Friday, May 6, 2016

O Man!

6th May 2016

I recently  did the Huffington Post mother/daughter talk with my daughter Naomi who is a film maker in New York.
HuffPo #TalkToMe Interview - Naomi McDougall Jones and Claire McDougall
I was waxing lyrical (though not sounding it!) about the state of things, how civilization is in a (long) phase of dissolution, how the paradigm that has worked (sort of) until now is on the brink of destroying us. I feel very strongly about all of this, and yet when I go to explain it, I sound like a rabid feminist. So, let's say that I am a feminist, but not of the rabid kind. I suppose the ridiculing of feminism is part and parcel of the old paradigm, which is the men-on-top paradigm, or more specifically, the rule of male hierarchies.



I find myself in a strange position here, because I tend to feel more comfortable in the company of men, and, truth be told, I have been known to idolise one or two of them. I like men, plain and simple. Also, as I tell my very nice natured son, I am not talking about individual men in this diatribe, but about a paradigm that functions by putting little posses of them in power.
This is news to no one. The church has always functioned this way with a few choice scriptural references to abet it.
Corporations do this: only 8% of Fortune 500 top earners are are women, and even when they are, they are paid 18% less.
Hollywood does this: In recent years, 85% of films had no female directors, 80% had no female writers, 78% had no female editors and 98% had no female cinematographers.
Government does this too - women make up only 20% of that old boy network. And this is precisely why it is time for America to put a women in the president's chair, no matter what axe you have to grind about the female candidate's personality. And if you are a woman, you should make extra sure that you're not just grinding this axe because it belongs to the male paradigm to do so.


And then there is of course war. Who are the chief players in war?
Or crime?
Studies show that 75% of violent crime is committed by men.
  • Males comprise 98.0% of those arrested for forcible rape.
  • Males comprise 89.0% of those arrested for robbery.
  • Males comprise 85.0% of those arrested for burglary.

So why is it a man's world? In primitive societies, it was a woman's world. Lewis and Clark were so steeped in the patriarchal society they came from they didn't even notice that the tribes in America were matriarchal. To the frustration of the natives, the two simply disregarded the women who sat on the tribal councils.
I have just finished the last book in my Veil of Time series. I'm taking a look at how our world might look if we hadn't gone that patriarchy route. It's a question worth asking, and not because you can write me off as a feminist.
Oh, and the picture above of Malala Yousafzai is there because, despite of her Hijab, she is a thousand times more liberated than this:




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