A SCOTT -- Sometime, we'll jump on this again, but being so late in this thread's "life", it is hardly supportive of a public discussion.

Sharper you wit and reason, as I'll be waiting for you around the next feminist corner.

SIOUXROSE -- Didn't see this hanger-on-er until today, I would have liked to jump in earlier.

… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — MLK

Siouxrose

Are you trying to impress me by telling me your class standing? That's no more relevant than telling me you have a high IQ - and you see what I think of that.

I can spend years studying any unscientific thing anyone can name, and become highly knowledgeable about the topic. What would that prove, beyond the fact that I was willing to turn my back on the Enlightenment and abandon rational thought and the scientific method?

What rational scientific tests has astrology withstood?

You can talk about astrology all you like, but telling me that astrology says thus-and-so is true is no logical argument. Astrology is a collection of untested and primarily untestable, suppositions (at best). Untested, groundless, unrelieble. Science rejects astrology for just that reason.

An expert in comparative religion can talk about religions, their origins, their relationship to the culture within which (and by which) they originated, but that experise does not qualify that person to make pronouncements regarding the true nature of humans.

So nice for you that posters here do not object to your astrologically-based pronouncements. Neither did I, until you based your challenge to both my post and me personally on such superstitions. That was an invitation to respond.

I reject magical thinking. I reject such notions as divine truth, higher truth, special truth, revealed truth...

I am a 'born cynic' - or as near to that as is possible. I was questioning dogma by the time I was five. By the time I was seven, I was openly challenging the precepts of the religion I was being raised in. If it can't be tested, if there is no hard *independently verifiable* evidence, if it has to be accepted on faith, I cannot accept it as truth. (Naturally, when I was seven, my objections were simpler.)

Okay, so you are an expert in a field that is not scientific. As I said, no different than being an expert in comparative religions: you can speak with authority about your field, but that's all it means. That you are an expert does not suggest anything about the truth of the precepts upon which you can speak.

You are mixing concepts, when you tell me that you are an expert in an unproven, irrational system, and, *based on that expertise*, ought to be presumed to understand the truth of the human condition. That is fallacious.

By the way, you didn't mind my critique of IQ scores and clinical psychology. In fact, you stated your agreement with much of my post. Well, there are plenty of clinical psychologists who have had decades of training and experience in clinical psychology in general, and psychometrics in particular - and that includes the people who devise 'intelligence tests.' Yet you willingly agreed with a critique of their field - and that concerns only a comparatively restricted facet of the human mind.

Your rhetoric lacks consistency.

I rejected the commonly held view of the sexes as fundamentally disparate and posited a more egalitarian view of the sexes. You called me brainwashed and accused me of being a sexist. (You upbraided me for thinking in terms of duality!) You then went on to espouse views that represent the very duality that you falsely claimed I adhered to - but to call you a sexist is supposed to be 'ludicrous'!

I can only wonder whether that is what comes of spending 3 decades immersed in magical thinking.

I truly don't understand: Why would I want to get to bed earlier? Are you *assuming* either that I am or ought to be on some common diurnal schedule? No thank you.

Ascott: My boyfriend's name is Scott. I am a professional astrologer, thus asking me to make any conjecture about the human condition without referring to my chief subject of fascination and study for over 30 years is not going to work. I graduated at the top of my class, both in HS and college. I am a good math sudent and well read. Astrology of the sort I study is NOT the stuff most take astrology to be.

I have never come across a basis for understanding the complexity of human nature, nor the cycles of history that put more into Divine order than a study of the "As above, so below" equation. The polarity you speak of between the genders and the fall-out it gives rise to in the form of violence is something I have also observed. I presume you recognize the US has a very high rate of domestic abuse and rape, not to mention prostitution and "consumption" of porn. These are violent in their own ways, too. My theory is that when the atom bomb was split, the very threads of matter were torn asunder: "Let no man tear asunder what God hath joined together." I see in the fabric that coheres our universe together, the dance of Chi, of magnetic forces that due to their natural polarity, simulate the energetic expressions of Yin and Yang. To me, our universe is a mating dance. I do NOT accept Big bang as a fact, I think it's a mostly male (or the logical way of being forced to look at the world, to frame perception due to the dominance of the masculine/patriarchal mindset over ALL reaches of academe) construct. I see the universe making love to itself. Just as our DNA is an EQUAL expression of genetic sums taken from both PARTNERS, life is about the sharing of that Divine sum. Any religion that only gives worship to the masculine has deprived HUMANITY (and its followers) of a balanced spiritual equation. In my view this is the first great sin. It's led to granting more rights to men. It's led to demonizing feminine traits. (Note how men call each other sissies, or hate faggots or use terms like pussy that are intended to be derogatory, etc.)

I believe we'd have a very different world if this emphasis on the masculine, which has led to power hierarchies, had not been the case. SHARING power, understanding that the specific sentience allotted to the female is given as a counterbalance to the assets given to the male. Venus, Aphrodite, is Mars' most favored celestial consort. This marriage of the sensual archeytpes of Venus and Mars speaks about human attraction. I co-authored the book STARMATES and 2/5ths are devoted to the 12 X 12 (144) possible couplings between Venus and Mars by respective sign. My children, always our best critics, right? Said, upon checking the data on their boyfriends, "Mom, it's So true!"

No one really is in a position to criticize me on "my turf," as this is a field I've easily earned a ph.D equivalent in. Nor would I challenge some on this site who know far more about history or economics than I do. I contribute and share my sphere of knowledge with the hope of opening minds. Logic can only take us so far. It's been nice chatting. Hope you get to bed earlier tonight. As for me, I am at the moment in my Venus gear, preparing to have dinner with my Mars companion, and very Mars is he! It's written in our genes, this attraction... I hope I get into his tonight (LOL. He's 11 years younger and eye candy for this mature star seer!)

SIOUXROSE

My username is not ascot. It is ascott: A. Scott, not in any way connected with the tie/scarf or the race(track).

riverman

Your premise is fallacious.

Your 'evidence' is preposterous.

You have made several primitive errors in logic - not to mention grammar.

I suggest you print out your posts and take them to the philosophy department of any college. Find a professor who teaches rhetoric. In fact, a senior in philosophy ought to be more than competent. (Be prepared for some very humbling comments.)

As for me, I'm not here to teach elementary logic. Nor do I have either the time or the inclination.

SIOUXROSE

Quite the contrary, (I think). I was not inviting you to continue to debate - or asking that you not. I simply stated that I would not accept unscientific systems/beliefs as proving anything beyond what (other) forms of literature 'prove.' That is, not that astrology and mythology need to be kept outside 'the ring,' but rather that they simply *are* outside 'the ring.'

Mythology is a human invention, an attempt to explain the nature of humans and their universe. If one wants to discuss the mythology of the Norse versus that of the Egyptians, as just two examples, that's a valid discussion. But mythologies vary with the cultures within which they evolved, and they serve as very little more than a window into how the powerful and priveleged of a given culture saw/wanted to see people/nature.

Astrology: well, it is my understanding that there are (have been) multiple systems of astrology, as well. The Mars/war/masculine is an example of a not terribly early attempt at explaining/describing people - but only the people well-known to the Romans. It is, as anthropologists would say, culture-bound.

I find equating astrology/mythology with a scalpel as wielded by a surgeon to be an unfathomable concept.

I *have* discussed some of the things on my list - but not in the context of using them/the beliefs they encompass as grounds for making a logical/scientific conclusion about the natural world.

Glad you like my 4:11 post. I hate hearing about the 'science of psychology.' Too much of what the mental health 'sciences' comprises is pure falderal.

Ever read E. Fuller Torrey's 'Witchdoctors and Psychiatrists'?

I almost wish IQ scores did prove one's level of intelligence: I've taken a number of them through the years, and although my scores have varied, they've all been quite 'good.' Unfortunately (for me), they only indicate that I've learned the basic kinds of thinking that are looked for and have learned a 'sufficient' number of discrete pieces of information that some group deemed 'important' - in other words, I have been schooled, done a bit of reading on more than one topic, and lived in this society long enough to understand its culture (in fact, I've always lived here) - plus, (**very important**), I just happen to do pretty well at taking tests of that sort. (If somebody devised a test that followed a very different format, I might very well score significantly lower.)

By the way, I didn't get up that early: I hadn't yet gone to bed!

Perhaps you know enough to comment on something that I find interesting, but don't know enough to come to firm conclusions about:

It appears to me that the level of violence in a society correlates with the extent to which the sexes are deen as fundamentally different. The most horrendous and loathsome examples of violence against women - whether connected to wars or 'simply' as a part of daily life - seem to occur in precisely those cultures where the sexes are presumed to be irreconcilably different.

I haven't read enough on the topic to reach a firm conclusion, but, from what I have read through time, it came to jump out at me. In our own society, the higher levels of vioence amongst those in the lowest economic classes is commonly accepted as purely a refection of economics. Something else is going on there, too: sex roles (stereotypes) are more rigidly held in those groups. Can this be interpreted as the belief that the sexes are very different? I have wondered: what is the relationship between economic level, the level of violence, and the level of difference believed to exist between the sexes?

It is a direction of thought that occasionally but repeatedly rears up, but I have always had my time tied up by other things.

ASCOTT: I actually like and agree with your 4:11 posting. Dang, how can you get up that early?

RIVERMAN: You bow to the 'god' of logic as if it has any heart or soul? I'll bet plenty of those degreed interogators of prisoners at Quantanimo have LOTS of logic. The flaw is in a complete lack of empathy! Logic is one of a number of facets to true intelligence or a healthy consciousness. You narrow the field. By the way the SOUL has both masculine and feminine traits. I know plenty of heterosexual men who are quite YIN and some heterosexual women who are rather Yang. Astrology explains this. There are many people on CD who respect the basis for my arguments as issuing from these higher planes. Those who attack this basis for analysis argue FOR their own ignorance. A belief in gravity is not required to experience its effect, ditto as per the INVIOLATE "As above, so below" equation.

I'd like to see a world with more heart, more love... there's more than enough logic to go around.

HKTADEPA asks, "what will a contingent of all woman soldiers sent to an
imaginary country to fight, kill, maim and annhilate the people of an alien." The premise places the female into a male/Mars context, that of war and fighting, so the premise is already contaminated.

BRAVO to JLD for a very enlightened commentary, one that I agree with. I am not saying ASCOT didn't raise some good points, but as with so many things, his analysis is based on the paradigm as is... and not enough regard is shown for the behaviors that have been socialized within that paradigm, so much so, they are taken for "true human nature," etc. When I bring up the higher imprints of time, these inviolate archetypal principles that influence human behavior both individually and collectively (as history), it is to show another perspective on the ageold ills that ail us. For ASCOT to denounce my basis for argument and then ask me to keep dancing in the ring, i.e. debating, is breathtaking for its arrogance. Would you ask a surgeon to put down his tools and perform the necessary medical acts with his tongue or toe nails?

The only explanation of why some people are compelled to defend the indefensible is this. They identify strongly with the perpetrators.

They have shared cause with the slavers, torturers, mutilators, murderers...

It's utterly irrational, despite all pretenses to the contrary. All their arguments melt before the sheer intensity and horror of the crimes in question.

culicomorpha

This is tiresome.

There is a difference between questioning something and dismissing it, never mind disparaging it.

If the genders were fundamentally opposed, you would not have been able to 'shift,' as you term it. If you had read my post carefully, you would have found that you are not any more 'qualified' to comment than I, using your own (faulty) standards for qualification.

Your narrative is in flux.

Perhaps you might address specifics, but these shifting, loose commentaries are not arguments.

riverman

Your claim is fallacious.

1. Which IQ tests are talking about? Did you know that there are several - and that the various results don't necessarily correlate?

2. Many in the field reject the use of IQ tests, for their unreliability and/or because it is questionable whether any of them measure what they claim.

3. Some are seen as blatantly absurd: they test the subject's knowledge of specific pieces of information, including cultural facts. One simple objjection: because of the severely limited number of questions in each cagegory, it is a crap shoot for the subject.

4. Further, the fact that administration of some tests requires constant interaction between the tester and the subject. Unfortunately, the tester's attitude - or perceived attitude - can influence the outcome. See, for example, 'experimenter bias.'

5. There have also been objections that the tests are biased and favor the sex, race, culture of those that devise the tests.

I was talking to a faculty member at a major teaching institution, and asked him about some of the above.

For instance, in the MMPI, one might be asked to identify the author of a specific work. If one has a terrible memory for names, is anxious because of feeling pressured or negatively judged by the administrator, one may get the question wrong. What if the subject knew the work, could offer an accurate synopsis? I asked the professor, "Who is smarter, the person who has read a specific 'important' book or the person who can simply name the author?" (He had no answer. Of course, he might never considered the question seriously: it wasn't his sub-field, and he had already claimed to be unfamiliar with the MMPI.)

I could also have asked, "Who is smarter, the person who happens to be able to name the author of the particular work asked about (but perhaps no/few others), or the person who cannot name that one author, but who can name the authors of dozens of others?" (Too few questions yield unreliable results.)

Having asked several clinicians those and similar questions, and never having gotten a substantial reply, what can I conclude?

I mentioned this to a colleague in Europe. He later told me that he had relayed to question to a clinician he knew there. The clinician chuckled and replied, "A good beginning... I never employ any IQ tests." (To forestall any question: that clinician is a man.)

Finally, based on my experiences - studying in the field, talking to practitioners, working for clinicians, playing 'guinea pig,' etc. - that, if you want to find people who are particularly incapable of understanding people and/or who are less than psychologically stable, then the practitioners/clinicians of the 'mental health sciences' are a good group to start with. (This is geographically restricted, but it coincides with many others' observations. Richard Feyman's comments on his experiences with psychiatrists are interesting.) While it can be objected that this is all subjective and anecdotal, the sheer number of such experiences/anecdotes ought to be enough to give even the most rigorous scientist pause.

Unfortunately, any investigation of the question would fall to someone in the field. (Neat, eh?)

In anthropology, as an example, you would come under fire for putting forth a hypothesis for which you could show little or no concrete evidence. In psychology, you can not only advance it, but you can call it a theory.

In short, you are making a highly questionable claim that is based on conclusions reached through highly questionable means.

Thanks for sharing that jld_overseas.

Although I know this is an unpopular idea, I would suggest something else. There is no doubt that under dire circumstances, anyone can me be made to do anything. This is what the bed of Procrustes was all about. Pressed by constraints, anyone can be made to do anything, but this not an argument that supports freedom and free action. Eventually nature finds a way around social constraints, rules, and incentives.

What ascott was arguing was a natural state of things... that people are all basically the same, that there are no differences whatsoever that differentiate anyone from anyone else.

I would make a counter argument. I would argue that the sexes, on average, are different. And the reason I suggest this comes from the concept of parallax. In vision, having different perspectives is what enables depth of field. That is, only by being able to see things from different perspectives is one able to gather some idea of it's actual position.

Likewise, in the area of debate about fundamental differences between the genders, it is only those who have experienced a 'shift' in gender who can speak to these matters.

I can understand why many do not want to consider this. There is a long history of subjugation of the androgynous, the people 'in between.' And there are plenty of people who claim all sorts of 'higher knowledge'. The universities are literally full of them. Whatever.

Dismiss the views of those who have lived two lives, believe what you want to believe. It really won't make any difference. The fact of the matter is that the chemical environment of the planet is changing so dramatically that fairly soon reproduction will be a thing of the past.

hktadepa - thank you for focusing your comments on POWER - as I was about to do the same. I am considered by most to be kind, caring, compassionate, the first to come to the aid of anyone in need, a die-hard champion of the underdog. And I am female.

Prior to volunteering overseas, I took part in an exercise in which 20 of us were divided up into five groups, representing countries. Each group was given a manila envelope of their 'resources' - varying amounts of play money, paper, and tools (scissors, ruler, protractor, etc).

I was in Group A - we had the most tools, most money, fewest resources, and an 'in' with the bank. The goal was to produce 'goods', and sell them to the bank. Each group could negotiate with the others for the resources or tools that they needed. I was chief negotiator for my group.

To make a long story short, I was brutal in negotiation. I was cunning, unforgiving, unrepentant, merciless, and simply saturated with my power. Even my teammates were embarrassed at my ruthlessness.

We won the game - and I was voted most hated. I was astonished and dismayed at the intensity of the change in myself. And, even though it was just a game, my heart was crushed.

So, based on my own experience, I agree with AScott saying that both men and women have the same ability to exhibit certain traits or qualities - kindness and compassion / brutality and cruelty. I also agree with Souixrose saying that our karma (different lives) and archetypal energies are very important (I was born under a fire sign and a warrior goddess). The societal paradigms are also very important because the archetypal energy in me was reacting to what society indoctrinated in me as important - power and winning, damn the harm that is caused.

It was a wake-up call for me to question the societal values, to honor the masculine energy in this feminine body, and to acknowledge that maybe it was (and still is, though to a lesser extent) just a bit out of balance.

We are all Yin and Yang, Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine, Goddess and God. As someone has already said: to bring balance into ourselves is to bring balance into the world.

Just curious - what will a contingent of all woman soldiers sent to an
imaginary country to fight, kill, maim and annhilate the people of an alien
nattion would do -? Any speculation whose lives they will spare, whose
children they will protect, which men & women they will kill vs. protect?
Any speculation whether they will object to an illicit & destructive
war in the first place? Will there be only "just wars" in a truly matriarchial order of life? If it were any indication, the two prime
examles of feminine power in this country - Hillary & Condi - would indicate
fully otherwise. As did other prime examples of women leaders in the developing world - like Indira Gandhi & Benazir Bhutto. This whole notion of "masculine power" being cruel & abusive has got it all wrong. _ALL_ power has an opportunity to be abusive. The larger the power is, the more lethal it will manifest itself over time. Sexes, races, classes & ages happen to be incidental factors. Given that power also has a tendency to group around biological & geographical attibutes, it is easy to attribute the abuse of power to those physical attributes. What needs to be questioned is _POWER_ itself and not its human identities & incidental attributes. Put in simpler terms, by voting once in 4 years, am I being asked to supspend my sense of judgement & discrimination & cede them to a designated senator, president or dictator? Any statute that empowers one indivudual to control another individual without a mutual understanding or consent is _POWER_. Viewed in this framework, all political frameworks are about _POWER_. They are about how one small "control group" can dictate terms to an entire population. It all makes on reflect on the old saying: "power corrupts; absolute power power corrupts absolutely".

>> The Army grants six weeks of maternity leave before a new mother
>> must return to her job or training, and four months until she can
>> be sent to a war zone. The Marine Corps and Navy allow from six
>> months to a year before a new mother must deploy.
>> It seems to me life is something our society doesn't value.

Whose life are you talking about? The American mother who just delivered a baby & must return to the middle east to annhilate the children of
an Iraqi or Afghan woman? The life of an American child or that of an
Iraqi teetering in the sharpnel strewn by cluster bombs? Whose life is
more sacred?

grumpyoldlady;

Your Feb 17th, 2;46pm posting is so true and written with an accurate understanding of what has been happening for all to long, and not only continues to this day, but appears to be worsening.

riverman, from what I can tell, science is mute on this point. Not to mention the methodological problems with ascertaining an objective measure of intelligence, there is very little evidence available to substantiate your viewpoint, if one can even call it a viewpoint.

Who, may I ask, are you referencing in your repeated claim that the "top 1% most intelligent people" are men?

ascott, I see where you going with all this, and while on its face it sounds like a reasonable argument, I disagree.

Partly, this is from my own personal experience. I really didn't have any preconceived ideas about what estrogen would do, other than induce changes in secondary sex characteristics, which was the main goal. But much to my surprise, there were a whole host of changes that slowly rippled though my entire life over the course of years, from emotions to bonding capacity and other areas I didn't expect. I simply cannot get nearly as angry as I used to, and the idea of acting out on feelings of anger is dramatically attenuated compared to when testosterone was the major hormone.

I am not especially surprised that you would dismiss the insights I have gained by living under the influence of both hormones, but it does tend to make me very dubious about your arguments. You might be surprised to learn that there are many who would make exactly the counter argument you have made - that because I was born "male" that I will always be male and can never achieve anything approaching "real" femininity. The problem with both positions is that they each flatly ignore hormones.

Be that as it may, I know what I know, because I have experienced it directly. It really isn't subject to your interpretation. It's basically the same as the difference between knowing something and believing something; knowledge vs. faith. What comparable frame of reference do you have other than the opinions of anthropologists and your own private beliefs?

In the end, what I am looking for in the larger society is a reconciliation of the sexes. I see both sexes as having good and bad, requiring a balance to keep the other from going off the deep end. But given the last several thousand years of patriarchy, I would like to see femininity valued much more highly than it is now, because there really is a war against women. It has been going on for a very long time. This is not a theoretical construct, as this article so graphically demonstrates. Women and children are the most common victims of aggression of (mainly) men, and so all these arguments about how men and women are basically the same really discounts (and again, tends to make invisible) what is lost in the disparaging attitudes and violence perpetuated on women and femininity.

Grumpyoldlady

Sorry: forgot to thank you for bringing up bio-chemistry - about which we seem to agree.

Riverman

Give it up!

Your posts only serve as evidence against 'superior male logic.'

Siouxrose

I did not limit what you say. Period. I ointe out that you contradicted yourself. (Go back and read your post, then my response.)

I said that men and women are not fundamentally different, and women, when given the same opportunities as men, are capable of reaching the same heights and the same depths. (Interesting that a couple people latched onto the 'depths,' ignored the 'heights,' and assumed I was speaking against women.

As I said, I do not debate anti-science (or pseudo-science or non-science).

This includes:

astrology
reincarnation
past life regressions
aura analysis
palmistry
Mars/Venus
crop circles
alien abductions
serial alien abductions
the divine [anything]
the Time of the Goddess(es)
any deity or deities
human 'archetypes'
psychological (pseudo-)theories
the 'natural superiority' of [any sub-group of humans]
voo doo
...

If you want a literary discussion, fine, but it would have to remain a purely literary discussion. Literary devices/characters employed as scientific grounds for anything is illogical.

I always find it interesting to be accused of something that my accuser has, in fact, done to me - but not interesting enough to wade through drivel.

Grumpyoldlady

Thank you.

I don't dismiss anything outright. The obvious and limited differences I spoke of were anatomical, not biochemical. (I ought to have been clearer about that.) We don't have sufficient understanding of how the various hormones, or changes in their levels, affects individuals, whether male or female, to conclude anything. We can see some possible indications, in some cases, but nothing that allows for any solid conclusions, as far as I am aware.

I'd join you in being willing to give women a crack at running things. Why not? They might do better. And, as I am unaware of any grounds for suspecting that they'd do worse, I can't see any reason to object. Besides, it's only fair: as you point out, women certainly haven't had an overabundance of power. (Yes, a joke: exaggerated understatement.)

ASCOTT: Let me see if I can refine my argument, since accusing me of sexism is ludicrous at best.

I see bodies as containers of multiple archetypal energies. I see bodies as containers of souls. These bodies are given different chemical/hormonal cues and those influence behavior, but more powerful than those triggers are the socialization mores of any given culture. Just about every culture that's existed during the past several thousand years has been dominated by men, males in power. Religions, which arrogantly purport to speak for higher agencies, i.e. god/gods, have also been patriarchal. WOMEN socialized within these systems adapt to them. One adaptation is using sex/looks to get favors. Hey, if you have no vote, can't own property, and are considered someone else's property what else do you have to work with? When women act like men, it's due to centuries of programming within an asymmetric system.

My main criticism is with systems that are patriarchal. These systems worship power, force and hierarchy. They tend to harm the vast majority, many men (victims of war) included. These types of systems are fostered on a MARS orientation inasmuch as Mars champions might make right, the ego, self-interest, force, war, and masculine expressions. Mars has a co-equal cosmic partner, she is Venus. One manifestation of Venus is the earth as Mother, another is Juno, as marital partner and equal (to Zeus), and 3rd is Venus as the exalted principle of Divine oneness and universal compassion. On a pragmatic level, Venus does represent the feminine gender, as well as art, beauty, law, peace and negotiation. Where Mars is me-first, Venus is we-oriented.

These archetypes are part of our cosmic heritage. They can be embraced and embodied by both genders, but Venus fits more in with feminine behavior as socialized, and Mars with masculine. When the subject is war, the US military budget, or rape the emphasis of Mars is all over the topic and bears being mentioned. Since men have penises and therefore CAN rape, those that identify with Mars deserve to be called on this. MANY men are enlightened and have integrated VENUS traits; many women are unenlightened and try to be like the boys, and show their inner Mars.

EACH of these persona from myth is valid. Like a geometric equation, the positions of these forces within the whole/circle presents counterbalances; but in our linear/hierarchical societies the circle has been decimated and MARS holds dominion. We see it in pure selfishness, we see it in living for today, we see it in the mighty taking advantage of the weak, we see it in the dearth of compassion and every time a curse word simulates a sexual act! Why are these words considered derogatory? Because men are sissified, made to be more feminine, which is considered the great insult. The very erroneous concept that god is taken as a male, a father figure, is GREAT injustice to women worldwide and it's seen in how women are treated. Rape is quite common in America, although far more brutal in these African nations where all hell has indeed broken loose. The way EARTH as MOTHER nature is treated also extends directly from the lack of respect men have for women and for the Divine feminine. In part, the misogyny of the church is responsible for all of the hybrid transgressions against bodies, women and often the earth that has resulted.

GOD is love, and love is a magnetic interchange between Yin and Yang. Both are Divie and both are equal, and as I have posted before, Life is the dance, and there IS no life without this sacred dance, that of an infinite undulating yearning of Yin for Yang and back again, as seen in the whirling dervish molecule of DNA itself. Sexism, no, Ascott... you limit what I say to suit the projection of you own conjecture. (I do agree with some of what you say, and our arguments are both nuanced thus via this medium, we are bouncing off one another's points in some places. Such is the nature of this virtual realm, but it's far better than no conversation at all. Perhaps enlightening, too, to any who have come this far!)

The corporate oligarchy loves nothing better than to divide the non-elites, whether by gender, religion, language, race, tribe, or any other criterion. That makes domination by the few over the many much, much easier. The author of the article seems to cross a dangerous and self-destructive line by condemning the perpetrators more for their gender than for their behavior.

BTW,
"There is no doubt that women are just as capable of acts of violence as men"

Is utter bullshit. Where there is not, and seldom ever has been "equality" in violence, not matter WHAT is done to us, overwhelmingly skewed numbers in any study you can name...I would say THAT is doubt.

But so what. We're all equal. Now grip your little car keys hard on your way out to the parking lot tonight ladies. Be careful out there. Some woman might be lurking out there to hurt you...

No. If women were as capable, we would act that way. We do not. There are more serial killers caught in movies than there are in real life, but the idea is so entertaining, isn't it? I'm so tired of the denial of simple facts. It just doesn't help at all. Doesn't help our daughters OR our sons.

And in this country, our culture denies any issues of gender and violence as if they do not matter. Period. I almost didn't read this article, and didn't read all of it. It's the same story, and I'm sure most people who bothered to read it were already well aware of the horror. I have to say, after a certain number...it's just a number.

But frankly, I flat give up. When folks like Bill Maher see fit to get on TV, with that huge following he has, and speak of mothers as "they think they're special" and it's a problem with him... "because it's something even a dog can do..." (referring ot having children) I give. What's left? Our own men are selling us out. Him too much of a pussy to come right out and say he thinks women are bitches. It just makes me sad. Funny though. Even most dogs wouldn't do what some men (not all men, but far, FAR fewer women, all immaterial to the issue nonetheless) would EVER do. Somehow this gender difference does not matter.

I've never seen a dog rape a child. And I was once a child. But we're "equal". Sure we are babe. In your mind only, not in how the world treats us. But so what. Thanks for your support Bill. Now I watch that show, that we wait for every friday, with reserve and sadness. Not his problem. Not his fault. Good for him, eh?

Because science surely hasn't shown any differences between how the sexes think and act. Even in our brain chemistry, and, WHO exactly is ignoring science now? Ha. Across the board, every culture, every civilization in human history. Sure. We're all the same. Always getting the short end of the stick. Cause we're "shorties". Guess that says it all.

And I'm thinking, God...I just give up. Sorry. This feminist has been sold out too many times. Men protect their own. Don't trust anything with a dick on it, unless and until it exibits humanity. It's a personal safety issue. That is all.

Oh, and to Bill, I'd really love to say, you f'ing fool, we aren't bitches. We're suckers. Sucked into a losing game. I'm so pissed anymore, I'm just thankful I don't have daughters. And I really won't recommend motherhood to anyone.

Ascott,

You make some very good points. I understand your arguments about assumptions, and you are correct to point out the weaknesses in arguing that a matriarchal society would be, fundementally, any different than a patriarchal one (in terms of creating a wonderful world). I would submit that we have insufficient real-world examples of true matriarchal societies from which to draw any valid conclusions about this one way or the other.

There is no doubt that women are just as capable of acts of violence as men. While there are, perhaps, some subtle differences in how that aggression expresses itself and what motivates it, even these seem more a function of external forces rather than any innate, biological drive. While I don't think you should dismiss the impact of those "obvious and limited physical differences connected with reproductive biology" (hormones have a very powerful influence on behavior), human beings (unlike lower-order mammals) live in highly complex social groups. This complexity blurs the line between nature and nurture, making it almost impossible to measure the degree of influence of one or the other in terms of human behavior. You make a valid point in arguing that the influence of myriad external forces more than likely trumps any (real or perceived) innate, biological behavioral norms. As you say, we should not, in light of these external forces, assume that a reversal of social roles would produce a different result. Conversely, we should not assume it would not. Neither assumption is supported by the information we have at hand.

Good arguments, Ascott, and well expressed. Whether women, as a group, could do a better job of running the world...who knows?

I, for one, would be willing to give them a shot.

culicomorpha

Are you sure your stats indicate what you presume they do?

Female violent crime has been on the rise, at the same time that women's equality has been rising. Women have fewer societal constraints on them.

Got any stats on the comparative rates of women's violence against children versus children's violence agaist women? (That's children, not juveniles.)

Would you interpret the disparity in the same way?

You want to throw a quote by Aristotle at me? Fine. But make certain that it applies. You are the one making assumptions - and you are misrepresenting my statements.

I have seen nothing that would serve as grounds for **assuming** that a female-dominated society would be better. And I put forth my reasons for questioning that assumption.

Got it yet?

culicomorpha

Did I state that a female-dominated society would be as bad or worse?

I said that, women not a different subspecies, and that they are just as capable of violence as men.

I also objected to the baseless assumption that a female-dominated society would be different.

I was not the one making the assumptions; I was the one arguing against them.

How many times must something be re-stated, before people get it? (I suspect that the number is related to how unpalatable the reader finds the implications of the statement.)

"I think it is very important to distinguish what we wish to be true from what is actually true...[B]eliefs about human nature can often come to dictate how people behave, because, in effect, it becomes a collective delusion and people become trapped in these beliefs...."

Indeed, and the collective delusion is that there is a basic and innate difference between the sexes (beyond the obvious and limited physical differences connected with reproductive biology). I'll go your statement one further: our perception/interpretation of what we experience is also colored by those same mass delusions.

Yes, the differences between the sexes definitely are a matter of degree, but that does not negate what I said: that the sexes are not that different, that women (as a group, of course), are capable of everything that men (as a group) are capable of. Put in similar situations, there is no predicting, solely on the basis of sex, how an individual will respond. That includes militarism and violence. There are men who are strongly anti-war, and there are women who are highly militaristic. (My mentioning two such women seemed to set at least one person off, but it is a legitimate demonstration *not* that all women are so, but that being a woman does not preclude one's being so. Had I realized that they had become cliche, I would have offered different examples.)

Here is an interesting point to note: as I stated that the sexes are not very different, that neither sex has a lock on any attribute, that women are capable of everything that men are capable of, etc., doesn't that mean that I believe not only that the female sex is not special/superior, but also that the male sex is not special/superior? That didn't seem to bother the men (or women). I certainly found it interesting. I also found interesting being called a sexist because my beliefs are *too* egalitarian.

It's fascinating that, while women want to be accepted as just as intelligent, just as logical, just as creative, just as talented - in short, just as competent as men; some of them become angry when it is suggested that they can match men on more negative traits of humanity, as well.

NO, I do not think you can see these differences more clearly than I can. (Here you crept over the line to deny, or at least ignore, your statement that I quoted.) Are you certain that at least **the extent of** the difference between greater testosterone levels and greater estrogen levels that you perceived were not, in fact, due to the difference you already believed existed? Remember, our behaviors are influenced by our beliefs. I added our perceptions: the most potent drug known is the placebo. Perhaps it was my belief that the sexes are not very different that helped me *not* to see that great a difference when I embarked on my similar journey.

So, now look at it again: are you certain that your perception of your experience was not colored by your acceptance of that mass delusion that men and women are basically different? Still believe that you have some special insight? (Really, you need to resist the urge to make assumptions about others!)

ascott, given that this article is about gross abuses of men in raping, torturing and mutilating women, I think the bar is very high for anyone arguing that a female-dominated society would be equal or worse compared to the current male-dominated society.

Even in this country, men are by far more likely to commit murder than women. See, for example U.S. Department of Justice Statistics: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/gender.htm
Most victims and perpetrators in homicides are male
Male offender/Male victim 65.3%
Male offender/Female victim 22.7%
Female offender/Male victim 9.6%
Female offender/Female victim 2.4%

Your argument that women would do as poorly as men, that they would be as hostile as men, is simply not substantiated by the available evidence. You know, Aristotle once wrote that "In framing an ideal we may assume what we wish, but should avoid impossibilities."

SIOUXROSE

Men and closet sexism?

"Margaret Mead went into the wilds to return with evidence tha biology is not always linear in its gender-based expressions. Many behaviors are learned."

Once again: I brought up Thatcher and Clinton because they are two women who are politically powerful - and to illustrate that being a woman, in and of itself, is no guarantee that one is incapable of being militaristic, etc. I also said that that echos the cries of 'girly man' that are hurled against those men that are anti-war. That does not deny any part of your statement above in any way. But your criticism of it ought to make everyone wonder.

"When we only look at violence through the prism of male versus female we lose the higher truth."

There's nothing that I said that warrants this. In fact, that you jumped to the conclusion that I am male, plus much from the rest of your post, prove that you are locked into that very paradigm.

I don't argue anti-science babble: astrology, psychology/psychiatry - made-up, untested (and untestable) 'theories' like Mars = war, Jungian (or any other) archetypes, etc. But if you look carefully at your own post, you cross from one side of the argument to the other. Male and female archetypes? What about that truth-limiting male versus female prism? You link all the ills of the world to men/masculine tendencies/Mars - but what about that 'behavior is learned' statement that you *incorrectly* aimed at me?

What is your basis for believing that equality for women would result in a better society? The increasing equality for women in our society does a pretty good job of parallelling the increase in violence perpetrated by women. Just as I said, women's attitutdes would not differ significantly from those of men in the same position in the same society.

I believe that human beings have not evolved beyond their violent tendencies. If violence is learned by women, isn't it just as likely that it is learned by men? Isn't the non-sexist view that our societies are the way they are, in large part simply because the species is not sufficiently evolved?

Why are the vast majority of societies so war-like? The anthropologists I have known posit that the reason men fight wars is based on reproductive truths, (of the time), and not other innate differences between the sexes. While, until very recently in history, it was men that went off to war, (with rare exceptions), nevertheless, women cheered their men on. And there were quite a number of women in history that adopted male clothing to go on 'adventures,' including war.

War is a **human** problem.

As I stated, no sex has a lock on any attribute. That is not a sexist remark. How did you manage to miss that?! Did you also miss what I wrote about my grandparents, *including* my statement that inner workings unrelated to sex were responsible for their differences? Did you also miss my disparaging mention of the term 'girly men'? (How odd that you should have gotten so much of my posts wrong.)

No, Siouxrose, shame on you! YOU are the closet sexist. Your post demonstates it.

P.S. Siouxrose,

Are you absolutely certain that A. Scott is a man?

SIOUXROSE

You've got it backwards! I have said several times that gender is NOT the deciding factor. The two you applaud have argued with me for my posts that stated just that.

GO back and read my posts, and tell me what I said that links anything to gender.

Hmmm... Well I'm reluctant to bring this up, since I know there is a lot of resistance to the idea, but here goes nothing...

It's interesting that AndyUK brings up the changing behavior of younger women in the UK. Coincidentally, (or not) in 1995, it was discovered that major streams in the UK that are also municipal water sources are highly contaminated with endocrine disrupting chemicals. It was discovered that these chemicals were feminizing male fish downstream from sewage treatment facilities.
http://www.ehponline.org/members/1995/Suppl-7/sumpter-full.html. More recent papers have demonstrated masculinization of females in a wide range of animal species. Exposure to diethystilbestrol, (DES) a pharmaceutical given to 5-7 million U.S. women from 1941-1971, which was purported to increase the probability of full term pregnancy, has since been found to feminize males, masculinize females, and cause a host of other problems. This was discussed in Theo Colborn's book "Our Stolen Future." Definitely worth a read if you want to learn more.

Probably no continent has had more use of pesticides (also endocrine disruptors) than Africa. The salesmen of these chemicals (typically U.S. firms) will go on and on about how many lives they are saving but they never bother to look at the downstream consequences. Recently even Uganda, one of the last remaining countries to use DDT has finally decided that maybe it wasn't such a great idea after all and is phasing it out.

I have been digging into this topic for years, and the question about what is chemically-induced and what is learned has repeatedly come up in my mind. Of course all the social scientists love to talk about the pliability of humans and how we can be whatever we want to be, but how do we really know that? Are we to assume that all these chemicals, some of which are very potent, are doing nothing? The CDC measures a large number of them in almost every U.S. citizen, yet we speak of them as "toxic" when they are better thought-of as behavior modifiers, not toxins. Toxins are thought to lead to death, but it is not death that is the usual outcome from these exposures. The animal evidence is unambiguous in this regard. But in humans we blame the perpetrator of unusual behavior and make up various social theories, without ever trying to understand what else might be going on that could have led to the sorts of acts described in this story. I'm not excusing the behavior, but I am trying to find a better explanation than what I usually hear. Since the limbic system has a lot to do with behavior, messing with this system is going to mess with behavior. And probably for the worse.

Whoa, Riverman! You're multi-posting! Time for your medication!

RIVERMAN: One of my dearest male yoga teachers learned from his teacher this apt phrase, "Logic limits love." It is not a failure of logic that's produced the weapons of advanced technologies now killing human beings and every ecosystem, it is a failure and lack of love, empathy and compassion that has made this world a hell for so many. So logic may have its place, but is by no means a panacea for what ails us. Your chauvinism is almost Neanderthal.

GRUMPY OLD LADY: Your comments are erudite and wise, as well.

IPENEK: I agree it did not have to be this way, that is, for so much to have come to ruin under a "Mars rules" societal construct. I often argue for the wisdom of heaven's circle, the great "As above, so below" DIVINE equation where all 12 personae, each designed as a counter-balance to the others, is invited to sit at the table. Mercury types, for instance, fill the world with humor and ideas. Jupiter types believe faith can heal all ills, while Saturn types tend to be natural conservatives and great upholders of the work ethic. Our world would be a boring mono-chromatic design without the hues enlivened by each of the 12 cosmic tribes. To honor the diverse expressions that reflect the circle is to build a world holistically, rather than one that bows to war, brute force, one size fits all mantras, fiscal hierarchies or other devices that enslave so many for so few.

Anyone that would kill someone weaker than themselves are more than weak, they are a pathetic excuse for a human being.

MA_Matriarch,

Pay no mind to Riverman. He can't put together a coherent sentence, but he is good for laugh.

Siouxrose,

A very articulate and thought-provoking post! We do seem to get back whatever we put into this world. Maybe the lesson here is to look to find balance within ourselves, reflecting outwardly those qualities we hope to inspire in others.

" I wish it had been Buddhist monks rather than Christian ones who acted as missionaries in so many lands…"

Interesting to consider how different things might be had this been true! But believing that each person's spiritual path is personal journey, and that the role of spiritual leader is best left to those with deep knowledge and experience in the Path, Buddhists generally refrain from prosthelatizing. Christians do tend to be more aggressive in their desire to convert others to their beliefs. Even with the best of intentions, there is something quite arrogant in the act of prosthelatization and it can have unintended consequences (i.e., the introduction of diseases to Native Americans who had no natural immunity, the destruction of spiritual beliefs without considering their importance to cultural cohesion).

Great post!

Compare with this, from http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12900

"Have you ever seen a man killed?" I asked him.
He glanced down, surprised by the question.
"Have you?" I asked again.
"Yes," he said.
"Was it bloody?"
"Yes"
I thought for a moment. "Why was the man killed? The one you saw?"
"Because he was weak."
"That's all?"
Lolo shrugged..."That's usually enough",

Women are targeted because they are vulnerable. There's no grand scheme, no systematic partiarchialism. They're weak, that's all.

riverman101 --
It doesn't matter how many times you say it, it's still just inane. At least spell intellect right.

SiouxRose --
That was a great and impassioned comment. Even though we have brutal tribal or clan origins, when humans became human we acquired the ability to transcend it. The MARS archetype of male governance is one we easily slipped into, but I don't think it's destiny.

Being forced to go against one's own free will is against nature. (Just wanted to clarity myself)

You can tell me whatever it is that you want me to think and just because I don't think that way doesn't mean it is the end of mankind.

Everyone is given free will and being forced against going against free will is going against the natural law!

greece fell also when all people started making their own decisions…democracy in everyone making logic decisions is NOT with natural law..

Say what?

That is the most insane thing I have ever heard riverman. One thing for sure it is NOT progressive.

The article is a frightening depiction of the breakdown not only of law and decency, but of respect for life. Women are the vehicles through which life grows and expresses. Because war is aimed at the destruction of life, women become easy symbolic targets.

I applaud GRUMPY OLD LADY * CULICOMORPHA for important insights and intelligent comments. Very few men have responded in this forum and it doesn't surprise me. While it's true that specific behaviors have been socialized BY gender, Margaret Mead went into the wilds to return with evidence that biology is not always linear in its gender-based expressions. Many behaviors are learned. I am so tired of otherwise intelligent men in this forum demonstrating their closet sexism by bringing up the usual names, Thatcher, etc to "prove" women are capable of "bad" things. Please! The preponderance of evidence equates MALES and their dominant baboon hierarchies with violence!

ASCOTT, you are so locked into your own paradigm you can't see the truth when it's been placed before you. Shame on you! Beyond the overt differences of gender, each human being is a collection of archetypal energies expressing. The most raw of the collection is that associated with what mystics term the first chakra, astrologers define as Mars. When we only look at violence through the dual prism of male versus female we lose the higher truths.

Jean Shinoda Bolen, a Jungian ph.D wrote 2 books, one, Gods in Everyman and the other Goddesses in Every Woman. She did a wonderful job of defining the basic male and female panorama of expressive archtypal energies. Because of political systems run by power-based elites, because hierarchy has been the rule and it's been run by powerful males, because wars have been needed to sustain these undemocratic systems of governance, MARS, the principle of violence, competition, raw force, ego, me-first, war over law, etc has come to rule. My best evidence to support this esoteric claim is the US budget now in the 21st century, a so-called modern civilized nation that bludgeons the world with weapons and places NO other priority higher on its fiscal scale.

Just as the shootings in Columbine represented a blowback from that community's defense contractors and their "product," the nation's emphasis on violence now gives rise to females emulating same. NONE of it is natural! Neither gender is superior, they are complementary, the LOVERS of Eden... but when women, love, peace, culture, art, diplomacy over war, compromise over might makes right are put on the back burner a gigantic imbalance results. IT has governed our world for centuries, so much so, that respected gurus of academe claim what we see around us as reality or human nature. BULL SHIT. It is the end result of societies that have placed a belief in a male god and subjugated women, the culmination of societies that have honed their warfare while learning little about spirituality (the kind of understanding that makes war effete). It's like navigating a boat with ONE oar. It can only circle. The frustration that results becomes anger in BOTH genders. The frustration that results is useful in pitting group against group, tribe against tribe so that the CAUSE of pain is never identified, altered or healed... and now, with weapons so advanced, and anger so high in so many people (with good reason given the state of things), the policing forces arise to chain back all that aggression or use it where they wish to channel it. It still lets Mars hold rule... and all of life suffers, for it is in the worship of Mars, the god of destruction & war, the DESTROYER that life is seen as cheap, as collatoral damage, as that which is shoved up the genitals of a woman to destroy her life-giving faculties.

If the gods are observing, if any deity is observing, can you imagine the horror that this gift of Eden, this place for love and lovers, has instead been rendered a blood bath? That, when not polluted by weapons of war, dead zones circling continents as polluting effluents run wild, legions of children maimed by war or orphaned roaming the streets like hungry wolves. A different world WOULD exist had patrirachal religions given to women the same status as men, had god not been fabricated in the image and likeness of white men, had women *(and indigenous tribes, many of which practice more communal values) been invited to decision-making tables. Soon Wall st and Washington will learn the true expanse of their impotence. What are these things when a tsunami races forward, when a volcano erupts, when a hurricane breaks winds loose? Short sighted fools who both lie and have been raised on lies guide the wealthy nations to a precipice, and the poor lands exploited follow the lead of their exploiters and in their rage and folly fall upon one another. The brutality is breathless. In seed state it IS a part of each of us, for everyone has Mars or they would not have an ego. Souls of varied levels of spiritual realization cohabit this planet. It's a shame that the illumined have largely been killed, punished, or silenced while those who profit from war, environmental exploitation, or corruption seem to run things and their poor example is followed by countless others. Nature bleeds for her children gone astray. The karma of so much violence will return to sender(s). I wish it had been Buddhist monks rather than Christian ones who acted as missionaries in so many lands... perhaps the understanding of karma rather than the sense of racial superiority might have altered the fate of those left to clutch broken genitals now. Tragic beyond tragic.

AndyUK,

You describe an interesting social phenomenon. We have a similar phenomenon happening here in the U.S., with more young women joining gangs, committing violent crimes and being imprisoned in record numbers. I don't know that there's so much a conscious thought on the part of these women to "act like men" and equal their male peers who engage in similar behaviors. Maybe it's more a response to changing gender roles. For good or ill, these roles have changed significantly over the last fifty years or so, and perhaps this is a natural result of that evolution (albeit, NOT one of the pleasant ones). Those of us who grew up with the Ozzie and Harriet/Father Knows Best view of gender roles seem to be more shocked and disturbed by this turn of events than our younger counterparts. It flies in the face of our picture of women as the kinder, gentler, more nuturing sex. Younger women have grown up with a much different view of women and their role in society, one that has only the vague remnants of the social and cultural constraints their mothers and grandmothers experienced.

Your concerns about women political leaders, in my opinion, reflects this still-evolving social order. For women, it's very much a Catch-22. In our society, female politicians (and, I would suggest, male politicians as well) who are soft-spoken, gentle, and promote peaceful ways over warlike policies are seen as too weak and compliant to be effective leaders. On the other hand, women who are tough, unemotional and militaristic in their views are seen (by both men and women) as "bitchy" and too masculine, having lost their "feminine" qualities. For male politicians, this behavior is often appealing to voters. We just don't seem to find it appealing in women. This persistant double standard creates a real challenge for women aspiring to elected office, wherein they must find a way to balance male-like toughness with appealing femininity.

I would hope that we will not judge all female candidates based only upon our experience with Mrs. Thatcher or other female leaders, or our views of Mrs. Clinton. After all, we've had many, many lousy male leaders. Yet we never seem to conclude, "Well, that's it! I'll never vote for another man again!" Men seem to get a pass on equating their leadership abilities with their gender. Women should get the same pass. I think we're getting there, gradually. Someday, I hope that we'll judge our leaders based upon their qualities, not upon whether they wear pants or a skirt.

If our culture would start linking gender to violence stats then we would all wake up to male violence. But sadly, our media resports "violence in schools" instead of "male violence in schools" for example. Seriously, 99.9% of all the mass murderers are male, but our society "politely" avoids this fact in their reporting. "Another school shooting" with never a discussion of the obvious fact that violence linked to male.

This is not to say that women as individuals can not be violent but looking at history one has to wonder just exactly WHERE is all the group female violence?

Along the same line of thought, I would love to have article written switching the gender in the article and get it printed. Every guy in this country would demand justice if men in Africa were being rifle butted in the back and their hands crushed so that women could tear their rectums apart and mutilate their penises. No doubt about this. But since it's happening to women, oh well, that's nature.

braveheart --
I see where you're coming from. Stallions are a pretty useless horse, except for, well, you know. Ultimately it's incumbent upon men to get over testosterone on their own (that's "us" men, in case you're wondering).
Interesting to note that there's a whole class of men who think women are the evil ones ruining everything. Cruise the blogs sometime. What you find will disturb you. Here's part of their doctrine:

- public schools are 80% women and program men, effeminizing them
- suffrage has destroyed the economy by diluting the workforce
- feminism has destroyed the family
- young women only want to humiliate young men and sleep around
- older women want to latch onto a provider and then do nothing
...and so on and on...

The depressing thing for you might be the number of WOMEN who buy into this as well. It's unbelievable but seemingly true. And their numbers are vast.

I am a farmer woman and can't help thinking about the fact that too many roosters or bulls or bucks would be a nightmare. They fight each other to the death and destroy the productive females of their species.

We control this by eating the roosters. Chicken noodle soup, in reality, is actually rooster noodle soup. The males, except for a select one or two, of other species are castrated and eventually sold for meat or pets.

Is there some lesson here for the human population?

I don't know. 'Just asking.

AndyUK --
Your description of the "ladettes" movement is pretty funny. It reminds me of the Python skit about roaming grannies. I'm not totally against it. Maybe in the end it will present a mirror so that all involved will see how stupid gender-based patterns really are.
If women become macho and men become effeminate can a "middle way" be far off? I can envision a day in the future where we just enjoy each other for our physical difference and that will be that. Meanwhile, we'll have to make due with warrior women.

In the matraichal times life was valued. Now you don't have life until you have the money. These are societies values. There needs to be a balance and in my mind there is no doubt that it can be accomplished.

I was just reading tonight...

The Army grants six weeks of maternity leave before a new mother must return to her job or training, and four months until she can be sent to a war zone. The Marine Corps and Navy allow from six months to a year before a new mother must deploy.

It seems to me life is something our society doesn't value.

Ascott and Culicomorpha: We now have a problem in the UK (and I haven't really seen it elsewhere), where certain groups of female society, see fit to ape the actions and disgusting behaviour of the male sector. The women in question are called "ladettes", and unfortunately this is not a rare phenomenon, and can be spotted in any town or city, at any time of the day. It used to be confined to the poorer, less well educated members of society, but has spread throughout, and is semi glorified by the media.
It involves young females (usually up to the age of 30, but sometimes older), getting drunk, roaming in gangs, verbally and physically abusing people, and generally not acting in a way which you would associate with being female.
It seems as though these young women, want to be seen as having the capacity to swear more, and be more macho than their male peers.
Having lived under Margaret Thatcher's rule in the UK, I would be very cautious about voting for another female leader. We still have some of the "Blair babes" in Gordon Brown's cabinet, and they exhibit more qualities, which could be termed contentious or combative. They seem to be trying harder to be tougher than their male counterparts.
Am I right in saying that Hilary Clinton is exhibiting the same tendencies, and would possibly be a more impulsive leader, more likely to resort to force than diplomacy, in order to look tough in front of her peers?

Amazing...gender wars...right here in cyber-space...and in Africa...bleeding,twisted bodies and death as a result...
how may I ask is this helping anyone?...
What solutions has come from this lengthy discussion and gender bashing?
WE live in a violent world...and violence comes in many forms...ie...arguing over who is right....balance can be restored only if we start to recognize that all of us have the ability to be and/or become violent...and being "right" is not equal to being happy...

ascott, I think it is very important to differentiate what we wish to believe is true from what is actually true. There is a wonderful BBC documentary that examines how beliefs about human nature can very often come to dictate how people behave, because, in effect, it becomes a collective delusion and people become trapped in these beliefs when these ideas become institutionalized. The Trap: http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=152

For my part, I think I can see these differences more clearly than you can because I have actually lived in this world as both a man and a woman. I have experienced the effects of testosterone and the effects of estrogen, and I can tell you definitively that these hormones have real effects. I do not make the mistake of assuming that all people are basically the same, because they are not. In reality, people fall into a spectrum of differences, but that does not imply that the mean is the same for both groups. They are different, and they are both important.

That being said, my main point was that both genders should be equally valued, because it is balance that will alleviate the worst shortcomings of both genders. I do not claim that any gender is superior, but I do claim they are different. But in the present patriarchal context, men have grossly abused women in almost every domain, and what is required is a restoration of balance: a devaluing of masculine traits, and a re-valuing of feminine traits.

Oh, and didn't I miss "grumpyoldlady's" final crack?

I did not dismiss any part of the article. I did not comment on the article. I reponded only to one post.

Unfortunately, there are those that can't stand to have their balloons burst. One of them responded, poorly, to my post. I then responded to that person, only to come across your just-as-jaundiced comments.

Strangely, I could have said that not all men are [insert any positive adjective], and no one would have objected. But the minute you correct someone who says that everything is lousy because men are in charge **and** brings up the mythical Time of the Goddess when everything was just peachy, so wouldn't things be grand if women were in charge? - then someone takes offense.

I remember when women were struggling to be seen as equal to men. Now the suggestion that they are equal isn't acceptable to some.

Careful: your bias is showing.

Hit again b the editing function!

That ought to have read: Given the opportunity, the worst of women will join the worst of men in whatever depravity is on offer. (Lynde England at Abu Ghraib, anyone?)

The final comment was to be:

I used the examples of two women who had attained political power to prove that being a woman, in and of itself, does not disallow one being a militaristic war-monger - and not, as you suggest, to prove that all women are militaristic war-mongers. If you had followed my argument accurately, and with an open mind, you would have seen that.

My point was never that all women are [anything] - but exactly the opposite: women, as a group, are capable of the best and the worst that men, as a group, are capable of. The members of each sex very greatly, and no sex has a lock on any attribute.

Is that clear enough for you now?

And I never got to commenting on the article in any way - because some poster just had to jump all over me for my reply to one post - not the article.

Your entire depiction of what I said is inaccurate. Your bias is showing.

A collapse of civilization? I agree. A regression into the dark ages? I don't think so. If you extend the behaviour described by Ms. Jones to a logical conclusion there would be no tribe, no civilization, no nothing but dead bodies, yet here we are. It is quite possible that the situation described by Ms. Jones has played out many times in human history but eventually the parties to the act would eventually have to look up and say: "WTF !!!!!"

I wonder sometimes, considering the band of wanderers some 40,000 years ago that left Africa and populated the earth, not so much about them, but the ones that stayed behind. But I know this is just a revulsive reaction to what the author describes, and at the bottom it is about greed, animal lust, and the dehumanizing effects of warfare.

As for riverman101. Methinks the poster is merely a bored prankster who can think of nothing better to do in his (her?) indolence than to type gibberish at their computer. It is hard to believe that anyone so apparently stupid would have access to a computer - let alone one connected to the internet - or even know how to use one. riverman101 you are no better than an adolescent vandal, pulling up shrubbery or removing a neighbors inflatable pool to their rooftop. Are you so insecure you cannot participate in civilized discourse? Prove me wrong.

Grumpyoldlady

Are you trying to be facetious?

Yes, I can imagine gangs of female soldiers raping (slthough it would have to be object-rape. And I can consider female soldiers cutting the fetus out of the body of a pregnant *woman* to settle a bet about its sex. Women are capable of being every bit as bad as men. They are not a different sub-species.

Do you think Goebbels' wife was any more humane than he, just because she didn't have the political power to do what he did? She was the one who killed their five children in the bunker, whereas he could not do it - (although he did allow it).

Culicomorpha,

You make some excellent points. Very astute observations.

Cranky_Chatter,

Your compassion and honesty are incredibly moving. Bless you for not "getting it."

Ascott,

"The point is, women are capable of anything/everything that men are."

Well, not quite. Unless you're prepared with specific examples of groups of female soldiers repeatedly raping boys and men, or cutting the fetus out of a man's body to satisfy a bet on its sex. Can women be just as brutal and cruel as men? Of course they can. One characteristic that all human beings seem to share is our capacity to be inhumane.

It's a historical reality that in most cultures throughout the world, it is men who possess and wield the lion's share of power...in terms of the social, financial, and physical power that forms the structure of most human societies. This is not to say that all men abuse this power, or that all women are therefore powerless. But it does mean that in times of social upheaval, the less powerful members of society (usually women, children, the elderly and infirm, minorities), lacking the power to influence events, become easy targets for unrestrained aggression.

As I said, I agree with you that women are capable of cruelty and violence, just like men. What bothers me is the context of your argument. The article was about the horrific violence suffered by West African women, some of it almost too horrible to read. But, rather than expressing shock or compassion for the plight of these women (as Cranky_Chatter so articulately and movingly did), your only response was a dismissive, "Well, women can be nasty, too!"

Very disturbing.

On a final note: You use the example of exactly two women as "proof" of a behavioral theory which you apply to all women throughout human history. I appreciate that! It just verifies what I've suspected all along...that my two idiot ex's are "proof" that all men are complete jerks!

Common Dreams needs to have their IT people look at this Edit function

culicomorpha

I did not ignore 'the larger point' of the article: I was comenting on s bit of silliness about the Time of the Goddess nonsense.

For some bizarre reason, there are people who insist that one segment of humanity is somehow innately superior to another.

My argument is, there is no reason to assert that a female-dominated culture would necessarily be that different. My reasoning is that women are capable of everything that men are capable of. The most intelligent of them are as intelligent as the most intelligent men. The stupidest of them are as stupid as the stupidest men. The pettiest of them are as petty as the pettiest men. The nicest.... The cruelest....

Do you not get it? The larger forces are not related to sex: they are related to the nature of human beings - and the fact that we have not managed to weed out the selfish and violent tendencies within the species.

If women are capable of everything that men are capable of, why do some women (and some men) insist that a female-dominated society would somehow be more peaceful, fair, humane, just, or....?

I was raised by my grandparents. My grandfather was a great guy: intelligent, quiet, fair-minded, non-violent. At the same time, he was very strong, both physically and psychologically. My grandmother was very different: spiteful, vindictive, closed-minded, jealous, and lying - and violent toward me. (Her tendencies went unchecked when he died.)

In short, he was everything that some try to say that women are, and she was everything that some try to say men are. The truth is, they were the way they were neither because of nor despite their respective sexes. They became what they became because of other internal mechanisms unrelated to sex.

If people are as they are because of sex or society, how could one explain the wide variation within each sex and every society? If I am as I am because of my sex and/or my society, why am I so different from a neoconof similar age? or my male cousins? or my Catholic relatives?

To say that one sex is innately better than the other is to deny that sex's full humanity. (That's humanity as in 'human-ness,' not as in 'humane-ness.')

It is you who have missed my point.

Would you please be quiet? I am working hard trying to pay off my 7000 sq. ft. mansion, my bi-annual remodelings, my vacation condos in the Bahamas, Cancun and Hawaii, my yacht, beemer, SUV, and child support to my two-ex wives, my two mistresses, child support for them, plus a divorce coming up and three ivy-league college educations for the kids plus their three beemers.

culicomorpha

I named Thatcher and Clinton to show that women are capable of anything that men are capable of. You ignored the entire point. It is not whether a militaristic stance is correct - it isn't.

The point is, women are capable of anything/everything that men are. The very fact that Thatcher and Clinton act like the worst of the male politicians proves that there is nothing innate in women that prevents them from being so. I also said that women will be just as likely to act like the men in their time/society as the men.

So, in trying to disagree with me or correct me - or whatever you thought you were doing, you have in fact, proven my points.

Thank you.

'West Africa', hell...report out of Detroit, where the homelessness is greater, and 'real-food' is in shorter-supply...
And ALL Rhodes-scholars and Ivy-league educated-dummies are 'sociopaths' -- if not an 'entry-criteria', they subsequently Major in such. [I think they call it 'neo-Lib'?]
Ask one of the Clinton's...
A 'war against women' -- are you joking? In England and America, we have 'warriors who are Thatcherite-women' -- all to be lead by Bill's "Amazon of the Clean-Knees"...and that Royal-hag who couldn't keep the Bank of England 'non-Kosher' (Gore and his new 'Baroness' thinks that is 'spiffy', though -- Carbon-taxation, here we come!).
[Well, you all wanted to 'Save the Planet', didn't ya? Just don't freeze from jacked-up Oil (or BDR's purloined-Uranium, depleted-or-otherwise) during all of this 'Global-Warming' due to 'misuse of Peak Oil'!]

C5H8 + O2 = CO2 + H2O -- just like when you 'hold your breath' -- and, "how long can-you", btw? Longer than you 'can't drink'?
Buy a now-cheap SUV, and run it on always-cheap/clean LPG -- just like Schwarzenegger does in his Hummers -- in a CARB-state where HE is the only-one really 'legal'! There IS no Peak-Oil (just Peak-Refineries since JDR monopolized them, and an 'Arc of made-Unstable' elsewhere), there is also no 'Global-Warming' (just 2,000 above-ground 'Tests', unregulated Utility-Co's, and a great-big HAARP electric-bill since '92), and oil is 'worth' exactly $0.60 cents-per-barrel, dumbass...(oh, and Ethanol uses more Oil than burning-oil, wrecks your engine, AND reduces your MPG by 10% while starving your grandchildren -- so let some-other Dumbass Mandate it for you!).
Crap -- why was EVERY 'child left behind' in America? Even UncleTom taught some Literacy, didn't he? [Guess I can hope Uncle Obama might...NAH!] Gore will be the perpetual Clinton-shadow -- and you guys in CD thought Cheney was 'bad'!]

riverman101, Did you even read this article? If men had their way without any constraints from women, the species would quickly be doomed. I find it utterly bizarre that you would make a claim of male superiority when the article was largely about men incessantly raping, torturing, and mutilating women. So much for the superiority of men.

I found it interesting that ascott claimed that "when women are in charge, they exhibit the same sorts of tendencies as the ruling/governing men of their time/culture" Claiming that all genders are equally capable of exactly the same behavior really neglects - and tends to make invisible - the larger forces which have created an unbalanced situation to begin with.

The vast majority of cultures today are patriarchal where might makes right; only those people who behave as if this were true are going to reach the upper levels of power. So in my opinion, Margaret Thatcher and Hillary Clinton are women who have taken-on male patterns of thought and behavior, otherwise they would have been marginalized and considered unworthy, as most women in this world are today. By and large, only male-acting women in positions of power and women as sex-objects are highly valued today. That is, it is femininity, empathy and nurturing that have been considered worthless, not female personhood per se.

I see some responses to this article to be a recognition of the loss of balance between masculinity and femininity in many cultures. Both are needed for balance, but whenever one is considered superior to the other, all sorts of havoc happens. The desire for more emphasis on femininity seems to me to be a enantiodromia, where the over-valuing of masculinity is creating a counterbalancing desire for an increase in the value of femininity. This seems to be a good thing and way overdue.

"militantliberal- they were rapists BEFORE they got there "

totaljoke: You were asked for a citation for an accusation such as you make here. Do you have one or not? I think not.

I had to make myself read this and the links... it's so awful to contemplate. America needs new priorities. "Our interests" have always been, in fact, the interests of exploitive, extractive transnational corporations.

Human rights is our Sunday Sermon... it ends there.

I can see by the comments above that other people are as baffled as I am by such horrific conduct... but on an institutional scale like this? It's completely unfathomable.

I know it's men that do this. As a man I should "get" it... so far, I've tried and failed. What is it in ME, that's akin to THEM? I have been testosterone toxic, irrational and wrong in my life... but these acts? mind-boggling.

If anyone wants to refer me to some literature that could truly help me understand (in layman's terms), I'll read it, I promise.

I wrote Sen. Obama a letter, regarding the abuse of women and children, refugees from Iraq. I also talked a bit about the slave trade... BEGGING him to take America in a new direction when he becomes president.

I feel like I'm whistling past the graveyard... so entrenched, even cellular level, is the inhumanity of mankind and the power structure of this world.

riverman101, have you considered using the spell and grammar check option on your computer? It works very well. If there were a global IQ test to determine who could vote, I doubt you'd be allowed to. And since the world is ruled by men now, things would not change at all.

Grumpyoldlady, I appreciate your subtle use of satire. It will go over riverman's head, but then, what doesn't? The dominant patriarchy sees no reason to change. They like things as they are.

thevideowoman

Most tiles in that category have been discredited - and mainly by women scholars. When I studied anthropology, and during my talks with professors in the field, mentioning the 'time of the goddess' was met with raised brows, grimaces, gecks, and/or rolled eyes by the women on the faculty.

It's a re-writing of history akin to those that insist that the Americas were a kind of Eden before the European, or that European conquerors totally misrepresented African cultures, and that the only reason there's violence in Africa is because the Europeans taught it to the people they subjugated.

Surprise! All humans are capable of the same depths and heights, given similar circumstances. When women are in charge, they exhibit the same sorts of tendencies as the ruling/governing men of their time/culture. (Anybody want to call Margaret Thatcher a warm and fuzzy, sweet and nurturing, head of state? Do you think Hillary Clinton would be?)

Here's something to ponder: suggesting that female = peaceful is an echoing of the kinds of idiotic cries of 'wimp,' or 'girly man,' etc., that are hurled by warmongers at men who prefer peace.

Muslim Girl - a teen magazine published in the States - it sometimes shows girls wearing hijabs on the cover and other times girls not wearing hijabs:

http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/2007/07/072207_1.html

RE: - Those men victimizing women and children are not human - they are psychopaths!

RE: - I wonder how many unreported rapes of Iraqi girls and women have been committed by the illegal occupiers.

RE: - We rape and murder our own women (and children) all the time. The number one cause of death in murders of women in the USA is from a spouse or boyfriend.

Seems like misogyny exists in all cultures and societies - as does the fight against misogyny.

Whether woman is portrayed as a virgin or a bratz doll, in both cases our ultimate purpose on earth seems to be to make ourselves pleasing (and nonthreatening) to men. What about the old fashioned idea of someone liking us for being us?

It shocks me that you find a decent guy who sticks up for women and the other men try to shut him up.

I am sure that every time a soldier or "contractor" rapes someone, there is at least one man forced to remain silent about it or, at least, not interfere.

I am sure that every time an aid relief worker expected "fringe benefits" in exchange for providing food to a starving woman or child that some man is made to keep his silence about what is going on through the use of threats.

If one's wife, or children or sister or cousin or friend is abused, does it really matter if one is male or female? If a stranger is being harmed and you can do nothing about it, does being male rather than female ease your guilt.

Was Maria Lauterbach an isolated incident?

The usa cannot even save the women from the pervets who roam the web or the so called spousal love of husbands and boyfriends.

Questioning Afghan Justice

A 23-year-old journalism student has been sentenced to death in Afganistan. His crime? Downloading a document that suggests women are equal to men. Is this a country that really wants democracy, which Canadians are fighting and dying for? We ask the federal government if it will intervene.

http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/2008/02/021008_2.html

It is easier for men to harm women because most cultures the world over embrace the concept of hierarchy. Hierarchy over land. Hierarchy over animals. Hierarchy over children. Hierarchy over females.

Hierarchy roots are firmly rooted in worlds most popular religions. But the oldest religions (beyond what we are encouraged to study) were NOT rooted in hierachy and dominance, but were about our wonderful dance with nature. Humans use to love being part of something wonderous and wonderful.

Recommended reading to learn more--
"When God Was A Woman"
"The Chalice and The Blade"

Um, Riverman, the system you keep trying to promote, wherein only the select few get to vote or hold office, describes the Dark Ages to a tee.

You need to spend a lot less time trying to exercise your limited reasoning skills. You're going to hurt yourself. I would advise taking up something less strenuous, like reading, or crochet.

But thanks for the chuckle.

This is a superb article by Ann Jones, and highlights the events on the African continent in particular. In response to a recent article about FGM, particularly in Africa, I felt that my comments would be taken as racist. I stick by my assertion, that the majority of Africa has not yet realised it is in the 21st Century, in fact it seems to be adopting the barbaric codes of the dark ages. Women on the African continent are to be used or possessed, they have few if any rights. They seem to exist simply for child bearing, or as some kind of prize, to be claimed by the warrior, or head honcho of a tribe.
The West has not attempted to introduce true democracy, law or morally founded principles, but instead, installed puppet governments to insure the safe passage of assets, and wealth from the said states.

It never ceases to amaze and horrify me, the brutality that human beings are capable of inflicting on one another. For a country that has been at war almost continually since its inception, so few of us have really experienced war or understand what being at war really means. Most of us have never seen war first hand. We've never known the gut-wrenching terror of armed soldiers invading our homes, our communities burned and destroyed, our loved ones carried off, brutalized, maimed or killed while we looked on in helpless horror. Most of us find those images too frightening to even imagine.

Our images of war are of John Wayne-like American officers fearlessly leading their troops into battle; of soldiers who die dramatically with noble words of encouragement for their buddies; of clearly defined and wicked enemies that are merely representatives of an evil idealogy, not human beings; of bombs and bullets that only hit proper, military targets. We see only the aspects of war that make us feel good, and turn a blind eye to the realities of war that make it something to be avoided.

In every war, large and small, it is the civilian population that suffers the most. As this article points out so well, those civilians are primarily the less powerful members of society...women, children and old folks. The men who fight in war also suffer, both witnessing and participating in incredible acts of brutality that cannot help but change their perception of themselves and the world. We look at events like these and feel troubled and sad. If we are honest, perhaps we even feel a bit fortunate, having never looked out our front window and seen our neighbor being held at gunpoint while cheering soldiers rape his wife and daughter.

With few exceptions, Americans have no way of relating to the experiences described in this story. For the majority of Americans, the experience of war is confined to insolated incidents in recent history...the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the terrorist attacks on 9/11. We watched in shock as familiar landmarks exploded in flames. We were horrified to see our fellow citizens running in terror for their lives, or perishing before our very eyes. Imagine, if you will, how our perceptions would change if events like these were a daily reality of American life.

At least, then, when our leaders talk about things like "surgical air strike," "shock and awe," "limited engagement," "regime change," "armed incursion," and "taking the war to the enemy," we would all know, beyond any doubt, exactly what it was they were talking about.

Those men victimizing women and children are not human - they are soldiers doing what they are told to do! Knights and other warriors at least have ethics.

militantliberal- they were rapists BEFORE they got there and it doesn't matter if the women are Iraqi or their fellow female US soldiers. We rape and murder our own women (and children) all the time. The number one cause of death in murders of women in the USA is from a spouse or boyfriend.

The truth is, war just makes this situation worse. When there are no civil structures present to help prevent or punish these actions, they proliferate. Look at countries that have thriving sex slave trades, a nation does not even have be at war for these actions to happen. As much as men like to thump their chests about the sufferings of war and combat, women and children fare far worse and often have no say whatsoever. Sometimes death is better than other alternatives. In a testostorone driven, might-is-right world, women have much to fear.

Civilization is a very fragile thing. It gets real ugly when it is weak, unjust or not around.

This story makes me wonder whether combat veterans are more likely to come home rapists than those of the same age who never went to war. Anyone out there have reliable statistics?

Their true, ugly, evil selves become obvious when they put on a uniform, which reminds me of the rape and killing of the 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers. I wonder how many unreported rapes of Iraqi girls and women have been committed by the illegal occupiers.

Heart-rending article.

Those men victimizing women and children are not human - they are psychopaths!

Oh boy, don't you just love full spectrum dominance? ronSuskind's 1% Doctrine has an interesting and sensible discussion of space debris and its dangers. Between that and the recent attempt to twist Europe's arms and make travel to the U.S. much more cumbersome, nasty, and painful, makes you really want to go out and buy an airplane ticket.

What planet are these guys on?

So far, their attempts to shoot down anything have failed, even when they knew when it would be launched and when they tried to hit it right after launch, let alone trying to hit an income rocket or a large asteroid or whatver!

Star Wars, Star Trek, Star Junk!

So why isn't the US in West Africa, trying to save the oppressed people there?

Wow, that was a stupid question!