Volumes could be written about chapter 15, Gender Subjective. Due to its unorthodox approach to the subject of women in the marketplace, and their role in Globalization, some have labeled it misogynist. It is best left up to you do decide. This chapter, and the two which follow, are based on observation. The parts of the bible quoted in the work are not quoted as some form of instruction, but as anthropological evidence of the women's class around 525 BCE, and 70 CE. Again it is up to you, as the reader, to decided what value those passages have in the discussion. The feminist position is discussed in the next chapter.
It is sufficient to say that in the context of the overthrow of Globalization women play a key role, and are vital to successfully bringing this era to an end. We are seeing women's importance manifested (see twitter stream from Live Streamers Bella Eiko and Cassandra Rules -- to name but a few) even now in every aspect of the FergusonOctober protest.
This is not a misogynist position.
October 10, 2014
It is sufficient to say that in the context of the overthrow of Globalization women play a key role, and are vital to successfully bringing this era to an end. We are seeing women's importance manifested (see twitter stream from Live Streamers Bella Eiko and Cassandra Rules -- to name but a few) even now in every aspect of the FergusonOctober protest.
This is not a misogynist position.
Wealth, Women, and War is released in accordance with the solidarity principals of Occupy Wall Street adopted on February 9, 2012.Cliff Potts
October 10, 2014
In a nonscientific pole taken in the M.U.M.M. (Make Up My
Mind) section of CherryTap.com, the following question was asked:
Do women work outside the home because they want to be liberated
from their husband's economic domination, or because they need to due to the
economic realities of the current era?
Out of the 74 people who chose to answer the question, 33.8%
said they worked for economic freedom, and 66.2% said they worked out of economic
necessity. In the 38 side comments on this question many of the women added
that in their opinion it was a little bit of both. That is a bit of a different
spin than what presents today. Most women work because they have to. Is this
truly the fate of the liberated woman?
Of all the differentiations which are made in society today,
none has been more dramatic than the gender differences. That has exacerbated
the battle of the sexes over the past forty years. With the rise of feminist
rules, the demarcations of gender specific roles within the social contract
have become vague. What is expected within one sub-culture is an obscenity in
another. Where some sub-cultures expect the woman to work outside of the home,
other sub-cultures find it indefensible. This is within the general culture of
the United States .
The current gender conflict in employment, along with the glass ceiling, is
expressed by the perpetuation of lower pay received by women. Since capitalism
is a system where people are used to get the most for the corporation in the
name of economic competition and gain, this should not be a surprise.
During the thousands of years of imperial colonization, many
regions of the world were divided in such a way as to maintain tensions between
various tribal, political, and religious groups. In U.S. history this is seen in the
French Indian War against the English colonies. This is also apparent in Africa which now, without the colonial occupation forces,
has given rise to horrific genocides. This can also be seen in the history of
the Armenian population within Turkey ,
as well as the Kurdish population in Turkey
and Iraq .
Gender discrimination falls under this category. Historically
and anthropologically women have “received” their status from their men. This
is true even in the western heathen, or pagan traditions. Even today as
Neo-Paganism has given rise to assertive feminism, the ramifications of the
mythology is unmistakable.
The sun is the representation in the physical realm of the
“God.” His light rules the day. The moon represents the “Goddess.” Her cycles
are the woman’s cycles. She goes from full to full in 28 days. Many of the
ancient astral religions honored her at her full time. Even the Jews of
antiquity honored the New Moon as the beginning of the month and it was
considered a Sabbath (a time to feast and refrain from one’s usual work). The
moon rules the night, and marks the calendar with details. The light she gives
however, proved first by Copernicus and then Galileo’s observations, is the
light of the reflected “God.” Science supports the mythology, and the mythology
supports that women have the light given by the man, but cycle it uniquely.
It is worth noting that the lunar calendar is off by one day
every two months. It is best left up to the theologians that the mythology of
relationship of the moon to the sun is not carried forward to the obvious
conclusion since the ancients believed that the God was the consort of the
Goddess.
Since the oldest city in
India predates the existence of the English Channel by some 500 years, and the
Egyptian civilization by some 4,500 years, not to mention predating Judaism by
some 3000 years, human beings and their respective rules of life, have been
living, breeding, thinking and observing for quite some time. Human origin may
date back to some 200,000 years.
Within the
scope of our discussion on managing the affairs of human beings within the
globalized free market environment it is sufficient to observe that when it
comes to religious traditions, and therefore morality, women have sometimes
historically been given instruction from men. Gloria Steinem, U.S. feminist,
author, and editor, noted a change when she commented in the December 18, 1989
edition of Newsweek on the fall of the Berlin Wall that the event was “ … the first female-style revolution: no
violence and we all went shopping.”[1]
How willing women have been to accept the subservient role
with the social contract is arguable. Some say the contract was imposed by
dominant males, others would argue that women accepted and delighted in their
different, protected, but not lower status. The idea that men’s superiority to
women is supported in the Christian writings is a misconception. The Apostle
Paul wrote the following:
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;”[2]
“Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.”[3]
“But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.”[4]
“Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.”[5]
Current feminist studies continue to support the idea that
women are less concerned about the dominance of men, and are more inclined
toward task oriented and specific social goals.
What can be concluded, however, is that even in antiquity
woman have had far more influence than they have been accredited in the past
157 years. Much of the philosophy of subservient women comes from Victorian
morality.[6] One
of the discussions in the Torah – the
Jewish Law – concerns a woman’s right to hold tribal land. The summation of
that discussion is that it was granted to her since there was no male heir to
the portion of the land in question.
Then came the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph: and these are the names of his daughters; Mahlah, Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah. And they stood before Moses, and before Eleazar the priest, and before the princes and all the congregation, by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not in the company of them that gathered themselves together against the LORD in the company of Korah; but died in his own sin, and had no sons. Why should the name of our father be done away from among his family, because he hath no son? Give unto us therefore a possession among the brethren of our father. And Moses brought their cause before the LORD. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them. And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter. And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren. And if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his father’s brethren. And if his father have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his kinsman that is next to him of his family, and he shall possess it: and it shall be unto the children of Israel a statute of judgment, as the LORD commanded Moses.[7]
Over the years, many of the approved customs in Western
Culture social contract lean toward protecting the woman’s interest.
Ardent feminists would argue this point in light of the
failure of the Equal Rights Amendment. The Equal Rights Amendment(ERA)was
proposed as follows:
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.[8]
The ERA, if ratified, would have eliminated many laws on the
books qually onerous to men as to women. Current cultural historians tend to
agree that the ERA failed to give women protected status, and the National Organization
of Women (N.O.W.) failed to respond to the sensitivities of their larger
constituencies. As such N.O.W. failed to gain the support needed to put the
amendment into law. It is said that the ERA as a law was not too radical for
women, but that NOW was far too radical for most women.[9]
The nation in the 1970s was far too hostile towards bi-sexuality and lesbian
causes. The perception was that the ERA was a ploy by the lesbian community to
undermine the Anglo-Saxon culture.
Since the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States
on August 26, 1920, giving women the right to vote, U.S. women have grown in influence
– economically and politically.
The ERA died an ignoble death in 1982, after Ronald Reagan
and the neo-conservative influence took the White House from Jimmy Carter. In
essence, however, the protections sought in the ERA were guaranteed within the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution:
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.[10]
As noted, law is only good if one has the ability to afford
the court system. For most people the courts are slow, expensive, and a
travesty when securing individual rights. In this era of decaying
socioeconomics, rights under the ERA would be difficult to attain.
What can be observed in this era is that women do have more
influence on the nation’s ethos and mythos than has been possible in the last
150 years. For the corporations, however, the only notable distinction is that
women control the majority of a household’s discretionary spending. Women have
come to believe that it is their duty to control the check-book. This is
echoed, to some degree, in the words of Gloria Steinem:
Unless we include a job as part of every citizen's right to autonomy and personal fulfillment, women will continue to be vulnerable to someone else's idea of what "need" [is].[11]
In one of the oddities of the current social contract, a man
withholding control of the household spending from his wife is seen as abusive,
while the woman curtailing the spending of her husband is seen as normal within
a healthy marriage. The equity sought by Ms. Steinem is lost in today’s
marketplace.
However, this is not lost on corporations, and the focus of advertisement
campaigns on radio, television, and the internet. They engage the woman to make
her want to open her pocket-book and spend hers, and her husband’s, dollars on
the corporation’s products or service.
[1]
Gloria Steinem. "It was the first female-style ..." The Columbia
World of Quotations. Ed. Robert Andrews, Mary Biggs, and Michael Seidel. Columbia University
[2] Ephesians 5:25 AV
[3] I Corinthians7:3-4 AV
[4] I Corinthians7:33 AV
[5]
Colossians 3:19 AV
[6]
Further discussion on the specifics of Victorian morality, or the lack thereof,
is outside the scope of this report.
[7]
Numbers 27:1-11 AV
[8]
Equal Rights Amendment. (2008, June 4). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved 15:27, June 18, 2008, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Equal_Rights_Amendment&oldid=217121959
[9]
In part this is from memory; in part it is part of the dialogue of the times.
[10]
Fourteenth Amendment to the United
States Constitution. (2008, June 16). In
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:28, June 18, 2008, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution&oldid=219773042
[11]
Gloria Steinem (b. 1934), U.S.
author, editor, and feminist. From "Why Women Work," published in Ms.
magazine in March 1979. As quoted in The Decade of Women, by Suzanne Levine and
Harriet Lyons (1980).
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