My excursion into feminism continues with 'Simone De Beauvoir Today' an interview with Alice Schwarzer, and 'The Dialectics of Sex' by Shulamith Firestone. Both texts that I come to virgin although they must have been read by millions of my fellow females when they appeared. One comment before I go off to a nice lunch and the new Harry Potter (With sighs of relief. Now that's a world I can enjoy!)
Firestone declares that there can be no liberation for women until children are 'liberated.' by which she means when they can be taken from the mothers to be brought up by the Collective in special homes. Well, that idea didn't catch on, thank whatever overlighting angel had a hand in it. Osho (Bahwan Shri Rajneesh) tried something like that in his Poona (Pune)ashram. He told the mothers their children must live in the Children's House separate from them. Faced with this ultimatum women left, amongst them a friend of mine with her young son.
Bruno Bettelheim in 'The Children of the Dream' sums up the attempts in the kibbutzim to 'liberate' parents from their children and the effect of this on the children themselves once they reached adulthood. Most felt damaged by it. Our parents, for better or worse, give us our identity and sense of belonging. Their focus on us, seeing us as special in their eyes, is important to our own development as individuals. Parents also give us a feeling of continuity which supports our attempts to have an influence on our environment. My daughter-in-law has to work now to supplement the family income and the youngest is just 8 months. She is forced to leave him in a sort of dumping-ground crèche (very convenient - mothers can just turn up and put the baby there for an hour or two) when she has clients for driving lessons. It's convenient, true, but she hates the thought that when he wakes up it's always going to be a different person who checks on him. It stresses her to have to do that to him and it stresses my son to have to put them both through it. It isn't what anyone wants.
Before all women could be 'liberated' from their mothering instincts I think there would have to be some radical genetic re-structuring.
I'm beginning to wonder if the problem isn't the Western idea of what constitutes 'power.' Maybe the old Eastern philosophies have something to offer. Millions of men in the west have had to do humiliatingly repetitive and soul-destroying jobs throughout their lives in order to survive. How is that better and more powerful than washing up? The difference can only be made by the interpretation the indiviual puts on the task. If they can see worth and satisfaction in it then that is all that is needed for happiness. 'Before enlightenment fetch wood, carry water. After enlightenment - fetch wood, carry water.' The world stays the same but the difference is all in the perception, the attitude to and understanding of what is happening beyond the apparently humble tasks.
That's enough of that
2 comments:
I remember old Shulamith's Dialectic fondly. She definitely helped me decide I didn't belong on the paramilitary wing, even when the kids were being very annoying.
I joined my first Consciousness Raising group in the 70s and read there Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will, have you got that?
It clarified and confused life for me.
At last I could see what was meant by patriarchy, but I became very confused as to what my relationship with men was.
Taken me a long time to work it out but it was worth the trip.
No, my supplier (male) didn't cme up with that title.
Interesting where our early years take and don't take us. As you know I only ever had trouble with my relationship with women - it's taken years to get over (almost) the deeply ingrained dislike and mistrust. I suppose that that has also been worth the journey.
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