Dios mío, this is getting confusing
We have:
1. Occult version of feminism
2. Sociological/political version of feminism
Both are completely different, but connected. I’d say one is actually fighting the other, but that is just my personal interpretation.
Jiva wrote:I don’t have much to say about this itself, but I’ve heard the opposite argument made: men are taught to rate femininity higher than masculinity, hate themselves, get big muscles to express or reclaim some vestige of their masculinity etc. I don’t find either extreme to be particularly true.
Good point. Since one principle can’t survive without the other it may be a parallel increase/decrease of polarities. It is impossible to change one without the other.
Jiva wrote:I don’t think there is an absolute essence of femininity or, indeed, of masculinity. I find most of the characteristics stereotypically associated with either to be basically neutral and can’t see any justification to, for example, consider passivity feminine and activity masculine. Therefore, as could be expected, I don’t consider the femininity or masculinity of my appearance and actions, although if people wish to do so – for whatever reasons – that’s fine, of course. .
I believe that there are different kinds of polarities/energies/essences or whatever we want to call them. One of them is dominant more often in women, the other is dominant more often in men. To make them understandable we put them together into an archetype. For me, the key of getting out of expectations and clichés
was to find them both and to love them both.
Somehow that seems to be hurtful to some because people are unable to point out polarities/differences without rating them. (Better/worse/more important/ less important ect.)
Jiva wrote: But then I think these are necessarily subjective understandings of femininity and masculinity that I don’t see the point of applying to other people, as it seems to me that the only result is being annoyed when people don’t conform to your expectations.
We always have expectations towards other people, based on experience and what we leaned. There is no tabula rasa and no ex nihilo.
I don’t think this is just a negative thing. It’s the reason why people like to interact in like-minded groups for they provide more safety. Every child is seeking for identification to develop a stable personality. Gender identification is absolutely vital for that and it is connected to the physical attributes of course. Some adults –no all- are able to find their own ways of identification but this is only possible with a stable personality in the first place. It took me a while to figure out how important dogmas and identification structures actually are. Although I don’t really like them, they are still necessary to some point.
I adore both principles don’t really see the point in political feminism anymore. People always ask me if I feel oppressed because I work in a male dominated field. Truth is that I’m constantly trying not to insecure men too much. The occult version on the other hand is more important than ever for this is exactly what society is lacking of.
Cancer wrote:’d say contemporary mainstream feminism shares the basic problems of all Enlightenment-based thinking. It’s one of the forms of Western reason’s self-critique that’s so prominent in twentieth century philosophy. Thus it is still fundamentally doing reason’s business: reason is capacity for self-criticism, at least in this context. This negativity of reason is why all the great social theorists are at their most interesting when analyzing oppressive systems, and always seem to falter when something new and positive would have to be suggested. It is also why so many people experience feminism as alienating, ”unnatural” etc. The whole point of reason is to be unnatural; to free the subject from the object-in-it (e. g. to make it so that stereotypically masculine behavior is not necessarily expected of me although I’m physically male).
Yes, I agree.
But the problem is, that fighting against nature can be more oppressing than accepting it to some point and oppression often leads to violence in the end.