From: kumagic@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Stephen R. Figgins)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Women and Men Witches
Date: 10 Nov 92 08:51:29 CST
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <1992Nov8.180006.29875@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, radzy@ICSI.Berkeley.EDU (T. O. Radzykewycz) writes:

> OK.  Here's a synopsis:
> 
> (All) men have scummy traits.
> (All) men have good traits.
> (All) women have scummy traits.
> (All) women have good traits.
> 
> Do you agree?

> If you do, then why are you a female supremicist?
> Why do you feel that changing from one extreme (current patriarchy)
> to the other (matriarchy) will improve things?

I wish I had not used the term scum.  Perhaps I should have stuck with
the term asshole's.  I think people would have understood it better.
I like that piece of anatomy however, and was trying to reclaim the
word. 

I think men and women of our culture, and most others I have
experienced, are pretty screwed up.  Men of this culture are valued
more in our hierarchy of importance, and act out of this position of
power-over.  To be a part of our culture is to learn this way of
behavior.  You may learn to control it to some degree, but the problem
never completely goes away.  Inside the system it is difficult to see
the problem, and stepping outside the system is difficult at best.

This value-heirarchical system has been called patriarchy, and
although that does not describe the whole of it, it is a pretty good
description, and makes it possible to say such catchy things as "life
under patriarchy." 

Women within the system learn that they are disvalued, and find ways
to become valued within the system.  They often take on a reactive
role, that supports the system.  The only comfortable avenue allowed
to them within the system.  

Anne Wilson Shaeff compares this system to the alcoholic family.
Having a model to understand the system makes it easier to find cures
the ills of our society.  Eco-feminist believe this system extends to
how we percieve the environment, and that this value-hierarchical
system prevents us from creating sound environmental policy.  Others
have different names for the system, but all in all, within our
soceity it is a system that puts men, particularly white men, at the
top, men of other races second, white women third, women of color
fourth, and so on.  It is a kind of rating system that affects even
those who profess color blindness, becuase it has been drilled into us
by all of the society around us.  This system has, in my opinion, even
warped the collective unconcious or our world.  It is a rift that
extends on all levels.

If Anne Wilson Shaeff is correct, in comparing our culutre to the
addictive model, then perhaps a twelve step method would be one way to
get out of it.  And first in that is recognizing that we are fucked
up, and that the fuckups are beyond our control to repair. 

I really have to go now, I will try to get back to this topic later.  

-- 
___________________________________________________________________________

Stephen R. Figgins           |  There was an old woman
kumagic@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu   |  Who lived under the hill 
PO Box 1244                  |  And if she's not gone 
Lawrence, KS 66044	     |  She lives there still
___________________________________________________________________________
 
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