I suspect the deep empowerment and return to reverence for women and relevance for men depends on men and women claiming back feminism from the ways in which it has been subverted by the patriarchy.

Gloria Steinem worked for the CIA.

I wonder….could the shadow side of western feminism be its commitment to patriarchal narratives of power?

Could the rising impulse of the deep intrinsic value of the feminine have been co-opted by the insidious patriarchal agenda?

Hear me out.

Read any account of the feminist movement and we will see that the birth control pill is widely hailed as the key to its success.

Control over the reproductive essence of a woman’s body paved the way for women to enter the workforce (the patriarchal Western economic system). Now the access to these positions that had been “denied” women based on their reproductive function were available and to be prized.

Birth control. Control. Chemical interference with the lunar cycles that had connected every woman who lived before 1960 to the currents and energies of the Earth. Widespread chemical control of the feminine mysteries sold as the key to a woman’s freedom.

It is hard to imagine a more aggressively patriarchal tool.

Bleeding was now regulated. Moon time ebbs and flows of vitality and energy and mood neatly managed. And women could join the economic machine.

The uncontrollable mystery becomes controllable. And that paves the way for “freedom”?

Hmmm. That seems off.

Notice that what this is NOT is the celebration and economic recognition of the role of Maiden/Mother/Crone on its own terms.

This is NOT actually a recognition of the intrinsic value of a woman’s reproductive gift.

This is NOT a fundamental reverence to the intuitive and magical feminine consciousness.

This is actually a statement that chemical control of a woman’s reproductive nature sets women “free” to also participate and excel in the masculine world of economy and culture.

If I were the patriarchy I would really want this to seem like this redirection and co-opting of feminism was coming from women themselves. I would actually want women to start telling other women that unless they were more like men that they weren’t free.

Gloria Steinem worked for the CIA.

If I wanted to really ensure the suppression of the feminine I would want women to forget who they were and start defining themselves by what they weren’t.

And I would know that this was going to lead the men to be putty in my hands. For the patriarchy knows that what has been set in motion is an even more insidious gender war.

You see, the reproductive power/gift/essence of woman as life-bearer, which can NEVER be shared by men, is successfully diminished and ignored. And now women are programmed to demand/seek/obtain more access to the economic/political/material power of men.

Now men can’t bear or nurture life AND they are being told that women are also just as competent at the masculine roles of society. All the while being educated and programmed to now believe that their masculinity was what was in the way of a woman finding her freedom and value.

Emasculating? Yes. Confusing? Yes. Designed to create resistance in men? Yes.

Nothing sparks more masculine shame and rage than irrelevancy. And now angry men have lost their purpose, their value, and are going to be fed the “solution” right from the place that orchestrated the whole thing.

By 1981 the American political system had elected Ronald Reagan and the great corporate takeover of the country and the world was underway. There is no more malleable a voting population than disenfranchised, confused, angry men searching for a solution. Just ask Trump.

Gloria Steinem worked for the CIA.

It seems to me that we MUST reclaim the value of Maiden/Mother/Crone on her own terms.

Now.

As the feminine Herself.

No more “control” masquerading as freedom. No more programming to ignore or devalue one’s own intrinsic power and significance. No more being used as pawns to invade and invalidate the Other’s sacred space.

I suspect the deep empowerment and return to reverence for women depends on claiming back feminism from the ways in which it has been subverted by the patriarchy.

I suspect the return to relevance for men is in supporting this movement with our hearts and souls and bodies.

What I am NOT SAYING is that the 1950’s were just fine. They weren’t. We needed true feminism then as badly as we do now. We just didn’t get it.

Let’s stay in love,
Ernest