Feminism
Feminism has been like water, flowing here and there, breaching boundaries, eloquent yet mundane, local yet international, running deeper than a doctrine or ideology because it addresses a profound crux—the status of women. Whether focused on political, legal, economic, or personal rights, feminism speaks to the powerful, though hardly novel, awareness that the public domain was, in the words of the great soul singer James Brown, “A man’s world.” To say that women should not be treated like a sub-set of the human race seemed in its simplicity an almost ridiculous assertion yet sadly wasn’t.
To say that women were equal to men was not to say that women were men. That too seems elementary but was easily forgotten amid the rhetoric of time-honored usages about where a woman’s place was. It is impossible to sift those usages as to what was “natural” to women and what was imposed. Beyond the biological facts of women menstruating, giving birth, and suckling children, every behavior attributed as somehow uniquely female may not be uniquely female. The long list of feminine traits that once were held to be particular—vanity, frivolity, impetuosity, and similarly giddy inclinations—turned out, in the sober daylight of modern times, to be social constructs not genetic ones. Men look in mirrors, too, but men have, as it were, controlled the publicity department.
Though the achievements that feminism wrought were noticeable and, indeed, stunning when one looked at the history of oppression, indifference, contempt, harassment, and ridicule that women faced, the role of women throughout the world continued to reflect the fact that women lived in a world they did not make. Patriarchy, that large abstraction, was not abstract at all. Patriarchy, too, was like water but of a different sort, a primal flood that covered the earth and remained in every crevice of existence. Over that flood brooded a warlord, a god, a king, a priest, in all cases, a male omnipotence that created something from nothing. He pronounced it to his liking—what else would he say?
Brute power is a dismal but compelling story. How the power compels has made the difference. On one side, resides the magnetism of energy, the sexual charge that animates life. On the other, is pitiless force that men use to subdue, command, control, and turn women into chattel. There means rape and the story of women who have given birth to a child conceived in violence. The Greeks acknowledged that story as a matter of life and myth. In the beginning was the unspeakable that issued into art and poetry. As Yeats wrote in “Leda and the Swan”: “Did she put on his knowledge with his power / Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?” Beyond that unanswerable question, the Greeks, to their credit, recognized the pathos that went with power.
In the realm of poetry, more than one critic has noted that Shakespeare’s tragedies revolve around the inability of men to understand women. Hamlet raves about his mother and Ophelia; Othello raves about Desdemona; Lear raves about Cordelia; Antony literally raves about Cleopatra. Even Macbeth, at the end of his tether, raves about “sound and fury.” Women are stigmatized for being in their roles—daughter, wife, mother—and for stepping out of their roles, especially if the step is sexual. Male nobility is pocked with ugly flaws, not only the bullying and subduing of women but the idealization of women, making them into something impossible and then blaming them. When women act basely—Goneril, Regan, Lady Macbeth—the world feels to men as if it is coming apart. Because they are not men, women are the wild cards. They are, however, not supposed to be wild.
Men have been free to imagine, women have been driven to fantasize. Imagination uses latitude to further imagine; fantasy tries to leap over constriction. Each—to repeat a word—has its pathos, but the socialized world seems bound to hurt women more than men because they did not make that world. Hurts, of course, are not comparable. Still, the great unknown remains: what would a world that honored women look like? To say it would be the same as a man’s world is cynical. To say it would be a utopia is more fantasy.
It is embarrassing and endlessly revealing that we must say of such a basic arrangement: we do not know. Though we can extrapolate from native peoples and ancient cultures, such a huge turning—the worship of the female principle—may seem far-fetched. Everything has been tilted in one direction for a long time. Yet if anything earthly (as opposed to the sky world or the underworld) deserves to be worshiped and celebrated, female fertility is foremost. It is the greatest power yet needs to make no imperious displays. Recognized as energy, it is the opposite of the posturing men have often favored. Its receptivity is its genius.
There is no fertility in heaven. All is perfect and changeless. To quote Yeats again, there are “no complexities of mire or blood.” However much women are welcome through heaven’s gates, the blandishment of an eternal afterlife seems, in face of the pangs of giving birth and nurture of children, a cosmic slap in the face, as if to say, “You give life but there is a better life.” God eliminates goddess. The lifeless eliminates life. The richness of mire and blood goes for naught. What Crazy Jane thinks and feels is no matter.
For a woman to be at the helm of a corporation, nation, or university (to pick three enterprises) is to show that women can pilot something crafted by men. How impressive one deems such an achievement depends on how much one values adaptability and how much one wonders about the complicity of women. Women can, more or less, act like men and play men’s roles. Such opportunity is an understandable goal. Yet, the modern obsession with achievement left little feeling for what was abandoned in the process or not recognized to begin with. Feminism appears in that light as a potent antidote and recompense but not as a full recognition of female worth. The deep card has yet to be played.
"... female fertility is foremost. It is the greatest power yet needs to make no imperious displays. Recognized as energy, it is the opposite of the posturing men have often favored. Its receptivity is its genius."
Yet another excellent mindscape. Thank you.
Couldn't agree more!