The Woman Fact/Symbol

For a relatively short period – when ignorance dominate culture -- History has relegated women to a sudo-second class status.

Back in the 60’s, when Feminism was emerging and had joined with the other “equality” movements, my mom asked me how felt about “female equality.”

My response was typical of how I viewed the world – and still do:

“If women want to be my equal,” I responded, “I’ll sit at home, exempt from the draft, or other ‘compulsory’ responsibilities, and allow them to support me.”  

Female superiority has always been a given.  At least it has in all things which do not involve the unthinking application of superior physical force.  Have you ever considered that, when we view meditation –- the blanking of the mind and absence of movement – the primary symbol is a Monk, a male; yet when it comes to Wisdom, the primary association has ALWAYS been female.

We look to the western Bible – Eve who brings “SIN” to the world.  But what is that “sin”?  That she will feel pain during birth?  (Inferring that there was no pain before her actions.)  And that he will need to toil and sweat to survive?  (That he is being punished for her actions?  Or, is it his stupidity in not being the one who could analyze the facts as presented?  Adam is the one forced to work to support Eve’s intelligence and analytical skills.

In scripture, the tribes of Zebulon & Issachar are granted the same symbiotic relationship – which, in their roles as merchants and scholars, places them above all the other tribes.  It is from their territory and history that King David emerges … and one thousand years later, Jesus also emerges and is shown with his twelve male apostles, the incomparable Mary (who many ancient scripts, including several NT versions, depict as his wife, and the only one with TRUE faith and the one to who he “returns.”).

In terms of gender defining DNA, whereas the male y-chromosome is unique to the specific male line it defines, the female X-chromosome appears twice in women and once in men – a woman’s dominant X goes to her daughters and is also transmitted to her sons – who then transmit it to their daughters (her granddaughters),where it effectively communicates her “genetic knowledge” to influence a third level of descendants that is effectively lost to males.

In terms of the Biblical representation, there is a Jewish Midrash (effectively a back-story underlying, or explaining elements of, the “official” story) which tells of Eve hearing the warning of death, but, over time, there came a time, when she observed the “Serpent” (at the time a legged serpent, or form of lizard) was able to eat the fruit and live.

Presumably,during the preceding century, creatures which ate from that specific tree had died.  Now there was one who, not only lived, but, developed the power of intelligent speech.

Seeing this, Eve realizes what Adam was blind to: The tree was no longer poisonous, it’s fruit was good, and was, in fact, capable of improving intelligence.  In effect, the sequence of events argues that the Creator was actually cool with people acquiring knowledge – or the poison would not have dissipated.  Thus the “sin” was not in the fruit, but in the disobedience to orders –- men (Adam) were created to follow blindly without the facility to  think about changing circumstances; whereas women were created to consider changes in their environment, and analyze how it would affect them and their futures.

In terms of world events, look to the Islamic world in which woman are repressed – notice the most repressive nations are the most violent and produce the fewest individuals with discernable intellect.  In fact, their leadership always seems to arise abroad –- while domestic readership is marked by a tendency toward self-destruction and annihilation (genocide) of their own people.

Where are women valued - educated – and  we still see that third world status prevails?  What rational women (or even irrational one) would, as an Islamic Imam recently has, declare that suicide involving the murder of innocents, and those on pilgrimage to Holy Islamic Sites, is a form of self-sacrifice that would earn a divine reward?  Where is there any vestige of  intelligence being demonstrated by a religious leader - making what should have been a considered religious legal pronouncement - which violates MULTIPLE levels of direct quotes from the Prophet and a millennium verses of the Quran?

Of course, Christian, and some Jewish, leaders tend to be at least as ignorant as that Imam – ultimately, with the same destructive consequences.

In America, the next few decades will be interesting.

Will she seek to elect leadership like Bush & Reagan – those who prize murder and harming their fellow humans above all else – even the welfare of those they are appointed to represent?  Or will she raise to power those who have intelligence, analytical ability, and a facility to adjust to changing circumstances?

Given the current Congressional nonsense, I’m inclined to favor a developing viewpoint which projects a total collapse of America – one that culminates in a natural disaster killing a third of the population and reducing those left to a third world status that lasts at least a full generation.   If we impose a Biblical analogy, that “generation” will be marked by the period it takes for all who remember the old nation to die – before the birth of the new, more rational one.