The Journal Deck: Entry One

"The rise of the Feminine is about all of us rising together to form a new paradigm.  How can you be more active in your community or globally to be a part of this movement."

Luck brought me a new deck, one, that like tarot or blackjack, has you choose your card and then deals your fate.  This deck, rather than being full of fortunes, instead gives a prompt.   A writing prompt.  One that asks you as a goddess, (the rebranded word for someone who's felt powerless and now knows their worth,) to reflect on your life and the society we live in.

This first prompt of mine was embarrassingly difficult.  I fight the patriarchy in my sleep and enjoy complaining about those who want us to teach them to be better, rather than doing their own research, and yet here I am not having done enough myself: I didn't know this phrase "the rise of the Feminine," so I turned to Google.

The first listing was this HuffPo article, explaining that the feminine energy lives in the second chakra, and is the source of emotions.  It details that living in this society, men and women are made to feel ashamed of feelings, resulting in suppression and even acting out.  It cites the #MeToo movement as part of the uproar bringing The Feminine to the forefront.  "Where vulnerability and honesty were once feared," the article says, "these feminine qualities are now seen as raw, honest, relatable, respected, and they give permission for people to be real with themselves about what’s actually there."  The rest of the article encourages the reader to share their truth without fear or shame, and to love themselves as they are.

This to me sounds like a pep-talk based on an uprising, but not the uprising itself.  So I did more digging.

Next, I found this passage on a goddess-y website called Purse for the People.  This article describes the phenomenon in question as "the Divine Feminine," something that I recognized turned me off just a little.  I've chosen to surround myself with skeptics of all kinds, enjoying their intellect, but struggling then to hold onto the spirituality I've discovered for the things that can be felt but not seen.  I have a scientific retort for everything I do, and reading the word "divine" made me uneasy.  How will I explain this? I thought to myself, delighted to find the answer within the article itself.

It bases this feminine movement as being rooted in ecology, utilizing Mother Earth as an archetype to create "a world view based in ecology, deep justice for all and an expanded global identity beyond national boundaries."  It cites technology as bringing society within a click of a button, making it easier than ever for us to choose between two oppositions: to conquer or to collaborate.  The author recalls instances where history conquered, quoting Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth.  He outlines the witch hunt by the Roman Catholic Church as "a dark chapter in human history," where the feminine was declared demonic, reducing women to child bearers and men's property.  He describes the impact as leaving our society imbalanced.

Now this I know.  I've discussed with friends recently that the best way to describe being looked at by strange man is to feel like prey.  We've connected over moments where we didn't know that saying "no" was an option.  Of course looking back, we knew it could result in further aggression, but in that moment it hadn't even occurred to us as a word that we could say.

I do hate being a woman in this society, which all things considered is a freer culture for women than many, many others.  And yet each day, I take into consideration what make up to wear when I am "unescorted," what sweater to bring to cover up my cleavage, which color hair makes me gain more respect or be met with more unwanted attention.  As a woman I am afraid, I am afraid always.  I can't sleep in anything but complete silence, because each nightly sound makes me wake up gasping for shelter.

So going back to the prompt, knowing now that the "the rise of the Feminine" is about bringing back power to women and "feminine" emotions after centuries of being seen as lesser, I ask myself how can I harness this fear into something powerful.  Like fearing an arrow, so crafting a bow to wield it.

Words, I know.  Words I can craft, maneuver, chisel, and slice.  I looked up how to make a sword, hoping to further the metaphor, but stopped when I read "first you have to figure out what you want your sword to look like."

That, I do not know yet.  So to answer the original prompt: I'm working on it.  I want to change this world, I want to make the lives of those I love and those I do not know easier, safer, more appealing.  I protect "the Feminine" by embracing it and sharing how it impacts my life, and soon I'll know how to I know how to make my sword, my stance; first, I just need to figure out what I want it to look like.

Here's the card from The Journal Deck by the wonderful Alyssa Kuzins.

What I'm Watching And Thinking

I've recently been marathoning The West Wing, which is, of course, yet another demonstration of Sorkin's brilliance.
It's interesting, however, to see what is still relevant from a show that first aired almost 20 years ago.

Clearly some things are severely outdated, for instance the need to stress the importance of the internet and what it could do for the world.  These fictional people leading the country preferred to use boxes upon boxes of documents when their secretaries suggested they digitize them instead...when's the last time you heard someone say "digitize"?  Nowadays that's the standard; printing is what we suggest on a rare occasion instead.
But speaking of secretaries, it'll surprise none of you who know me to hear that I'm irked by the casual sexism of twenty years ago.  All of the "be a man" or "he was defeated by a girl" lines.  One of the only strong women on this show is compared to Lady MacBeth... Being a man doesn't mean being strong.  Being defeated by a girl doesn't imply humiliation.  And why, if you're not a secretary serving a man (because of course all of them are women), and instead you're a strong and passionate woman are you likened to a woman who orchestrated a murderous coup?
I'm sure she was the inspiration for that one specific character, and yet in this Universe you either have to chose to be weak or murderous...unless you're the one exception: CJ Craig.  And yet she isn't treated fairly either.  When she walks into a room from a dinner function, the men tell her she looks great, but they don't compliment each other.  Clearly this mentality is child to the fifties and sixties when there were very few women in power and that was the generation after women had the right to vote.

So when we are the following generation....how is it that we're still fighting for equal pay and equal rights?  There are more CEOs named John than all women combined.

And that brings us to what's still relevant from this seventeen year-old show:

To be honest it's a little disturbing to see what prejudices we are still fighting.

An episode I just watched depicted politicians and society's predisposition to unfairly judging Muslims; "that's the price you pay for having the same physical features as criminals," the President's second in command remarks.  In another episode they say "Islamic Extremists is to Islam as the K.K.K. is to Christianity."  How is it that two decades later we still haven't learned this?

In the the first season there is a shooting where one of the President's aids was the target.  This was because he was a black man dating the President's white daughter.  This as well as some discussion on the number of black men in prison, feels oddly familiar.

How is it that a writer know to accurate portray society is touching upon the themes we still need to hear today?  Perhaps because we didn't hear the message the first time.  Hopefully we'll progress more in the next twenty years and I can look back on this post and think it impossible that we would need such reminders that all people are equal.  Everyone bleeds, everyone loves, everyone is doing whatever they can to find happiness.  And if they scares us, it's because we don't understand and that makes it our responsibility to learn (not theirs to teach).
I truly hope we grow.

What's Good: Day 3

Today I'm grateful for feminism. For being associated with it, for having incredible friends that cheer me on when I stand up to the patriarchy, and for being able to see through the B.S. when advertisers try to market towards "equality."

There's a fun rant coming. You see ;)

Over This Patriarchy

I am having yet another morning of being sick of this patriarchal society....and it's not even 9 am.

 I walked less than two blocks from my apartment this morning and had two men leer at me. One slowed his car so noticeably that he ended up being honked at by those behind him.  The other stared at me with this look that is hard to explain. Obviously people will and (I guess) can look at me.  From a safety point of view, sure, I want people in their cars to notice me as a pedestrian. But there is this look that these gross men, protected behind their cars of isolation and anonymity, give me, and one that is not based in observing their surroundings as a good driver.  It's not just of undressing me, but it's as if they are envisioning all of the wrong they would like to do to me. Imagine being a baby chick and having a butcher, covered in the blood of your friends and elders, stare at you, hot with mal intent, waiting for you to grow so he can mutilate your body.  That is what it feels like.  Does that caged chick need the butcher to explicitly say what he wants?  No, there is a feeling of fear and helplessness, of anger and entrapment, that is intuitive, evolutionary, inate.  That is how I feel when these men look at me, and how I know it's not just a "normal" look. 

And if I try to protect myself, assert my courage by using a middle finger or my spit, they simply laugh it off; as if my attempt to show that they cannot hurt me is as valid as a joke.  And that is even more insulting: that my strength is laughable in might compared to what they want. 

And that is patriarchy. 

A lot of people have suggested that I ignore these men, but to them I say this: 

It's women and men, ignoring this mistreatment for thousands of years that has lead me to face this today. As a society we have progressed communication to something that we can do with our thumbs, we can fall in love with people we've never met, we can travel anywhere in the world in less than a day.  But as for feeling safe as I walk down my street?  We have not allowed that to progress.  As a society we have prioritized technology and yet nothing of gender equality. By sitting in silence, I am essentially condoning this behavior, allowing it to continue beyond my time. 

And I refuse to do so. This needs to end. I plan to overthrow the patriarchy; and this is my beginning.