Another form of change

Change in the attitudes toward women worldwide can do more to affect the climate, political, and environmental changes that we need in order to have a future:

Quote :

We, too, in the West are contributing an essential element to the coming world culture. Western women are leading the way toward the rise of women around the world to full partnership with men in virtually the entire domain of human affairs. And as women are being equally empowered, men are being freed to discover that activities often seen as “feminine”— feeling, nurturing, collaboration, celebration, relationships— are in fact the domain of all. Personally, I believe this to be the most important change in human history. The rich mind style of women, which has been gestating in the womb of preparatory time, lo, these many millennia is catching on, and with it comes a tremendous change in the way we do things. Women emphasize process more than product; their special gift is making things cohere, relate, grow. Through women’s eyes, relationships are more important than final outcomes. The world within is as important as the world without. Governance, games, education, work , health, society itself are held to new standards that honor the fullness of who and what we can be. This is a tremendous change, and once it is in full flower, the world will have turned a corner. In the new world that lies just ahead, all of these individual skills and fresh solutions will be needed to face the perils and harvest the promise of a technology and media-driven world. People and ideas are fast becoming interconnected in ways that create a new environment— virtually a new world mind.

Houston, Jean (2009-10-13). A Passion For the Possible: A Guide to Realizing Your True Potential (Kindle Locations 110-113). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

We are seeing signs of this change everywhere - even in the Middle East, where Iranian women are risking their safety by showing their faces in public.

Men, and women are not built the same. Do not think the same, nor have the same feelings. The two will never stand as two Captains on the same ship. Why would a man want to be like a women, or a women like a man?
God says, "Women, be in subjection to your husband." It does not say, "Women be in subjection to men."
Does that mean the man is the boss? No. But two can't lead. Should women have the same rights as a man? It most things yes. In some things no.

You know, Domenic, your responses might make more sense if you were to read the OP carefully.

The point is that the differences between men and women are being recognized, and the values of the contributions from both genders are recognized as having equal value.

A marriage is a partnership.  Husbands and wives, motthers and fathers, with equal power, equal responsibility, equal voice in the decision-making process.  In any partnership, two people do lead.

Domenic Pappalardo wrote:

Should women have the same rights as a man? It most things yes. In some things no.

Who are men to demand rights? We none of us have rights. We have laws to civilise us; without them, we are barbaric.

The Biblical passages re wives and husbands come from Paul's letters to the Ephesians and Corinthians.  Therefore, they are Paul's words, not Jesus's or God's words.  Paul is infamous for off-the-mark interpretations, based on his personal background and perspectives.

Shelagh wrote:

Domenic Pappalardo wrote:

Should women have the same rights as a man? It most things yes. In some things no.

Who are men to demand rights? We none of us have rights. We have laws to civilise us; without them, we are barbaric.

We have had WAR ever since 1914. People are murdered every day. 1/3 of the people on earth are starving...the divorce rate in the USA is about 70%. Gangs roam our streets. Men marry men, and women marry women. Who knows what people are doing with dogs, etc?  Yeah were right up there on the top of the list of stupid...barbaric?  You want to see real barbaric? Give women control...now that would be barbaric.
A female as president of the USSR. A female as President of the USA. They are talking with each other on the red phone. Both are having that special time of the month. Words get heated.
Both hit the, "Send all weapons at the ready button." She said, "You said what bitch?" Bitch? I'll show you who's a bitch."
Two people are left on the cinder known as earth. They are both women.

Margaret Thatcher.

Angela Merkel

Some body on this thread, (female) would be like a Kim Jong-Un if they had the power.

What you believe of people by what they post is not what you would discover over a cup of coffee.  There's often miles of difference between the words we use to write and the words we use in polite conversation.

I refuse to go back to biblical interpretation for the way I live.  There are enough antiquated "laws" that people think they should follow without going back to the first century.  You men, go on back there.  Take the women who agree with you and do not pass go.  Idiots...the lot of you.

Domenic Pappalardo wrote:

Some body on this thread, (female) would be like a Kim Jong-Un if they had the power.

I have the power.   

Shelagh, you have a beautiful spirit and your power comes from that. Your kindness covers us all.  Your love is one of a kind. 
Love,
Betty

5/16/2014

                         " Hillary !"

                           Joe

What!!!!?????

I have spent many years working in lost cause areas:  Title IX, Displaced Homemakers, Welfare, Unemployment, Vocational Rehabilitation, Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers - you get the drift.

If there is one thing I have learned it's that there are as many differences among men and among women as there are between men and women and that includes their appearance, their intellect, their interests, their hormonal balances and temperaments, their strengths and their weaknesses.

Therefore, a discussion about the equality of men and women eludes me.  No one on this earth is innately equal to another.  Equality is gained through expectations, endeavor, culture, religion, education, respect and legislation.

My favorite example comes from my nights working in a tall building on the campus of the University of South Florida and leaving through dark halls, elevators and parking lots dimly lit (to save electricity).  I was a computer programmer at the time, working late on data manuals and programs.

I had a resource over in Information Technology that I found in the university directory one frantic evening that helped me through some technical issues now and then.  Before long, we took breaks to chat in between the technical help.  We had laughter and relief from the tension of code that didn't always work.

One particularly stormy and dark night, I heard sounds in the empty hallway and peeking out found no one there.  Calling out, there was no answer.  I shared my concern with my phone friend.  "Don't worry yourself a minute. I'll take a break (his shift was all night) and meet you if you are ready to leave."  I was overtime major anyway and not keen on staying longer.  "Sure, my room number is 710."

In about a half an hour, I heard a tap at the door and he used some of our code to let me know it was him.  I opened the door to my protector, expecting a tall, middle aged man who would save me from anyone hiding in the hallway.

Instead, my friend was very thin, very small and seated in a manually self-propelled wheelchair.  He was fully confident that he was my protector and I believed him as we left the building and he accompanied me to my car.

We stayed friends for the duration of my short-term contract at the university.  He and his girlfriend picked me up from my apartment to take me to an art walk one evening.  They were trying to cheer me up as my purse had been stolen from that very same office in that very same long, dark hall at the university.  I had no ID, no passport, no checkbook, no keys, and none of the necessities women carry in their mammoth purses (I don't anymore).  I had told my friend I felt like I didn't exist.

When they arrived at the apartment I forgot that I was in an unfurnished apartment as the assignment was very temporary and I had purchased a drafting table, chair and lamp for work and dining and a single mattress that was on the floor next to my suitcase in the small bedroom.  The rest of the apartment was empty.

"You really don't exist," said my friend as they came in the door.  "No one lives here for sure."

Equality in my book is respect for who we are as unique individuals and acceptance of our desire to fulfill our best destiny.  It is respect for my belief about my own abilities, hopes and dreams and the support I need to succeed.  It includes putting no boundaries in my way because of the accident of my birth.

Equality recognizes differences and also the ability to overcome obstacles some differences create.  I had a training program for women to drive heavy construction equipment - and I mean giant cranes and gravel pit trucks.  Tiny, petite women applied and were given weight training to develop the strength they needed.  Their success on the job was phenomenal.  They did the same work as the men and were paid equally.  The teams with which they worked received training regarding the consequences of sexual harassment.  The culture of that work place required education, legislation and oversight to guarantee the success of the "experiment" that put single parent mothers to work so they could support the children that were in their care after being abandoned by spouses or boyfriends.  They made living wages and no longer required welfare and social services.  Instead, they contributed to the tax base and the economy.

I am talking here about equality of opportunity. I do believe that all members of the human race are born equally valuable and worthy of love and respect.  One example is the common life force, the red blood, that runs through our veins regardless of our origins and that can be shared in many instances to save lives.

Interesting post, DK.

I agree that equality and sameness are not the same thing.  The OP and the quotation from Ms. Houston's book doesn't use the word equality, but partnership, wich implies something a little bit different.  Partners share equal responsibility, but a partnership is more than that.  It involves collaboration and relationship - both of which are considered feminine concerns, as opposed to masculine heirarchy and competition.

I think the rise in femine power is not so much about the rise in the power of women as it is about the opening up of feminine characteristics in both men and women.

Many women have had success in the masculine world by relying on their masculine side (and all women have one, just as all men have a feminine side.)

Equality is a concern, though, especially so long as women get paid 70% of what men get paid for doing the same job.


But mostly, I didn't start the thread as a discussion of equality per se.  As I pointed out to Domenic, it isn't about men and women being the same.  It's about the differences in women being considered as valuable and as much a contribution to society as the men.

I am so totally digging this book!  (which I was synchronistically drawn to, BTW)  I think Ms. Houston maybe wrote it just for me.  (Or maybe it means that there are others out there who are a little bit like me - even better.)

Quote :

In every quest, you have wandered with Percival in search of the Grail, followed the yellow brick road with Dorothy trying to get back to Kansas, labored with Psyche to be reunited with Eros, discovered with Luke Skywalker the secrets of using the Force, meditated with Buddha under the bodhi tree, determined to reach enlightenment. Storytelling is the oldest form of teaching and the basic vehicle for the transmission of culture from one generation to the next.

Houston, Jean (2009-10-13). A Passion For the Possible: A Guide to Realizing Your True Potential (Kindle Locations 1349-1350). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

The writing is marvelous!

The content is even better. She follows so much of the same "stuff" that I've been learning and that has influenced my own work. She guides the reader on a journey of four levels: the everyday world of the five senses, a psychological level journey where your guides are all the different aspects of yourself, a mythical hero's journey based on the work of Joseph Campbell, and, finally, a spiritual journey, where you come to see that we are all one, each of us a part of the Source. (Haven't reached that part yet. I'm just beginning the mythic stage. It seems very familiar.