8th March 2019
A new way to find to each other – through understanding history.
My dear lovely people! Why I have started to organise events where men and women can exchange questions and answers in a safe way, is because after all this time of talk of equality and a time of mass communication, we seem even further away from each other than ever.
To all the women out there today: ”Happy Woman’s Day!” And to all the men out there today a big thank you for trying to understand us and love us.
Our problems haven’t been solved and I can’t say if the feminist movement has done more damage to our dialogue than good. Now…the feminists would tear me apart for saying this and of course I’m not blind to the need of equality in everything (like the gender gap in payment at work). But here is my question that I am trying to understand – why are so many men repulsed by the very thought of a feminist or feminism itself? Women dared to speak up at some point and some men took deep offence. Not all men. I’m sure many men went:”Oh jee, what’s the big deal, of course women should be respected.” It’s a no-brainer. Just like many of us instinctively think, of course all people should be equal, no matter what the colour. Well, that’s many of us, not all of us. Some of us it seems have a huge issue with certain topics, but why?!
We have this huge task in front of us and perhaps also the greatest opportunity in history – to solve our Gordian knot of communication. Let’s face it, talking to each other has in a way become more complicated than ever. Is there a sword to cut through the mess of history? I sure hope so. I love shortcuts but only if they can bring true results. My event is such a short cut. I manage to give everyone a chance to be heard, without having to say a word.
Let’s start with my favourite personal joke. I asked an old friend of mine why he has never considered us being together, even though we had a lot in common like photography and dancing. We were just having a lunch break during a photography seminar. And then he started his answer with: “You see, back in the days of the caveman…” and so he explained to me how every man is entitled to look only for the best. And I wasn’t it.
OH COME ON!! Seriously?!!? You’ll start your argument of deserving to look out for the best for you by referring to a caveman??? I started to shake my head, thinking quietly to myself, “Dude, have you looked in the mirror? You are not so hot either actually.” Cavemen…THIS…coming from a very intelligent and what I thought enlightened man. He sounded stupid. But as Sheldon said about Howard (Big Bang Theory), when Howard claimed it’s not wrong to care for great content to be wrapped in the delicious wrapping that is Halley Berry –Sheldon said, “Howard as a man has every right to look for his ideal mate to carry his offspring. Whether his procreation is in the interest of evolution, that’s an entirely different matter.”
Once I read: ‘When women look in the mirror, they compare themselves to their ideal self they should be. When a man looks in a mirror, he still sees the athletic stud he used to be 20 years ago.” Is that true would you say?
How come? Is it because women are constantly being criticized for never being good enough while men manage to remember the times they were praised and felt great about themselves? Perhaps. Perhaps it’s as simple as that. Because the way women are being bombarded with negative images of themselves, there probably was never a time she felt great about herself.
Feminism in its start was simply an attempt for women to feel they have the right to feel good about themselves. Simple. Seriously. Think about it. It was never against someone else. They just wanted to stop acting against THEMSELVES.
Now let’s try to imagine how men had to perceive this sudden movement of women wanting to be free. Free from what? What was their problem?
As communication goes, we tend to take things personally. Any slightest negative comment is being taken against ourselves. It feels like an attack, even when it’s not meant as such. Yet our communication skills are far too poor to be able to first listen and try to understand before we react. And the reaction of men towards feminism was very strong. Still is. Even women themselves try not to use the word feminism in order to avoid misunderstandings or labels. It’s just like a red cape to a bull. Say the word and the world only sees red.
But let me say it again: all that women tried to do, was to allow themselves to feel ok about themselves. To feel ok about expressing exactly who they were.
Men had the freedom to do so for millennia. But when a woman tries to experiment with expressing herself, it almost looks weird, right? Unless she does it with a lot of confidence, only then do we accept it. But not many people are confident in general and women struggle with it even more.
It gets even ‘better’. Not only are mass media successfully making women feel bad about themselves, they are now targeting men, too. Dear men, welcome to our world. But hey, perhaps this is not a complete disaster. Perhaps by experiencing the bullshit we’ve been put through since the first commercials or even earlier (the Bible) men have the opportunity to understand us better. Not only are men now targeted and being humiliated by the press but are being more and more abused by women. Quite a few women have been given the opportunity to behave as men once did, become aggressive in their pursuit of men, sexual manipulation (yet still demand half of a husbands money after a divorce – a bit hypocritical, no? Or do some women see it as historical justice and payback?).
But is this really an opportunity for men to understand women better? I don’t think so. I don’t think that abused men will develop an understanding for abused women. Because as an abused woman myself, I can tell you that understanding men didn’t come easy for me. Wanting to deal with them even less. Loving them…took some very long and deep trips to self-growth. The kind of trips people usually don’t have time for because they have families to take care of.
The result of abuse – is hate and fear. That’s it. So no, we should not wish upon someone else to go through all the same crap as we had to because it will make communication between us only harder. Getting over wounds takes a long time. So let’s not start inflicting pain on each other unnecessarily. We are human beings. We are able to learn through stories and that is our one unique quality which gives us this huge advantage to learn faster and to be able to learn NOT only through our own experience. That is why it’s important to learn history, or else we will keep up ending in unnecessary wars – in the world and between genders.
So let’s tell each other our stories, in the hope that we can learn to understand each other.
Of course once women in the 60’s and 70’s started to express themselves and feel great about their bodies, further needs were recognized and there was the chance to address some very old dilemmas because the world seemed to be listening for a moment (that was probably the case because of all the bras being thrown through the air and all kinds of boobs in fresh air delighting the world). The dilemmas start with the 20% gap in payment for the same job and continue in the area of trying to have a family as well as a career while women still do the lion share of housework etc.
I don’t know how and why our society has decided to organize itself in the way it did. I’m sure there were and still are some very equal and lovely forms of groups where men and women harmonize with each other. Where perhaps no hierarchy is needed. Somewhere deep in the jungles of South America. But someone somewhere in our western world for example was clever enough to subordinate his fellow men to himself, the women to those men and the children to their parents. Children didn’t always have the rights and care they have today. It was Martin Luther who not only started Protestantism in Germany but also a new view of childrearing.
The catholic church before Martin Luther had over a millennia to tell people how bad they were, how bad it was to even think about sex – while they themselves were screwing everything in sight (again, until Martin Luther came and swore to end the Sodom and Gomorra of the Catholic Church) and how people needed to literally pay the priest to be forgiven. That’s history. It’s a fact. I’m not trying to offend anyone belonging to any church or religion, I’m just saying – think for yourselves a bit because this society clearly doesn’t want you to. And because it was so successful in preventing you to think too much or know too much, it managed to drive a huge cliff between the sexes. How? By telling men how women are the devil which gives any man an easy excuse for his own weaknesses. And if a man is not told it’s the woman’s fault, then it’s the immigrants fault. But it’s always someone else’s fault. Isn’t that great?
What we lack are mainly two things I would say – just a bit of humility or modesty which would make a moderately good looking fellow be a bit more realistic and actually take a chance on a woman that isn’t Halley Barry. And the ability to take responsibility – because it’s the responsibility we take for ourselves as well as for others which makes us great, makes us grown up, makes us bearable to others. If we don’t take responsibility, then we just become these obnoxious and scared little people who lash out at everything which they don’t understand and is different. This world is becoming fast and unrecognizable at times even for most of us. I get it. I’m scared too. But the solution is not to attack others, even less to exclude everyone who isn’t the same and doesn’t agree with everything we say. Being afraid I understand. But who is feeding all these fears? Think about it. If you are afraid of anything, who told you to be afraid?
Sure, we can have a bad experience. The world is big though and there are many people. Say a woman hurt you. Will you never go out again and try to meet another woman? You probably will go out there and try to meet another man or a woman because biology is forcing you to, so you grudgingly try again and again. But what about the issue of race? I tried the whole rainbow, I swear. I had Asian, White, Red, Black, Brown, you name it. Were they all great guys? Hell no! LOL. But when you meet lots of people of the same background, you get a closer look, a deeper insight and of course you get the chance to meet just as many great people as there are obnoxious ones. And you know what? That goes for EVERY race and country, including my own.
Let’s be curious instead of afraid! In the end, we’re all human. Yes, there are differences between men and women and there are differences between countries. This used to be a fact to rejoice. It made the world interesting, exciting! But the world got “smaller” now, it’s true. And those exotic cultures are literally on our doorstep and we don’t know how to deal with them. Just as we don’t know how to communicate even with the ones at home that we claim we love or want to love.
What I wanted to say today is this: I know there is frustration and hurt and chaos between the sexes. But before we give up in frustration, I want us all to remember that this mess is not our fault. It definitely is our responsibility to try to sort out this mess, sure!
But the huge cliff between us has been driven in by others, by a very clever system manipulating us into obedience to them. Because while we fight with each other, we don’t have time to look and see what else is being shifted around us without our consent.
Companies know – you can’t make money with happy people. Once you start to think about it and it hits you hard enough, this is where you can find the strength in you to come up with patience and real love for the people you care about. Go and hate the system, not each other! 🙂
