She Bear

For a long time I have advocated that women should rule the world.  This is because for the whole of history, men have clearly done a terrible job of this by creating a world of continuous wars and a big gap between rich and poor.  Yet, sometimes when I have said this I have been told by women that females have no interest in ruling the world. 

The reason for this could be that men tend to be more competitive than women and will therefore spend more time and effort competing against other men for power and wealth.  The problem with this is that if women are not willing to compete again men for power they leave a large power vacuum that can only be filled by men.  So that the way the world is ruled, only serves men’s interests, which are competition, conflict and war.  It doesn’t serve women’s interests of caring and nurturing children, animals, the sick and elderly.

We can see masculine instincts in nature when two male animals fight each other for dominance and access to females.  While the feminine instinct in nature is all about motherhood as female animals will nurture their young and care for them until they are old enough to look after themselves. 

So masculine power is all about force, aggression, competition and violence, while feminine power is maternal and is about love, caring and nurturing. This then is the reason women are not as competitive or aggressive as men are, but if that is the case, what can motivate women to gain power?  Because clearly they less selfish and competitive than men,

Some people claim that; the only way to be powerful is to also be aggressive and competitive.  But dictionaries tell us that power is the ability to act, to change or influence events.  Women have great power, because they bring life into our world.  Without women’s ability to give birth and look after their children, none of us would exist.  So surely that is a tremendous power that seems to be unrecognised in our male dominated world.

There is a poem called, “The hand that rocks the cradle, is the hand that rules the world,” by William Ross Wallace (1819-1881).  This idea seems a paradox; we intellectually feel that this should be true, because the biggest influence on any child is its mother.  The child then grows up as an adult still strongly influenced by what its mother taught it.  But if this is correct, why are we living in a world ruled by men?  The reason is that mothers don’t use this power to benefit themselves or other women.

We can understand this by looking at the extreme male dominated religion of Islam. In many Islamic countries they have genital mutilation where the clitoris of young girls is cut off.  The shocking thing is that this is being done by women.  So why would women mutilate young girls is this way?  Because it was done to them and they have been indoctrinated by their mothers and their culture to do this. 

The same is also true of honour killings, where in Islamic culture a husband has a duty to kill his wife, if she dishonours him by refusing to respect or obey men.  Fathers will also murder their daughters who refuse to conform and even brothers will do the same to their sisters.  Even today in some Islamic countries a women can be stoned to death because she committed adultery, or whipped because she dare to complain when she was raped.

Children are cared for by mothers but mothers try to train them to fit in with the society they belong, because she loves them.  This is because if she was to feed them ideas that go against society’s customs or traditions, she knows that this will cause her children conflict and alienation.  It could even cause them to be killed, in extreme Islamic country.  For this reason, mothers end up being staunch upholders of traditions, to protect their children, even though these traditions are detrimental to women. 

A man who kills his wife, sister or daughter in an honour killing, was once a small boy in his mother’s arms, but the mother never used her influence to tell him as a child, that honour killings are a bad thing.  So, when he grows up he may end up dominating, assaulting, abusing or killing his wife and daughters. We can see in this instance that yes, mothers do have great power, but as this power is being used against women, it does not benefit them.  So the question is how did it come about that women are not using their power over children, for their own benefit?

The answer would be that mothers tend to love their children more than they love themselves.  But by doing this, they have left a power vacuum that has been filled by men, who do not love their children to the same degree.  These men then use this power to indoctrinate children for their own advantage and to the disadvantage of women. 

This power also does not even benefit most men, as male dominated societies tend to be very warlike and young men find themselves dying in wars.  An extreme example is again in Islamic countries, where they use suicide bombers.  To do this, they have to indoctrinate young men into blowing themselves up in suicide attacks.  So the mothers of suicide bombers haven’t helped their sons by teaching him Islamic tradition.  All the mothers have done was to make it easier for their sons to be brainwashed, when they have grown up.  So they can be easy indoctrinated to commit suicide, by blowing up other people.

So by being upholders of patriarchal traditions might make sense to women, on the short term and individual level, to protect her children.  But if we look at it from a wider perceptive, if women end up powerless because they have allowed men to take it away from them.  Then they do not have the power to protect and nurture, their own children. An example of this, in nature, is female bears. 

Mother bears are one of the most dangerous animals in nature, but the reason for this, is that male bears and predators like wolves and lynxes will kill bear cubs.  So a female bear has to be extremely aggressive and powerful to be able to protect her cubs.  As the result a mother bear will fearlessly fight a larger male bear to do this.  The lesson for human mothers, is that a powerless mother cannot protect her children in the way she wants to.  Nor can a mother who doesn’t recognize that males can be a threat to the welfare of their children.

Unfortunately women are not as big as female bears and don’t have large claws and teeth.  Though it is true, that women can take up weight-lifting or martial arts to protect their children.  This might help, when dealing with violent men, but human power games are far more sophisticated, than animal power games. 

An example of this is the book, “The Prince”, by Nicolo Machiavelli, which has become essential reading, for successful politicians.  It has in it, infamous sayings like, “It is better to be feared than loved,” and. “The end justifies the means.”  So when female politicians play power games with male politicians they end up having to be very Machiavellian, to compete successfully against male politicians.  Though in doing this, some female politicians end up as being as bad what they are.  But if women do not compete against men for power, they find they are very limited in what they can do, to protect their children.

An example of this is a feminist mother who tries to prevent her sons from playing with toy guns.  Only to be undermined by TV action films to video games, which glorify violence.  These films portray violent men as heroes that become role models for many teenage boys.  The problem with this is that other teenage boys also watch these films and as the result teenage boys find they are in a violent gang culture when they socialise with other boys. Mothers also find it hard to protect their daughters or themselves, if the police can’t be bothered to prosecute rapists.  So Feminists find themselves wanting to change not only TV programs, but customs, traditions, laws, and the educations system, and this requires women to work together, in collective action. 

This in turn, does get some women interested in politics, which has a wider implication because men do a terrible job in ruling our world.  Patriarchal governments create wars and genocide as well as rule societies where there is a large gap between rich and poor.  What is hardly even discussed, is that if we had caring women rule our world, we would unlikely to have wars and they would more likely to create more loving and caring societies.

It is true that now in many countries we have more and more female politicians.  But these women have to join patriarchal political parties and expect to act and behave like male politicians.  As the result we find female politicians who want to get promotion in any political party, have to agree with anti-women policies.  As well as trying to be as aggressive and ruthless as any ambitious men.  These women might follow Machiavelli’s ideas that, “The end justifies the means.” But end up losing all their ideals, as they compromise far too far.  They also throw away the big advantage of not using feminine power. 

Unfortunately; female politicians, who act like men, give female politicians a bad name.  As it gives the people the impression that women in power, are just as bad as what men are.  If given a choice of which is better for our world, the masculine power of force, aggression, competition, conflict and violence or the feminine power of love, compassion, caring and nurturing.  Most sensible people would say feminine power is far better.  But what most people would also say is that it is unrealistic to think that we can live in a loving and caring world.  Not realising that this is just an excuse patriarchy governments always use, when challenged about the terrible way they are ruling the world.

In our present society we have to accept masculine patriarchal power because we are not given any other choice.  In democracies we are not given the choice of voting for two or more patriarchal political parties and the voters end up voting for the one that is the least worse.  What people don’t have, is the choice between a ruthless patriarchal political party or a caring and loving matriarchal political party.  This is because women have failed to organize themselves in the way men have.

We also find the same in religion where we are only given the choice of joining patriarchal religions that worship a male god with a male priesthood.  We don’t have the choice of joining a matriarchal religion with a loving female deity and with only female priests.  It is true some religious sects now accept the idea of a male and female god, and have some female priests, but women still find themselves part of a long patriarchal tradition. 

Feminist like to claim that man and women are the same.  In spite of the fact that men cannot give birth, while women have far less testosterone in their bodies which makes them physically weaker and less aggressive than men.  Yes, women can take up body building and martial arts but she to compete again men on a level playing field she has to also take steroids.  As steroids will not only make them stronger but more aggressive as well. 

The same is true when women compete again men in politics or business; they are told they have to learn to be assertive and aggressive as men.  So in our patriarchal world, we are told that the masculine force is all powerful in our world and the feminine is too weak to stand up against it, but is this really true?  Or is it that few people understand what feminine power is and therefore it’s not being used enough in our world. 

For most of our history it has been believed that the masculine methods of force and intimation are the best way to influence people, but in the 20th century this view has been challenged.  Many psychologists are claiming that rewards are a better way to influence people than punishment.  Now, rewards are the method that women are far more likely to use. 

Most sensible people would want be ruled by loving and caring feminine women, rather than aggressive and selfish male rulers, but are never given this choice.  So people can only choose if women are willing to organize themselves along with men who respect women to form Matriarchal political parties and Matriarchal religions.

A female bear also recognizes how dangerous a male bear can be to her children.  Human mothers have to think along the same lines.  Not only can men inflict violence or sexually assault her children.  When men rule the world, too many women end up in poverty and are unable to feed their children, because male rulers selfishly keep the wealth of the country in their own hands.  Patriarchal governments also like wars and use teenage boys as “cannon folder” to fight these wars.   What the mothers of these boys think about this, is not important, because they are powerless to prevent this happening.

If women want to be free to nurture and care for their children they cannot leave it up to men to rule our world.  Because men do not have the same maternal instincts women have and therefore have far less interest in the welfare of children than what women do.  Women have to learn from female bears, that a good mother who can truly care for her children, has to be also a powerful mother.  A weak mother cannot care for her children no matter how much she tries.   So if women want to be good mothers and care for their children they have to make sure they have the power to do this, and they can only do this by collectively working together to rule the world.