Monday, November 20, 2017

CAN WOMEN SAVE THE WORLD? A PREDICTION

This shrinking planet and its rapidly expanding population by the human species will survive only if we learn to modify the old masculine power model of competition, aggression and domination with the feminine model of cooperation, compassion and mutual tolerance. I use the terms "masculine" and "feminine" more as a convenience than as stereotypes or mutually exclusive definitions, since I believe that each of us has within us a proportional share of both.

The man who currently occupies the seat of power in this country is the apotheosis of the masculine model, the product of centuries of our Western phallocentric culture. Devoid of compassion, tolerance and constitutionally averse to cooperation, he operates instinctively from the spirit of competition, aggression, domination and territoriality. He himself is the embodiment of masculine energy gone awry, and the motivating quality of his core constituency is potentially good masculine energy that is both wounded and aggrieved, and consequently misdirected.

We are witnessing, in the current, very public, almost universal, mostly female revolt against the widespread practice of sexual assault, the beginnings of a long-delayed shift of power, questioning the hegemony of misused masculine energy and preparing the way for an infusion of what I hope and trust will be a much-needed surge of complementary feminine energy.

It is not only in the area of sexual aggression, and not only in this country that this imbalance is manifest. We live in a time of profound global upheaval, indeed of global revolution. Much of it--as in the Middle East--is related to gender injustice and the centuries-old suppression of women's voices and women's rights. We will need to somehow learn to find an equitable balance between male and female, and between masculine and feminine energies, if we are to survive the current crisis of humanity. I see many hopeful signs that this is happening.

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