Conscious Gender
Gender is just stories. Men are like this, women like that, little boys are made of one thing, little girls of another. Even though we can see that every era, every country, every religion has its own changing story of what women and men are, how they should behave, how they should be paid, how they should dress, what suitable roles for them are, we still act as if the current story is the only reality.
What’s going on here? What exactly is it that is rewarded or penalised? Why? Is it stubbly chins that get paid more than smooth ones rather than the brains behind them? Is intuitive intelligence as valuable as charisma? Does the shape of a body indicate worthiness for power? Are women as a group different in character from a woman alone? Do gender fictions trap men as much as women? Are silverbacks happy?
The truth is that these questions are rarely looked at in depth. I think it may be because we would then be investigating power, and the powerful don't like it.
We are not aware of what it is we see in others half the time. Most of the time, actually, I'm being polite. Why do we react as we do to people we perceive as women and men? We are often unaware of what it is we see, and the part that affects us most is what we notice least. It's like icebergs; only a bit is visible, but that's what we think an iceberg is, but the power is under the water. Mind out, get conscious before you sink!
Gender, in the same way, exists mostly as subliminal, what we see but don’t know we see. It's another kind of invisibility, another kind of under the waterline. Believing is seeing, what you don't believe is what you don't see. If you don't believe in buses, you might well get run over. Stereotypes are blinkers, so you see only what is ahead.
Gender stereotyping is all pervasive, and, to one degree or another, denies many of us our own individuality, as we are pressed without knowing it into a box made out of a story written by someone else. What talents are lost along this way?
What I am interested in is being conscious, awake, being here, being present. It took me years to get a handle on being real, so I know how tough it is., but when we do all manner of good things open up for us. In fact, it's wonderful, the only way to go, once you get the hang of it.
Why gender, why not just being conscious? Well, it's good to have a focus, and gender is something we all identify with. And it's been the big puzzle of my life, so I can talk about this essence of our identity in the world in some detail, with the insights that come from going deep under my own waterline to find out what I am. It's really about going underwater, down the rabbit hole, but it's good to have an issue that matters to focus on, so that a difference can be made that makes a difference in the practical world around us.
I wrote a piece which tells much about how I think after talking to an interesting woman over too much champagne at an event in London some years ago. This is really interesting, Persia, she said, write it down and we'll publish it. Well, she never did, so I'm doing it myself. It's called Power, Perception and Gender. You can find it here
You can find other pieces, if you are interested, on the Journal section of this site.