Greetings all,
I started to read a book called At the Root of this Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst by Carol Flinders. Basically it is about feminism and spirituality and is about how "many feminists have been skeptical about traditional spirituality, and their mistrust has not been entirely unfounded. The forms of self-sacrifice often required by the spiritual life--including silence and suppression of desire--are conditions that have been imposed on women for centuries." (amazon.ca)
I have a hard time with this very concept of Feminism. First of all, I read an interesting book that talks about how having a Patriarchal society, is not only detrimental to women, but also to men. Men and Women both have feminine and masculine qualities and it is unhealthy for both to deny these qualities.
Anyways, I think the fundamental error in Feminist thinking is they can only see themselves as the victim and fail to see many people in this world are suffering. True it does not justify the wrongs that have been and are still being done to women. Women still have more bullshit to deal with as we continue to evolve. Hell, in the Middle East, women still aren't receiving rights that they should be.
There are other groups that experience suffering. For example, the Proletariat versus the Bourgeois. People complain endlessly how the Worker suffers but the Capitalists have their own issues to deal with but we just take one side.
Or the Natives. Being that today is Thanksgiving, we can argue that we basically stole their land and raped them of their culture but many leave their reserves and enjoy the materialism and perks of today's society.
Or the Blacks. They suffered and have a history of being slaves.
There are many groups and people that suffer every day in this world. I have only listed a few, there are still more. I just find Feminist thinking fails to see the big picture - they are just one group of the many groups that have to deal with suffering and not being treated equally.
What good though does it do to point out these injustices? It's good to acknowledge the wrong and to move forward but to keep pointing out how women have been victimized over the past thousands of years doesn't help us. Instead we need to focus on how far society has progressed and what areas need to be improved.
I think it boils down to Forgiveness. Holding on to the hurt and injustices done only hurts the Holder. People do need to deal with their pain and to eventually rise to that level and recognize that people hurt out of ignorance and egoism. Accepting the injustice certainly does not justify it and take away from the wrongness. Rather we can move forward and start creating laws, etc and doing something about the occurences.
Humanity didn't start out all evolved and all knowing and slowly we as a species are learning to be a little more nicer but realistically we still have a lot of evolving to do.
Again, part of what I find is the fundamental flaw is failing to see that everyone suffers to some degree. According to Buddha, life is suffering. Her whole argument has no validity. If feminists are skeptical about spirituality, maybe it's because they only want to believe that they are the ones that have experienced suffering. Isn't typically typical of victims to only see their own suffering and not that of those around them?
Although I agree with the point that women have been made to be silenced, the reality is no one likes to hear the Truth sometimes and it doesn't matter who says it. I watched someone on The Jon Stewart Show call him a Communist - just because they didn't like his opinions. Clearly women aren't the only ones that piss people off.
Life is painful but it can also be beautiful.
But that's life.
