Conference turris::womannotes-v1

312.0. "Imagine, a different world..." by SLAYER::SHARP (Don Sharp, Digital Telecommunications) Mon May 11 1987 15:33

(This was recently posted on soc.women, I thought WOMANNOTErs might find it
interesting.  Reprinted totally without permission.)

This exercise was written by Theodora Wells, a feminist and a business
communications and training consultant working in Los Angeles, California,
who has written a book called "Breakthrough:  Women into Management" (Van
Nostrand Reinhold, cloth).  Her exercise is designed to help a woman imagine
a world without the myth of male superiority as a working premise.  It could
be a powerful exercise to use in a consciousness raising group or to start
people thinking about their female self-image and its practical effects on
our living.
 
We need to protect and nurture our connections with other women.  Female
alienation is encouraged by male chauvinism.  I need to watch for places
where my own attitude is altered by cultural prejudices which distort my
self-image and my perception of other women.  How much of the social
feminine stereotype do I accept and take part in?
 
 
"Woman - Which Includes Man, Of Course:  An Experience in Awareness"
--------------------------------------------------------------------
 
There is much concern today about the future of man, which means, of course,
both men and women -- generic Man.  For a woman to take exception to this
use of the term "man" is often seen as defensive hair-splitting by an
"emotional female."
 
The following experience is an invitation to awareness in which you are
asked to feel into, and stay with, your feelings through each step, letting
them absorb you.  If you start intellectualizing, try to turn it down and
let your feelings again surface to your awareness.
 
* Consider reversing the generic term Man.  Think of the future of Woman
which, of course, includes both women and men.  Feel into that, sense its
meaning to you -- as a woman -- as a man.
 
* Think of it always being that way, every day of your life. Feel the
everpresence of woman and feel the nonpresence of man.  Absorb what it tells
you about the importance and value of being woman -- of being man.
 
* Recall that everything you have ever read all your life uses only female
pronouns -- she, her -- meaning both girls and boys, both women and men.
Recall that most of the voices on radio and most of the faces on TV are
women's -- when important events are covered -- on commercials -- and on the
late talk shows.  Recall that you have no male senator representing you in
Washington.
 
* Feel into the fact that women are the leaders, the power-centers, the
prime-movers.  Man, whose natural role is husband and father, fulfills
himself through nurturing children and making the home a refuge for woman.
This is only natural to balance the biological role of woman who devotes
her entire body to the race during pregnancy.
 
* Then feel further into the obvious biological explanation for woman as the
ideal -- her genital construction.  By design, female genitals are compact
and internal, protected by her body.  Male genitals are so exposed that he
must be protected from outside attack to assure the perpetuation of the
race.  His vulnerability clearly requires sheltering.
 
* Thus, by nature, males are more passive than females, and have a desire in
sexual relations to be symbolically engulfed by the protective body of the
woman.  males psychologically yearn for this protection, fully realizing
their mascuilinity at this time -- feeling exposed and vulnerable at other
times.  The male is not fully adult until he has overcome his infantile
tendency to penis orgasm and has achieved the mature surrender of the
testicle orgasm.  He then feels himself a "whole man" when engulfed by the
woman.
 
* If the male denies these feelings, he is unconsciously rejecting his
macsculinity.  Therapy is thus indicated to help him adjust to his own
nature.  Of course, therapy is administered by a woman, who has the
education and wisdom to facilitate openness leading to the male's growth and
self-actualization.
 
* To help him feel into his defensive emotionality, he is invited to get in
touch with the "child" in him.  He remembers his sister's jeering at his
primitive genitals that "flop around foolishly."  She can run, climb and
ride horseback unencumbered.  Obviously, since she is free to move, she is
encouraged to develop her body and mind in preparation for her active
responsibilities of adult womanhood.  The male vulnerability needs female
protection, so he is taught the less active, caring, virtues of homemaking.
 
* Because of his clitoris-envy, he learns to strap up his genitals, and
learns to feel ashamed and unclean because of his nocturnal emissions.
Instead, he is encouraged to keep his body lean and dream of getting
married, waiting for the time of his fulfillment -- when "his woman" gives
him a girl-child to carry on the family name.  He knows that if it is a
boy-child he has failed somehow -- but they can try again.
 
In getting to your feelings on being a woman -- on being a man -- stay with
the sensing you are now experiencing.  As the words begin to surface, say
what you feel from inside you.

    Thanks, Don!  I ran into that years ago and have always wanted to
    find it again.
    
    How *powerful* that is!
    
    						=maggie

    I have an excellent book to recommend called _Egalia's Daughters_
    by Gerd Brantenberg (translated from Norwegian by Louis Mackay).
    It's a brilliant satire on sex roles, and will no doubt make it
    impossible to ever look at the world quite the same way again.
    It's available at New Words, in Inman Square (Cambridge).
    
    herewith an excerpt, reproduced completely without permission:


        'A lot of my class haven't stared wearing pehoes yet.'
    	This was untrue.  In fact there was only Cyprian and he was
    much less developed than Petronius.  But Petronius didn't want one.
    The boys said it was awkward and uncomfortable, cramming your penis
    into that stupid box.  And it was so impractical when you had to
    pee.  First you had to loosen the waistband which held the peho
    in place.  The waistband was fastened under the skirt, so you stood
    fumbling for a long time, especially at first.  The waistband was
    ususally too tight and it cut into the skin.  Moreover, you had
    to sew a slit into each of your skirts so the peho might hang freely
    outside.  Some said the peho was scratchy, too; others said this
    depended on the material.  It was possible to get pehoes in really
    soft cloth that caused no irritation, but they were expensive and
    Petronius didn't think he dared ask for a peho like that.
    	Some were proud of their pehoes.  Baldrian, for example, really
    did look charming in his.   Petronius sighed.  'I wish I were a
    girl,' he thought.  God knows how many times he had thought that.
    Then he would have a stout flap in his trousers or overalls that
    it only took a moment to unbutton when nature called. 
    	'I'll come with you and see,' said Dad consolingly.
    	It was getting worse and worse.  Petronius would rather have
    got it over and done with on his own -- though how was he to make
    himself go into a menwim's shop and say that word?  He didn't know
    which was worse.  If Dad came with him, he and the shop assistant
    would stand there discussing the length, colour and quality
    interminably.  Ought he to have a size five with a B-tube or a size
    six with an A-tube, they would debate, sizing him up with their
    heads cocked to one side, pretending that having a penis was the
    most natural thing in the world.

    ....
    and just one more:
    
    He gazed at the inlet and thought of the sea rolling in.  That was
    how it would be with them.  The wom and him -- never-ending.  He
    would undergo a mystical transformation.  She would transform him
    -- his body, his innermost being.  It would be the profound,
    thoroughgoing transformation which all boys long for and which
    only a wom can accomplish for them; the transformation that would
    let him surrender everything and feel the truth and fulfillment
    of the words, 'I am a manwom!'
    

    Anybody remember the MS magazine "clicks" ?? 
    
    They're ba-ack..
    
    Dawn
    

    Want to tell me what a "click" is, or should I rush out and pick
    up a copy of Ms.?
    
    The base note is indeed incredible. It helps push back all that
    yucky victim mentality stuff I have running around in the back of
    my head.
    	Mez

    Uh - "clicks" - the click was used in an article written probably
    17 or so years back, to indicate the process of understanding something
    that one had previously not "gotten" - sort of like a light bulb
    might be used in the comics. This, however, was used to indicate
    the understanding of sexism and how it applied to the individual.
    When the connection was made, things "clicked" into place, so to
    speak. 
    
    As time went on, the "click" appeared in letters to the editor,
    or other articles, to indicate that the person had made a connection
    to  sexism and how it affected her.
    
    Make sense? Maybe somebody else (another of us old fogies?) could
    explain it better...
    
    It's gone out of fashion, by the way, so you won't find it in a
    new MS.