In Tokyo in the 1920s, a woman farted while she was giving a feminist lecture,
and the audience exploded with laughter. Afterwards, in deep shame, she committed suicide.
The problem of procreation and childcare is a very important one. We definitely
need more positive participation by men in childcare. But how are we going to get it?
If our only choice is to demand it by force we will fail. In a very enlightening
TV symposium I watched recently, Nicky Giovanni, an intelligent young black poetess,
spoke of the importance of sharing childcare between men and women. On the same
show James Baldwin, a poet of the last generation, a male chauvinist, (though an
inspiring one) replied with startling honesty how he felt as a man who was forced
into the position.
"I can't give a performance all day in the office," he said, "and come back and give
a performance at home at night." He's right. How can we make a man share the
responsibility of childcare under social conditions where his job at the office
is a mere "performance" and where he cannot relate to the role of childcare except,
again, as a "performance"? Contemporary man must go through a very major change
in his thinking before he will volunteer to look after children; before he even
starts to want to care. His job must cease to be a "performance" before he can stop
thinking of childcare as a "performance."
Childcare is the most important issue for the future generation. But it is not
a pleasure anymore to the majority of men and women in America because our entire
society is geared to living up to a Hollywood cum Madison Avenue image of men and
women and a lifestyle that has nothing to do with childcare. We are in the midst of
a serious identity crisis.
Our society is driven by neurotic speed and force, accelerated by greed and the
frustration of not being able to live up to the image of men and women we have created
for ourselves - an image which has nothing do with the reality of people. How can we
be eternal James Bond or Twiggy and raise three kids on the side? So we pass our kids
on to babysitters, nursery and high school teachers - three of the most underpaid
positions in our society! How can we help but do this when our wives
constantly complain about insufficient material earnings, comparing us with
Onassis. Or when we are living under the constant threat of losing our husbands
to girls on the street with false eyelashes and the never-had-a-baby-or-a-full-meal
look. In such an image-driven culture, a piece of reality like a child becomes
a direct threat to our very false existence.
The only game we play together with our children is star-chasing; sadly, not stars
in the sky, but "Stars" who we think have achieved the standard of the dream image
we have imposed on the human race. We cannot trust ourselves anymore, because
we know we have not "made it." Because we know that we are, well...too real.
The fact that we are not fake should make us happy, but instead, we are forever
apologetic for being real. "Excuse me for shitting, excuse me for farting,
excuse me for making love and smelling like a human being," we say, "instead
of being that odorless, celluloid prince and princess image out there on the screen."
Still, most women hope that we can achieve our freedom within the existing social
set-up. We think that somewhere there must be a happy medium where men and women
can share freedom and responsibility. But if we would just take the time to observe
the greed-power-frustration syndrome in our society, we would soon see that there is no happy
medium to be achieved. For the competitive, power-oriented, success-driven lot of us
are - and let's face it - just as image-driven as men.
The only way to achieve a happy medium and to satisfy our tremendous need as well is to,
inch by inch, take over all the best jobs and eventually conquer the whole world,
leaving a strongly bitter male stud-cum-slave class moaning and groaning underneath us.
This is all right for an afternoon dream, but in reality it would obviously be just
another drag.
Women are going through a very early stage of revolution now, much as blacks
have in the past. We are now at a stage where we are eager to compete with men
on all levels. But probably women will go to the next inevitable stage, one which
blacks have already reached, and realize the futility of competing and trying to
be like men. Women will recognize themselves for what they are: not as beings
comparative to or in response to men, but as total beings with full and natural
instincts in addition to intellect. As a result, the feminist revolution can
have a positive influence on society; that is, it can offer a feminine direction.
A professor who lives in a three tatami room in Tokyo (one tatami is a size of a mat
for one person to lie down on) says he needs one tatami for himself, another for
his companion, and the third for the two to breathe in. "In order for me to keep
a room larger than a three-tatami in an overpopulated city like Tokyo, I have to
use additional energy to fight for it. Any possession that is more than what you
need belongs to someone who needs it. I don't want to waste my energies keeping it."
He further claims that there are two poverty lines in this world. One is where you
starve, the other is where you have excessive possessions. He has donated his
only other possession - his books - to the local library.
In two-thousand years of effort, men have demonstrated to us their failure in
running the world. Instead of falling into the same trap as men, women can offer
something that society never, because of male dominance, had before. That is
feminine direction.
Of course the question will be asked, "What is femininity and masculinity?"
The stereotype ideas of femininity and masculinity really have nothing to do
with the true nature of men and women. In fact, most people in our society
show both masculine and feminine tendencies at the same time. But to a great
extent, both men and women have believed in their own myths and have subsequently
developed stereotype characters of themselves. As a result, quite apart from
what men and women really are, so-called masculine and feminine tendencies
do prevail in our society as characteristics of the society itself.
It is to these characteristics I am referring.
What we can do is to bring out the more feminine nature in society to replace
the masculine one which is now at work as a very negative force. We can thus
make more positive use of the feminine tendencies of the society which, up to now,
have been either suppressed or dismised as something to be ashamed of or even
as harmful, impractical and/or irrelevant in the making of that society. I am,
in fact, proposing the feminization of society: the use of the feminine
tendencies of the society as a positive force to change the world. Obviously,
a feminine society is not to be mistaken for a female-dominated society.
The contemporary society is competitive, logical (inasmuch as the society makes
an attempt or pretense of basing its thinking on logic) and power-oriented
in its structure. Hypocrisy, violence and chaos result from this structure.
We can now change the society with the feminine touch, or rather with feminine
intelligence and awareness, into a basically organic, non-competitive one based
on love rather than reasoning. The result will be balance, peace and contentment.
We can evolve rather than revolt, come together rather than claim independence,
and feel rather than think. Now these are characteristics that are
considered feminine and which men despise. But have men done so well by avoiding
the development of these characteristics within themselves?
Already, in the glimpse of the new world, we see feminine wisdom working as
a positive force. I refer to feminine wisdom and awareness based on reality,
intuition and empirical thinking, rather than images, logistics and idealogies.
The whole youth-generation idiom of "love and peace" "Come together" "feel and
touch" and their dreams are changes in a feminine direction.
The most advanced
field of communication, telepathy, is also a phenomenon which can only be developed
in a highly feminine climate. Feminine sensibility can definitely blossom in
society, not in the sense of 17th century witch practice, but in a way that
it is connected to an understanding of nature and its future evolution. The problem
is, just as with women, feminine tendencies in society have never been given a chance
to blossom, whereas masculine tendencies overwhelm and dominate it.
What our society needs now is not the speed born of competition, the invention
of faster and faster machines, nor the so-called reality based on rational and
practical thinking. The outcome of such reasoning is at best a two- to four-
dimensional perception of reality, which is a limiting observation of life.
What we need now is the patience and natural wisdom of a pregnant woman; an
awareness and acceptance of our natural resources (what is left of them); and
the healthy existence of our bodies and feelings. Let's not kid ourselves and
think of ours as an old and mature civilization. We are by no means mature.
But that is all right. That is beautiful. Let's slow down, and try to grow
organically, and as healthy as a newborn infant. The aim of the female revolution
will have to be a total one, eventually making it a revolution for the whole
world, since we can never separate ourselves from the world.
As the mothers of the tribe, we share the guilt of the male chauvinists, and
our face is their mirror as well. It's good to start now, since it's never
too late to start from the start.
(Next: SunDance, Vol.I, No.2, August-September 1972)
