I am a student of History. My BA is in history, and many of my hobbies revolve around history. The aspect of the study of history that I thoroughly enjoyed the most is what one teacher termed Historiography. It's studying how history was recorded through time, but from this you can see larger trends. I can literally see the unfolding of the modern concept of What Is. It's like watching the waves at the beach. You can guess how far up the beach the wave will go based on the subtle cues seen in the swell. What is recorded in history are those subtle swells, and I can follow those swells through literally centuries to see it unfolding. It's quite fascinating, all things considered. Despite the fact that we only live 70-90 years, we are carrying the emotional weight of our ancestors, expressing what they felt and passed on to us. Jung would term this the Cultural Shadow.
Bear in mind, I'm mostly looking at the BULK of humanity - the working class. The upper class women had their own challenges, but they were in the minority.
I view today's position between the Masculine and Feminine as a direct result of the last couple of hundred years. The Industrial Revolution, started in the 1700s, saw a fundamental and irrevocable shift in the way that wage earning was accomplished. Before this, women could work from the home while earning income. Now that was no longer the case. If a woman wanted to earn money, she had to leave the home to go to the factory. Her spinning wheel and loom were no longer sufficient. For those who opted to remain in the home, it was the men who earned money, leaving her more dependant on her mate than ever before. The legal system backed this up, making her a virtual slave (from her point of view). As the Victorian Era unfolded, the view of women shifted from simply the Fairer Sex to the more angering and patronizing Weaker Sex perspective. Throughout this time, everyday life was shifting dramatically. Women became more active (see all the images of engaging in bicycle riding or ice skating, not to mention the growing presence of women in the factory), and started to gain more a sense that they were being treated unfairly.
This sense bears witness to the growth and proliferation of the various Women's Movements of the mid to late 1800s, culminating in the infamous corset burnings (echoed some decades later with the bra burnings) and the Suffragette movement (suffrage means the right to vote, not suffering!) marching en masse down the streets. These movements culminated in women being granted the right to vote in the US in 1920. One women's historian even said the vote was granted as a "reward" for supporting the war effort. A very pat-on-the-head view there, as patronizing and degrading as anything said by the Victorian man.
Of course, I am agog that one of the first things women did with their new political power was institute ... Prohibition. That boggles my mind. I have no rational explaination for how on earth this abomination came about, and can only think that men were browbeaten into it. Eventually men stood back up and demanded their beer back, and it was granted.
The Depression and the resourcefulness it demanded of women as well as the vulnerability it exposed in terms of the one-wage income household is something that is often overlooked when it comes to setting the stage for the next step in women's attempt to regain their dignity and self-respect. Then we get into WWII. Anyone recall Rosie the Riveter?
This image is a direct challenge to the lingering Victorian concept that women are the Weaker Sex. When the men come home from war, women began to refuse the concept of subjugation/dependance and remained in the work force. The 1950s proliferation of shows like Leave It To Beaver were a direct attempt to glorify the homemaker/breadwinner concept of Family, something we today mistakenly think is the Way Things Were rather than an attempt to sell a way of life. The birth of modern Wiccan is around here, in which the Goddess is glorified and magnified at the expense of her subservient and largely superfluous God.
By now, the Masculine is swallowing his sense of betrayal and his confusion. He still wants only to Make Her Happy, and if this is what she wants, he'll do his best to give it to her.
The 60's saw the Free Love movement, and this was pretty much continued in the 70's. "I am Woman. Hear me roar." This is a refrain from the 1970s, an era I would point to as the height of the Furious and Wounded Feminine. In her fury and pain, she lashed out in attack of the Masculine. An attack that was, for the most part, accepted. Books published in that time are rife with statements about how oppressive and unjust and (insert negative comment here) the Masculine had been treating the Feminine for thousands of years. The Wounded Feminine, as wounded often do, sought to reclaim her power by attacking and devaluing the source of her pain. As if only a crippled lion would be unthreatening to the lioness.
In the 80s, there was the birth of the Unisex movement, attempting to deny completely that there was any sort of fundamental difference in the genders, a further insult but this time to both genders. The retail store Guess is perhaps the ultimate expression of this -- "Guess if the wearer of our clothing is male or female. Go ahead! Guess." Here is where I'd point to the birth of the metrosexual man -- the feminized masculine. In the 90s, this absurdity of 'no difference between the genders' was starting to be reversed. Now, that's not so much questioned anymore that they are indeed fundamentally different in their wiring.
A lot of the anger of the last century or two, at least on the part of women, is starting to wane. The Wounded Feminine is not quite so inflamed anymore. She's starting to look around and see the damage that's been done. But only starting. She has yet to ask the Masculine "how do YOU see the last few centuries??" There's a lot of anger now simmering in the Masculine. If we don't want the pendulum to just be swinging back and forth between who is more loudly abusing the other, we have to stop.
We've had over 300 years to find the equilibrium that the Industrial Revolution shattered, and we've made a bit of a mess in the process. The rapidly developing nations, which don't have the luxury of centuries to work out these fundamental isues, will understandably have some severe problems if no real guidance or at least support/validation is available.
Please do not think for even one moment that I believe everything which has been done is 'bad'. HARDLY!!!! A TREMENDOUS amount of extremely positive things have been done in the last few centurues, and they should be guarded and treasured. But it's time to stop attacking men.
Only the weak seek power by attacking those around them. Only the weak need to break another in order to feel in control. It is my position that I CANNOT be empowered if that position rests on the back of a broken other. The Lioness is not a real lioness if the lion of the pride lies bleeding and broken on the ground. Half of the strength of the whole of what it means to BE a lion is invalidated by such a stupid move. That's not what it means to be strong, and it definitely doesn't mean that I am empowered only when my partner cowers before me.
By the same token, no lion is truly powerful if the lioness cowers before him, is afraid of him, avoids him, has no claws or teeth left with which to even defend herself. Such a one is a weak lion. Not a ruler, but a coward terrified of the power of his mate. We've spent the last few centuries informing the lion that we will no longer cower, and he in turn recoiled and accepted our anger. But enough is enough. To continue the beratement is to invite the retaliation.
It's time for the Lion to be a Lion, and the Lioness to be a Lioness. Partners, Equal but Different.
-- the Lioness (in training)
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