NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #20/NN_1992_20.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/6568

Text File | 1992-09-15 | 7.4 KB | 159 lines

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From: Stephen Gensemer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: PAX: MEDITATION AND COUNTERING MALE POWER
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Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 19:22:04 GMT
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In response to Gregg deGroot-Maggetti's piece "Meditation and Countering
Male Power", I will share two important problems.

1)    Sensitivity is very important, and I agree that as "men" many of
us are trained to think more about what we are going to say next rather
than what others are saying.  Learning to listen and to give "space" to
others is an important part of the initiation of "men" into our
contemporary activist scene.  Many "heterosexual men" also feel that if they
listen more carefully to "womyn", they will be more attractive as sex
partners.
    But when we are caught in an oppressor/ oppressed dichotomy like
that of man/womyn, telling the oppressors to be more sensetive does little
more than make the oppressed feel either more comfortable in their
oppression, thereby diffusing their militancy, or simply offend the
oppressed by putting on a facade of benevolence.  The oft-heard warning
"beware of male feminists" is most likely a reaction to this facade of
sympathy and sensitivity that many of us learn to put up.  One wonders
whether the goal of the proposed "meditation" is to make us more sensitive
or merely prepare us for a difficult acting job, like the exercises an
actor goes through while getting "into character." (I do not question
deGroot-Maggetti's good intentions at all - however, good intentions are
not necessarily the name of the game here.)

2)    In my own experience, mixed-gender groups, whether in the activist
meeting or in the classroom or in the workplace or at a party, always seem to
have at least one or two "men" who simply cannot help themselves.  No
matter how often they are reminded and no matter how hard other "men" try
to set a good example, the will not stop interrupting without some sort of
assertive facilitating.  In the interest of inclusion, we need to get used
to better facilitating in our activist meetings - a tendency to talk too
much, or too little, should not exclude anyone from a group, nor should it
be allowed to disrupt the meeting.
    It is probably worth noting that the voices that interrupt are
often "masculine" voices, and that "feminine" voices too often are not
heard.  But giving "men" and "womyn" equal time, whether by teaching "men"
to shut up or by teaching "womyn" to talk more, we do not necessarily hear
anything more from the often-silent Feminine - "womyn" can speak with
masculine voices like anybody else - and few "men" give their own feminine
room to speak.
    I don't have any kind of sweeping or simple solutions to offer,
but I want to resist the temptation of grasping for them.
    But I would say that if the Couple "man/womyn" (that Cixous tells
us is linked to every other hierarchy in our culture/language) is
inevitably a hierarchy, with womyn on the bottom, then the way out of
oppression is NOT equality - for equality leaves intact all the old
oppositions - man/womyn, white/black, straight/queer - that keep on
sliding back into hierarchies.  Perhaps by deconstructing these
hierarchies - by finding the "simultaneous presence in each of us of the
masculine and the feminine" (Cixous, _The Newly Born Woman_) not to
mention the black and the white, the queer and the straight, the silent
and the stentorian, we can begin to experiment with new kinds of
discussions, conversations, monologues, lectures, writings - which make
irrelevant or banal the old categories.
    And give us a sense that identifying oneself as a "womyn" or a
"man" is terribly stifling, not to mention

                      utterly

                          ridiculous.

                    Steve Gensemer
                    Seattle, WA


For those who have not read the original article, the text follows in its
entirety:

 On Sun, 13 Sep 1992, Rich Winkel wrote:

> The ACTivist, Volume 8 #9, September 1992.
>
> The ACTivist, Ontario's peace monthly, is published by ACT for
> Disarmament, 736 Bathurst St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2R4,
> phone [phone], fax [phone], e-mail web:act. Hard copy
> subscriptions are $10 for a year ($25 for institutions and funded
> agencies).
>
> Reprint freely, but please credit us (and send us a copy!)
>
> /** gen.newsletter: 138.16 **/
> ** Written  9:02 pm  Aug 31, 1992 by web:act in cdp:gen.newsletter **
> MEDITATION AND COUNTERING MALE POWER
>
> By Greg deGroot-Maggetti
>
> This article is addressed to men. It has to do with justice in
> relationships with women. More specifically, it has to do with one
> aspect of such relationships: that of listening to and hearing women.
>
> I have experienced time and again, in meetings and conversation
> where men and women are together, the tendency of men to dominate.
>
> At the Student Christian Movement Conference in May this became
> a serious issue. For every comment by a woman during plenary sessions,
> five or six men spoke. Within an organization committed to justice, this
> is a problem. When men dominate, women's voices get drowned out.
>
> I have read, too, of studies showing that eighty per cent of
> conversational interruptions are men interrupting women. But I don't
> need studies to reveal this. I do it myself, all too often.
>
> The drive to talk and talk and the difficulty being silent and listening
> poses a problem for me personally as well. It creates a restlessness
> which distracts me and disrupts my powers of discernment.
>
> Lately, I have explored the discipline of meditation. Meditation is a
> practice found in many religions. It has deep roots within Christianity
> -- although the practice has suffered through disuse in the West in
> recent centuries.
>
> Meditation in the Christian tradition involves quieting oneself and
> opening oneself to the voice of God and the movement of the Spirit.
>
> When I started to practice meditation I found it difficult -- I still do.
> The way of doing meditation suggested to me through things I have
> read involves setting aside time at the beginning and end of the day
> to sit in silence and focus on a centring word. The aim is to release all
>  busyness and distractions; to be still.
>
> Needless to say this involves foregoing TV or reading something that
> might seem very important. Meditation is a discipline. It requires the
>  commitment to spend twenty minutes or so, two times a day, doing
> nothing. But it is only through discipline that one can develop the
> ability to be still.
>
> What I have noticed is that when I meditate regularly my restlessness
>  ceases at other times as well. I am more able to be still throughout
> the day and don't feel the need to have a comment for everything. I
> am more open to the word of God spoken both when I meditate and
> in the voices of others and in many daily experiences.
>
> My experience leads me to wonder whether the practice of
> meditation could be a small part of the solution to male dominance.
>
> If meditating enables me to listen more attentively and hear women
> more clearly, could it enable other men to do the same?
>
>
>
> ** End of text from cdp:gen.newsletter **