THE COMMENTS HERE ARE DIRECTED AT THE CANADIAN REALITY
IT IS MORE TRUE - CLEARLY - IN OTHER JURISDICTIONS
& TRUE OF ALL RELIGIONS
Violence Against Women - Causation
The transition from chattel to
sovereign being has been long coming and well deserved for women. From 1959
when my mother needed the permission of a group of clergymen to have her tubes
tied, to now when my daughters are absent from any ostensible obstruction to the
highest office; this is truly a great step forward for “man” kind. It is a
relief, as a father of two women, to have witnessed this progress. In society
at large, young girls strut more boldly now, less constrained by conditioning
and they are well educated. It is difficult to know what to attribute the
progress to in the past fifty years, whether it was the feminist movement
finally gaining critical mass or the advent of a pill that put pregnancy in the
hands of women as opposed to the whims of nature, or perhaps the awareness of
the enlightenment spreading into the western canon. Whatever might be the
cause, the future for my daughters is brighter as a result.
The blemish on this progress is
the incessant presence of violence against women (VAW). One wonders what is at
the core of the challenge, what fuels barbarism. Perhaps it is that in
reality, we are mammals, that because someone has the capacity to subdue and
sexually assault someone with blatant disregard for the “other” – they do. For
the vast majority of human evolution, we simply did what we wanted, when we
wanted, based on individual strength or alliance, the humanitarian imperative
was absent – I am unsure that we really have evolved that much. Instead of a femur
bone of a large ungulate as a weapon, we have adopted more sophisticated means –
the result however is the same.
When people engage in consensual
sexual relations, we call that lovemaking, when people engage in sexual
relations absent consent, we call that rape. So what is at stake here, what is
the atrocity, I submit it is the disempowerment of another human being. This
document is directed toward VAW, men do get raped too it is worth noting. The
harm is rarely physical, the crux of the harm is psychological – it is a spirit-breaking event to be overpowered, add to that sexual elements and the affected
incur extreme pain. If this theory is true, what is true by extension is that
RAPE takes many forms – the systematized suppression of women is in effect
societal rape – a violation of the spirit, a disempowerment.
So what is the cause of VAW,
why is it continuing and what is the cure. Part of the challenge in dealing
with VAW is that it is normally sexually related, we still, in varying degrees,
live in a world where sex is brushed under the carpet. People fail to speak
about healthy sex honestly for the most part, how then, can they manage
unhealthy sex. The generalized suppression of sexual discourse of any kind is
the problem; it stifles progress along the path to a solution. When you put a
thumb on the forehead of natural human inclination, something ugly always
squirts out the side. Humans are biological creatures first, that is our
reality, we need to manage ourselves from that perspective. Morality should
have as a base premise, the presence or absence of harm; from there we can
bring a rational mind to the challenge.
We, hitherto, have lived in a
male-dominated society – I suppose through history there are examples of female-dominated societies – they are few. When might was right, men had the upper
hand. As the social complex became more developed, women still had the
vulnerability of childbearing – men have never been barefoot and pregnant;
which gave men the upper hand. We know this is true, because this reality is
omnipresent in contemporary society – women still carry the largest share of
domestic concerns. Until now, men have had the upper hand, and as we know, power
corrupts, corrupts in a multitude of ways; VAW is such a corruption.
Western males are conditioned
under the fusion of Christian theology and stoicism. This fusion in conjunction
with male biology is a very conflicted place. The Christian discourse around
sexuality, what there is of it, is inherently conflicted – sex tends to be
demonized or sullied to a degree here. Stoicism is largely misinterpreted as
control over emotions; control over emotions often results in suppression of
emotion and by extension, fear of emotions. Add to this male biology – primal
inclinations – the deep-seated desire to spread genes and the resulting tacit support
from peers, even mother’s in this regard, and you have a cauldron of human
interface that is unhealthy and often unfair.
Often as a male, the most
treasured facet of society is femininity, often treasurer tacitly - treasured
nonetheless. Living life as a male, the female occupies our mind and drives many
of our decisions. Women nurture us and then they let us go, only to occupy our
minds 24/7 as their biology becomes a point of fascination (young men talk
about women). Their presence in our psyche holds sway over us, there is a
powerful paradox in our development, where we are immersed in our dependence on
women and then societal conditioning requires us to take a different stance, as
both the dominant moral complex and the stoic imperative for emotional
independence come into play. There have been historical requirements of men
that preclude the luxury of acquiescing to the comforts women provided as
nurturers. The nagging inclination toward the comforts of that nurturing, in
the context of our requirements as men, creates a conflict. Out of that male
internalized conflict emerged the patriarchal society. Once the investment is
made in a woman, males tend to want to secure that association for a host of
reasons. The liberation of females challenges this inclination, which is why
society became structured the way it was during the age of the patriarch.
Violence is born of three things
in large part, the desire to dominate, the desire to prevent domination and
fear. Domination is a freighting space; the western male’s conditioning is a
product of argumentative thought; we are taught to be oppositional, to deploy
tactics and win the day. Intellectual confrontations often extend to physical
confrontations. A culture with the imperative to hold domain over ourselves, or
to dominate has emerged - dominate or be dominated. The innate desire to have a
women’s appreciation linked to maternal bonding is powerful, it redirects us
away from the traditional precepts of strength and independence and threatens self- domain, FEAR, plays a role here; paradoxically
a woman’s affections can occupy the mind as a threat. This may in part be the birthplace of misogyny, this may be the place where the Montreal Massacre came
from, or less extreme, or perhaps causal, this may have been the place where
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians came from.
So again, hear the conflict,
firstly men want to spread genes, secondly, we want fidelity – the only
assurance that genes are getting spread is fidelity, so fidelity trumps all –
hence the moral complex around western sexual relations and fidelity. So in developing
the patriarchal society, men, have had an aim at play, fidelity. Fidelity, the
accurate copy is innately important to men – men want to know “our” children
are our own; innate one would imagine at the most base level, it would be a biological
desire. There is no biological imperative for monogamy; monogamy is a cultural
means to ensure every man gets his own and or to prevent conflict. In fact,
monogamy gets in the way of spreading our genes. So here too the liberation of
females falls a fowl with male desires, or at least potentially so, or perhaps
more likely so.
The introduction of Greek philosophy
in Abrahamic morality is a source of consternation for men in the contemporary
setting. Plato’s ideal of “being above
the senses” precluded him from enjoying female company, some still hold celibacy
as an ideal to be aspired to – and encounter self-loathing when they fall short.
This is of course a perversion of human discourse that has caused perversion of
human sexuality and resulted in perverse outcomes.
The Christian narrative around
sexuality is complex, conflicted, sullies sexual relations and generates an inappropriate
physiological space around virtue. There is at once a requirement for women to
be virtuous and a lover, a circumstance that has a woman becoming somehow less
acceptable for having been a woman. The language that one encounters around sexual
relations in Church is often derogatory – “sins of the flesh” and the like; this
puts in place a conflict with virtuosity and sexual relations. The exaltation
of virginity (the absence of sexual activity) imposes a diminished state on those who have chosen to engage in
sexual relations.
By way of example Original Sin,
is a doctrine developed by a very conflicted man in about 400 AD, Original
Sin is in no way the word of Christ. The Original Sin doctrine proposes that by
our nature we are sinners and that the pleasure derived from sexual relations
is sinful. Original Sin besmirched our humanity and fowls sexual relations.
Original Sin is more of a Platonic ideal than one that Christ would have propagated.
Christ embraced love; Original Sin is misplaced in Christianity.
The generalized SUPPRESSION of
sexuality by Christianity has sexuality “erupting” in inappropriate ways,
violent ways. Perhaps in part, VAW finds some cause here. It certainly raises
its head in religious institutions, as has come to light since the sexual revolution
has permitted victims of sexual abuse to speak of the incursions on their
person. It seems often, where people with suppressed sexuality gain power over
others, sexuality is actuated in painful ways, in forms of abuse – residential schools
for example.
The violence that emanates from sexual
suppression is evident in so many ways in Christian institutions, in the
pre-sexual revolution era women who became pregnant out of wedlock incurred violent
rebuke and marginalization from the Church. Our policies around prostitution that
leave the most vulnerable in often the most deplorable of conditions, is an act
of violence that emanates from the institutional Christian moral complex. When people exist
affected by suppression, in the case of sexual suppression and other forms of
suppression, that is to say, they are in effect fighting to contain an
inclination, and their response to that inclinations enactment is often violent.
You could say that the greater the degree of desire, the higher the degree of
suppression, and then greater the degree of violence that is elicited in response.
From Eve who betrayed men to the
Virgin Mary as an ideal, the ostensible foundation of Christian morality as it
relates to sexuality lands on the male psyche in ways that affect our
interface with women negatively. It may be posited that in our secular society
that most young men are unaware of biblical teachings and Eve and Mary hold no
sway with them, the truth, however, is that these concepts amplify as they enter
and are distributed through the narrative.
It is my assertion that the tacit
double sexual standard that exalts men in sexual conquest and sullies women in
sexual participation (thankfully diminished in contemporary society) emanates
from the Christian ideals of femininity and the biological inclinations of men,
in conjunction with the male desire for fidelity. It may be, that the more generalized
double standards between men and women in society finds some cause here as
well.
The Abrahamic moral complex, in
fact, the entire human moral complex, as it relates to human sexuality came into
being thousands of years ago. It was developed to generate a harmonious
society, to reduce male conflict, to create the family unit, to satiate the
male desire for fidelity and to manage the negative externalities that can flow
from human sexuality. It was developed at a time when the consequences of the sexual
interface were dire for people – especially young women, so the rhetoric and
response to sexual interface had to be extreme and strict. The moral complex
that has arisen from these times is still being projected throughout the human
discourse, some are a help, and some are a hindrance. As this arcane and archaic
moral complex finds expression in society, in the form of government policy and
actions, and in the general human endeavour, it effects VAW, and confounds an equitable
and loving interface between men and women. As morals come to us with our mother’s
milk, we fail in many cases to examine them; in the west, we need to examine the
Abrahamic moral complex and keep the good, and dispose of the bad - keep the
family, dispose of inequity.
With a clean moral slate, we can
build a narrative that is anti-violent and is free of suppressive language. We
can construct a human interface that is liberated, that allows us to teach young
people that sexual relations are beautiful and can occur healthfully as a
part of their general life course. When human sexuality is seen as it is, as beautiful
and worthy, humanity will do with it what humanity does with all things it
values, it will protect it and by extension protect those involved in it – this
is the thing we call progress. In contemplating a new moral complex, let’s
begin with the end in mind - a society of love and tolerance, with happy
children, the one Christ started his revolution for. The beauty in Christ’s
message has survived 2000 years of the institutional perversions that came from philosophical warfare, actual warfare and power-mongering because it is
liberating and recognizes the innate beauty in humanity.
