Theos-Talk Archives (December 1996 Message tl00119)

Replying to Tom Robertson

>It is natural for men to dominate women, since they are stronger, both
>physically and volitionally.  Most women want this, preferring men to be
>the leaders.

Needed - one scalpel. Not talking about you, Tom, but about the need for
people to dissect the persistent and undiscriminating association of
weakness with femininity, in human culture.

In my observation, there are hugely positive energies associated with the
"feminine" in nature and accessible to humans of either physical gender, in
addition to the far more recognized "masculine" ones. Energies that women -
and men - can transmit.

IMO, the word weakness should be kept for description of a condition of low
energy, less evolution or disadvantage, and not as a ready adjunct when
anyone wants to define femininity.

A useful metaphor (perception, to some, probably) is to consider the
relationship of one person to another in terms of energy flows. One person
then can be stronger physically than another, in a relationship (and it's
not always a man who is stronger than a woman). At an emotional level, the
person who is physically stronger might play largely receptive roles to the
other person's strength and clarity of transmission. Again, at a mental
level, one may be clearer, more wide-ranging, stronger then the other, and
*it is not necessarily true* that the person who is stronger physically is
also stronger emotionally, or again, mentally. The three (make it four,
perhaps, to include spirituality) can be in all sorts of relative strength.

The word "strong" is in some situations better replaced by "radiative", as
the process is not necessarily one of overpoweremnt, but is often one of
transmission by one being to the equally strong attraction and reception of
energy by the other. "Magnetic", perhaps, as I mentioned in an earlier post.

Furthermore, the direction of the polarity can switch quite rapidly in time,
so that a man could be the transmitter at one level at one moment in one
context, and a woman be the transmitter in another way later on.

Further still, it need not be man-woman. Polarities like this can exist
between man and man, and woman and woman, and many of them have nothing to
sexuality.

There is IMO, a very great need to lift the current lopsided stereotypes of
social thinking and of language into something like what I've tried to
sketch above.

Dion Fortune in her book "Esoteric Aspects of Love, Sex and Marriage" says
that both the poles in this energy interplay are connected with the divine
Source - just that one draws energy from it and the other returns the energy
to it.

So then, "liking to be dominated" might become "enjoying the magnetically
receptive role", and liking to dominate could be transformed into "enjoying
the radiant transmissive role", in a context of freedom, empowerment and
mutual respect far beyond those implicit in old terms like domination.


> .... I would choose a leader who acted as
>a result of thinking logically over one who acted emotionally without
>hesitation.  That is one reason why men are leaders, since they do this
>better than women do.  I would not want to count on an emotional leader to
>win a war for me.

The "logical" decisions of leaders more often than not have a large
emotional component that has a great influence on their choice. Furthermore,
those same logical leaders have often deliberately stirred powerful emotions
in their people for the sake of promoting a war or swaying mass opinion.

Advertisers and salespeople know the overriding importance of feelings and
emotions in people's buying decisions. Often, logic is a thin veneer in these.

In my observation, men often believe that logic is of supreme importance,
and believe they are being logical in their decisions, partly *because* they
are not so aware of the emotional side of their own natures, or of the role
that emotion is playing in their decisions. It is fashionable and essential
to self-esteem at this point in history, to appear to be logical and believe
you are being logical, and it is an ideal that is not-too-well met much of
the time.

Men often accuse a woman of being irrational when they really mean the woman
should process information the same way, and have the same values, but
irrationality is probably better seen as a state of fragmentation or
distortion in the field of consciousness, with numerous different possible
causes.


>>   Actually, what is needed is a good balance of logic and emotion.
>
>They both have their purposes.  Emotion is a good source of information.
>Logic is a tool for determining truth.  Being "emotional," though, in the
>sense of acting irrationally, as opposed to thinking logically, is a
>typically feminine weakness.

As I see it, logic is about making or finding structural connections of a
mental kind, while emotion is in a more fluid realm of connections between
self and a mentally-conceived goal, and the energy of attraction or
repulsion that flows as a result, ie desire. There are lots of other kinds
of emotion, too, but they share a similar general  quality of fluidity and
energy, I would say.

It is when the different facets of our nature are poorly connected with
reality and with each other, that irrationality (failure at a mental level)
or cruelty/indifference (failure at an emotional level) occur.

Connections are a major expression of unity, and unity is a major aspect of
what the T.S. is about, so it's nice to know how this discussion is
connected with the T.S. :-)

Humanity needs, IMO, to root out all tendency to see emotion as some kind of
opposite to logic, but rather see them as two complementary aspects of being.

A giant intellect harnessed to and impelled by a pigmy emotional nature is
about as terrifying as a rampant, overpowering emotional nature informed by
a meagre intellect.

Balance, oh, balance; where are you?  I know you're in there somewhere!


[Then in a later post, Tom writes]

>I would be surprised if
>anyone would contest the idea that, in most marriages, the man is more of
>a leader than the woman is, a condition that they both want.

Men tend to lead in some areas of the relationship, for sure, but women
unmistakeably lead in others, in ways that they both want, when things are
going well. Men sometimes tend to overlook or undervalue those ways, too.

However, in my observation, men too often crap out from almost every form of
leadership in today's social climate. There are whole strata of society
where the majority of men can't cope with relationships and responsiblity,
and they take off, physically and/or into some drug (alcohol included). They
literally don't have enough of what it takes, and it's not a simple
finger-pointing matter, for they to a considerable extent have had only
fractured dysfunctional family patterns programmed into themselves in
childhood. They are the most vulnerable because they are least able to see
themselves for what they are, let alone find the strength to do something
about it.

There *are* ways, but society's resources of interest, commitment, ingenuity
and love are going to need a BIG input before they're equal to the need. Not
saying that women don't have their version of black holes they're sunk in
either.

Murray