I ran into an old friend last week. Well, she’s really not my friend, and even if I wanted to be her friend, she would rather burn her skin and soak in a salt-water bath before having anything to do with me.
Let me explain.
Back in 1998 I had fallen on some rough times. I was working on myself and helping other men do the same when I began an interest in the intimate details of men’s lives. As a man who supported women’s issues for much of my life, as I began to work more with men, I noticed tremendous differences in the way society, research, and psychology approached the genders. To me it appeared the emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being of women was being placed above men’s. The closer I looked, and the more questions I asked, the common response I received to this inequity was that it is probably true, but it’s only because men have horded the attention for all these years, so now it’s the women’s turn.
I was struck by this heartless and callous attitude in two ways. First, it implied two wrongs make a right. This is something we never teach our children, but here were many adults - male and female -relying on this form of school yard politics to dismiss what I saw as a troubling inequity.
Second, I had to admit that I was guilty of using this excuse myself many times. And now, through my own personal experience and those of other men, I began to realize how damaging this thinking can be.
I began using the internet looking for research related to men’s issues. At that time, there were hardly and websites devoted to men’s. When I Google today, it is amazing how far we have come, as thousands of sites appear.
But during this time, I ran across an article that would change my life. It was an article about Mary Daly and radical feminism. For the first time in my life, I would see feminism differently because an introduction to Mary Daly and the beliefs of radical feminism would be the catalyst that would cause me to rethink my support for feminism. The deeper I looked, the more startled I became. I felt extremely embarrassed that I was so ignorant as to the details of the feminist movement and felt extremely embarrassed that I had actually defended them on numerous occasions. After reading about Mary Daly, and digging deeper into the history and details of the feminist movement, I would withhold my support for feminism, and take up a new position advocating for men and fathers. I felt this movement was more in line with equality than feminism.
As I introduce Mary Daly and her beliefs, I think you will see this transformation wasn’t a great stretch.
Mary Daly was once a tenured professor Boston College. In her career she has been labeled a “prophet” and “the grande dame of feminist theology”. She has spent her life educating herself, and in turn, educating others, achieving six graduate degrees in religion, theology, and philosophy. She also has lectured around the world about her spiritual beliefs. She finds all religions to be patriarchal and oppressive to women. This analysis (not really a stretch in my book) of the world’s religions, and her venomous attacks upon them is not her most notable claim to fame. What she will be remembered for the most is her refusal to teach male students at Boston College. At a time when the women’s movement was voicing complaints about the exclusion of women in many areas of society, Mary Daly was openly doing the same to men. She believed, and still does, that a women’s most beautiful moments on earth are brought to fruition when men are absent. Therefore, she would not allow men to “taint” her classroom. She was willing to teach men separately, and did so for a number of years to appease the administration, but having to sit in the presence of men made Mary squirm.
Surprisingly, Boston College did very little to stop it. They would reprimand her, and she would continue. Then another reprimand and Mary would not change anything. And this continued for numerous years. It all came to head after a male student sued the college after being denied access to the “women only” classes. Only when faced with a lawsuit the college knew it could not defend itself against did the administration initiated a serious look at the years of discrimination taking place by Daly at the college. The college finally did the right thing and forced her out… well, in this case, forced her into retirement. And Mary did not go without a fight, filing her own lawsuit against her forced resignation.
But let’s get to the details of Mary Daly and radical feminism. All of its creepiness came back to me after I read this interview with her at a religious website.
Here are a few quotes to get us started:
“I don’t think about men. I really don’t care about them. I’m concerned with women’s capacities, which have been infinitely diminished under patriarchy. Not that they’ve disappeared, but they’ve been made subliminal. I’m concerned with women enlarging our capacities, actualizing them. So that takes all my energy. I’m not interested in the differences between women and men. I really am totally uninterested in men’s capacities. If you’ve read my books, you might notice that I don’t talk about their capacities.”
Not the worst I’ve heard, but wait, it gets better.
I was brought up in the patriarchal way of thinking. I spent years in school getting degree after degree after degree taught by patriarchs. At Fribourg I was with all male fellow students: two hundred seminarians and priests and me. I know how they think and I abhor it.
What I’m concerned with is the war between biophilia and necrophilia. It’s love of life versus hatred of life. Necrophilia translates strictly into love of death, or loving the dead—actually f—ing corpses. And in general, patriarchal culture is necrophilic, fixated on hatred of life and love of death.
There is a tremendous uniqueness, but that uniqueness surfaces only when you have a predominantly female mode of being that is at the same time daringly, forcefully breaking out of the patriarchal mode of thinking. So, no, I don’t feel at all like a human being. I hate the “human species”—look at it! I hate what it is doing to this earth: the invasion of everything. The last two frontiers are the genetic wilderness and the space wilderness; they’ve colonized everything else. It’s a totally invasive mentality—rapist.
What Mary is talking about is her belief that women are at the core of spirituality. She sees women and femininity as having an interconnectedness with nature, the earth, the universe, etc. She says men and the patriarchy have tried to destroy this because this is what men and masculinity does – destroy things. She does not see herself as a human being because to her, that viewpoint is limiting, but she also despises it because it was constructed by the patriarchy.
As one reads Mary Daly’s beliefs about our world, it is evident she dismisses and despises any references to standard or historical beliefs, ideas, philosophies, etc., because these beliefs and perceptions were created by men; therefore, these standards are greatly tainted and distorted by the masculine ego and are considered to hold no value to her, or to what she perceives as absolute reality. She believes true spirituality and “be-ing”ness is found only in females and femininity. Men, she believes, are completely devoid of this.
But let’s continue with some more of her quotes concerning her beliefs:
If we lived in a gynocentric [female] society, first of all, it wouldn’t be matriarchal; it wouldn’t be like patriarchy transposed with big mama on top instead of big papa. It would be totally different, and I believe that it was before patriarchy came—this evil. And men would be different, too. They would not have been socialized into this—assuming that they have been socialized into it and they’re not all mutants—they would be different because the female way of seeing things would be, I don’t want to say “dominant” because that’s a patriarchal word, but it would be all-pervasive.
Mary Daly has been one of the prominent influences in modern theology which has challenged the idea and belief that God is masculine. She has worked extensively to eradicate this belief, but in its place, tries to convince others that God, or Mother Earth - as she sometimes refers - should be seen as female rather that male, but only if we choose to assign a sex to something that she believes is essentially gender neutral.
When challenged by male theologians whether that thought processes is just the same patriarchal sexism in reverse (and just as dangerous), Mary states,
Well, it’s not totally adequate because it assumes that there are two sexes throughout the universe. These are the models for reality, and I don’t know if there are a hundred sexes or if sex would be of any interest whatsoever in some system other than our solar system. How can I know? So it’s limited, but insofar as our experience gives us images, certainly the female is more appropriate for talking about nurturing life, loving and creativity on every level. If you have to choose between the two, female obviously is better. And I don’t even have to choose between the two; I mean, the other isn’t worth consideration anymore. It’s just hanging all over putridly.
When discussing how women struggle for “enlightenment” in religions that see them as having less value than men, she says,
I don’t know what “enlightened” means. It’s not a word that’s in my vocabulary. This is like a Christian woman being upset over something that Paul said, instead of seeing that of course he’s an asshole. He’s one more very macho asshole described as a saint and as enlightened, and once you get over that, you get over it.
Mary is asked about her latest book in which she writes about a utopian society located on its own continent, but surrounded by other societies in the world that are of mixed gender. Of course in Mary’s book, the supreme society is the all-female society:
It’s a description of an alternative future. It’s there partly as a device and partly because it’s a dream. There could be many alternative futures, but some of the elements are constant: that it would be women only; that it would be women generating the energy throughout the universe; that much of the contamination, both physical and mental, has been dealt with.
She is then asked about the belief that some “thinkers” have put forward stating that if our world is going to survive the future, it must become female dominated. Mary responds,
I think it’s not a bad idea at all. If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males. People are afraid to say that kind of stuff anymore.
To get a greater understanding of Mary, one needs to read the whole interview. If you are a woman reading it, her beliefs will probably make you feel a sense of empowerment. If you are a man, then her beliefs will definitely disturb you on many levels. And that is the beauty of Mary’s philosophy. While trying to break down the dominance of patriarchy in religion and society, she essentially is doing nothing more than creating a matriarchy that does the same thing.
Here are the most notable contradictions I found in her beliefs:
· Mary says women have a natural “interconnectedness’ with everything in the universe. But she indulges in nothing but contempt and hate for half the world’s population. This is what she calls a natural ”interconnectedness”?
· She claims that once women are educated into her way of thinking, they will finally “get it”. To me this is just a re-packaging of the elitist mentality found in many of the male dominated religions. Look at Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, etc., and one will always find a spiritual road map or goal that leads to not just enlightenment, but to those individuals that achieve “it”, they are rewarded with an egocentric and pious recognition from others that they finally “get it”, and are considered superior to others. Mary’s philosophy is no better than the patriarchy’s.
· When asked about the reputation that feminism has always been good at blaming men for all their problems, and that her approach is grounded in this same behavior, Mary engages in a creative, intellectual argument that essentially says, if women are blaming men for everything, then its cause is predicated by something men have done. So she essentially goes full circle, blaming the men for causing the feminist to blame men. However, when asked about male writers and philosophers that have challenged her, and other feminist, about their intellectual contraventions, at one point she says that the patriarchs have just come up with more sophisticated arguments these days.
Hmmmm! Isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black?
She says its not worth her time to argue with these men and the patriarchy because they are only trying to find superiority over women in every situation. She then reiterates that the inadequasies of men is why they just don’t “get it”, thereby implementing her superiority over them – the very same superiority trait she abhors in men.
· Lastly, she tries to convey a message of hope, joy, self awareness, and physical, mental, and spiritual interconnectedness in this physical universe upon women by way of her teachings. She does this by holding beliefs that are toxic, hateful, disturbing, discriminatory, hypocritical, marginalizing, angry, and heartless to name a few. Seeing she has completed six graduate degrees, and considering I’m male, she will have to explain to me how this pathway to eternal bliss while carrying all of this negative baggage works.
Strangely, I and Mary do agree on some points. I have always found religions to be extremely sexists. It always disturbs me to how the major religions think women are less connected to God than men, and that a woman’s view of her relationship with God, and how it affects her relationship with others is any less important than a man’s. And I agree with Mary that religions have always been at the core of creating and perpetuating most of the “isms” in the world.
However, I find her approach towards fixing the problem totally disgusting. Mary Daly reminds me of the saying, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” She has established her own world of discrimination to fight the one she lives in now.
Mary Daly will always be in my heart though. It was her aggressive and vengeful thinking that made me take notice of what really went on in feminist circles. After much research, I discovered that Mary’s radical feminism is just an extension of mainstream feminism. Fundamental use of hypocrisy, sexism, blame, and superiority to implement change are present in both mainstream and radical feminism. It was this discovery that forced me to withdraw my support for anything that embodied feminism. I believe in equality for everyone, but my methods for getting there are different. I’m waiting for a group of women and men to come together who believe that equal rights for all begins with credible intensions and dialogue. I see it coming one day, but it seems to be arriving slower than I would like.
But in the meantime - while I’m waiting - I could always read Mary Daly and remember why the long wait is worth it.
Contact:
A family court judge has dismissed all charges against my friend Josh. He had been facing three counts of battery for alleged assaults against his wife and one of her daughters (the accusation of molestation upon the daughter was eventually defined as an aggravated battery charge).
A Reasonable Voice In A Sea of Confusion
Tags: commentary, community, crime, culture, current events, feminism, government, human rights, life, marriage, media, men, people, rants, relationships, research, sex, society, thoughts, women
Second, I find the feminist viewpoint of the overt equalization of females in society really confusing. I know that this subject is controversial even among feminists themselves. The paradox is generated by the feminist ideology of a woman’s right over her body – my body, my choice. But for some feminist, this does not extend to a woman’s sexuality. Rather, they perceive any woman who uses her sexuality for the sole purpose of pleasing men, is allowing herself to be exploited by the patriarchy.
However, other feminist see women today as having a choice whether to use their sexuality as a means to an end – whatever that “end” is. These feminist postulates that women having the opportunity to choose is proof of feminism success, and anybody trying to diminish this success cannot lay claim to the feminist label because it robs women of the well guarded feminist ideology of true empowerment - personal choice.
The reason I bring this up is because I read two articles over the weekend concerning female sexuality and prostitution. The article on prostitution took the position that all prostitution is harmful, and is/should be a violation of law and human rights around the world. It states all prostitutes are victims, and feels that society glamorizes prostituion, and therefore, neglects the real harm this is having on women and society.
The second article is written as a counter-point to the first, and I want to commend the Chicago Tribune for showing the integrity needed on this subject by responding with an opposing view.
In the second article, an African-American feminist takes on the controversial paradox concerning female sexuality and whether all cases of female sexualization are really exploitive.
What I liked about her article was her honesty. She is a feminist, but she is willing to admit that the feminist movement sometimes acts as if it “knows it all” about women. She states,
“As much as my experiences have taught me, I’m still continually shocked at our lack of knowledge and the silence surrounding sexuality among feminists.”
It should be noted that I find her position similar to mine, which might explain the magnetic draw to its finer points. To the contrary, the prostitution article relates all forms of prostitution as a product of the sex slave trade. I do not feel this way. I also do not feel that our society glamorizes prostitution. If that were true, Eliot Spritzer would still have a job. Their generalizations seems to hurt their cause rather than help it.
I have written before that I am appalled by the international sex slave operations that manipulate, then kidnap, and then force women into prostitution around the world.
However, I feel it is a different story for runaways, victims of abuse, and others who fall into prostitution in this country. Not that their stories aren’t tragic or real, but I just do not believe that all prostitutes are victims of the slave trade, and I do not believe that all prostitutes are helpless victims. And I do not believe that all men who indulge in the services of prostitution are selfish, self-centered perverts looking for a little action. (I will right more extensively on this in the future)
I believe the true power of choice and personal responsiblity are uncomfortable thoughts within the context of gender issues, especially this one.
The power of “choice”: I felt these articles display this dilema, but I found the dissenting feminist and her approach a step in the right direction. It is honest and thought provoking. And it is an admission by another feminist that feminist can be wrong, and act elitists. Rarely will you see this.
Enough said.
Here it is: A Positive View of Sex
Here is the article about prostitution: Prostitution Looks Chic, But the Truth Is Ugly
Contact:
soltys.joe@gmail.com
http://jsoltys.wordpress.com