New Consciousness & Changing Responsibility
I am very curious about what T Clark has to say about women blaming men and not taking their share of responsibility. I know back in the early days of women's liberation, I read New Women magazines and they made it clear women had to become responsible in a different way and that prospect was frightening to me. I have really mixed feelings about the social changes we have experienced. I think we are moving into a totally new consciousness and that if we continue in this direction, future generations will not be able to relate to the past. Our relatively recent past, and present, could look barbaric to future generations. So this is what T Clark said......
T Clark:This is something I feel strongly about. Women who say they want to be respected but then blame the problems of our society on men rather than taking their share of the responsibility are hard to take seriously.
Comments (43)
If I walk into a store with no shirt and no shoes and I get no service should I play the victim and blame the store? Do I have zero ability to see myself. Maybe someone should hold a mirror in front of me.
It is the same with some people. They blame the opposite sex for the reason they can't get what they want from them. Like young guys blaming women for why they can't get sex, or older women blaming men for why they can't get married.
In order to get something from a store I have to figure out what the store wants from me in order to give me what i want. Fair trade requires communication and education between both parties. What do I have to do for you in order for you to do what I want. And what are your good qualities and bad qualities. What do you have to offer and what do I have to watch out for and avoid. To get the pleasure and avoid the pain. Now I'm learning. So I am getting closer to achieving my goal. Or I can sit around and sulk. Or I can use entitled victim mentality to trick everyone into giving me what I want for free.
I am reluctant to get involved in this discussion. I think my sincerely held (and I think fair and humane) opinions will be taken as disrespectful. It's also a huge subject. Feminist philosophy doesn't get much play here on the forum, and I am reluctant to put myself in opposition. Ok, now that I've gotten all my excuses out of the way, I'll at least expand on my comment.
The essence of adulthood is that you don't blame other people for your misfortune. You take responsibility for your own life. People who hold other people to blame are asking to be treated like children. In our society there is a case to be made that certain classes of people are dealt a raw deal in life. As far as I can see, that usually breaks down by race and class, not by sex. Working class people get the shaft. Middle and upper class people have the road paved for them. I include myself and my family in that group.
That's what it comes down to for me. If you want to blame others for difficulties in your life, you are asking to be treated like a child.
Blame the victim (of abuse, deprivation, violence) for crying out for help and shame the survivor (of class exploitation or race/gender/sex discrimination or both) for fighting back ... because "tough titties, dude, that's just the way it is, the world isn't fair and doesn't owe you anything". "Treat us like children" and we'll "treat" you like jailed child molesters. :shade:
This is true only if women, as a class, are victims. Is that what you think? I don't.
Protected classes (re: sex & gender discrinination)
I wonder if that's true. I'm guessing it's not. I know a lot of women, none of whom would characterize themselves as victims or survivors. At least two of them really are victims of childhood abuse that has affected their adult lives in very significant ways. Both of them take responsibility for their own lives. Neither blames the people who abused them, although they do hold them responsible.
Quoting 180 Proof
That includes religion too. Do you consider Christians victims? Muslims?
I'd like to suggest that there's two layers to being a victim. There is a societal aspect and a personal aspect.
1. The societal aspect of being a victim
This is where morale and law applies. One of the goals of a functioning society is to allow a peaceful and save environment for every member of society. Hence, any harmful behaviour that "creates" a victim is to be prevented. Further, there is the law that offers consequences for those that do violate this rule and cause harm upon others. Effectively, the societal aspect operates in regard to the perpetrator, preventig the perpetrator from causing harm and punishing him if he does.
2. The personal aspect of being a victim
This is about resilience, fortitude, our personal world view and how we deal with crisis. Society may dictate what happens to the perpetrator but as the victim, the damage is still done. The question then is, how do we deal with this? Ultimately we're along with our thoughts and emotions and we'll have to find a way to cope with our trauma. The personal aspect operates in regard to the victim, it is about overcoming trauma and continuing to live.
I think this is what T Clark means with
Quoting T Clark
Society offers prevention, punsihment and support - but ultimately, every individual is responsibly for their own happiness. It sounds crude but in the end there's only two options: 1. Suffer from what happened for the rest of your life. 2. Get over it
We find these ideas in Buddhism and Stoicism.
We can hardly control our circumstances. Life contains suffering.
What we can control is our mental states. Do I focus on the bad and spiral into negativity, or do I focus on the good and appreciate all that life has to offer?
But note: As women begin to flex (in the U.S., if not in Afghanistan), they should keep in mind that there is likewise a pecking order among men. There are a few moderating factors: civics, the gun, and money. But absent these, a big man, in his prime can treat other men the way some women feel men treat them. So it's not always a viable argument for a women to say to a man "You don't know what it's like!" He might know very well what it is like.
To avoid the gun and money (while not abandoning them), we need to focus on civics. We should honor humility and defend the humble. To the extent we honor the proud and refrain from shooting them, we should exalt those who protect the humble from bullies. Let the proud tease and rough-house with each other; and in the process teach each other civics.
This applies to women and men.
P.S. This is not New Consciousness & Changing Responsibility. This is old.
I was reluctant to get involved in this discussion. I only did because @Athena started it in response to a comment of mine. She seems to have bailed on the discussion, so I will too.
I agree with some of what you've written. As I noted in my response to 180 Proof, I'm getting out of this discussion.
Interesting. On the contrary, I find that usually, when people blame others, they do so in an effort to get the upper hand in the situation, to obtain the position of power.
*sigh*
Hey, I don't even have the time to turn on the computer every day!
:lol: I see why you were concerned about expressing your opinion. You did an excellent job of laying the groundwork for discussing touchy subjects. If you had not done that, it would be more difficult for me to be rational. As it is, I realize my intense anger is from the past and it would be irrational for me to unload it here and now but I need to skillfully defend my species. :wink: Times have changed a lot and that really complicates things.
When you speak of blame I wonder does that include a notion of cause and effect?
Some years ago I belonged to a male conservative group that ventured into allowing women to join. At first, there was just me and two other women and everything was cool. Then the men included their wives and OMG could I understand why, in the past, people believed women were incapable of being rational and most assuredly incapable of leading or having much responsibility. I mean not even the responsibility of managing money and paying the bills. These women were probably in their 70's and they had the mentality of children! Do you want to guess at why they were as little girls? Why were their wives different from the next generation of women?
I think this says everything about why I don't want to go any further in this discussion. If you are not a member of my species, we have nothing to say to each other.
No, I did not bail. I was busy, and boy, am I sorry I did not stay on top of the thread! It took a direction that kind of ruins the concept of our changed reality/ consciousness, that I wanted to explore with everyone. And @ john27 expresses wisdom in asking.
Quoting john27
Yes, I am asking if the change in a woman's social responsibility is for the better or worse. Now like T Clark, I have my concerns about saying what is on my mind but if I don't, this thread is pointless.
I think the traditional, full-time homemaker is a very important social position and we have destroyed it. I am not sure this is good for society. On the other hand, I think women in the seats of power have done much good. An extremely important factor that complicates the possible arguments is the possibility of women putting family first and when the children are old enough, switching to something outside of the home to fully actualize themselves through a career.
From my experience of being a male primary caretaker in the context of certainly being employable to do something else, it struck me how the kid (in review) had absolutely no preconceptions about what should happen. My efforts were not maternal but it was made clear to me they were welcomed as care.
Children seem designed to make the failings of their parents to come sharply into view.
Wait a minute I was attempting to introduce some humor to reduce tensions. A whole different subject could be why does talking about the relationships of men and women cause us to go crazy? We need to reach out to each other and if possible dispel the animosity that is a big part of what is going so wrong right now. I find your sensitivity valuable in making me think carefully about how I word myself so it is on topic and not an emotional rant.
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships – April 23, 1993
by John Gray, was a helpful book and maybe it could still be helpful. There has been such dramatic social and economic changes and everything is spinning out of control because the change is happening without discussion and coming to a consensus. Do we want to institutionalize our children in government-run institutions so all mothers can work outside of the home? How might this affect our experience of being human? How might it be changing society?
Whenever I see a broad sentence that signifies a specific group, I get rid of the specific group.
"This is something I feel strongly about. People who say they want to be respected but then blame the problems of our society on other people, rather than taking their share of the responsibility are hard to take seriously.
Removing the specific allows us to also remove bias. Removing bias is key to thinking more rationally about something.
First, its still a broad sentence that can be taken different ways depending on how you read it. If I read it as:
People who are an equal part of society, and say they want to be respected but then blame the problems of our society on other people, rather than taking their share of the responsibility are hard to take seriously.
I can agree here. If you are a wealthy land owner who has the power to not do something wrong, but you do something wrong and blame it on society, its hard to respect that person.
But lets change it up.
People who are oppressed, threatened, and marginalized by society, and say they want to be respected but then blame the problems of our society on other people, rather than taking their share of the responsibility are hard to take seriously.
Now I would agree with this sentence too. If society will not respect you, threatens you, and basically ostracizes you from society, I think the blame lays with those who have power in society, not yourself.
Divisive sentences like T-Clark's are divisive because they let you two diametrically opposed contexts into it. One person could be angry at T-Clark, while a defender of T-Clark would roll their eyes at the person in anger. Both have merit in their context of the sentence, but are actually concluding entirely different meanings from that sentence.
True woman's liberation is about equality of opportunity, and respect in the law. We can eliminate the word woman as well, and realize that true liberation in society is about equality of opportunity, and respect in the law. Beware those who would taint liberation with bias, for their intent is often not about liberation, but an agenda.
Perfect! Now that is down the line of what I want to discuss! You do not need to answer this personal question, but why did you feel a need to clarify you are qualified to do something besides care for a child? If raising children is one of the most important things a human being can do, why would it be necessary to clarify you are capable of other things? Does someone want to argue caring for children is not important? Really, are we at peace with the state of fear and anger we are living in now?
How old was the child? I ask because I firmly believe around age 6 the care of a child needs to shift from a female care provider to a male care provider.
This question is very important... Did you and the child bond? If the two you bonded, is the relationship continuing until death do you part? What might happen to the child if all relationships are only temporary? If as soon as a child feels love and security, there is loss and insecurity? Might that be harmful to the child?
I suspect the most terrible thing we have done, next to war and slavery is dismiss how a child feelings by saying "children adjust". Mom and Dad and all substitutions for Mom and Dad can do whatever makes them happy and no one needs to think of the child because the child "will adjust'. The child has "no preconceptions about what should happen". That is probably true because we are not born with preconceptions, I will argue that is what is wrong with a child going through life with temporary relationships. The child is learning who s/he is and what life is about, and if people learn each one of us is out for ourselves with no commitments or obligations to others, what might kind of society will we have?
We should always remember: though a woman is more free to abandon her traditional role and seek protections from the state over other human relations, she has the corresponding and growing freedom to do the opposite. The point of it is that the realm of conduct is expanded. It’s better this way because only by free choice can a woman—or anyone—educate herself to this or that desirable end with dignity, by force of her own reason and conscience.
None of this is to say that women should or should not abandon “social responsibility”. I just wouldn’t say a fear of the conditions are really warranted.
You touched upon a lot of issues I cannot answer for. I am not happy with that response but I figure this sort of thing requires being very honest about limitations.
My child has a pretty good understanding of my limitations.He is glad that I helped him understand how that works. A parent cannot ask for much more than that.
I love your arguments and you have made it very clear why education in how to think is very important. I believe throughout the whole of society we have a much better society if from the day a child entered school, education was learning how to think. You have demonstrated that how we think can make the difference between being a rational person, or an emotional mess.
I object to your definition of woman's liberation meaning equality of opportunity and respect in the law.
Please refer to my reply to Quoting Athena Why do you think he needed to clarify he is capable of doing something besides childcare? I could be wrong, but I think he felt a need to do that because we do not value full-time homemakers who enable the husband and children to be all they can be, as though no capable person would settle for that. Really? I think our equality needs to include the value of caring for our families. Inequity as I see it is claiming "what I am doing is important and what you are doing is not".
If you look at India and other Asian countries and the veneration of spiritual leaders and elders, we might have a different understanding of being humans. What do I have to achieve to be valued?
Huh? you can't ask for more than your child understanding you? You do not want to know what is going through my head. You appear to be thinking about yourself rather than the child. I really hope I am wrong, but I think this is where there is a male/female difference and where is a problem with valuing the person who cares for the child.
Refering to my reply to Quoting Philosophim caring for a child is not an opportunity we take for our own gain.
I am curious about is going through your head.
I ask for a lot of things that don't interest my child. He is used to that. How to put it, we understand each other.
I don't think I could be working any harder to understand what people are saying and make rational replies than if you all were writing in Greek. Once a child is born, a woman is free to do what?
What was a woman's social responsibility? What is a woman's social responsibility today? What is a man's social responsibility? Is there a difference between the man's and the woman's social responsibilities?
What does life have to offer? Can you think of any conditions that leave a person feeling powerless to achieve happiness?
Speaking of child care is the foundation of why I brought up the subject of changing consciousness. Our civilizations have been patriarchal. The Cherokee are matriarchal and there are other matriarchal societies around the world but these are not dominating powers as patriarchies are. In our patriarchy women have agreed to be like men and leave childcare up to someone else. I question if that is a good idea.
I do not think in any matriarchy or patriarchy do men desire to be as women, unless they are homosexual and even then I doubt this is strongly connected with wanting to be a mother. Drag Queens are not displaying a desire to be mothers. There are some nurturing men who enjoy being with children and this may or may not reflect their sexual orientation. :joke: This is crazy-making because there are so many possible combinations, but I think I can safely say, in our society, we do not have nearly enough nurturing men willing to devote themselves to children.
Why don't many women what to be nurturing and financially dependent on someone else? On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best, How do we rate women who are financially dependent so they can stay home and care for their children? How on the scale where do we put men who are financially dependent and stay home to care for the children?
Do you really have to ask???
Well, I'll warrant I don't have much knowledge on this topic, but i'll give it a shot.
my general idea is that its not necessarily only a woman's social responsibility that has altered; I would say that the average idea of "family" has changed, or in any case has lost a veritable amount of importance. Human artificial insemination, rising rates of sterilization amongst men, I think theres even a human clone in china somewhere... not sure, but it would seem that the word family is definitely decreasing in value. Personally, I wouldn't be able to say whether its for the better or for the worse, seeing that my belief around family is obviously biased.
Who knows? Maybe in the future we'll see family as a terrible and archaic form of human development. Only time will tell I guess.
And sometimes there are group patterns. Generally not always that the entire group of one side abuses the entire group the other side. But there can be tendencies and imbalances in who should get the blame. Their can be cultural practices that benefit one group and harm the other.
I know Iranian women, for example, who blame men more than women for the current way women are viewed and treated in that society. They certainly see women participating and perpetrating also. But the greater blame they aim at the men, while feeling that they have male allies also.
Physical strength has allowed political strength and then created cultural patterns that are abusive more to one side, though, I think ALWAYS abusive to both. It doesn't make you a child to notice this.
Just as an African slave (a more extreme example) is not a child if they had blame for the way the whites treated them.
I can't see a problem with someone who is sexually abused blaming someone who abused them.
Meaning of blame in English
blame
verb [ T ]
to say or think that someone or something did something wrong or is responsible for something bad happening:
From Cambridge dictionary. Notice how responsible is in the definition of blame.
Well of course. Philosophy is about asking questions, and then daring to answer them. It is not being a know it all. Just this morning I read how we risk the gods striking us down if we are not modest in all ways. :grin:
There would be no point in coming to the forum if it were not to ask questions and attempt to answer them.
Thank you that is what I was hoping we would get at.
Okay, what of our hormones that define our human nature? Sex and mothering are hormonal. Now we can be celibate and childless but that goes against our nature. Our nature is to feel pleasure when we have sex or suckle a child. Oxytocin is our love hormone and sex and suckling a child stimulate the secretion of that hormone. Because of our hormones, it can be hard to be celibate and it can be hard for a mother to return to work instead of staying home to care for her baby. Men can get up in the middle of the night and give the baby a bottle, and they can change the baby's diapers, but they will not have the feelings a mother has. I do not understand why in this age of science, we are in denial of our hormones and what they have to do with our feelings and behaviors? What we have done is very dehumanizing and it is hard for me to believe this is good for humanity.
Family fidelity is gone from our consciences and I know for a fact this is very painful for most older women who are being firmly rejected by their grandchildren who don't like old people who just by looking at them, remind them of their mortality. In the past, we were taught to respect our elders, and family fidelity defined who we were and our place in society. Education for a technology society with unknown values has purposefully destroyed that. I am horrified that today when people speak of their identity it is about the work they do, not family!
Until women's liberation, I was Mrs. James Smith, and it was my husband and children who defined me.
For at least 6 thousand years all of humanity was ordered by family order. That is no longer true. We are no longer committed to each other as we once were and this has huge moral ramifications. What do you think?
That is not how either understands their act of abuse unless they are aware of being angry and wanting to hurt the other person. I am including females as sexual predators, because of news stories of female teachers lusting for a young male student and acting on it. Normally sexual behavior comes from knowledge of self, not knowledge of the other person. Some thoughtful people may read a book about sex and technologically be sex experts, and they can not know how the other feels without asking? :lol: How many men fake a climax to make the woman feel good and to stop the action that is not appealing because the hormone level is not where it needs to be to enjoy sex?
The young man who recently entered an older woman's home and raped her had been watching porn of women waking up to a rapist and being delighted. He expected her to enjoy the sex. He is not the only rapist who expected the female to enjoy the sex. In the past women were expected to say no, and men were expected to not take no for an answer. From the Carol Burnet Show to Mash and Gomer Pile sex is a mating dance of females rejecting the male and the male continuing to pursue the female and it is funny or pathetic when the roles are reversed. If we think of nature we might be a little less hysterical about the behavior and behave according to nature's rules, instead of flaunting the rules and then crying about the man's act of nature. :monkey:
Hmm...I think this is a really difficult question, with a lot of different sides, and maybe no good one answer. Again, I don't have a lot of info on the topic, so I'm just going to relate my thoughts on what I've heard on the radio and whatnot.
I think its important to note that the loss of importance of family comes from a lot of different sectors.
For example gender dysphoria: A rising mental condition that makes some girls physically feel that they belong more in a guys body. I don't suppose that they would be particularly receptive to oxytocin, or stimulation via maternal instinct if they felt more physically inclined to be a man. So perhaps if we could conclude that a variant expression of oxytocin exists within woman in general, it definitely would not be hard to believe that some women just feel less inclined/binded to maternal instincts like other girls would be.
Theres also scientific advancement. I think were getting to a point where now you can actually choose the eye colour of your child, hair colour, specific immunities against certain disabilities etc... we may eventually come to a point where its more cost effective to just make a baby in a lab, then go through the natural process.
Overall ignorance might be a point too. Since celibacy is gaining traction, some people don't know exactly how powerful the sentiments are after having a kid. How it completely takes over your life.
They might just view the practical/physical aspects of it, and go, "meh, not for me. Costs too much."
Finally there's just the fact that there is too many people on earth! I think men are less incentivized to have babies when they know they might contribute to the overpopulation of earth.
Now does/would all this contribute to the devaluation of a woman?
Well depends on how you would define one. I think gender is a really complicated issue right now in terms of definition, and in my belief I think it might be better to restate the question to how can we sustain the individual, who NEEDS maternal instinct to validate themselves? If one day family is out of the picture, how can we still stay connected?
Do these advancements destroy family fidelity?
Well yeah. Now you have to define yourself by yourself, whether you want to or not.
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I love your questions about gender dysphoria.
However, gender dysphoria can also be a defense mechanism resulting from childhood trauma. However, we have always had Tomboys, and why not? The restrictions that were once put on females made being a boy appear a lot more fun.
"a point where its more cost effective to just make a baby in a lab, then go through the natural process." Bad idea. Bonding begins in the womb, and no female animal will produce milk until a baby is born. Once the milk begins to flow, we can keep it flowing by milking the goat, cow, or a human mother and as I mentioned the baby suckling on the mother triggers the mother's hormones and heightens bonding. But so does learning a language begin in the womb and while in the womb the baby recognizes the mother's voice. I hope we come to pay attention to what makes us humans. We might be able grow babies as the novel and movie The Brave New World speaks of growing beings, but I am not exactly sure they would be humans instead of androids. Mammals are conditioned by their relationships and environment.
"some people don't know exactly how powerful the sentiments are after having a kid". Oh yeah! I tried to warn my son about how a baby would change his life and he didn't pay attention. Like the ignorance could be, not knowing what one is missing or not knowing what one wants to avoid. Being a parent is a human experience and unless someone has had the experience, it is hard to relate what that experience is. Facts have little meaning without experience. However, not all parents want to be parents, so they do not respond to the child emotionally, and you causing me to think about this, is very appreciated. It just is not the same for all people.
Many people are thinking our planet is overpopulated and global warming is making matters much worse and it is best to not have children.
"Now does/would all this contribute to the devaluation of a woman?" The value of the woman was radically changed when it was decided the man puts the baby inside the woman. I would love to turn the clock back to when we thought life came through the woman and we loved our earth mother. If we need women to reproduce and nurture children, and all of us, she can not be devalued, but we can fail to recognize her value. I think our role in civilization has been overlooked and I have no desire to live in an all male world. Male domination was bad enough. This is when we should be stronger and bolder about being women and not one of the guys.
Could you rephrase this. I said
Quoting Bylaw
I think some people do frame their sexual interaction with an adult when they were a child as sexual abuse. I think they would also say they blame the person in some way or other. So, I am not sure what you mean by it not being 'how either understands their act of abuse...'Quoting Athena
And some of them have blame, the young men and the adults they become, especially if they were very young.
I don't see how 'blame' is inappropriate as a rule.Quoting AthenaI have no idea how you got here or what this has to do with what I wrote.Quoting AthenaI don't think I was hysterical. I don't think your response makes much sense as a response to my post A young man who rapes someone in the way you describe is a very dangerous person but I guess I kinda hope he watches the guy who wants to be killed and eaten by that German guy before he meets you. You won't have any blame for him or complaints if he kills and eats you. He will have thought you wanted it. It would be hysterical of you to think his behavior was blameworthy even if he starts eating first before the kill.
Oh my goodness, I didn't mean for any statements to be taken personally. I think we have a whole lot of misunderstandings.
I am quite sure none of the men who attempted to have sex with me thought they were harming me. Why would anyone assume it was their intent to harm someone? I am not saying that harm can be done. I am just saying that was not the intent.
Comparing a cannibalistic pervert with most of the people who are charged with rape is a false comparison. However, I remember long ago there was a news story about such a perverted person. Thank goodness the high school and college males are only wanting sex and are not intent on harming the female.