5 bigs lies and an awful truth

I am in the process of reading conservative entertainer Michael Medved's book 5 Big Lies about American Business. I am not far into it admittedly, but it got me thnking.

In the intro section of the book Medved says this: "Ever since FDR's New Deal in the 1930's, and perhaps since the Progressive Era of thirty years before, the public has expressed queasiness and uncertainty regarding the profit motive."

Now, maybe it's me, but I think that human's uncomfortableness with wealth and "the profit motive" has been around a hell of a lot longer than 110 years. For instance, here is chapter 53 from the Tao te Ching, written 500 years before Christ:

The great Way is easy,
yet people prefer the side paths.
Be aware when things are out of balance.
Stay centered within the Tao.

When rich speculators prosper
While farmers lose their land;
when government officials spend money
on weapons instead of cures;
when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
while the poor have nowhere to turn-
all this is robbery and chaos.
It is not in keeping with the Tao.

And here is Christ himself speaking, Matthew 19:24: And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

The Catholic Church had rules against usary (i.e. interest) and forbade those who engaged in it from taking the sacraments (thereby consigning the business of moneylending to the Jews and establishing the pattern of pogroms whenever times got bad.)

Essentially everyone from Plato and Aristotle to Cato and Seneca and dozens of others, condemed the practice of profiting from the lending of money.

Even John Calvin, the spiritual father of Capitalism considered profit making to be only for the glory of God, as a show of mercy to those who lack.

So here's the awful truth Mr. Medved: Progressives and liberals are not the only beings who are uncomfortable with the excesses of our gratuitously consumptive society. It seems pretty clear from a historical perspective that, if there is any being who is uncomfortable with the profit motive, it it is God (Allah, Jesus, the Tao, Zeus, The Universe, etc. etc. etc.)

Powered by Qumana

The oppressed majority - Part 4

In an effort to raise the profile of women's oppression to a level where nations will begin to come to grips with it, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently labeled its continuation as a security threat. In her speech she said 

"The status of the world’s women is not only a matter of morality and justice. It is also a political, economic, and social imperative. Put simply, the world cannot make lasting progress if women and girls in the 21st century are denied their rights and left behind." 

"Women's progress," she said, "is human progress."

And there has been much progress in the 15 years since Mrs. Clinton declaimed that "Women's rights are Human rights" in Beijing China. 

"Micro loans," small short term business loans, have helped women by the millions begin to have control over their own sources of income in areas of the world virtually ignored by the financial industry. 

Efforts have been made to address issues such as rape, domestic violence and contraception around the world, with generally good effect.

What is missing is a unifying perspective, a statement issued by the nation states on this globe that indicates acknowledgement of women as equals in all respects to men. Political and economic distinctions based on gender would need to be abolished and secular law must be restructured to eliminate any bias in legislation, regulation or operating procedures.

The fly in the ointment of course is religion. There are about 25 major religions on the earth, most with deep roots in ancient mythology, including primitive understandings of gender roles and relationships between the genders. With the exception of the Goddess cults and their descendants, these religions are deeply paternalistic and rigidly insistent on the preeminence of human beings in the universe and men as dominant within the culture. 

The political systems that evolved from religions necessarily reflected their qualities. But the systems - religious and political - now stand as distinct entities battling for influence over the people. And wherever the church has predominant influence on the culture, attitudes - as expressed by religious policy - will continue to favor paternalism. Efforts at secular government are greeted in these cultures as evidence of either the dawn of the apocalypse or a gradual slide towards anarchy. 

But secular government is the only chance that women have to becomes partners in the enterprise of progress. We cannot undo our myths, nor can society and government interact in such a way as to force philosophical change on this or that sect of this or that spiritual movement - that would be acid thrown on the roots of our society.

Secular government can establish egalitarian standards of human interaction and religion can - and some will - buy in… or not. The standard of gender egalitarianism is quite simple: there is no difference between the genders in the eyes of the state.

This argument is the Occam's Razor of the debate. Philosophical perspectives must retreat into the mythological or metaphysical to explain different treatment of women and men; egalitarianism says simply that there is no difference. Egalitarianism is the most straightforward generator of policy: there is just one policy for everyone. Egalitarianism provides the most straightforward basis for interaction in the public sphere: everyone get's treated the same.

I don't think that I am saying anything new here. Indeed my arguments reflect those of John Stuart Mill, made in 1869 and thousands of women both before and since. Nor do I expect this process to go forward without major confrontations within and without the cultural structures of our world. But there are steps that we can take to improve things. 

The first and most important is to address the issue of systematic violence against women. I encourage everyone who reads this to check out The Pixel Project: "...an innovative Web 2.0 effort to turbo-charge global awareness about violence against women." 

Unless and until we can end systematic violence, rape, genital mutilation and domestic abuse faced by women around the world, the middle class feminist concerns about wage equality, pornography and hostility towards sex workers  just seem silly. 

The oppressed majority - Part 3

So what if women are treated like vessels and chattel? As unfortunate pawns in brutal wars or simply less favored by God then men?

Despite the fact that prejudice towards women may be cultural rather than religious in origin, what Hebrew mythological concepts did was codify the subservient status of women. Leviticus (Here, my moderate Christian friends are going "not goddamned Leviticus again! I wish they'd never published that book!") makes it very clear that women are chattel: owned by their fathers and passed on to their subsidiary owners - husbands. 

"Yeah but we're past that already" I hear my friends saying. "Nobody really buys that shit any more." 

You know, "love, honor and obey" was a standard part of wedding vows until the early seventies. 

And then there's this.

Imagine the rape of a man being used to advertise the advantages of a new kind of zipper.

Now, please don't get me wrong. Many people choose and derive terrific gratification from the gender roles traditionally assigned to women. I get that the role of nurturer is a valued role and not something to be considered secondary to the "real work" of the competitive labor market. I understand that people inhabit the roles that they choose with great vigor and may not consider themselves to be oppressed at all. 

I have no argument with anyone who chooses and executes any role they desire amongst the people and in the places of their choosing. My issue is not so much with the idea of gender roles as it is with the inequality of status of between between genders. 

American social conservatives very much cherish the concept of the strong father, the stern arbiter of justice and a just deliverer of the wages of sin. Many women chose roles within this construct, and again. I have no problem with that choice. I am fairly curious about it. I cannot understand it. But I accept that it is a choice one is free to make.

The problem is that these ideas are put forward not just for the women who chose that role. They are seen as the ideal relationship between men and women. Women are, according to folks like James Dobson, head of the conservative money machine Focus on the Family, biologically and psychologically constructed to be subservient to men.

What is the investment in this? I confess that it truly baffles me. Why are men so afraid of women? What is it that will happen if women are accepted as full joint partners in all of the happenings of the world?

What does it do to the American family if Dad abandons the rudder and just rows like everybody else? If Mom has no role in the family other than that she choses? If all tasks, chores and roles are negotiated and based on skill sets and interests?

But in any case the people we are talking about have made choices that are generally honored among their peers (because they chose honored roles, or because they enclave with others in similar roles). This is the middle class status quo in the world community. But these are people for whom the prospect of rape does not loom around every corner and who are not surrounded every day by the ravages of slavery, murder and mutilation.

Which is why any approach to ending inhumane and egregious treatment of women -- as well as wage inequality and other discreet categories of status where women are regarded as less valuable than men -- must use the ending of violence against women as the primary focus of intervention across organizations and across cultures. 

We here in comfortable America take on our causes like pets and they become part of us, part of our vanity. But we can no longer afford the level of specificity in non-governmental organization activity that we now have. There is literally a fund, foundation or non profit organization for everything. Every injury, disease or disability category; every cause, issue or concern; everything that ain't right but should be.

Nowadays people do private fundraising for individual children. Such is the level of detail we now address through organized giving.

And much of it goes to waste. And I am not even talking about administrative overhead. I am talking about the fact that many things that are funded provide some relief but they do not make meaningful change unless the oppression and violence against women is addressed. In most cases the efforts of this charity is adopted by the community and suffused with its values - i.e. that women are secondary. Important nonetheless, but secondary.

So long as women are subject to murder, rape, mutilation and abuse  because men and the global society we have built consider women something to be owned and controlled, we will never be able to effectively address human rights.

Part 4: What is to be done?

The oppressed majority - Part 2

____________________________


Why and how are women oppressed? Well, there are a variety of factors, almost all of them cultural and religious - even the Buddha balked at the idea of female monks. He, at least, eventually honored his compassion for all people by withdrawing his objection when pressed by those around him.

Other religions have been more circumspect in their interaction with the female half of their worlds. In Judeo/Christian/Islamic cultures, with the exception of the Pentateuch, there really is nothing in the words of the spiritual leaders that would explain the oppression of women in the centuries of their dominance. 

Mohammed in particular made his belief on the standing of women explicit, beliefs that seem largely ignored by the fundamentalists of that religion. They were certainly liberal for the 7th century, though they could be dusted off a bit.

Throughout Judeo/Christian/Islamic mythology however, there is the thread that women are "other." That they have qualities that make them something to be watched, protected (protection both for and from), revered for their wondrous capacity to bring forth life and reviled for their alleged capacity to drive men mad.

I mean women are blamed for all worldly suffering, for Christ's sake.

Buddhism is more tolerant. At least insofar as its official texts are concerned - all monks were told that a life free from sex drugs and rock and roll was more skillful than that in which these things had a role. 

But Southeast Asia, a majority Buddhist region, has a huge number of women who are sold into sexual slavery every year.

Which goes to a main point: that attitudes toward women may predate religion and thus religion would be more reflective of the prejudice than than the generator of it. 

In ancient Sumerian creation myths, male and female deities are equally badly behaved. The same for early Greek mythology. There were differences in the behavior of their gods or demigods - based on their clearly different relationship to creation - but there is no sense that one was better than the other because of their gender.

The Judeo/Christian creation myth paints woman as too smart for her own good. Capable of wondrous things, but a person to be watched or great damage will ensue.  

In Greek mythology, it was Helen who caused the Trojan war, not the political machinations of her fellows. And it was Helen's beauty that was responsible for the irrational actions of the men around her. This theme carries from the Garden of Eden to women's suffrage: the world would be a much better place if women were kept under control.

In part three the author tells us why we should care.

The oppressed majority

Well, were making progress nine year olds can get a divorce.

Well ye know
What woman is, for none of woman born
Can choose but drain the bitter dregs of woe
Which ever to the oppressed from the oppressors flow.

SHELLEY

"Gender oppression cuts through all other forms of domination and exploitation in human societies. In particular, it extends beyond class conflicts, but it also cuts through all collective social realities - ethnic, national, religious, local. Moreover, it is closely tied up with the private sphere, individual and daily life, making awareness of its existence and the emergence of a collective emancipatory project particularly difficult. Finally, it is a socially constructed oppression, producing an ideological representation of differences often perceived as natural, and confined to the field of biology or psychology." source.

Okay here's the thing: I know that speaking of the oppression of women seems dramatic and potentially even a little patronizing. I mean, first, I am a man and so I am by necessity speaking of things of which I have no first hand knowledge. Second, I am speaking out against something that the subjects of the oppression have been working to eliminate for centuries and so, who am I to be acting as if I can have some impact on the issue? 

The problem is that I cannot think of the oppression of any group without also being aware of the oppression that occurs within that group and which is usually supported by that group's culture.

For instance, when I think about Afghanistan and the terror and disruption that is endemic in that ragged excuse for a country, I can't help but also think: "the women have it worse." In fact one of the things that the Taliban have in common with the government of President Hamid Karzai is that they both support the oppression of women. One more than the other certainly, but both see women as something "other" and have a cultural tradition of treating women as chattel.

When I think of the stigma and prejudice expressed toward Hispanics in this country, I cannot help but think "Latinas have it worse." 

When I think of people in poverty in the US, I cannot help but think that poor women have it worse.

Whether it is gays in the military, the development of democracy in another country or the impact of the recession on the American middle class, the constant will always be that the women in those situations, as a cohort, have it harder than the men. 

In the dreaded "untouchable" caste that continues to this day Hindu cultures, untouchable women are more affected by that status than are untouchable men.

As the quotes at the beginning of this essay attest, there is no form of oppression greater than the oppression of women because it crosses every demographic aside from gender. It is also insidious, greater tolerance being granted for this form of oppression. The United States maintains a cordial relationship with Saudi Arabia and Egypt despite the inequalities in the treatment of women in those states. 

Imagine not being able to access the independence and freedom of driving your own vehicle because you were born female.

Since war has existed, the standard process for victors in close fought wars has been "rape and pillage." A term thrown around with the same alacrity as "collateral damage," the euphemism under which it is now subsumed. Women in war are a tactic as much as men. 

Rape, the threat of rape, the horrible mutilation and brutal treatment   and/or murder that often accompanies or follows the rape and the fact that men's reaction to the rape of their mate is often to feel that they themselves have been shamed; these things have been constants of human conflict for women - generally waged in grand style by men - regardless of their own stake in the conflict. Women are "booty." 

In Part Two the author arrogantly attempts to explain all this.