Theos-Talk Archives (March 1996 Message tl00046)

Fredrik:

Following are some comments on your note to S. Gegenhuber.

Conditions for people seem to be improving in the world. The
caste system in India, and the specialized (and subservient)
roles of women in society are on their way out. People will
be more free to live the lives that they aspire to, without
being constrained by arbitrary roles and guidelines imposed
by society.

Apart from the nine-month carrying of a baby in a womb, and
the optional period of breast feeding, there is no real
difference between men and women as either active people
in the work force, nor any real difference in parenting and
child-rearing abilities.

Besides the traditional family, with one working parent,
we've been forced into a variant where both parents have to
work in order to make ends meet. There are also single
parents trying to raise children. (This is another area where
sexism exists, since there has been the false belief that
somehow a woman is better fit to raise children, and women
have been disproportionately given custody in divorces.)

Other alternates include what was tried at the Point Loma
theosophical community at the turn of the century. Parents
sent their children, like W. Emmett Small and L. Gordon
Plummer, to Point Loma to be raised in a theosophical
school, where there was a form of communal upbringing.

Considering feminism as a discipline, it seems to deal with
two unrelated things. One is the political movement to deal
with gender-based constraints in our society, constraints
that need to be removed. The intent to remove these
constrains is fine, as long as it doesn't degenerate into
institutionalized sexism, with quotas, becoming something
akin to affirmative action.

The other thing that feminism may deal with is the
exploration of the feminine quality, which really has
nothing to do with whether someone is man or woman, and
of which women have no special claim to understanding.

I don't think that when we get into the Mysteries, that
either sexism, racism, the caste system, or other cultural
fossils has any bearing. The Teachings are timeless, since
they deal both with things are we cannot yet know, as well
as with things that are quite independent of the cultural
biases of any particular place and time. A particular way
of writing about the Teachings may adopt the idiom of the
culture in which the writings are made, but that doesn't
detract from the beauty of the Wisdom Religion.

When we go to study and contemplate Theosophy, we've left
behind, for the moment, the customs of our present-day
life, and stop worrying about all the political, social,
and ethical projects we may be working on. We are going
*deep within* and exploring the world in a special way,
as we engage in our studies.

-- Eldon