GENDER, GENDER ROLES, PATRIARCHY & ABUSE
The divisions that were created were based on what the society saw around them – there were two distinct sexes – the male and female. This label allowed for the human race to be segregated into what we now call gender, and based on your gender you were expected to fulfill certain roles for the benefit of your family and your city-state. It seems that a vicious circle was being created, for eventually these roles pointed back to the gender and the sex of a person, and the gender/sec of a person pointed to what roles they would be allowed to have in life. This created a great divide between the sexes, and where we once saw ourselves as One we now had become at odds with each other.
As patriarchy gained momentum, the culture slowly but surely started to label not just the gender of men and women differently, but the inherit quality of each sex differently. They started to label men as the “norm” and women as the “deviants” to the “norm”. This allowed the eventual degradation of one part over the other, in favor of the other, giving more power and control to the one on top and creating the by-product of abuse.
Once humans realized they could obtain what they wanted by exerting their personal power with mental manipulation over another using words, and physical force if needed, the Cycle of Abuse was introduced into the world…one in which we continue to see the continual spread of today.
Abuse continues to flourish today because of our deeply seeded beliefs about gender and gender roles.
It also continues to flourish because we have bought into the lie that patriarchy imparted onto the human consciousness: that we are separated from ourselves (that Inner Patriarchy), from each other and from the world around us. For when we created patriarchy, we created that divide within us, creating the “other”…and the “other” has become our scapegoat for every thing.
While many different people groups have played the role of the “other”, and while those “others” continue to gain physical freedom, abuse continues to flourish. We seek to label one person the abused and the other the abuser. The issue with this, as I tried to show in my posts from the beginning of the year, is that with this labeling, we are still falling into patriarchal thought that there is an “other”. This creates an outward focus, trying to control the other in order to make our own inner world okay. Modern psychology and therapy have tried to teach us that we cannot control another, only ourselves. So why do we continue to try to label people with useless labels that do not get at the heart of the problem.
AT THE ROOT OF ABUSE WAS THE CREATION OF GENDER ROLES
I’ll say it again in a different way: that when patriarchy was created, we created a division of labor. This division of labor allowed us to start labeling the sexes into gender and then assigning roles based on that gender. That division between the sexes eventually led for the outward control by one sex over the other. This led the degradation and subordination of one sex by the other.
All of this outward “play” became internalized into our souls, allowing the human psyche to divide itself into two distinct parts, degrading one over the other and eventually trying to even deny the existence of the one that was seen as “deviant”.
Until we each are ready to embrace the REAL “other” who lies within each of us, learn to hold her, hear her voice and speak to her fears, abuse will continue to plague our society. The “other” is the feminine part of the soul that we have been taught to label as the deviant, the sinful, the wrong part of us, the dark side of us that just needs to be flushed out, ignored our brought into the light.
Until each of us is ready to Divorce Gender and Gender Roles, abuse within our own souls will continue to flourish, continuing to make room for abuse in the world.
Until we learn to recognize our duality and how it is intimately connected to our Oneness, until we can (re)define our thoughts and our minds and our beliefs, creating new ways to see the world – abuse will continue to be our own worst enemy.
Alas, behold there is good news for I am hear to say that that “feminine” part will not go quietly into the night. For even as modern science and thought tries to make the woman’s body equal to the man, trying to remove the feminine all together from the world, the feminine will not be removed from the world nor from our bodies. She is continually waking up within us and among us, calling us to remember our Unity, our Oneness.
She is calling us back into the Dance of Life, to be a partner in Unity with Him.
For where She & He are joined in unity, in oneness, Life is created.
For only when She & He are joined, the Divine is revealed.
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What a beautiful image to ponder on!
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