THE FREEBORN PROJECT

8. GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Today, March 8th, is International Women’s Day (and its 100th anniversary) and millions will be celebrating women’s achievements and making the case for women's rights around the world. And I will continue with this blog and its feminist purposes.

What will the world of women’s equal power combined with the feminine principle look like?

7c. EVOLUTION: Pulling Away From The Herd

Evolution is a bold thing. It requires leaving the herd behind and developing into something new. And it’s dangerous. Those left behind don’t like to have their worldview undermined. And feminists certainly know something about that!

As feminists developed their ideas and acted on their capacity for self-expression, the risks involved in doing so became obvious. The reactions from the status quo were severe. Most prevalent were vilification, ostracization, hatred, resistance to their vision and the wish to eliminate feminist concepts altogether. Susan Faludi describes this in depth in her book, Backlash.

Evolution (cont’d)

What feminist thought and activism achieved for women between its early rise and recent developments – and more so in the last 40 years – is now history. In spite of blathering from naysayers and the fearful, resistant and misogynistic, the evidence of change in society to improve women’s lot has been clearly established. Not only is feminist knowledge reliable, it is dynamic. Generations will continue to use this knowledge to improve their mental potency and position to negotiate the conflicts between women and men and subordinately-minded women.

7a. Evolution

The evolution of women from submissive to sovereign individuals controlling their own lives is a response to the millennial pressure, tension and conflict caused by male domination. Initially, the emphasis of the women’s movement was to “remove women from men’s power and its abuses.” As we progressed and improved our faculty for developing thought and language that expressed what we needed and wanted, our objectives and goals increased in value. As we removed ourselves from the conditions of male dominance and created supportive environments in which we could be actors on our own behalf, the evolution of the definition of power also presented itself.

7. THE FEMINIST IMAGINATION: Prime Mover

For millennia, women accepted life as they knew it as a given. They had little or no independent models as reference through which to articulate their vision and establish their own narrative. Nor did they have the social and cultural wherewithal. Confronting entrenched beliefs was done in a vacuum and individual contemplation produced imaginings such as The Woman’s Bible – a rewrite of The Holy Bible by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1895/1898) – criticizing biblical interpretation that denigrated women and women's role.

6. THE FEMININE PRINCIPLE

Below is my definition of the feminine principle as it appears in my book, TALKING THE WALK, The Grassroots Language of Feminism © 2008.

1. Survival of the self; and the procreation and protection of life.
2. Fulfillment of human nature; development of all potential to its highest ability.
3. Embodiment and will of the principle.

5a. WOMEN IN POWER: What Will Be? (cont’d.)

(Secondly), there is a large group of feminist leaders (of all generations) and organizations that operate independently of the power structure. Such organizations are growing around the world, have strong grassroots support and attract more and more resources as women themselves earn and control more money.

5. WOMEN IN POWER: What will be?

The liberation of any group invites into its new profile a variety of cure-alls and illusions and many of these have accompanied women’s liberation from their subordination to men. One of the more awesome speculations is, “If women ruled the world there would be no war.”

Of particular interest here – and a major issue, considering we are discussing the continuance of life on the planet – is the late Congresswoman, feminist and lawyer Bella Abzug’s panaceaic:

4a. The ERA and Power

Another serious problem facing women is the denigration of feminists and feminist thought and the lack of knowledge about the realities of deep-rooted sexism. Equality is not just a trendy, femme word. Shouting “I’m equal” and “my rights” carries no weight without comprehending the history, concepts, complications, practices, actions and behavior of the equal female. What does equality with men mean personally, legally and in society-at-large? And how does it evidence itself? Why and how is the equal female different from one who is not?