
A still from ‘Us: a Masculine and Feminine Narrative’
It would be really useful to get rid of patriarchy – right about NOW. Yesterday would be even better. Billions of girls and women, plus countless boys and men, plus the odd ocean and forest would all be doing cartwheels.
We doubt we’re the first to suggest that the best way to accelerate the dismantling of patriarchy is via a totally united, sharply focused women’s movement of unprecedented proportions.
So where is it?
We all need it – desperately.
What’s preventing universal, unconditional support between women?
What’s hindering a massive eruption of global female collaboration?
In our view, the biggest threat to women – and hence to the planet as well – is the phenomenon of ‘divide and conquer’. Yes, it’s associated with patriarchy, but it actually manifests in many diverse ways – some deliberate, some inadvertent. But, together, they combine to drive many wedges between women, and act as a formidable barrier to solidarity.
The sole purpose of this post is to wildly increase the number of men and women willing to install a new app – let’s call it the Unity App – into their mental operating system. This Unity App will kick in every time a person is about to make a decision, and it will simply pose one question,
Will this bring women together or keep them apart?
Apart = Problem. Together = Solution.
Here are some of the ways in which we feel ‘divide and conquer’ pushes women apart. Please add your thoughts below, and, more importantly, add your practical advice for how things can be improved.
Perhaps the most obvious, deliberate and dangerous is the tactic of the bully and the abuser, gradually isolating an individual woman from her sources of support. Most damaging in the hands of male perpetrators of domestic violence, but also an alienating tactic used by girls and women against each other. How can heightened awareness, plus knowledge of preventive strategies, enable women to help their peers avoid this trap?
A hugely divisive consequence of patriarchal systems emanates from their obsession with being competitive and adversarial, and their pathological desire to dominate and exploit. Indeed, the strategy of divide and conquer was historically used in many different ways by empires seeking to expand their territories.
Gloria Steinem broached this subject of division most eloquently:
I want to talk … about an imbalance that … has led to division, hierarchy and alienation from nature. It has led to governance by ranking rather than linking. It has led to worshipping various gods who look suspiciously like the ruling class.
I’m talking about the division of human beings into the cults of masculinity and femininity, into false divisions that conceal both our shared humanity and our individual uniqueness.
We are trained in this division very young, usually in our own families, and it normalizes later divisions into leader-and-led, subject-and-object, rich-and-poor, even conqueror-and-conquered.
What this means is that, if we were to pick two women (or men) at random from around the globe, it’s quite possible there may exist, between them, numerous artificial wedges pressuring them to distrust, dislike and dismiss each other; such wedges relating to race, ethnicity, class, religion, nationality, values, seniority, age, physical appearance or level of education … not to mention those gender-based wedges that artificially splinter, within each one of us, the naturally occurring range of masculine and feminine traits.
Then there’s social exclusion. If girls and women within a certain culture are kept out of school, kept indoors, kept away from their peers for whatever reason, opportunities for collaboration and mutual support are diminished. Where such women have internet access, can we now expect to see empowerment by stealth, bypassing traditional male structures of control? The extraordinary work being done by World Pulse is an outstanding example of giving voice to the voiceless.
Politicians and the media also thrive on divisive tactics, polarising issues and fostering a culture of fear. (Think ‘War on Terror’ and the way people divide over issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, gun control, capital punishment, stem cell research.) Binary, adversarial thinking is a marvellous tool for whipping up emotions, obscuring reason, generating simplistic 30-second grabs, and yes, you guessed it, boosting ratings and advertising revenue.
How can we prevent differences over these sensitive issues from becoming a barrier to collaboration around other issues?
A more subtle divisive pressure springs forth from the artifice of consumerism, materialism and the competitiveness of business. Here we see the master manipulators at work, trying to make each of us feel superior to the next person by shopping at ‘Hubris’ instead of ‘Humility’ … by stepping out in ‘Uppity’ shoes rather than ‘Acme’ … by choosing a BMW over a Honda. And if you work for one of these companies, they cleverly persuade you to buy into their ‘tribe’ and dedicate yourself to slaying your new enemies. (The enlistment process for corporate slavery is quite slick these days.)
We don’t believe it’s necessarily a prime aim of employers or brands to drive wedges between women, but, nonetheless, it’s often an inadvertent by-product. And it’s all a fiction … a social construct … a house of cards. Sadly, this patriarchal trait of competitiveness infects all of society, working to divide people and give us all reasons to distrust, dislike and dismiss that wonderful mother, daughter or brother sitting next to us, who just happens to be wearing a different ‘uniform’.
What else divides women, that adds to the problem rather than the solution?
How united are feminists? Is there any serious division around notions of privilege, colour, ideology? If so, how can the goal of solidarity rise above all else?
Is there distracting division or tension between those women who have kids and those who don’t? Between those who choose to stay at home and those who pursue a career? If so, how can unity become first priority?
Perhaps the most insidious of these divisive factors are today’s ugly addictions to ‘busyness’ and constant stimulation. (Funny how these two phenomena tie in very nicely with the false gods of productivity and consumerism, both of which dutifully serve the rich and powerful.) What’s so alarming about busyness or constant stimulation is that they threaten to divide us from ourselves … from our time, from our energy and from our sense of who we really are. They drive yet another wedge between our genuine desire for meaning, community and inner peace, and our artificial desire to meet the absurd, fabricated expectations of society.
Which leads us to ask this question: is this the final frontier for the ‘divide and conquer’ method? Is its ultimate victory to split each of us into two: for most of the time a workaholic robot who wears their exhaustion as a badge of honour, and for the rest of the time a hyper-connected, tweeting zombie … liking, linking, updating, downloading? We may be coming across as flippant here, but we’re serious. And worried. Because we never want to hear either of these statements:
“Yes, of course I’d like to save the world, but I’m too busy helping my boss trash Africa.”
“Oh, I’m already doing my bit to save the world. Look, I’ve just retweeted that quote by Gandhi.”
Granted, the online world can be a great gift to genuine change-makers, but it can also plummet us into the depths of distraction … and divide us from our true purpose. What’s your view?
In the near future, what other ‘divide and conquer’ tactics may serve to keep women apart? Restricting access to the internet, or slowing it down in specific countries, is one such contemporary tactic. Banning or limiting public assembly is still a favourite with the ‘command and control’ brigade. Can you suggest others?
Given the ingrained legacy of influences that largely determine who we are, what we think and how we act, all that matters now is this – within the minds of hundreds of millions of women, how can these artificial, divisive wedges be rapidly exposed for the primitive and damaging fictions that they are? How can we fast-track the installation of our Unity App? (By the way, why we’re emphasising women so much is that it’s predominantly men who are the authors of these fictions, as well as the lead characters. In essence, this fictional account is the story of the ‘old boys’ club’ writ large.)
Right now, how close is the women’s movement to a position where all girls and women across the globe can hear and live one consistent message, ‘You are not alone. We will all support each other.’?
And how close is the movement to a place where all who oppose them can expect the universal response, ‘Touch one. Touch all.’?
We love the expression, ‘Keep your eye on the donut, not the hole’. Regarding the theme of this post, the donut is the set of really big issues around rights, justice, sustainability. The hole is all those lesser issues that conspire to prevent women from connecting, collaborating and uniting. We’re sure the above phrase is the one Goethe would have coined if donuts had been the go-to snack 200 years ago in Germany. Instead he came up with this one: ‘Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.’
Two popular feminist hashtags are #smashpatriarchy and #destroythejoint. For all of us who wish to heal planet and people, it’s essential that we focus firstly on the pre-requisite steps of smashing the barriers to solidarity, and destroying the obstacles to unity. How best to do that?
If ‘divide and conquer’ can be used against all of us folk who reside at least several rungs below the rarefied air of the old boys’ club, can we also use it against them, to peck away at their shiny fortress of greed? Yes we can. And it’s happening. And it’s going to happen a lot more.
One key strategy is to drive a big spiky wedge between companies who operate ethically and those who don’t; spending, investing and working with the former while ignoring the latter. Another painfully rough wedge can be inserted between those organisations that actively support the rights of women and those who don’t. (Memo to said companies: if you try to interfere with women’s reproductive rights via your insurance plan, or sell computer games where objectified women can be freely tortured and murdered, then you will be punished. You will be hurt at the check-out, you will be named and shamed, your entire brand will be boycotted. And these actions may flow through to your sponsors, partners, Board members and senior executive team. Because, yes, it is that important and, yes, it really does matter.)
Tying in with the notion of increased unity amongst women, there’s a particular concept called Conscious Evolution, which we sense is on the verge of being embraced by vast numbers of women worldwide. To quote from the website of Barbara Marx Hubbard:
Conscious evolution is the evolution of evolution, from unconscious to conscious choice. It is part of the trajectory of human evolution, the canvas of choice before us now as we recognize that we have come to possess the powers that we used to attribute to the gods.
We are poised in this critical moment, facing decisions that must be made consciously if we are to avoid destroying the world as we know it, if we are instead to cocreate a future of immeasurable possibilities.
Our conscious evolution is an invitation to ourselves, to open to that positive future, to see ourselves as one planet, and to learn to use our powers wisely and ethically for the enhancement of all life on Earth.
In our view, the healthy future of our world depends on the rapid erosion of the most damaging aspects of patriarchy … which in turn depends on the rapid rise of women as an unstoppable force for balance, care and nurture, as opposed to greed, arrogance and hate … which in turn depends on the rapid development of a genuine unity between women worldwide … which in turn depends on the rapid removal of barriers to solidarity. To us, that last one is the most pressing and practical task for all those women and male allies who, at this very moment, are fully committed to and capable of systematically dissolving those barriers.
This is the first domino that must fall, and, as it falls, it will remove the lid of suppression from Earth’s greatest source of renewable energy: the untapped potential of a billion daughters, sisters, mothers and grandmothers.
Quite a rant – done so very articulately. There’s a lot to “not want” going on.
When you said “keep your eye on the donut, not the hole” I would phrase that differently. The hole is what we don’t want (the “rant”) – the donut is what we want (connecting, collaborating & uniting). It is much larger and certainly “tastes” (feels) better. (maybe you said that, but it didn’t come across that way to me.)
The contrast is so lousy, it makes a great case for connecting, collaborating & uniting. How do we keep our vibration in that space when there is so much negative emotion about what is currently going on and will continue certainly for this lifetime of ours? How can we love what is going on because it is part of the evolutionary process, and spend as little negative emotional energy there and work towards the alignment that it will take to make progress?
Let’s spend our time making what we do want the norm as you suggest, not against them, but for them to emulate.
Thanks for listening to my rant.
I think I was on some other site before opening this link which I have read fluently to say that… yes, we evolve and we do make our concious choices all the time of our living, which I think is impossible to be deprived of. Just sometimes the choice is so rigid for us to make and the goal is so righteous to accept that we rather opt for a ‘compromise’… with our own consiousness… in exchange we allow ourselves to think all is okay, while we are fine, calm and comfortable, putting our hopes that ‘food and energy security’ programmes will guarantee our blessed future and the future of our children, even when depriving someone else of it… by rigid and cruel means sometimes… and thus we silently agree to something that is not quite okay, right, or fine… and once we’ve compromised, it is harder and harder to understand those who did not. And what is more, it is harder and harder to find out who we are, where we belong, and what we are looking for. And it is here where the ‘hole in the doughnut’ appears, I think…
Whether these are men ‘to be blamed’, well, it is very hard to say for me and in my small life span I have seen women who hate and men who love…
In general it seems this way. The hole is growing , whether by conquest or by division, the human values are collapsed, the unity is missing… But it would be incorect to think that we have reached the limit. ‘Renewable energy’ of mothers, daughters and sisters has always been with us! And by far no one taxes it, includes it into measureable input-output models, assign cost tags… and thus it is still renewable, endless, and priceless :))))))))) Those who have it, enjoy, appreciate and love!
This is the good news, whether duly covered by mass media or not 🙂
God bless!
Greetings, All Women,
I am glad some women are finally waking up!
It is perfectly undeniable that Patriarchy is the fundamental problem on the earth.
When we look at science, there are several “natural elements” illustrating that patriarchy is the opposite to the “normal natural system”, which is the one that establishes itself naturally (when no intervening). The first one is the fact that Reproduction to every forms of life produces a Female individual by default (see Medical data). The Embyo is Always female by default. For producing a male version, it requires to change everything (after the 7th, semester, fot humans) from female to male. The second element is the fact that Only Females are carrying (and hence reproducing) complete living cells, including the indispensable Mitochondria (see Medical data). The male sperm is no cell, it is only genes (thus bringing diversity). The third element is the fact that Mitochondria DNA is only carried by women, and only transmitted by and via women (from mothers to daughters). Therefore, the real natural “heir” is carried only by women (see Medical data). These 3 elements are leading to realize that Female is the main status in the universe (male is accessory; gene carriers). And as a complement to that, every Social species in nature (animals) are guided by the Females (Matriarchy regime). Furthermore, in human history each and every bit of True Real Progress toward Humanism was/is always brought and established by Women (look at any humanitarian organization on the planet).
In the light of these elements,
it is about time Women take their normal natural position in society,
and establish a Matriacal Regime.
Thank you for cross-posting this to WorldPulse.com; otherwise, I’d not have found it. What you have to say is very much in line with what I have been writing for years. The false barriers which create fearful tribes must be exposed for what they are. I am both “masculine” and “feminine” in my sensibilities, which make those who want to pigeonhole people very uncomfortable.
I would love to see a world where we understand that the only thing that makes homo sapiens fully human is the choice to live responsibly compassionate lives, no matter what their genetic animal imprints dictate to them.
Thank you again for being a voice of reason, responsibility and compassion on and for our shared earth.