response. It's been an international response, ranging from the former Chairman of the Board at Volkswagen to scholars at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who have basically used my cultural transformation theory to write a book called The Chalice and the Blade in Chinese Culture.
London: Do your readers consist mainly of women?
Eisler: About half of my mail is from men, actually. Some men have written about Sacred Pleasure saying "this is the book that is going to end the war of the sexes; this is the book that can heal us," because it debunks so many silly notions about.
London: You have also taken your ideas into the corporate world. You've lectured at Dupont and Volkswagen and Disney. What does the private sector have to learn from your ideas?
Eisler: There is a movement toward teamwork and toward a redefinition of the manager as a facilitator rather than a cop or controller who exercises power. In the sense of the chalice and the blade, it is the power to elicit from others their highest potential, rather fire or punish people. My work validates a great deal of these positive movements. But, look, there are people in the corporation who think this is all Greek — "What do you mean?" They are still very firmly in the dominator mode. That is part of the modern revolution in consciousness, the consciousness of alternatives. Unfortunately, both inside and outside the corporation many people still think that a dominator way of structuring human relations — sexually or otherwise — is just the way it is. And, of course, my work shows that it isn't, that we do have alternatives.
London: As a culture, are we moving in the right direction?
Eisler: As you know, my model of history is a dynamic one, it's not one of linear progressions, or "constant" progress. We have made enormous progress in the last 300 years. But, until now, a lot of the challenges to entrenched patterns of domination have been at the top of what I call the dominator pyramid — politics, despotic kings, the brutal and quite open exploitation of people economically. That's very, very important. But we also need to focus on our day-to-day intimate relations, on the so-called "private sphere." My optimism is that we do seem to stand today at the threshold of a new integrated politics of partnership where we are beginning to see organized challenges to entrenched patterns of domination and violence in our intimate relations.
For example, it used to be said, "if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it." Today, we recognize rape as a crime. It really is a form of terrorism against women to maintain women in their "place." It used to be that if a man beat a stranger, he went straight to jail. But if he beat someone he said he loved, someone he had sex with, well, walk him around the block. Now that is changing.
The rights of children, the rights of women, are understood as human rights. We are moving toward what I call an integrated model of human rights where the rights of the majority, women and children, are no longer split off from human rights. This is of profound importance for women, children, and men, because it is in these personal, intimate relations that we first learn whether to accept human rights violations as "just the way things are."
So I have a guarded optimism. But the stronger the partnership thrust, the stronger the dominator resistance. So one has to understand the dynamics. We are at a bifurcation, it could go either way. We could have a massive dominator regression far worse than what we are already seeing. And given our state of high technology, that could be catastrophic.

longshot · #8 04-01-2007, 12:49 PM

Riane Eisler Changing the World from the Bottom Up

Changing the world from the bottom up

Riane Eisler speaks for cultural transformation

By Stephanie Hiller

Riane Eisler speaks softly; enhanced by a charming Austrian accent, her voice is inviting,feminine. She's not intimidating, yet she talks with authority about her work as the cultural historian who has identified the "partnership model" of social organization.
"If it were enough to show how bad the dominator model is for women, it would have changed! My work brings out the connections between the domination of women and the violence and abuse and inequity in general. That's what makes my work different, and that is what makes my work so essential at this point," she said in our phone interview.
"I'm a macro-historian," she says in our interview. "That means I'm interested in patterns." Ever since the publication of The Chalice and the Blade in 1988, Eisler has been following a single thread that runs through her extensive historical research, that societies both ancient and contemporary which afford women status, are peaceful, respectful of the body and the earth, nurturing and cooperative. These societies she has termed partnership societies, in contrast to societies like our own, where power is based on domination, intimidation, punishment and abuse. Her research draws on Marija Gimbutas' remarkable archeological investigation of the goddess civilizations of Old Europe, where no weaponry was found among the thousands of artifacts uncovered. She has continued to explore this pattern in a succession of books, including Sacred Pleasure, The Partnership Way and Tomorrow's Children. Now a grandmother, she feels charged to bring her theoretical conclusions into practical application, in the hope that the adoption of partnership modes of relationship will turn the world from its current course.
Her own moment of truth came early. On "Crystal Night," when she was only seven years old, Nazi soldiers charged into her home and arrested her father. Her mother followed them to Gestapo headquarters. "By some miracle, she got my father back." Her family managed to escape to Cuba on one of the last refugee ships, but many of her relatives died in the concentration camps. "So, at a very young age, I began to ask questions…Is all the cruelty, violence, and suffering in our world inevitable? Is there an alternative? What is it? And what can we do to get there?"
Her latest book, The Power of Partnership, "is about changing dominator habits &endash; both personal and social. It's about small habits and huge habits. It's about the underlying causes of painful and dysfunctional habits." It's written simply, in the style of a self-help book, outlining ways we can transform the seven fundamental relationships in which we all engage, beginning with relationship to self and culminating in spiritual relations, from patterns of domination to patterns of partnership. Many of her suggestions are simple "first steps". "Think about how gender stereotypes affect how you feel about yourself and how your body should look." Following are "next steps," including such things as talking to young people about partnership relations.
It's all right on, but it's not easy! Our internal programming, alas, is deep and powerfully ingrained. As women, we have suffered a lot of denigration in this culture. Our own wounds often lie buried beneath our awareness and are unlikely to respond to these straightforward dictates for change. And even if we are able to bring this conditioning to our own awareness, it's another matter entirely to change a husband, a son, or a boss.
But Eisler wants to be "very careful," as she said repeatedly in our interview, not to blame men, or even to allow them to feel blamed by implication. Men are not the enemy; it's the programming, the dominator system itself (which she never refers to as "patriarchy"). And there are, of course, many wonderful men, men who are not violent and not particularly oppressive, willing to change their views on gender and child-rearing if that will create a better world.
Eisler is a feminist. She is very clear about the importance of recognizing women's rights and changing our methods of parenting to reflect peaceful values of cooperation and nurturance. She emphasizes that women's rights are human rights, that where women have higher status, societies (and the men in them) become more nurturing, more allied with the partnership way of being, and less violent. Yet she bends over backwards not to alienate men. Men read her books and are moved by them, she tells me, and I can readily see that Eisler's non-threatening way of addressing the issues makes it possible for men to hear what she has to say. I can certainly appreciate the importance of that; we do want men to hear us, yet we know from experience how quickly men turn off or become angry when women suggest that this man's world is catapulting us toward destruction. Men are very nervous about being blamed for a violent world which they did not create and which threatens them even as it threatens women, though never as much, since men are rarely attacked on the streets or violated in the bedroom by women willing and capable of inflicting devastating harm. Rape is just not part of the male experience.
Eisler certainly knows that those Nazis were men. She points out that Robin Morgan's powerful book, The Demon Lover, is one of the few feminist books which makes the kind of connections her own work makes &endash; and Morgan certainly makes no apologies for male oppressiveness. So it's puzzling why Eisler and so many lovely women like her &endash; charmingly feminine and usually married &endash; feels so compelled to assert the niceness of men. Is it really too much to ask that even those nicest of men take some responsibility for the behavior of others more violent than they? After all, if nice men see themselves as providers and protectors of women and children, why don't they find ways to protect us from the horrible violence against women and children wreaked by men? Don't nice men sometimes (often?) seem to think such violence is somehow permissible?
As a tool for thought and analysis, Eisler's choice of terms more neutral than "patriarchy" is definitely helpful. "Partnership" is a word that can inflame no one; generally speaking, it's what we all desire. In this minefield of outrage and personal woundedness, it's certainly helpful to calmly identify the dominator model and demonstrate its alternative. If the reality is just a whole lot tougher than the suggestions offered in this book, that's par for the course in a world wracked by menacing forces so much more potent than any of our benign liberal programs for damage control. Yet we've got to start somewhere. If reading The Power of Partnership inspires some women to take a serious look at how they support domination, and if it helps some men to ally themselves with a less damaging alternative, then it's certainly proved its value. Changing consciousness, as Eisler is quick to point out, is the necessary first step to taking positive action. Alas, there's no quick fix, and that's the rub, with so little time left to save the world. Ultimately, we're going to need something more powerful, &endash; something more powerful than our little selves &endash; and it's got to come soon. Whether that's a mass revolution, as Starhawk deems fitting, a global economic collapse (perhaps the gentlest alternative), or severe environmental distress, no one knows, but we've got to be there, conscious and ready, to survive, so that we can help construct the framework for a better world to come. Riane Eisler has certainly made a significant contribution toward that hoped-for transformation.

Read our interview with Riane!

longshot · #9 04-02-2007, 04:46 AM

MensIssuesOnline : Men's Issues Online

What are Men’s Issues?

Men’s issues are as valid as women’s issues, but until recently they have received little attention from the media or public policy. This brochure is intended as an introduction to men’s issues, which are part of the broader men’s movement.

First of all, it is important to realize that most people in the men’s movement aren’t interested in pushing women into subservience. While their approaches may vary, most men’s advocates are interested in addressing the disparities that have increasingly affected men and boys in (mostly) Western nations since the late 1960s. This is an essential part of achieving gender fairnessfor both sexes.

Second, the men’s movement is not just a concern of white men. Men’s issues affect all men and boys, regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality or socioeconomic status.

The men’s movement exists because men and boys are at a disadvantage in several important areas in today's politically correct social structure. Laws and conventions originally intended to encourage equal rights for women have evolved into special privileges without responsibility for women and an elevated status for women only. This is taking place against a backdrop of misandry (hatred of men) in society. The result has been serious harm to many areas of society, such as family structure, education, and social services programs. Ironically, this has ultimately had a negative impact on women in general — and children in particular.

While this brochure cannot list all of the issues affecting men and boys, it does provide a summary of the most visible ones. These issues are:

Divorce and Child Custody
Domestic Violence against Men
Media Representation of Men
Workplace Issues for Men
Men’s Health and Safety
Education
Other issues: Male only selective service, unequal sentencing, false accusations, and double standards against men

Note: While many of the examples and statistics in this brochure are from the United States, the same concepts apply throughout much of the Western world.

Divorce/Child Custody

With roughly 50% of marriages ending in divorce, and most child custody decisions going in favor of mothers, many men find themselves deprived of their children while making large support payments to an ex-wife who may be turning their children against them. The family court system is in itself adversarial, and makes an “amicable divorce” unlikely. In far too many cases, this has led fathers to become unemployed, bankrupt, imprisoned, homeless, and even suicidal. Meanwhile, children from fatherless homes are more likely to abuse illicit drugs or alcohol, become pregnant as teenagers, drop out of school, commit crimes, and go to jail. Children benefit most when both parents are equally involved in their lives, and public policy should reflect this by adopting a presumption of shared custody.

Related issues: Reproductive rights for men are very limited compared to what women enjoy. For example, a woman can abort her unborn child without any input from the father. Alternatively, she can give birth to a child and force the father to pay child support for at least 18 years. Paternity fraud occurs when a man is forced to pay support for a child that isn’t even his. Studies of DNA tests show that this is the case from
20 – 30% of the time. Many men’s advocates are in favor of choice for men, which would give men the right to joint custody of their child, or the ability to sign away all rights and responsibilities regarding the child.

Domestic Violence against Men

Domestic violence is a serious issue that affects both men and women. However — for reasons of funding — public policy has traditionally concentrated on those cases where women are victims and men are abusers. Many people are concerned about the lack of attention given to male victims. Here are some facts to consider:

According to a recent CDC survey, 1.5 million American women are severely assaulted by their "intimate partners" each year. It is less known that 835,000 men are also assaulted annually by intimate partners, representing some 36% of the total. (Note: the methodology of this survey has been criticized by men’s advocates as flawed, however this is still a significant finding).
Women and men assault each other with roughly equal frequency. This would make the difference in the above figures even closer to parity. However, women are somewhat more likely to be injured, and are more likely to report injuries to police. (It should be noted that there is no standard definition of an “injury”).

Women often compensate for their smaller size by using weapons such as knives, guns, baseball bats, and fireplace pokers. One study found that 86% of female-on-male violence involved weapons, contrasted with 25% in cases of male-on-female violence.

Men are usually reluctant to call the police in a domestic dispute for fear of ridicule. Also, police will often arrest the man even when it is the woman who committed the assault.

Many women's shelters exist in the United States and other Western nations, but there are very few shelters for men.
Child abuse, a related issue, is committed by women more often than men (and even less often by a biological father).

Domestic violence hurts us all, either directly or indirectly. While it is important to maintain assistance to women-victims, proportionate aid should also be given to male victims. Rational laws and public policy would help in achieving this goal.
Media Representation of Men

Media bias against men generally falls into two categories: errors of commission and errors of omission.

Such errors of commission are common in the mass media (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, movies, and the internet). TV is perhaps the worst offender in this category. Men are routinely portrayed as boorish and inadequate at best; violent and perverted at worst. TV sitcoms commonly feature pathetic and uncouth men who are constantly in need of rescue by their “superior” girlfriends, wives, or female relatives. It is also “acceptable” for women to kick, punch and slap men in these programs. Even worse, crime shows routinely depict men as sexually deviant and murderous. Meanwhile, commercials portray men as idiots, unable to care for their children or understand the function of household appliances.

Of course, this contempt for men can be found in other media as well. Newspapers and magazines commonly print articles written from a feminist perspective. The reader is given the impression that women as a group are victims of male oppression, when the reality is far more complex and ambiguous. Cartoons often mock men and boys as stereotypes rather than real people, while also portraying violence against males as humorous.

Men’s advocates often ask whether it would be acceptable to substitute “women” or “blacks” for “men” in the above situations. Such disrespect wouldn’t be tolerated. Surely men deserve the same consideration from the media.

Errors of omission occur when a male perspective is either omitted or downplayed in the above situations. For example, the phrase “women and children” is commonly used when describing people affected by a particular crisis. This implies that men are somehow more expendable. The phrase “men, women, and children” is much more inclusive. If the media is to achieve a fair balance in gender issues, men’s viewpoints should get the same attention as women’s viewpoints.

Workplace Issues for Men

Preferential hiring and promotion practices for women are common in the modern workplace. Affirmative action programs have done little to provide equal opportunity for anyone, while giving preference to women who may or may not be the best qualified candidates for given positions. The myths of the “glass ceiling” and “pay gap” have been repeatedly debunked, yet feminists continue to use them as excuses to demand preferential treatment. Promoting and overpaying under performers will eventually result in higher costs to the consumer and lowered productivity overall. It must be understood that some professions are more attractive to, and better performed by one sex or another. While jobs should be open to anyone, men and women both deserve an equal chance to be considered on the basis of performance and ability, not gender.

The issues of sexual harassment and workplace violence have probably done more to harm morale and cause distrust among co-workers than they have to uncover improper behavior and punish offenders. Men are especially suspect under these relatively recent company and government policies, which tend to favor women. An offhand comment or misunderstood gesture can now cost a man his job and ruin his career, and, as in other areas like divorce or domestic violence, a man has little or no recourse in defending himself. Certainly women should have adequate protection in real cases of sexual harassment or intimidation, but this is an issue where employers have gone overboard in implementing policies. A rational, realistic consideration of these policies needs to be undertaken — with due process and presumption of innocence — as the policies themselves are far too often abused for purposes unintended by those who established them.

Men’s Health and Safety

Men’s health and safety lags behind that of women’s in several areas. Men are more likely to die from heart disease, stroke, cancer, infectious diseases, accidents, suicide, and homicide. Consider these statistics for the United States:

Males have a higher overall mortality rate than females at all ages (roughly 1.6 times greater). This mortality ratio is roughly the same as that between blacks and whites. Also, men have higher mortality rates for the top 10 causes of death.
In particular, males have a suicide rate roughly 4 times that of females – this ratio is 14 times greater for the elderly over 85.
Men represent some 94% of workplace deaths annually as a result of being concentrated in the most hazardous professions.
Men are 3 times more likely to use illicit drugs, and 2 times more likely to be alcoholic.
Men have a life expectancy roughly 6 years less than women.
The disparity in longevity is greatest for black and Native American men.
In 1920, this difference in life expectancy was only 1 year, which implies that improvements in public health have disproportionately benefited women.

In spite of these disparities in health and safety between men and women, public policy has concentrated on women’s health issues at the expense of men’s health. For example:

There is an Office of Women’s Health in the U. S. federal government, but no Office of Men’s Health.
While most funding at the National Institutes of Health is non-gender specific, some 10% of this funding is for women’s health, with only 5% given to men’s health.
In particular, funding for prostate cancer research receives less than half the funding that breast cancer receives, even though both diseases have roughly equal mortality rates.

Given the interdependent nature of the sexes on health issues, surely it would be beneficial to society as a whole if men’s health and safety were taken as seriously as women’s health and safety. Greater advocacy, research, and information in this area are much needed.

Circumcision of infant boys is a related area of concern to men’s advocates. It is now questionable whether the benefits of circumcision are worth the risks. As the practice of genital mutilation of girls is forbidden, boys should at least get the chance to make a choice for themselves, when they are old enough to make an informed decision.

Education

Contrary to feminist assertions, a boy in school today is at an automatic disadvantage. As many “Women’s Studies” graduates end up in teaching, feminist theory has filtered down to the high school and elementary levels. Because feminist ideology requires that boys be educated in the same manner as girls, a boy’s natural tendency to be more active and outspoken will always be a “problem.” While boys thrive in learning environments that emphasize physically connected hands-on activities, they are confined to sitting quietly for hours at a time. Some schools have even eliminated recess and any kind of active games.

Such insensitivity to the learning needs of boys has contributed to the following:

Boys are three times as likely to receive a diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder as girls. They are also more likely to be drugged as a result of these diagnoses.
Boys at all levels are far more likely than girls to be disciplined, suspended, held back, or expelled.
By high school the typical boy is a year and a half behind the typical girl in reading and writing, and is less likely to graduate from high school. This is despite the fact that special attention to girls’ needs have eliminated the advantage that boys once enjoyed in math and science.
Boys are now less likely than girls to go to college.

This disparity in boys’ educational performance carries through to the college level:

Males now represent only 43% of university students (and the Department of Education predicts that this gap will continue to widen).
Among black university students, only 33% are male.
Men who enter college or university are less likely to graduate from college or go to graduate school.

Part of this difference may be due to the fact that the less than friendly school environment that boys face becomes a hostile environment for young men when they enter college. Some instructors feel free to make disparaging remarks about men in class, while campus newspapers routinely carry articles with an anti-male bias. Consequently, some young men may leave college, rather than stay in an environment where they feel devalued or even despised.

Title IX is a related educational issue which started out as an attempt to guarantee equal opportunity for women in athletics. This has evolved into a system of rigid proportionality between sports participation and enrollment for women. As female enrollment has increased, institutions of higher education are required to increase the proportion of female sports participation in order to meet their required target. This has resulted in many athletic programs for men being cut, while it is questionable that women even want the levels of participation in sports that are required. As with other gender issues, differences in participation rates should reflect individual interests and abilities, rather than an arbitrary quota system.

School violence has been an area of particular concern for boys. Unfortunately, recent school shootings have been carried out mostly by boys, resulting in violence prevention material that targets boys in particular. Overly repressive zero-tolerance policies have probably stigmatized many innocent boys unnecessarily far more than they have helped to prevent violence. While schools should take reasonable precautions against school violence, it would be better if the root causes were also addressed (e.g. bullying and anti-male attitudes by teachers and administrators).

Other issues

While the six above issues are the most prominent, there are others that deserve mention as well. Some of these are briefly described below.

Male-only selective service registration is mandatory for young men between 18 and 25. Failure to register is a felony punishable by a fine of up to $250,000, imprisonment for up to five years, or both. Furthermore, if a man fails to register, he can be denied certain benefits such as student financial aid and government employment. At times of war or national emergency, the draft can be reinstated by Congress and the President. Such military conscription, while perhaps necessary for national security, is a prime example of men being required to take a disproportionate risk of injury or death.

Unequal sentencing for men is the rule in the criminal justice system. Men are more likely to be imprisoned (and are given significantly longer sentences) than women for the same crime. The death penalty is imposed almost exclusively on men. One study showed that for a conviction of first degree murder, a man is 22 times more likely than a woman to receive the death penalty. While in prison, a man may be subjected to rape and other forms of assault — a phenomena that, unlike with women, is tolerated by prison officials and laughed at by late-night talk show hosts.

Two other common themes in men’s issues are false accusations and double standards against men. False accusations of domestic violence or child abuse may result in a man losing custody of his children, while a false charge of sexual harassment or discrimination may result in him losing his job. Even worse, a false accusation of sexual assault may result in an innocent man being imprisoned — women are generally not punished for making such false accusations. Various studies have shown that 40 – 50% of accusations of sexual assault are false. Meanwhile, double standards against men are also common. For example, the media often praises female-only sports clubs as “progressive,” while deriding private male-only clubs as “sexist.” Similarly, unmarried women are often described as “strong and independent,” while unmarried men are disdained as “immature” and having a “fear of commitment.”

Conclusion

As society began to value women more, and feminism became ever more exclusive and elitist, men became devalued. This is morally wrong. There is no valid excuse for valuing one sex over the other. It is also wrong to attempt to build women up by tearing men down. Anti-male bias ultimately harms everyone, as the men who are ridiculed in the media and cheated in family court are someone’s father, brother, husband, or son.

It is time that society recognized that feminism (particularly the “gender” and “radical” variety) is a social experiment that failed. It should be replaced by a movement that fairly balances rights and responsibilities for both men and women – one that values the complementary nature of the sexes rather than pitting one against the other. Only then can society be on a path to true gender fairness.

What you can do for men’s issues

Contact the media: Write to your newspaper, magazine, radio/TV station or internet service provider expressing your concern at the lack of sensitivity toward men’s issues in the media. Or call in to a talk radio show.

Confront people engaging in anti-male bias: In the most tactful manner possible, of course. Let people know of the harm that such bias causes, and that you would like them to stop.

Boycott companies that use anti-male advertising: Write to companies that promote their products by disparaging men or boys. Let them know that you will boycott their products and services until they cease this practice.

Contact your politician: Let your politician know your concern about men’s issues, and that your vote and support may depend on their position on these issues. Join a political group or caucus, if one is available in your area.

Join or form a local men’s group: This is a great way to meet others in your area who are interested in the men’s movement.

Get better informed: The following contacts, resources, and books are a good start.

Contacts and Resources

Desert Light Journal

http://www.desertlightjournal.homestead.com/

Men’s Issues Online

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MensIssuesOnline

Mensactivism.org

http://www.mensactivism.org

Men’s News Daily

http://www.mensnewsdaily.com

MaleDepression.com

http://www.maledepression.com

National Coalition of Free Men

http://www.ncfm.org

National Congress for Fathers and Children

http://www.ncfc.net

Stop Abuse for Everyone

http://www.safe4all.org

Domestic Violence against Men

http://www.dvmen.org

Men's Health Network

http://www.menshealthnetwork.org/

Suggested Reading

Baumli, Francis. Men Freeing Men: Exploding the myth of the traditional male
(St. Louis: New Atlantis Press, 1985).

Farrell, Warren. The Myth of Male Power (New York: Berkley Books, 1993).

Farrell, Warren.Women Can’t Hear what Men Don’t Say: The myths that divide couples and poison love (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1999).

Goldberg, Herb. The Hazards of Being Male: Surviving the myth of masculine privilege (New York: New American Library, 1976).

Hoff-Sommers, Christina. The War against Boys: How misguided feminism is harming our young men (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

Hoff-Sommers, Christina. Who Stole Feminism: How women have betrayed women (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994).

Nathanson, Paul and Young, Katherine K. Spreading Misandry: The teaching of contempt for men in popular culture (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2001).

© 2003 by Steven G. Van Valkenburg. Adapted from “What is the Men’s Movement” by Trudy W. Schuett. Content used with permission of the author.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MensIssuesOnline

longshot · #10 04-02-2007, 12:26 PM

for the "why?"
people:

there is bitter war taking place in the mideast. islamofascists versus anglofascists. women are generally playing victims or antiwar activists, not waging the war or calling for more. generally...this question of women's rights -- -autonomy, equality -- it is at the true heart of all questions of 'why is there war.' pro war people will say this is lies, but they don't want too much thinking and theorizing on the causes of war. they just want more war for military-industrial coffers. cooler heads will prevail eventually. i just want it to happen sooner than later. Eisler is the most erudite and sophisticated feminist/women's studies writer i can think of, although there are many like her, Z Budapest, Starhawk, Marija Gimbutas...the America of the early 21st century is an extremely fascistic and male-dominated culture pretending to be on the verge of enlightenment, it's counter intellectual more often than not.

so anyway...