Gynarchy

[Ian Livingston]

Rwanda seems an interesting test case to watch.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20727127

On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 5:12 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> on a woman to be Sec of Defense. Now. Name is Flourney, is v well-regarded
> UnderSec of Defense, they say.
>
> from a longer just-as-boring piece (but for the 'news' scoop):
> All the research we have right now shows that if you want to get a better
> decision, you want a diverse group,” said Wilson, who said she has worked
> with Flournoy on several projects designed to help women take on national
> security leadership roles.
>
>
>
>   *From:* Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
> *To:* kelber at mindspring.com
> *Cc:* pynchon-l at waste.org
> *Sent:* Monday, December 17, 2012 5:27 PM
> *Subject:* Re: Gynarchy
>
> Your mom sounds like quite a woman. A life well-lived, indeed.
>
> As to your submission that women in power--to paraphrase rather brutally
> according to my own take--are frequently masculine power-trippers in drag,
> I submit Nancy Pelosi as a case in point. A seasoned hawk and power broker,
> Pelosi backs many good causes and also supports indefinite detention and
> cyber-snooping on citizens without a warrant, among other disasters. She is
> the consummate patriarch in drag.
>
> But a matriarchy would, by definition, not be a masculine power structure.
> Do the alpha males have to die off for women to come into their own? Or do
> they have merely to be outnumbered and out-debated? And, of course, the
> appropriate follow-up to that line of questioning is to ask whether whether
> women's coming into their own consists of overtaking masculine power, or if
> equalling, thereby offsetting patriarchy, is enough. Do we really have to
> go all-or-nothing in the question of women's influence? Are men all, by
> nature, evil? Misanthropy does not seem like an adequate answer to
> misogyny, yet it seems that the radical right, especially, regards every
> gain in women's rights and authority as an emasculatory demise of men's
> god-given superiority. Feminazis, they call a women who demand the right
> choose what happen their own bodies, or who demand equal pay for equal
> work. That there are such men, does not preclude the possibility of
> cooperation between the sexes. Just maybe men and women have equally
> valuable skills and talents to bring to leadership. A woman leader does not
> have to wear a jock strap.
>
> On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 1:36 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> My mother was an unsung feminist theorist, writer and activist (though she
> was sung about for a bit here:
> http://capitolwords.org/date/2004/10/11/E1962_in-honor-of-mim-kelber/).
>  She was a great believer in the moral superiority of women.  Some of that
> attitude was born from the experience of her father abandoning his wife and
> kids, leaving them in destitution, but, whatever the source, it informed
> most of her activism, such as becoming a founding member of Women Strike
> for Peace - the title alone summing up her views.
>
> She was a journalist and speechwriter, but late in life, she decided she
> wanted to write a book, which she hoped would be the definitive work on
> women and war.  She was awarded a Wonder Woman grant, and may have even
> gotten an advance from a publisher.  She never wrote the book.  Partly it
> was due to insecurity.  She only had a BA in journalism from Hunter College
> -CUNY, and feared she'd be savaged by academic feminists with advanced
> degrees.  But mostly, I think (and maybe she'd deny it if she were still
> around), the more research she did, the more dismayed she became about her
> central thesis: that women are natural opponents of war.
>
> The problem is that women are raised, along with men, in a male society,
> and adopt the morality that's provided to them.  Sure, there's the
> occasional anthropological anecdote, or idealistic treatise, but the fact
> remains that every dominant power structure in the world today is, by its
> very nature, of, by and for males.  It's irrelevant if we think that women
> would do a better job.  The women who make it into the upper echelons of
> power get there by promising to mimic those who are already there.  Maybe
> the best way out is the "only Nixon could go to China" approach.  Only men
> can abdicate their power, or agree to share.  Maybe if the drinking water
> supply gets polluted with industrial-level amounts of estrogen?  I'm a lot
> more cynical than my mother ever was.
>
> Re: supplying kids with war toys.  On the rare occasions me and my sister
> asked for some innocuously "violent" toy like a water pistol, or some sort
> of plastic cowgirl gun ensemble, our mother would tell us that she
> disapproved of people who made money through promoting violence.  Buying
> those toys would put money in their pockets.  If we wanted a gun, we'd have
> to make one ourselves.
>
> Laura
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Livingston **
> Sent: Dec 17, 2012 1:03 PM
> To: Phillip Greenlief **
> Cc: Mark Kohut **, Rich **, pynchon -l **
> Subject: Re: Gynarchy
>
> Well, we might get assault weapons banned this time around. Did this kid
> use an assault weapon? I haven't seen a list of his arms. Handguns are
> another issue. It's possible screening could become more selective for the
> sale of handguns, but that won't dispose of the ones that are already out
> there. We won't likely see any significant change in regulations regarding
> shotguns and hunting rifles in our lifetimes. Maybe there could be a safety
> course requirement, such as some states require for hunting license issue,
> but kids incline to sleepwalk through those things. (It's odd, isn't it, to
> sell a weapon without a safety course requirement, but to require such a
> course to get permission to use it in the manner under the guise of which
> the weapon is sold in the first place?)
>
> I'm much more interested in the subject of Rich's lead here. It has long
> been my position that women are morally superior to men. Musta picked it up
> from Plato's Socrates. There are, of course, websites devoted to Gynarchy
> and Matriarchy. Oddly, the matriarchal website "Women Thou Art God" seems
> more open to the public for inquiry, whereas the Gynarchy International
> seems more militant, subversive, selective in terms of audience and
> participation.
>
> http://www.womanthouartgod.com/femdivine.php
> http://www.gynarchy.org/
>
> One of the reasons I've long inclined to regard women as morally superior
> has to do with their inclination to talk about things before they act.
> Wilber, citing someone else in something I read several years ago, says
> that talking is a vital function of the feminine thought process. Masculine
> thought processes, on the other hand, incline to get hung up on an idea and
> let it fester until it springs like Athena from our foreheads, with no need
> for further editing, if we can help it, thank you very much for your
> thoughts I'll take the time to consider thinking about them before I ignore
> them and move forward with my obsession. Feminine thought processes
> therefore by nature incline to gyro better in their course, by allowing
> greater outside influence. It's clearly not universal, but the inclination
> seems likely enough to me. It seems most clearly defined in youth, before
> our beloved patriarchal social hierarchy indoctrinates the young into the
> wisdom of winning friends and influencing people.
>
>
>
>  On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 9:07 AM, Phillip Greenlief <pgsaxo at pacbell.net>wrote:
>
>  there are countless petitions circulating. it's also a good time to call
> your representative.
>
> Phillip Greenlief
> 1075 Aileen Street Apt B
> Oakland, CA 94608
> 510-501-7110
>
>
>  *From:* Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> *To:* Rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
> *Cc:* pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> *Sent:* Mon, December 17, 2012 8:59:23 AM
> *Subject:* Re: Gynarchy
>
>  yes, yes...I'm going to do SOMETHING....ongoing.
>
>   *From:* Rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
> *To:* pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> *Sent:* Monday, December 17, 2012 9:47 AM
> *Subject:* Gynarchy
>
> I have been thinking lately what a woman led world would look like. I
> pretty much in agreement with sentiment here regarding this recent shooting
> & mass murder. There are more women in congress but I do wonder the effect
> psychologically for women when they begin to have more direct combat roles.
> Will that change the dynamic in anyway? Who can say. An experiment in a
> more active leadership in governance by women is surely one we should
> support in some form.
>
> With that said gender issues aside we can easily reconstitute the assault
> weapons ban and ensure the mentally ill do not have access to such things.
> Far too many of these cases are not heightened testosterone but simply
> people out of their head. Yes they are male but I see them as mentally ill
> first.
>
> I'm hoping there will be some change after this event. Shame on us all if
> nothing changes. Those poor kids deserve their memories to mean something.
>
>
> **********
>
>
>
>
>
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