Welcome all Women (Part1)

Before I get started with the task at hand, I want to introduce you to Bill Buster. Bill is a Manhattanite who found himself at the door step of the Occupy Wall Street. He has written about the transformation that serendipitous event has made in his life. It is well written, compelling, and uplifting. With all the inaccurate press generated by the main stream media, a well written narrative is an uplifting wind.

Tomorrow (December 12, 2011) is the Occupation’s day to strike the Ports on the West Cost. Chatter says that Houston and Boston will experience protest as well. As I write this, I can only hope that the operation is successful, and drives home the message that the people of the nation are pissed off with business as usual; the abused will not be silent.

It is worth pausing for a moment to think about something: Why are so many people still so supportive of Obama? Remember last week’s posting: A Step Closer to Civil War? Well, S.1867 did make it through the house (H.R. 1540) with 48 additional amendments. It went back to the Senate and Passed the Senate, with amendments, unanimously on December 1, 2011. It is heading to the President’s desk. There is no indication that he has any intention of vetoing it. I am sure he has his reasons, but right now, in this day, the only reason any of us can see is to further quash the voice of peaceful people on American street.

Onto the Business at Hand

There is criticism that the Occupy Wall Street movement is too white, and too male. Much of this coming from the color progressive caucus who has embraced economic status as a sign of social progress. They have made it and now at the top of their community, having fled the ‘hood successfully, and want to bask in the righteousness of living the reconstructed dream of Dr. Martin Luther King. Of course as a White Man in America I am not supposed to point out that failings of the Progressives in the U.S.A. Or, even hint at them sarcastically. All I can say to address the color issue is visit Occupy Chicago, and the rising of Occupy The Hood.

The critique of the Color Progressive Caucus stems from a threat to the socio-economic status they have achieved, and once again using the race card to cover their own culpability in climbing in bed with the 1%ers. And, add, a general distain that the Occupation Movement has not overwhelming bedded itself with Obama. Sorry, Progressive People (of Color or not) the Occupy Movement does not automatically, in mass, support Obama. His color has nothing to do with the fact that he is now an Ass (insert Democratic logo here) for the 1%!

Having said all that, there is room to critique the movement in the terms of gender inequity … but not much. Occupy Chicago was started by a young woman, same too for Occupy Wall Street (both statements are over simplifications, but for now will suffice) Over time, however, young men have taken over prominent rolls. There are many complex social reasons for this transition.

Three chapters in Wealth, Women, and War (written in 2007) specifically address the changing role of women in the political landscape of the nation. The discussion is based on anthropological studies, social science, pop culture and criminology science. In the first chapter, included herein – with apologies for the lack of brevity – specific gender deference is discusses. I am willing to release these to you if you will read them. The information is for the women involved in the movement so they understand just how important their voice is to the future of the nation.

Gender Subjective

In a nonscientific pole taken in the M.U.M.M. (Make Up My Mind) section of CherryTap.com (now renamed FUBAR.com) , the following question was asked:

Do women work outside the home because they want to be liberated from their husband's economic domination, or because they need to due to the economic realities of the current era?

Out of the 74 people who chose to answer the question, 33.8% said they worked for economic freedom, and 66.2% said they worked out of economic necessity. In the 38 side comments on this question many of the women added that in their opinion it was a little bit of both. That is a bit of a different spin than what presents today. Most women work because they have to. Is this truly the fate of the liberated woman?

Of all the differentiations which are made in society today, none has been more dramatic than the gender differences. That has exacerbated the battle of the sexes over the past forty years. With the rise of feminist rules, the demarcations of gender specific roles within the social contract have become vague. What is expected within one sub-culture is an obscenity in another. Where some sub-cultures expect the woman to work outside of the home, other sub-cultures find it indefensible. This is within the general culture of the United States. The current gender conflict in employment, along with the glass ceiling, is expressed by the perpetuation of lower pay received by women. Since capitalism is a system where people are used to get the most for the corporation in the name of economic competition and gain, this should not be a surprise.

During the thousands of years of imperial colonization, many regions of the world were divided in such a way as to maintain tensions between various tribal, political, and religious groups. In U.S. history this is seen in the French Indian War against the English colonies. This is also apparent in Africa which now, without the colonial occupation forces, has given rise to horrific genocides. This can also be seen in the history of the Armenian population within Turkey, as well as the Kurdish population in Turkey and Iraq.

Gender discrimination falls under this category. Historically and anthropologically women have “received” their status from their men. This is true even in the western heathen, or pagan traditions. Even today as Neo-Paganism has given rise to assertive feminism, the ramifications of the mythology is unmistakable.

The sun is the representation in the physical realm of the “God.” His light rules the day. The moon represents the “Goddess.” Her cycles are the woman’s cycles. She goes from full to full in 28 days. Many of the ancient astral religions honored her at her full time. Even the Jews of antiquity honored the New Moon as the beginning of the month and it was considered a Sabbath (a time to feast and refrain from one’s usual work). The moon rules the night, and marks the calendar with details. The light she gives however, proved first by Copernicus and then Galileo’s observations, is the light of the reflected “God.” Science supports the mythology, and the mythology supports that women have the light given by the man, but cycle it uniquely.

It is worth noting that the lunar calendar is off by one day every two months. It is best left up to the theologians that the mythology of relationship of the moon to the sun is not carried forward to the obvious conclusion since the ancients believed that the God was the consort of the Goddess.

Since the oldest city in India predates the existence of the English Channel by some 500 years, and the Egyptian civilization by some 4,500 years, not to mention predating Judaism by some 3000 years, human beings and their respective rules of life, have been living, breeding, thinking and observing for quite some time. Human origin may date back to some 200,000 years.

Within the scope of our discussion on managing the affairs of human beings within the globalized free market environment it is sufficient to observe that when it comes to religious traditions, and therefore morality, women have sometimes historically been given instruction from men. Gloria Steinem, U.S. feminist, author, and editor, noted a change when she commented in the December 18, 1989 edition of Newsweek on the fall of the Berlin Wall that the event was “ … the first female-style revolution: no violence and we all went shopping.”[1]

How willing women have been to accept the subservient role with the social contract is arguable. Some say the contract was imposed by dominant males, others would argue that women accepted and delighted in their different, protected, but not lower status. The idea that men’s superiority to women is supported in the Christian writings is a misconception. The Apostle Paul wrote the following:

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;”[2]

“Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.”[3]

“But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.”[4]

“Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.”[5]

Current feminist studies continue to support the idea that women are less concerned about the dominance of men, and are more inclined toward task oriented and specific social goals.

What can be concluded, however, is that even in antiquity woman have had far more influence than they have been accredited in the past 157 years. Much of the philosophy of subservient women comes from Victorian morality.[6] One of the discussions in the Torah – the Jewish Law – concerns a woman’s right to hold tribal land. The summation of that discussion is that it was granted to her since there was no male heir to the portion of the land in question.

Then came the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph: and these are the names of his daughters; Mahlah, Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah. And they stood before Moses, and before Eleazar the priest, and before the princes and all the congregation, by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not in the company of them that gathered themselves together against the LORD in the company of Korah; but died in his own sin, and had no sons. Why should the name of our father be done away from among his family, because he hath no son? Give unto us therefore a possession among the brethren of our father. And Moses brought their cause before the LORD. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them. And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter. And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren. And if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his father’s brethren. And if his father have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his kinsman that is next to him of his family, and he shall possess it: and it shall be unto the children of Israel a statute of judgment, as the LORD commanded Moses.[7]

Over the years, many of the approved customs in Western Culture social contract lean toward protecting the woman’s interest.

Ardent feminists would argue this point in light of the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment. The Equal Rights Amendment(ERA)was proposed as follows:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.[8]

The ERA, if ratified, would have eliminated many laws on the books qually onerous to men as to women. Current cultural historians tend to agree that the ERA failed to give women protected status, and the National Organization of Women (N.O.W.) failed to respond to the sensitivities of their larger constituencies. As such N.O.W. failed to gain the support needed to put the amendment into law. It is said that the ERA as a law was not too radical for women, but that NOW was far too radical for most women.[9] The nation in the 1970s was far too hostile towards bi-sexuality and lesbian causes. The perception was that the ERA was a ploy by the lesbian community to undermine the Anglo-Saxon culture.

Since the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States on August 26, 1920, giving women the right to vote, U.S. women have grown in influence – economically and politically.

The ERA died an ignoble death in 1982, after Ronald Reagan and the neo-conservative influence took the White House from Jimmy Carter. In essence, however, the protections sought in the ERA were guaranteed within the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.[10]

As noted, law is only good if one has the ability to afford the court system. For most people the courts are slow, expensive, and a travesty when securing individual rights. In this era of decaying socioeconomics, rights under the ERA would be difficult to attain.

What can be observed in this era is that women do have more influence on the nation’s ethos and mythos than has been possible in the last 150 years. For the corporations, however, the only notable distinction is that women control the majority of a household’s discretionary spending. Women have come to believe that it is their duty to control the check-book. This is echoed, to some degree, in the words of Gloria Steinem:

Unless we include a job as part of every citizen's right to autonomy and personal fulfillment, women will continue to be vulnerable to someone else's idea of what "need" [is].[11]

In one of the oddities of the current social contract, a man withholding control of the household spending from his wife is seen as abusive, while the woman curtailing the spending of her husband is seen as normal within a healthy marriage. The equity sought by Ms. Steinem is lost in today’s marketplace.

However, this is not lost on corporations, and the focus of advertisement campaigns on radio, television, and the internet. They engage the woman to make her want to open her pocket-book and spend hers, and her husband’s, dollars on the corporation’s products or service.

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[1] Gloria Steinem. "It was the first female-style ..." The Columbia World of Quotations. Ed. Robert Andrews, Mary Biggs, and Michael Seidel. Columbia University Press, 2006. eNotes.com. 2006. 18 Jun, 2008

[2] Ephesians 5:25 AV

[3] I Corinthians7:3-4 AV

[4] I Corinthians7:33 AV

[5] Colossians 3:19 AV

[6] Further discussion on the specifics of Victorian morality, or the lack thereof, is outside the scope of this report.

[7] Numbers 27:1-11 AV

[8] Equal Rights Amendment. (2008, June 4). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:27, June 18, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Equal_Rights_Amendment&oldid=217121959

[9] In part this is from memory; in part it is part of the dialogue of the times.

[10] Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. (2008, June 16). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:28, June 18, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution&oldid=219773042

[11] Gloria Steinem (b. 1934), U.S. author, editor, and feminist. From "Why Women Work," published in Ms. magazine in March 1979. As quoted in The Decade of Women, by Suzanne Levine and Harriet Lyons (1980).