Matriarchal and Patriarchal Consciousness and Culture

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Cindy B.
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Post by Cindy B. »

Cool, AJ. Most definitely I'd like to read it. 8)

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If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by Cindy B. »

Happy International Women's Day 2012!

:D
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by Cindy B. »

And to those in the States, a thought--consider the current political picture and the reactivation of conflicting patriarchal and matriarchal psychosocial attitudes and behaviors (opening post).

Such events inevitably cycle, though, into the next activation then again, and so we go.

Cindy
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by A J »

Good to see this one coming up again, especially in this context. I looked back through the pages to make sure I wasn't repeating something, and, sure enough, we hadn't discussed George Lakoff's family models as metaphors for our political parties.

The complete article by Lakoff, Metaphor, Morality, and Politics, Or, Why Conservatives Have Left Liberals In the Dust (written in 1995) can be found her. It's an older look, but still viable, I think:

http://www.wwcd.org/issues/Lakoff.html

Lakoff's metaphors of the "Strict Father" for conservative morality and "Nurturing Parent" for the Liberal perspective certainly bring up the matriarchy/patriarchy concepts. I think it is especially interesting, though, that in his viewpoint, the liberal perspective isn't about a matriarchy so much as a partnership:
The Family

At this point, a natural question arises. What gives rise of the cluster of conservative moral metaphors? Why should those metaphors fit together as they do? The answer, interestingly enough, is the family. Conservatives share aN ideal model of what a family should be. I will refer to as the Strict Father Model.

The Strict Father Model. A traditional nuclear family with the father having primary responsibility for the well-being of the household. The mother has day-to-day responsibility for the care of the house and details of raising the children. But the father has primary responsibility for setting overall family policy, and the mother's job is to be supportive of the father and to help carry out the father's views on what should be done. Ideally, she respects his views and supports them.

Life is seen as fundamentally difficult and the world as fundamentally dangerous. Evil is conceptualized as a force in the world, and it is the father's job to support his family and protect it from evils -- both external and internal. External evils incLude enemies, hardships, and temptations. Internal evils come in the form of uncontrolled desires and are as threatening as external ones. The father embodies the values needed to make one's way in the world and to support a family: he is morally strong, self-disciplined, frugal, temperate, and restrained. He sets an example by holding himself to high standards. He insists on his moral authority, commands obedience, and when he doesn't get it, metes out retribution as fairly and justly as he knows how. It is his job to protect and support his family, and he believes that safety comes out of strength.

In addition to support and protection, the father's primary duty is tell his children what is right and wrong, punish them when they do wrong, and to bring them up to be self-disciplined and self-reliant. Through self-denial, the children can build strength against internal evils. In this way, he teaches his children to be self-disciplined, industrious, polite, trustworthy, and respectful of authority.

The strict father provides nurturance and expresses his devotion to his family by supporting and protecting them, but just as importantly by setting and enforcing strict moral bounds and by inculcating self-discipline and self-reliance through hard work and self-denial. This builds character. For the strict father, strictness is a form of nurturance and love -- tough love.

The strict father is restrained in showing affection and emotion overtly, and prefers the appearance of strength and calm. He gives to charity as an expression of compassion for those less fortunate than he and as an expression of gratitude for his own good fortune.

Once his children are grown -- once they have become self-disciplined and self-reliant -- they are on their own and must succeed or fail by themselves; he does not meddle in their lives, just as he doesn't want any external authority meddling in his life.
-------------
The family-based morality that structures liberal thought is diametrically opposed to Strict Father morality. It centers around the Nurturant Parent model of the family.

The Nurturant Parent Model. The family is of either one or two parents. Two are generally preferable, but not always possible.

The primal experience behind this model is one of being cared for and cared about, having one's desires for loving interactions met, living as happily as possible, and deriving meaning from one's community and from caring for and about others.

People are realized in and through their "secure attachments": through their positive relationships to others, through their contribution to their community, and through the ways in which they develop their potential and find joy in life. Work is a means toward these ends, and it is through work that these forms of meaning are realized. All of this requires strength and self-discipline, which are fostered by the constant support of, and attachment to, those who love and care about you.

Protection is a form of caring, and protection from external dangers takes up a significant part of the nurturant parent's attention. The world is filled with evils that can harm a child, and it is the nurturant parent's duty to be ward them off. Crime and drugs are, of course, significant, but so are less obvious dangers: cigarettes, cars without seat belts, dangerous toys, inflammable clothing, pollution, asbestos, lead paint, pesticides in food, diseases, unscrupulous businessmen, and so on. Protection of innocent and helpless children from such evils is a major part of a nurturant parent's job.

Children are taught self-discipline in the service of nurturance: to take care of themselves, to deal with existing hardships, to be responsible to others, and to realize their potential. Children are also taught self-nurturance: the intrinsic value of emotional connection with others, of health, of education, of art, of communion with the natural world, and of being able to take care of oneself. In addition to learning the discipline required for responsibility and self-nurturance, it is important that children have a childhood, that they learn to develop their imaginations, and that they just plain have fun.

Through empathizing and interacting positively with their children, parents develop close bonds with children and teach them empathy and responsibility towards others and toward society. Nurturant parents view the family as a community in which children have commitments and responsibilities that grow out of empathy for others. The obedience of children comes out of love and respect for parents, not out of fear of punishment. When children do wrong, nurturant parents choose restitution over retribution whenever possible as a form of justice. Retribution is reserved for those who harm their children.

The pursuit of self-interest is shaped by these values: anything inconsistent with these values is not in one's self-interest. Pursuing self-interest, so understood, is a means for fulfilling the values of the model.
AJ
"Sacred space and sacred time and something joyous to do is all we need. Almost anything then becomes a continuous and increasing joy."

A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

Cindy B.
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Beautiful!

Post by Cindy B. »

I might have shared this music video elsewhere on the board, but most definitely it deserves a place here. Enjoy!

Women In Art
Creator, Philip Scott Johnson
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/15ycnt

Music is Bach's Suite No. 1, BWV 1007, In G Major, Sarabande
Performer, Yo-Yo Ma



Now it so happens that just two of these images were expressed by female artists. All others are expressions of a male psyche's anima and the feminine. Care to guess which two and share why? :)

You can check your answers here if you'd like: 500 Years of Women in Western Art



Cindy
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by Clemsy »

Cindy, that is amazing! Thanks!
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

Cindy B.
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Post by Cindy B. »

Johnson has more cool videos here if interested: http://www.myspace.com/eggman913

Cindy
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by CarmelaBear »

S_Watson wrote:And notice that the mostly Protestant USA still needs to catch up with several mostly Catholic countries in electing a female President. :wink:
It's been a lifelong ambition of mine to assert exactly that leadership. I find opposition to be more emotional than political, more financial than issue-oriented, more about how Women and Catholics feel than about how Men and Protestants feel. Throw in ethnic rivalries, and it can go from challenging to seemingly impossible very quickly.

It's not too late for me. I'm still holding out hope in the manner of the old saying,
A woman's grasp should exceed her reach, or what's a Heaven for?
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

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Re: Beautiful!

Post by CarmelaBear »

Cindy B. wrote: Now it so happens that just two of these images were expressed by female artists. All others are expressions of a male psyche's anima and the feminine. Care to guess which two and share why? :)

You can check your answers here if you'd like: 500 Years of Women in Western Art
I've seen a lot of morphing, but this is the best ever.....thank you for the link. Art students should be required to see it and learn to identify the artists. I was familiar with nearly all the visuals, but I did not always guess the artists acccurately. I thought one of the works of Matisse was a Picasso, for example. Some of the names are completely new to me, especially the Russians.

I recognized the work of Cassatt, but even when I looked over the names and images at "500 Years...", I could not identify another female artist.

I'm stumped.

:?:
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

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Post by A J »

Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun (1755-1842)
Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat
Image

It seems to me that these two have a far more natural look - real women as opposed to the ideals in most of the others.

Just me.

AJ
"Sacred space and sacred time and something joyous to do is all we need. Almost anything then becomes a continuous and increasing joy."

A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

Cindy B.
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Post by Cindy B. »

Hey, gals.

I already knew the Cassatt, so that didn't count. (She was America-born, did you know?) I did not identify the Vigée-Le Brun as a female artist's, though I did linger with the work via pause and wondered. Finally I peeked. :P

Kudos, AJ!

Cindy


P.S. Happy National Women's Day 2012!
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by CarmelaBear »

Wow! AJ, I saw the word "Louise" and mistook it for Louis, and the word "Elisabeth" disappeared altogether, as if it were not even there. The painting is not one I would ever, ever have recognized as being by a woman.

After I found out that Number 32 and 64 were by women, I studied the eyes. There is a difference in the way the women see a woman's eyes. It's not even all that subtle. I'm going to look for it in other works to test whether the difference is real or just in my imagination.

:)
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

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Post by Roncooper »

Here I am a year late as usual.

IMHO the masculine/feminine stereotypes have outlived their usefulness. I would guess that only half of the women today come close to fitting the female type, and the same 50% would hold for men and the male type.

Of course there are physical and reproductive differences between men and women, but to say that men think one way and women a different way is IMHO destructive and counterproductive.

I would like to propose a different set of types which I feel better fits the current situation. I wouldn't normally submit such a long post, but since this thread has had a number of them I don’t feel guilty. These types are based on who the person is and not on their gender. It begins with a little theory and then progresses to five types that may be useful for mutual understanding and communication.


A person’s energy manifests itself as attributes. The primary attributes of a human being are will, heart, intellect, creativity, and consciousness. While a person possesses all of these, at any given time one is dominant. If a person is playing a competitive sport then the will is dominant. If they are taking a math test then the intellect is dominant, as is consciousness when they meditate.

Over time people have developed techniques to control and optimize these attributes. These techniques have rules and goals and can be considered paths of optimization. For instance the intellectual practices being objective, reasonable, and logical, while the willful finds control using a code of conduct. Unfortunately the rules and goals of one path conflict with those of the others and this complicates matters.

As society evolved people began to specialize and it became possible to be a full time warrior, or intellectual, or student of consciousness. These specialists develop world views, or mythologies, based on their dominant attribute. A person can play at being one of the other roles, for instance an intellectual can compete in a race, but the world view held by the person will be that of the intellectual.

As stated earlier, each of these attributes has a path of optimization that has been worked out by our ancestors. These paths require the student to focus on the values and goals of the specific path and turn away from the others. This focus has the effect of minimizing or belittling the other attributes. A loving mother, who is focused on her children, is not interested in intellectual jibber jabber, while the intellectual labels her as ignorant.

Unfortunately, many people do not travel the paths, but instead remain uneducated. There is great danger in this instance, because their world view is created without the wisdom of the past. An example would be the code of behavior for a motorcycle gang. The code successfully bonds the biker club together, but will typically not respect the law or the rights of the weak.

The majority of individuals travel a path or two to some extent and benefit from the teachers who did not compromise. A few choose to travel a path to its end. These individuals use their other attributes to support their focused effort. For example a Buddhist monk will use his intellect and willpower to maintain and improve his meditation skills. For each attribute the pathfinders define the field of human possibilities. Uncompromising intellectuals, artists, heroes, etc. show us what can be achieved.

In order to promote better understanding and hopefully better communication between different specializations I would like to spend some time to point out the characteristics of each of the five groups. To keep this essay short I will only touch on each topic. A detailed description would fill a book.

The Willful

The willful tend to be competitive and focused on power. The goal is to win, but in order for the win to have moral value, the competitor must follow the rules. When a person has the power to just take what they desire the rules have a special importance. These rules function at different levels. There is the law of the land, which is a basic set, and there are higher levels such as the moral laws of a religious group, or the warrior’s code of honor. These codes serve to control the will, maximize power by building teams, and provide meaning and nobility to the individual. A typical worldview may contain a religion which is based on laws that get their authority from a God. An otherwise reasonable young man may hold an unreasonable fundamentalist religious position because it contains his rules to live by. The goal of society should be to get the willful to travel the path so that they can follow an enlightened code of honor. There will always be people of power. Hopefully they will be honorable.

The Intellectual

The intellectual is driven by curiosity and a need to understand. The intellectual is aware of the value of our body of knowledge and wants to expand it. The person works to develop the necessary skills like reasoning, logic, and objectivity. They also study a portion of our body of knowledge in detail in an effort to make a contribution. They try to be as honest as possible and avoid self-deception. The primary requirement for an intellectual’s world view is that it must be reasonable. This has led to a large number becoming either atheists or panentheists. Society can help by valuing the altruistic aspects of the intellectual life rather than rewarding the egocentric.

The Creative

The artistic person is concerned with bringing beauty into the world. This is done by practicing an art until it is second nature and by studying the techniques of past masters. However this education process is not enough. The skilled artist also needs inspiration, and when this is present beautiful art is created. The artist tries to produce art for art’s sake when possible. The world view is focused on inspiration which is the necessary component that the artist does not control. In the past inspiration has been depicted as a beautiful woman, a muse, or a Venus-like goddess. Artists benefit from a sophisticated society that is open to great works.

The Heart

The person who follows their heart creates situations where they can love unconditionally. They need an object to love such as a child or pet. Once the relationship is established they work hard and sacrifice for the beloved. The work at hand is the primary concern and things are valued by how they help with the work. For example a theory about society carries less weight than a lunch for a poor child. The world view is centered on the loving relationship which has been depicted as Madonna and child, and has yielded ideas like god is love. Society has always taken advantage of these individuals. Hopefully in the future they will receive the respect they deserve.

Consciousness

The student of consciousness recognizes the importance of this attribute and cultivates a centered awareness that is needed for a healthy and happy life. Meditation is used to focus on consciousness as is the effort to live in the moment. These techniques have been shown to reduce suffering in a person’s life and are valuable for this reason, but the study of consciousness has uncovered an additional benefit. Through rigorous practice and by rejecting the other paths a devotee may experience higher states of awareness. The world view for the devotee of consciousness has been defined by these experiences and this world view is identified with self. The individual and the whole are one. When society recognizes the importance of the study of consciousness the quality of life for its members will benefit.

The next step would be to discuss the conflicts and similarities of the various paths, but I will stop here.

I have lived too long and known too many people to believe in the old male/female stereotypes. I would ask that you see if these new ones work for you when you are communicating with someone very different from you.

Ron
Last edited by Roncooper on Wed Mar 13, 2013 1:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by A J »

The types you listed are certainly valid and identifiable, Ron, and can be seen in both men and women. I would suggest, though, that what was being discussed here had less to do with stereotypes and more to do with archetypes, and with the cultural patterns that develop when one or the other of the masculine/feminine archetypes predominate in that culture.

I would agree that modern men and women are far less differentiated than they were in former times, but from my perspective, at least, I think we still have a culture that values those characteristics traditionally described as masculine over those considered feminine.

In order to succeed in our current culture, it seems to me that women have had to strengthen and rely on their masculine attributes and subdue their feminine side.

We all have contrasexual elements in our personalities. In earlier, more traditional times, our roles promoted those attributes which were called for in our daily work. What has changed is that more women work outside the home, and, in some cases, men have taken on some of the duties of keeping the home. And those circumstances are leading, slowly, to a more balanced perspective, but we still live in a primarily patriarchal culture. We have yet to achieve a balanced society where those traits which we think of as "feminine" are respected to the same degree as those considered "masculine."

While we seem to be moving in that direction, fortunately, we still have a way to go.

The Myers-Briggs personality types, and Katherine Benziger's Thinking Styles (see http://www.benziger.org/ ) have given us personality types similar to those you posted, and any study of such types is valuable. Each of the types currently includes both men and women, but the percentages vary for different types, and those differences in percentages indicate, to me, that we still have a way to go before we have a balanced society.

In the meantime, it still seems helpful to consider the yin/yang or anima/animus nature of certain functions.

Men and women are different, I think, in more than biology. I believe that we have inherited and inherent differences based on our collective unconscious and the archetypes they produce.

What needs to happen, from my personal perspective, is that the differences need to be recognized, and those that we see as feminine, are valued equally with those perceived as masculine, in our general culture, no matter which gender the individual who carries them might be.

Finding ways to achieve and strengthen that balance was the basis for this discussion, as I saw it from Cindy's OP.

Just me, though

AJ
"Sacred space and sacred time and something joyous to do is all we need. Almost anything then becomes a continuous and increasing joy."

A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

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Post by Roncooper »

AJ

Thank you for the reply. I think we are in agreement that our society devalues those who follow their heart. In fact I agree with almost everything you wrote. I am just worried that labeling attributes as masculine or feminine is problematic for about half the human race. I have worked with brilliant scientists throughout my career and I have found no gender bias, and I disagree with those who call the objective intellect a masculine trait.

I chose to use the word stereotypes because I was trying to keep my reply to two pages and this required oversimplification to the extreme. It was a bad choice.

I looked at the two examples you mentioned and these are studies of consciousness, and while I believe that this work is essential, I am trying to get to a more global perspective. For me the archetypes don’t just inform our consciousness. They serve all our attributes.

Ron

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