Not to belabor the point, · 4 October 2008

Some questions opened in the long comment thread on the previous post.

This is an interesting set of questions, because of the ways they’re NOT interesting. It’s an almost-annoying topic, because it asks for reflection on stuff that’s somehow fun to leave unseen. Also, there’s this sense in me that talking about masculine domination is “whiny.” Ha! Obviously that’s the patriarchy in me trying to talk back. Still, it is good to speak of this forthrightly, not with self-apology and periodical impulses to run away.

I'm not trying to smash patriarchy. I'm saying it's a big, dumb obstacle that misallocates energy.

So if there is energy that I could put in to self-understanding that instead I'm putting in to reproducing and justifying patriarchal relationships and organizations, it's just inefficient. Why not strip away a bit of the clunky, heavy, distracting outdated technology? 

Maybe I’m asking these questions prematurely. Maybe people aren’t ready to think about masculine domination as an historical pattern, and are also afraid that all this will lead to a deconstruction of the basic ideas of masculinity and feminitiy. It’s not like that at all.

Patriarchy is both a way of organizing human activity (hierarchies, exhales, achievement, dominance) and a way of organizing personal, interior lives. Anyway:

Why would masculine domination be a problem in practice--a practical problem? I’m thinking both principles (goal oriented-ness, performance mindset) and politics (who gets/has to take power, who pretends/has to pretend to be needy).

Can there be systematic practice and transmitted lineage (two super useful things!) without patriarchy? (Is the very idea of energetic lineage just a legitimation racket for patriarchy? Shit.)

Is the experience of surrender sometimes—as we experience it—about participating in male-dominance? Can surrender be something else?

How can you learn to get really intimate with your own experience when you’re taught in a patriarchal manner?

Posted by (0v0)        
Categories: evolution , self-deception , social theory , spirituality

Comment

1. I think this is what my book will be about actually. But not to extend the question too far with the complexity of the answer.
   I have had this feeling that this Patriarchy, this male domination has never matured and transcended its own concept.
   I think of it merely as a system that organises mens energy, and when its is done badly, it is shadow, the negative potential of that energy.
   Shadow is unexamined, and men do not think too often about their repressions, perhaps though the times are beginning to change just a smidgen.
   Patriarchy is a collective phenomenon too, and so perpetuates until the positive aspect of male energy and its organisation is brought to bear in daily life, and daily practice of living consciously. This change is what we are part of. We see it, we attempt to make friends with it, we shift it.
   So in terms of a revised version of the P word, we surrender only to the understanding that it is an unconscious system, that it is the negative aspects of hierarchy and performance mindset. That those under its spell have not realised they are in the swimming pool they are peeing in.
   Getting intimate with our own experience is getting intimate with the shadow, then we are free to feel the snake and not fear the bite. Our creativity and Self are not repressed by our projection any more.
   This is where my book hopes to help. I hope to in a sense illustrate a more positive frame-work by naming these shadows. Making it more concrete, and much less abstract, by showing real life examples of the thoughts behind the deeds. And how to see them in ones own life.

   Posted by: Gregor · Oct 5, 07:39 AM · #

2. Creative intimacy seems to bring light to some things that are invisible otherwise. This is still a problematic conversation though, because we don’t really know what we are talking about. :) I think that’s why it puts people off.

   To simplify, maybe I’d just focus on the idea that women should be less competent than their men and that men should “provide.” (And maybe add the idea that there needs to be a man-guru to head every institution.)

   It disturbs me that of all the people I know the only ones who explicitly buy in to regressive ideas about women and men are those who are deeply enmeshed in yoga culture. A privileged, modern bunch with a 1950s gender ideology.

   Dear Yoga: please go have more intimate experiences that complicate gender roles.

   Religion is a place where the social hierarchies of a time period are intensified and legitimated. So, Buddhism has this disgusting history of saying women can’t be enlightened and need to come back as men—and this history of pious women masculinizing themselves. Christianity codified man/woman hierarchies of ancient times and uses “scripture” to reproduce them now out of context. Insofar as yoga is a religion that stays in touch with history, I guess the man/woman hierarchy will be legitimated along with the better parts of what’s being brought forward.

   Seems pointless and a distraction from creative relationship. But it makes people feel secure.

   Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 5, 12:35 PM · #

3. The best discourse gets in this yoga world is “women are from mars, men are from venus.” I’m wondering about the possibilities and limitation of that.

   For me, I can barely even deal with conversations on that level because they are unbelievably shallow. As much as “Men are from Mars” discussion highlights some basic wiring differences that show up in men and women, it’s mostly about intensifying those differences at treating the other gender as “the other” in an intense, closed way. Boring. I am in disbelief about shallowness and non-curiosity of this degree. It suggests an insularity: like people who find this “so true” just have not had very many ongoing intimate experiences that complicate prescribed gender roles as much as they reveal gendered differences? Again,

   Dear Yoga: please go have more intimate experiences that complicate your gender ideology.

   Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 5, 12:41 PM · #

4. Just for the record, I’d like to state that I was doing intense gender-interrogation FOUR years prior to ever stepping on a yoga mat (and that’s just academically; my wrangle with gender goes back to, roughly, puberty).

   Yes, in the world of yoga there is precious little gender discourse, of any kind, beyond “why don’t men do yoga?” and I’d wager that the Mars-Venus syndrome is probably as deep as it gets.

   Why not, then, look for people who “do gender” who also do yoga instead of the other way around? Or is that the very problem you’re pointing out here?

   Posted by: patrick · Oct 5, 03:34 PM · #

5. I’m not pointing out anything! I just had this amazing old teacher who’s clearly on to something tell me that patriarchy is why yoga’s fucked.( And then I thought about this cryptic statement interesting people have made—about how it’s women who need to carry these practices forward in the next generations.)

   While I thought I understood what he was saying about patriarchy being a big stupid unconscious problem, when I try to write about it, it becomes clear that I do not really understand. It’s all still intractable and I don’t know how to bring it up to light at all.

   I tell my university students you don’t know something until you can write about it. This is not true for kinesthetic or noetic knowing, but it oughta be true for something as dumb and oafish as good old patriarchy….

   Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 5, 05:05 PM · #

6. A bit odd. I’ve often thought (and always felt) that (the practice of) yoga is an attempt to wriggle away from patriarchy – be that proto-brahminical finger-waggers, sky gods or some sort of ‘obligation’ to do the killing.

   Odd. That the ashtanga lineage thingy doesn’t cause more consternation in the realm of femeny.

   Oddest. The some of most ‘patriarchal’ characters in yogaworld seem to be women.

   Someone put me straight on this last point. Maybe I’ve cocked it up.

   Posted by: meniscusmerangue · Oct 6, 01:24 AM · #

7. Not just yoga world, kids! No thinking about gender going on in corporate America, at least not the kind of systematic (and, dare I say, academic) discourse you seem to be talking about.

   Posted by: karen · Oct 6, 04:31 AM · #

8. Mmm… I really don’t want to make it an academic conversation. I wonder if talking about gender expression is a little distracting from talking about masculine domination? Can a distinction be made? The first is more about culture the second is more about social organization… if there’s a distinction to be made. Seems like people who would find gender-bending conversations to be academic or pretentious would still really want to talk about masculine domination.

   It is odd that this isn’t discussed. It’s all really really really in shadow. So intense!

   About the most patriarchal characters being women, I think I have sort of an explanation. At least from observing a notorious female ashtanga authoritarian (from afar, and via the authoritarian female students she created). In her case, the teacher herself spoke of having daddy issues with SKPJ. This is understandable, truly—I don’t think it was at all easy for her being a female student in the early days. She had to rise up against the father.

   In other cases, maybe it’s as simple as imitation and insecurity? (Insecurity explains SO MUCH... :) )

   The only authoritarians I’ve practiced with have been women, it’s true.

   Related. Sexism without sexists, in a sense.

   Posted by: (0v0) · Oct 6, 08:56 AM · #

9. Whoot! I have been working with these issues for the past 19 years (and practicing ashtanga for perhaps 1/8 of that time). I’m very pleased to see this discussion taking place. Now, I’ve been reading three of your posts at the time, so I’ll ask you to bear with me in case I am inadvertently replying to multiple posts in a single place. And of course, coming in late in the game everything I have to say is a mish-mash of thoughts marginally related to the previous discussions in some senses, and in others not related to it at all, but merely the inchoate ramblings of a woman recovering from strep throat with lots of time and even more opinions.

   I think you are bang on when you say that feeling discussing this issue is whiny is an expression of internalised patriarchal thinking. It is at the very core of the overwhelming majority of societies today, in that domination of more powerful groups by less powerful groups has been a fundamental component of most social orders for, give or take, the last 5000 years. The domination of women by men is one of these key dichotomies. Some would say the fundamental one (although I don’t think we need to go there to have this discussion). Without them our myths, stories and religions are torn apart. There is no princess to be saved in the castle. No beaming bride to meet on her wedding day. No witch to burn. And no one knows who the heck is supposed to wash up after dinner. Without them, most of us would feel adrift at sea without an anchor, including many women. Questioning patriarchy of necessity entails questioning much of what we “know” to be true. This is why it makes perfect sense for it to put people on the defensive, and why it makes sense for some women to be patriarchal. Most of us are to some extent. I fear this language will be alienating, but oppressed groups often mimic their oppressors to try to improve their own situation, not realizing that participating in the game at all will ultimately harm them. Whenever I see this phenomenon I am reminded of the phrase in the Discourse on Inequality, “all run to their chains, thinking to preserve their liberty,” and realize this is nothing new. Outsiders will often dogmatically enforce the status quo in order to increase their legitimacy. So I also think insecurity is at play, but I think the sense of insecurity is well-founded.

   I am also appalled at the widespread acceptance of patriarchal authority in the yoga world, often disguised as trite and ostenstibly harmless half-truths about the magical receptivity of the uterus or some such thing (I see you have quite aptly summarized this thinking by referring to it as the “men are from mars” trope). I am the furthest thing from a yoga philosopher, but I find it hard to make make sense of a tradition that purports to adhere to non-dualism in the spiritual world but clings to it tenaciously in every other aspect. Yet here I am practicing Ashtanga traditionally and increasingly turning to “self study,” reading these very texts and finding myself facing these issues on a daily basis. What to do, what to do?

   Here’s a question related to the original post: if patriarchy is indeed a big dumb obstacle that misallocates energy, then why not try to smash it. What else could it possibly be good for?

   Posted by: monkey · Oct 9, 08:05 AM · #

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