Network of Websites
| A Look at Sexual Harassment: Part I |
 |
 |
 |
| Written by Sandy Long |
| Friday, 19 June 2009 21:09 |
|
A Look at Sexual Harassment: Part 1 Copyright Sandy Long We have been hearing a lot on the net lately from some who are focusing on sexual harassment, attacks on women and other more deviant behaviors and actions. We have heard everyone blamed from the companies to the trainers to all male drivers. We are led to believe that this problem is so rampant that it is almost epidemic. We have not heard of any solutions to the problem for these types of actions. To find solutions, one has to understand the problem. I came to my conclusions by posing the question: Why are/were women subjugated and had their rights and power taken away from them and why this does still hold true today. I came up with four possible answers.
control freaks that have to dominate women because they are more able to do all the things women are accused of not to be able to do in answer 1. This is also patently false so also is not the answer. 4. There at one time was a reason for women to be subjugated and dominated for ? To understand why women face sexual harassment and discrimination, one need must be a student of history and be able to think a little outside of the common box. Going back to prehistoric times, god was female…as stated in the book, When God Was Woman, before men figured out that they had anything to do with babies being born, they worshipped female gods…once they found out that they did have something to do with babies being born…then god changed gender…I paraphrase here. It is a true concept as has been proven in archaeological digs and studies for decades. Women back then were equals to men…no, not superior, but equal. Women owned property, were artisans, farmers, brewers…anything they wanted to be where their strengths laid…as were men. Property for the most part passed down from mother to daughter…and usually, women owned the houses where they raised their children. Women were priests and mayors of towns as were men. Then nomadic invaders came from the north…three waves of them over a few centuries. The nomads who had to fight for grazing up in their northern homelands had male gods. The peaceful matriarchal societies were slowly conquered though women kept worshiping female goddesses. Prior to these invasions, the Goddess ruled…after the invasions, the Goddess was slowly demoted down as the male Gods were raised up…finally, the Goddess was totally wiped out…or so they wanted to think. Women kept worshipping her. When it became obvious that women were not going to quit worshipping the Goddess, men did everything in their power to make women submit for economic reasons, the invader societies did not want to have to keep fighting…they took away women’s rights, even of freedom of worship. Women were made to look evil as in the garden of Eden story…Pandora’s box etc. Because women’s cycles involved blood, which was also a Goddess worshipping factor…menstruation soon was considered unclean, as were the women during that time. Talk about systematic destruction of women’s rights! This mindset, which culminated in the development of Judeo/Christian doctrine, is very apparent in the bible. Did you know that in ancient Jewish writings, God had a wife…she disappeared along with Adam’s first wife Lilith who was also made from dirt and spit and fashioned in God’s image and who wanted to be superior to Adam supposedly….actually, I think she just wanted to be equal like in the Goddess time. In Genesis and beyond, women descended into servitude and submission. Oh, yes, in the old testament there are a few women mentioned. Ruth who was a hard worker and a good wife, would follow her man anywhere…Some women were queens…and powerful ones…but submissive too. A few others are mentioned along with of course those dirty dancing women and prostitutes (read priestesses of the Goddess who celebrated life thru sex) and of course poor old Lot’s wife who was disobedient to her salty shame. If you read the new testament with an open mind and eyes, you will see that Jesus celebrated women…Mary of Magdalene was his primary disciple and follower…along with Sarah of Egypt and Martha et al. He stood up for women who were being killed for supposedly doing wrong…and for the poor women of whom people wanted to take advantage. Jesus preached peace and equality for both genders…they killed him for it you know. When Christianity was finally formed in to a semblance of what we know today, women were further subjugated by priests, popes and everyone else it seems. Women, be submissive unto your husbands! Women, be led by your husbands and remain silent before your God! Women, other than for abandonment or adultery you may not divorce your husband! Here is a link proving this point further… http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/womenfathers.html Now you may ask why I am bothering you with all of this old history stuff…what it has to do with how we are treated today. The aforementioned types of thought and teachings continue to today’s time in churches and front rooms across the country. Even though we have forced the powers that be to give us the rights to own property, vote and hold office, those Judeo/Christian/Islamic biblical traditions still lurks in the backs if not the fronts of most people’s minds. We are products of our up bringing. In my own case, my mother who came here to the USA when a small child from Germany, was taught by her mother that girls had little value outside of being workers and child bearers. Women were nothing if they were not married and had a man to take care of them. Women were always to submit to their husband’s sexual wants/needs and orders. My uncle on the other hand, was taught by his father that men were gods’ in their homes, that women were worthless outside of being workers and brood mares and if they stepped out of line, the man should beat them vigorously. My uncle’s mother enforced what his father had told him by believing how she believed. My mother grew up and married abusive men and taught me the same things she had been taught by her mother…took me years to get over those teachings! My uncle has lived his life to the teachings of his father too… Do these teachings actually make my mother or her brother bad people in their bones or just miss-guided ones? I think miss-guided. They are both religious folk and attend church regularly…where they were also taught the same things as their parents taught them. Another area where our parents and their parents back generations have miss-taught their children is in the area of sex. In the last couple of weeks that all of this rumor mongering and such has been going on about sexual trucker predators on the net, I have been considering this problem. I am well known for having a curious mind and that I am subject to ask anyone anything I want to know. The question I wanted to know was how my brother was taught by our father about women….so naturally, I asked him. Yes, fathers actually, at least in my generation, told their sons that if a woman said no, she meant yes…or just wanted to be coaxed a little bit more…and the more they said no or fought, the more they wanted it. The older men that my brother associated with as a child all told him that women were either whores or saints…were only good for one thing…should be seen and not heard (I always thought that was just for kids you know?)…and should be smacked if they stepped out of line. It is a wonder my brother survived the 60’s and 70’s! He is now only slightly chauvinistic. Are you seeing the broad base of the root of the problems we find that cause harassment and discrimination? It is a learned behavior, not a mental health issue in most cases. Ok, I hear you saying it now…but what about the rapists and such? There have been psychopaths since the beginning of time…I didn’t research the statistics per capita for this article, but would assume that it remains about the same throughout history…most other abhorrent behavior has…more people, more abhorrent behavior. A few people are just wired without consciences and will take what they want, when they want it. One of the facts that surprised me though, was that we always hear about how women were so respected back in the old west days…WRONG! There are report after report of rapes and murders of women in the old west and even more back in the days of knights in shining armor. Therefore, now that we understand a little better where sexual harassment and discrimination might arise from, we can put it in perspective and find ways of dealing better with it and working towards re-educating people so that they do not do it. Remember that knowledge is power and in knowledge lays the solution to the problem… ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? |
| Last Updated on Friday, 19 June 2009 21:22 |