The Millennium of the Divine Feminine

[Guest guest]

The Millennium of the Divine Feminine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shri Mataji with vibrations flowing from Her heart "And I have to specially make a very important request to the women that in these modern times they are the ones who are going to save the world, not the men. They have done their job before. Now it is for you to save with your understanding, with your compassion, with your sacrifices, with your wisdom, and innate love not only your children, your husband, your family, but the whole world. It is a very great opportunity for all of you to do your bit. . . . The whole Cosmos, just in complete respectful attendance, is waiting for their arrival."

Sri Matrka-varna-rupini DeviCambridge, U.K. — June 1988

 

At the Crossroads:

Voices of Our Daughtersby Carolyne Pion

A funny thing happens to many girls on their way to womanhood-they lose their voices. Unlike boys, whose voices simply crack and deepen, girls become so confused by the mixed messages of patriarchal culture, that a collective muteness emerges.In what sounds like a sequel to "The Stepford Wives," in which angry husbands replace demanding spouses with demure, robotic ones; girls must go underground to preserve their individuality and even their sanity. Just what is our society doing to women?In their new book Meeting at the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development, authors Carol Gilligan and Lyn Mikel Brown analyze the critical years when girls become women, to find out. From 1986-1990, Gilligan, Brown, and their research team interviewed 1st, 4th, 7th, and 8th grade girls at the Laurel School, a private school in Cleveland, Ohio.Interviewing the same group of girls over a

four year period the authors found that women's psychological development, "is inherently traumatic." While a boy experiences an Oedipal crisis early in life, rejecting his mother, girls the authors argue experience a similar crisis at adolescence. A girl, however, rejects not only her mother, but herself-because woman, in our patriarchal culture, means "with men."No stranger to female/male psychology, Gilligan's first book, In a Different Voice, debunked a body of work beginning with Freud, the grandfather of patriarchal psychology-which stated that women are morally and psychologically inferior to men. Gilligan argued that women are not inferior to, but different from, men. Although her work put her in hot water with feminists who take issue with the different but equal theory of gender, a great number have used Gilligan's studies as a jumping off point for education and research.Linden von Eichel, adjunct professor of literature at American University in

Washington, D.C., uses Gilligan's material in her Humanism course. Von Eichel chose humanism, rather than feminism, as her central theme because she sees, "too much polarization between the sexes." The students "really relate" to Gilligan's material, says von Eichel, and "even the males become outraged" about assumptions of female inferiority which have been perpetuated over the years.Ellen Reynolds is a science teacher at The Park School, a private co-educational school located near Baltimore, Maryland. Reynolds chaired a Gender Project as part of a faculty advancement study which examined language, curriculum, and class participation, for indications of gender bias. They also discussed strategies for bias prevention."Carol Gilligan is one of the leaders in the movement to understand differences between boys and girls," says Reynolds. "Provocative" and "appealing," Reynolds said Gilligan asks good questions and stimulates others to study the issue as

well.Writing in the September 1992 issue of Scientific American, Doreen Kimura, professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario in London, discovered that "the effects of sex hormones on brain organization occur so early in life that from the start the environment is acting on differently wired brains in boys and girls." The differences in intellectual function, says Kimura, lie in patterns of ability, not in levels of intelligence.Whatever their differences in ability, Gilligan and Brown found that young girls or "whistleblowers," have no problem with their sense of place in the world. They speak out about feelings, anger, love and loyalty. They refuse to take no for an answer.One young girl, tired of having her conversation cut off at dinner, took a literal approach to a figure of speech. She brought a whistle to the table, and when she was interrupted, blew it. She succeeded in regaining her family's attention as well as impressing the

authors. Hence, the name for the chapter on young girls. In a similar vein, another girl, who felt she was continually ignored in school, got up and walked out of class one day."Eleven year olds cannot be bought," say Gilligan and Brown, "they are articulate, resourceful, and they know their own minds."But age eleven is the last year girls do seem in charge of their feelings, say Gilligan and Brown. As they move into adolescence, the "D" words, disassociation and disconnection, begin to dominate their relationships. Suggesting that adolescence is the threshold into disconnection and repression, the authors argue, "that women often do not remember--tend to forget or to cover up--what as girls they have experienced and known.""I don't know," is the bellwether of the "D" syndrome, say Gilligan and Brown. When an interviewer asks Judy, a study participant, if there is any way she can speak about things that bother her, Judy replies, "I don't even know like in my

brain or in my heart, what I am really feeling. I mean I don't know if it's pain or upsetness or sad--I don't know."Later, Judy adds, "And I think that after a while, you just sort of forget your mind, because everything is being shoved at you into your brain."Vulnerable to depression, sexual abuse, and a decrease in vitality and resilience, adolescent girls are clearly at risk. By asking questions and providing a context within which to answer them, Gilligan has made a critical contribution to psychology, says Marianne Walters, Director of the Family Therapy Practice Center in Washington, D.C., and author of The Invisible Web."We often wonder and are amazed at the change happening to young women entering the world of men and sexism. Seeking the admiration of boys, women become critical of one another," says Walters. "Carol has put the problem squarely into a social perspective. It exists in a social context, and that context is patriarchy."The

hallmark of adolescent girls' loss of confidence, and subsequently of voice, is a movement from the real to the ideal, as role model. The "ideal" girl is "calm, controlled, quiet," and "never cause(s) a ruckus." As girls internalize this patriarchal version of womanhood, a chasm erupts between reality and its looking glass counterpart. Girls enter a world where nothing is what it seems, where what they know to be true is not reflected back.Learning to anticipate what their parents and teachers will say, they begin to silence themselves, and are then rewarded for "good" behavior. In this Florence Nightingale school of womanhood, girls are programmed to be selfless, ministering angels endlessly nurturing fallen heroes on the battlefield of patriarchal dispute.It is only by going underground, or dissociating--failing to own and acknowledge inner voices of hurt, confusion, and protest--that girls can process the distortions surrounding them. So sadly enough, the series

of disconnections which the girls experience are simultaneously "adaptive and psychologically wounding."The paradox here, say the authors, is the giving up of relationship to be in "Relationships." When a girl's voice is compromised, when she patrols her own feelings and responses so people will continue to like her--she removes herself from living in relationship and enters into a caricature of what she's been taught a relationship should be. Such covert behavior is particularly depressing when one takes into account that what has been demonstrated to be a female strength--living collaboratively in relationship--has been reduced to a liability."We don't stand up for what we need, so many women struggle with relationships. They won't say what they think. They don't believe it's OK to speak their opinions, and they compromise at the expense of their feelings," says Kathleen Hennessy, a family therapist in Takoma Park, Maryland, who utilizes Gilligan's concepts in her

practice.Moved by In a Different Voice, Hennessy says that Gilligan helped her fill in the gaps she found in feminism."In one form or another, women have gotten the message, that it's OK to be female and cute, but not female and strong," says Hennessy. But femininity and strength are not mutually exclusive, and giving up one for the other is just another submission to patriarchy, she continues.For instance, says Hennessy, she was at the bridal shower of a friend, and everyone was asked to share a bit of advice with the bride-to-be concerning marriage. After eleven women, or so, had given their advice, someone noticed that the world "compromise" had come up a lot."Everyone laughed as if this demonstrated female weakness. I wanted to say 'wait, this doesn't demonstrate weakness, this demonstrates strength,'" meaning, says Hennessy, that we shouldn't have to give up what is feminine and good, and adopt what is masculine and not as good, to be

strong.Indeed, one of the saddest, and most unexpected messages the study participants shared was the perception that women were much tougher gatekeepers than men when it came to keeping girls in their place. Female teachers at the Laurel School wept, says Crossroads, when they understood the subtle and not so subtle ways in which they too sent mixed messages to their students."That's not surprising," says Marianne Walters. "But be careful not to blame women for the various ways in which they're oppressed. Remember, we're all existing in patriarchy."But how to unbind the "psychological footbindings" we all live under in a patriarchal society? By meeting at the crossroads, say the authors, where girls become women--so women can recover, and help girls never to forget--their voices.From this connection between women and girls, can emerge, says Crossroads, "a new understanding of women's psychological development...that offers an explanation of

asymmetries between women and men, and a sense of opening--a possibility for preventing psychological suffering and initiating societal and cultural change."In other worlds, a cultural roadmap for women, written and researched by and for women. Without such a roadmap, women have no choice but to depend on the kindness of strangers. Gilligan and Brown have given them another guidepost toward an empowered future.Carolyne Pion is a freelance writer and mother living in Takoma Park, Maryland.

Voices

It was around the time I went through puberty that I lost my voice. I'm certain the beginning was long before that, but by the time I was twelve I had changed significantly.As a child, I was a very strong and self-assured girl. My mother did her best to instill in me a solid core of confidence. But even a mother cannot fend off the inevitable in our society; one which still holds on to dangerous patriarchal and puritanical notions-like "all girls are nice."I found, by about age twelve, that it is often better to lie politely than tell the truth. Girls are only "good" if they act cute and coy, and like everyone: boys, teachers, grown-ups. The one exception to this stifling code of behavior is other little girls. You may be as vicious as you like with your own kind. In fact, it's encouraged. Inherent in the wiles of the popular young girls is the ruthless ability to tear apart certain other young girls. Cattiness is one's primary strength,

once she's been stripped of her ability to speak her mind.We lose, as young girls, our own credibility and soon after, our belief in ourselves. In American classrooms, boys are louder, more sure of themselves, and far more likely to contribute and participate. I remember learning that it wasn't always the smart thing to be smart. I had always done well in school, and yet in middle school I started reaching out socially with a fervor and let school take a back seat. Though social pursuits are healthy, normal and integral especially at that critical time, I also acted out of the received notion that as a girl it was far more important to be pretty and popular and extroverted than to be smart or strong or truthful. The only way to be liked was to say what I was supposed to say--nice things about everyone up front, nasty things about some girls in private, and nothing I really felt about anything.The saddest part of all of this is how the voices that tell you to shut up

and smile and act like a girl eventually move in. Before long girls censor themselves.I am grateful that I found myself at a women's college, Barnard College in New York, and I believe it woke me up. In classes, whether small all-women seminars, large mixed classes or predominantly male ones at Columbia College across the street, the air was different. I was acknowledged by my professors, my advisors and most importantly my peers--my sisters--as a whole person. I was once again a mind and a voice, encouraged to speak and write what I thought. Of course, I was shaky at first, afraid that my thoughts and observations were dumb. But for the first time I actually realized that those fears were there, and had been put there. I awoke to a variety of women's issues, important ideas I had barely been aware of before. But the single most beautiful gift Barnard gave me was the support, female support, to find my voice again. All my life women have been just as complicit in quieting

me, smoothing over with pretty pink smiles the true thoughts I had voiced as a child. I learned not to speak truths that sometimes weren't nice, weren't giggly and silly and inane, weren't seemly for a young lady. Young ladies are certain things: sweet, quiet, polite, nice to everyone and generally opinionless. As a Barnard student I learned that women are decent human beings who are not always sweet or quiet, are nice when they choose to be, and have opinions, sometimes very strong ones.I am very lucky. I was helped in my education, and I found strong women. I continue to resist the voices around me which do try to quiet us all. I am still exhuming my own voice buried eleven years ago. It is a slow process; they throw on more dirt, I throw it off. I am not alone trying to get rid of all that dirt. I have strong, supportive women around me, and tools, like the knowledge that my own voice is valid and should be heard.-- Shirin