7a. Evolution

The evolution of women from submissive to sovereign individuals controlling their own lives is a response to the millennial pressure, tension and conflict caused by male domination. Initially, the emphasis of the women’s movement was to “remove women from men’s power and its abuses.” As we progressed and improved our faculty for developing thought and language that expressed what we needed and wanted, our objectives and goals increased in value. As we removed ourselves from the conditions of male dominance and created supportive environments in which we could be actors on our own behalf, the evolution of the definition of power also presented itself.

The life of the average woman of today – her education, financial independence, worklife, awareness, individuality – is almost unrecognizable compared to those who came a mere fifty years before. Our progress has been sure and swift. And it is a good thing to have this in our immediate experience, considering the pressures that are now imperiling the earth. Women had to evolve – not only for our own survival, but to come up with solutions to save the planet from men’s recklessness. And we are in a good position to do it.

The feminist imagination is anchored in understanding the dynamics and conditions of patriarchal power and getting out from under it. As we had allowed their domination to persist, we were required to investigate the ways in which this power appeared (e.g., common knowledge, dogma, social arrangements, personal relationships, force) and why it appeared as such (e.g., tradition, mores, laws, male entitlement, our own submissiveness). These understandings were reached in a vacuum because women did not have a recorded history. Thus the development of women’s knowledge was creative and evolutionary.

In this context, women developed their intellectual credentials and the informed understanding of women’s reality as distinct from men’s. This is the core of feminist knowledge: it dis-establishes male dogma. Because of their particular kind of thinking (in denial or willful ignorance of the problems and suffering patriarchal domination causes women) men were excluded from the development of this knowledge. Today, some of the lucky ones have clued into this vast, creative and dynamic knowledge and have understood that by grasping it they expand their own humanity.

In this project – which is about the feminine principle, power and Mother Nature’s problems – we will continue to develop our ideas and goals independent of men. We will analyze the ideas and plans the power structure comes up with, what it does about them and what it tries to do. (Think of the climate conference in December, in Copenhagen, for instance, as an appalling exercise in power pandering and posturing and pathetic failure.) We will keep the judicious and toss the not.

A feminist awareness is not for the precious nor feint of heart. Feminism means constantly internalizing new facts of life which fuel intellectual and emotional change, unlearning bad emotional habits which interfere with clear thinking, and finally, facing the political direction of changing society and how people live on earth: all in the same day.

[To be continued....]