As many of you know, this project is very important to me and explores important psychological and cultural issues relating to body image/beauty, the value we place on image, and the harm we do to ourselves in attempting to embody -- or reject -- an image-based value system.
In a typically "feminine" fashion, I like to cast a net and get a sense of what others are saying.
There seems to be no shortage "love your body" campaigns in the media...
- Dove, of course, has its well known Campaign for Real Beauty.
- NOW's new message to women is "Love Your Body".
- And even Victoria's Secret is giving lip(stick)-service to the cause with their abhorrent Body by Victoria: A Body for Every Body campaign -- complete with self-serving model interviews about why they love their professionally sculpted bodies. (It is worth noting that Victoria's Secret does not even carry my bra size: 38A. Apparently not everybody's body is a body to Body by Victoria.)
These campaigns, with varying degrees of sincerity, encourage women to love our bodies as they are.
Dove amusingly refers to "widening stereotypical views of beauty" ... So we won't get rid of the stereotype, but we will pry it open a tad? Well, OK. I'm down with that: Baby steps are better than no steps.
But more important than cosmetically tweaking the visuals presented to us (which I give Dove credit for doing in their own limited way), is taking a closer look at the system of values that has driven this obsession with physical perfection.
This is where I get into the whole masculine/feminine thing.
Above, I refer to an "image-based" value system, which is predominant in our culture, implying that this is associated with the masculine (feminine would be feeling-based).
Other characteristics commonly associated with the masculine/yang are: rationalism/intellectualism, physical strength, heat, hardness (yeah you heard me), aggressiveness, visibility.
Seen as the opposite of masculine/yang, the feminine/yin is often characterized as: irrationality, weakness/vulnerability, coolness, softness, passivitiy, mystery.
But the more I learn of what I am coming to know as an authentic feminine, the more convinced I am that the very definition of feminine as the opposite of masculine, is itself a masculine mode of perception.
So I started searching for the term "feminine values" and came up with more of the same -- feminine defined as the opposite of masculine.
And then I came to a blog called the battlefield of love, the mercenary romantic, by a British Muslim political commentator (or so she says), who appropriately goes by the name Andromeda ("andro" = man, "meda" = think on, i.e. "she who thinks of or upon men").
Clearly an intelligent woman, she seemed to think only of men, and indeed appears to believe she thinks as a man, or rather her idea of a man.
And herein lies part of the violence women do to ourselves as we function in a system of values that is -- whether by nature or nurture -- somewhat alien: We embrace ideas and ideals far more vigorously than men do, and with no compassion for ourselves and others.
Men embrace these ideas too, of course, but somehow they seem to be less literal about it... or perhaps they, unlike many women, are able pad their egos with a healthy dose of delusion...:->
But women end up starving ourselves into a "perfect" body form, or mentally eviscerate ourselves ... in the end, making ourselves and everyone around us miserable.
Anyway.... obviously these are difficult and nuanced topics, which I will explore further.
In the meantime, for what it's worth, after reading some of Andromeda's nauseatingly sad entries, I finally commented on her blog.
She has not yet approved the comment (and maybe never will), but it gave me an opportunity to think and write about the concept of "authentic feminine values" that has become so important to me.
The comment is as follows:
This comment is not about your post, but your blog in general.
I came across one of your entries on a google search for "feminine values."
You refer to this term repeatedly, and often note that feminism will destroy society, etc. but in reference to the values themselves, you say only things like: "social cowardice, excessive emotionalism, an inability to reason and worst of all, masochism and victimhood."
But those are not feminine values; they are merely unfortunate behaviors to which many women resort precisely because they have lost touch with authentic feminine values.
Indeed, lost in a culture that infantilizes women as (to use your words) the "weaker and more unreasonable sex," women either believe this about themselves and enact the atrocious scenarios you gleefully report in your blog; or they muster their genuine power of analytic thought and reason -- as you appear to be doing -- and proceed to skewer their, perhaps, less intellectually adept sisters (as the quintessential father's daughter, Athena, did to Medusa).
So what, then, are authentic feminine values?
Unfortunately, our culture is so steeped in masculine values, that it is only able to envision the feminine as the opposite of the masculine which it prizes so much:
A la Bill Mahr in this segment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oop5fY755Jo it might be:
- sensitivity vs. truth
- feelings vs. facts
- commitment vs. individuality
- safety vs. fun
How typical of masculine values, and our cultural blindness to them, to necessarily see the above as opposing pairs?
To my understanding, the strongest feminine values are inclusion and relatedness:
- The feminine can see how the "cold, hard truth" might be known and comprehended with sensitivity -- and sensibility.
- It can grasp that a discerning awareness of feeling can lead to a more accurate perception of fact.
- It knows that a true relationship can only occur between individuals.
- It can enjoy danger while taking responsibility for the consequences of risk.
In its mature, differentiated form, the feminine does not need to define itself through competition with others.
It does not need to parasitically attach to men, because it regards the masculine as equal and values its different (note I do not say "opposing") perspective.
In the end, I daresay cultivating feminine values may save our culture.
3 comments:
You have always been one of my favorite authentic females, and this is a great bit of writing. I agree one hundred percent, and have for some time.
To my surprise, Andromeda not only allowed my comment -- she responded to it -- as follows:
The Chinese believe that a balance of Yin and Yang to be the ideal. This means a balance of the masculine and feminine virtues.
I believe the best way of looking at it is the very interesting word "husbandry".
This implies a partnership where the man delegates the responsibility of running his property and the care of his children and cattle to his wife while he is out bringing home the bacon. The man possesses the material advantages but relies on the woman to give him the physical and emotional comforts.
This may suggest to some that the woman is in a junior and inferior position but she is just as important.
There are many servants who have control of their masters because they know they have become indispensable.
The saying that discretion is the better part of valour is, I suggest, a significant tribute to a very important feminine virtue.
Man adventures, woman nurtures.
Masculine virtues assist in adventuring successfully, feminine virtues assist in nurturing successfully, apparently, but the trick is in discerning, in any given situation, one's gender role and the range of forces against us.
If it is overwhelming we must submit to survive.
If we have a chance of fighting and winning, we must stand our ground and fight, not just conform to our gender type.
I have not yet responded... already, though, I note several flaws in her logic, particularly around her definition of the word "husbandry" and in her placing the motivation for activity outside oneself (i.e. "the range of forces against us").. to say nothing of her understanding of yin and yang.....
It is a proven fact that societies that are male dominated are far more destructive and violent...there was a story in Glamour a couple months ago about a town in India that had high levels of violence because the female fetus' were being aborted and what remained was a town of over-populated, frustrated young men - there weren't enough women to balance out the ratio. Women or the feminine being associated with societal cowardice could not be further from the truth.
As you said, Carol, it is authentic feminine values that create harmonious societies and often inspire change that is necessary to any given environment because of the reduced propensity for violence. In a book I read called Protecting the Gift, the author, Gavin de Becker, who specializes in teaching women and children self defense, especially to prevent violent male crime, suggests teaching children to seek the assistance of women in situations where they are lost or hurt, etc. versus teaching them to seek a police officer, as most of us have been taught. The reason being that 99% of the time they will be safer, period.
Of course, the masculine, different, but not opposed to the feminine, is important and necessary for any society, but as in anything in Nature, too much of one offsets the balance and creates destruction and disharmony. I agree with you, even with the odds against us and how difficult it can be to fight against, the answer to societal pressure to value the masculine over the feminine is not to adhere to the pressure or to assimilate. After all, if our female ancestors did that, we'd live in a very different world...
The fact that we have survived this long is because the feminine is powerful, resilient, mysterious. That's what scares the crap out of men and people in general. Learning to reclaim that power without fear and living in harmony with the masculine, that's the trick...and what makes it more difficult is that this union has to happen within the individual as well as society as a whole. Will we ever get there is hard to say, but speaking for myself, I'm not willing to give in so easily...
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