Ever since I started this blog, I have become aware just how many of the conversations I have are related to this idea of gender equality. So much so that whenever a conversation comes up that I find particularly relevant to what we are talking about here my friends and I say, “To the blog!”
Several days ago two of my friends, one male, one female, were discussing some of the music they listen to. When my female friend mentioned that she’s a fan of a certain female singer, my male friend became upset. He has a problem with this singer because he believes she promotes negative stereotypes of men. He thinks she portrays men as jerks who are incapable of commitment or treating women well. He objects to this portrayal of men and doesn’t like that young women are influenced by this and might believe what she says to be true. He also thinks that these negative stereotypes of men influence male behavior.
I thought he made a very interesting point. Having an accurate understanding of who we are and how we fit into the world is important for discovering our purpose and our relationships with other people. If we are building self-images on false conceptions it will impact our relationships and how we treat people. In talking about how we should move away from stereotyped constructs, it’s important that we recognize that it is not just women who are negatively stereotyped. My male friend has a right to be upset and object to the negative portrayal of men. It is now even widely accepted that working towards the advancement of women necessitates the involvement of men. In seeking to curb the oppression of women, we have to educate men as well. In doing so, we should encourage boys to question underlying assumptions about their nature, those that characterize them as sex-driven and immature. We need more men (and women) like my male friend voicing their dissatisfaction with regard to how they are portrayed in popular culture. Expanding the basis of human identity means moving beyond nicely packaged stereotypes and the narrow ways in which groups of people are defined.
engendering equality 
This post makes me reflect further on a few comments that were made during the discussion in a group on the role of women in science and its advances . ‘Women are more detail oriented’ , ‘they are more sensitive’….!!??!!
I wonder how we can strike a balance in trying to avoid stereotypes without missing on the truth…Or look at reality from more than dimension…??
For e.g. on ‘women being more sensitive’…. I was in a discussion with a few friends and now as I think of the discussion I’m left a bit confused….and would appreciate any thoughts on this
We spoke about how the mother in the family is usually the first one to sense if someone in the family is unwell or something is wrong. This was linked to the fact that she is the one who bears the child at the time of pregnancy and that establishes an intimate connection/relationship at least with the children. Also her interactions with the children as they grow up make her observant in this respect.
Another point that we spoke of was that if women had their say, they would not easily give in to having their sons into the field of battle… which could impact the extent of bloodshed in the wars so far and that could also lead to mankind trying to avoid sceientific advancement for weapons/bombs etc.
I’m sure there’s a better way to understand this , as men I’m sure are sensitive as well…after all its the soul which is of the spiritual realm…
??
Ooh, great discussion. Back in the science and gender thread I too had the feeling that our collective discussion was seeming to suggest that women brought a certain set of things to science and men brought something else — and I was uncomfortable with it. Wasn’t that implying that men and women are fundamentally different in nature in some way?
Are women more sensitive? How does this line up with our experiences? Whether you’d argue that women are inherently more sensitive or that they have been socialized to be more sensitive, isn’t it actually the case that women as a group demonstrate a wide range of sensitivity levels (and levels of rationality, and levels of attention to detail, etc.)? In my experience, the range of diversity within a gender group is much greater than gaps purported to exist between gender groups. So that most claims you might make that “men are like this, and women are like that…” are pretty inaccurate when you try to extrapolate them to draw conclusions about a particular woman or a particular man.
So I’m not sure how useful it is to make sweeping statements like women are more sensitive, they are the first to know when something is wrong, as leaders they would stop war — because those statements can’t really be applied to understand a particular case. But I think it is useful to say (1) that things like intuition and caring for others, which in many parts of the world have been historically undervalued, perhaps deserve greater consideration, and (2) excluding or under-valuing the voice of particular groups of people (in science, in decision-making, etc.) tends to have the consequence of conclusions and decisions that are skewed.
This discussion helps bring out the complexity in the way gender identities are constructed. On the one hand, I agree with Emily that there are more differences between people of the same gender than those that are supposed to exist between the sexes and yet I can also see the value in the point that Bhavna raises which is about the way the kind of roles that society assigns to a women, or to a man for that matter, influences the range of qualities that they develop. For example in many parts of India, a woman is socialized from childhood to become a good mother. Society will judge her by the attention and care with which she brings up her children. Her sense of self worth is dependent on it. She cannot choose not to be, at least to outward seeming, ‘a good mother’ or worse still, to not be a mother at all. To do this would be to invite social opprobrium or even the risk of being cast out of the community. In societies which are closely knit and not individualistic, such a predicament would have disastrous social, psychological and economic consequences for the individual and the individual’s family. In many of these parts of India, the welfare benefits provided by the state to the individual are negligible. The individual has to rely almost entirely on his or her ties with the community and the extended family for his or her social and economic well-being. Now, there would clearly be large variations in the way different women play the role of a mother. Yet what is undeniable is that when human beings of a particular gender are from one generation to the next, over many centuries, groomed to perform a whole set of services related to the nurturing and raising of children and to go through all the struggle and effort associated with it, they have a much higher propensity of developing a set of qualities such as love, care and patience that such services would require than those human beings of the other gender who are not expected to perform any of these functions and who instead are expected to be bread-winners and protectors of the family. This would be true for any form of identity – not only gender. For example, it is reasonable to suggest that individuals who grow up in a nation with a culture that is highly individualistic and competitive would obviously tend to develop a set of qualities different from those who belong to nations whose culture does not have these characteristics.
Here is an interesting quote from Gail Dines, an anti-porn activist and author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, that provides interesting insights into the role of consumerism and the porn industry in the creation and perpetuation of gender stereotypes:
“It was no accident that Playboy became so successful in the 1950s.The obvious question here is how a porn magazine became a best seller in what was one of the most conservative decades of the second half of the twentieth century. To understand this, it is pivotal to map out some of the economic and cultural themes that marked this era. The post-World War II America required a consumer population that would spend money to build the economy. However, the targeted group – the emerging white suburban middle class – was born during a depression and raised during a war, circumstances that lead to frugality. To nurture consumerism, businesses adopted a number of techniques, not the least of which was a massive marketing campaign, to turn frugal people into spenders. The expansion of television helped spread the ideology of consumerism through advertisements and sit-coms, which were often thirty-minute ads for how to furnish a suburban home. However, women were typically targeted by television, so there were few avenues for luring men into buying products they did not need.
Enter Hugh Hefner, a failed cartoonist who – by design or accident – hit on an idea that meshed beautifully with the needs of capitalism. He created a lifestyle magazine for men that placed consumerism at the centre of the new identity of the upwardly mobile male. Playboy spent much of its early years crafting a magazine that taught men what clothes to wear, what furniture to buy for the office, what food to cook, and, most important, how to consume to a level that would attract women, whose goal was to marry out of the working class. Playboy promised men that if they bought the products they would get the real prize: lots of women, just like the ones in the centerfolds. Playboy thus not only commodified sexuality, it also sexualized commodities.”
I think a good question to raise is: is the woman singing about this from a place of truth, or is she just making a blanket statement? Is she pointing out how poorly men have treated women in a truthful manner, or is she just stereotyping all men?
I think it should also be noted that those who listen to music have the responsibility to question these things. Was the woman singing from a place of hurt or truth where she has repeatedly been hurt by men? Is she promoting men doing so by singing about it? Or is she doing the opposite?
I think that biological make up may be accountable for some characteristic differences but often leads to sweeping statements that are inaccurate. Also, agreeing with the above, there’s so much variation with in a gender. I suggest that it’s actually not conducive or necessary to look at different characteristics between genders or between any groups. If a group of people are brought up in a capitalist country and have developed certain qualities that completely contrast a group of people brought up in a different society, what difference does it make if we speak about this or identify this? If our purpose in life is to know and to worship God and our souls have no gender, then why does it matter if one gender has certain qualities that differ to the other. We are all still just trying to translate what is written into action. Is it not also dangerous to try and identify differences as it leads to massive misconceptions? No matter what race, gender or background we have we are all here to serve humanity and to strive to better ourselves and become mirrors reflecting the attributes of God. If we avoid even speaking of differences between gender then we can focus on our unity of purpose, vision, thought and action, focussing on translating what is written into action. I’d suggest that that is the most important thing. Aren’t all the problems in the world including lack of equality of men and women just symptoms of the underlying lack of spiritual principles in the world?
Regarding the singing of songs with certain lyrics. I think that even if one is singing based on true experiences, what is the purpose of it? People hear the lyrics and it does influence them. All songs should be uplifting. Also is sharing our experiences to the world not magnifying the self? One of my favourite quotes is the following:
Let us put aside all thoughts of self; let us close our eyes to all on earth, let us neither make known our sufferings nor complain of our wrongs. Rather let us become oblivious of our own selves, and drinking down the wine of heavenly grace, let us cry out our joy, and lose ourselves in the beauty of the All-Glorious.
(Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 236)
Wow – this is an amazing discussion! Thank you Arash for sharing that quote about the connection between consumerism and pornography. That makes so much sense! How incredibly sad that something so sacred as human sexuality has become a commodity and another way to advance materialism. I think the energy of pornography permeates our society and our consciousness in myriad ways that we are completely unaware of.
In relation to the idea that the soul does not have a gender, I don’t completely agree with that. Yes, on the one hand, a soul is a soul and has a destiny that transcends every human conception we can think of. On the other hand, I feel that our gender is a huge part of our mission and purpose on this earth, which is entirely spiritual. When we go to the next world we will retain our personality and individuality and this is hugely related to the gender our Creator assigned to us. Personally, I have no doubt that I was created as a woman on purpose by God and a big part of my destiny and mission as a soul is related to being a woman and assisting with the furthering of the process of the equality of women and men. I am certain there are many men who have a similar destiny, but instead have been created as men and play that particular role in this spiritual process.
Thanks for the opportunity to participate in such an incredibly enlightened discussion!
The soul is one of the biggest mysteries. However, I personally don’t think our personality or gender is related to our soul. The following really sheds light on this for me:
Thou hast asked Me whether man, as apart from the Prophets of God and His chosen ones, will retain, after his physical death, the self-same individuality, personality, consciousness, and understanding that characterize his life in this world. If this should be the case, how is it, thou hast observed, that whereas such slight injuries to his mental faculties as fainting and severe illness deprive him of his understanding and consciousness, his death, which must involve the decomposition of his body and the dissolution of its elements, is powerless to destroy that understanding and extinguish that consciousness? How can any one imagine that man’s consciousness and personality will be maintained, when the very instruments necessary to their existence and function will have completely disintegrated?
Know thou that the soul of man is exalted above, and is independent of all infirmities of body or mind. That a sick person showeth signs of weakness is due to the hindrances that interpose themselves between his soul and his body, for the soul itself remaineth unaffected by any bodily ailments. Consider the light of the lamp. Though an external object may interfere with its radiance, the light itself continueth to shine with undiminished power. In like manner, every malady afflicting the body of man is an impediment that preventeth the soul from manifesting its inherent might and power. When it leaveth the body, however, it will evince such ascendancy, and reveal such influence as no force on earth can equal. Every pure, every refined and sanctified soul will be endowed with tremendous power, and shall rejoice with exceeding gladness.
Consider the lamp which is hidden under a bushel. Though its light be shining, yet its radiance is concealed from men. Likewise, consider the sun which hath been obscured by the clouds. Observe how its splendor appeareth to have diminished, when in reality the source of that light hath remained unchanged. The soul of man should be likened unto this sun, and all things on earth should be regarded as his body. So long as no external impediment interveneth between them, the body will, in its entirety, continue to reflect the light of the soul, and to be sustained by its power. As soon as, however, a veil interposeth itself between them, the brightness of that light seemeth to lessen.
Consider again the sun when it is completely hidden behind the clouds. Though the earth is still illumined with its light, yet the measure of light which it receiveth is considerably reduced. Not until the clouds have dispersed, can the sun shine again in the plenitude of its glory. Neither the presence of the cloud nor its absence can, in any way, affect the inherent splendor of the sun. The soul of man is the sun by which his body is illumined, and from which it draweth its sustenance, and should be so regarded.
Consider, moreover, how the fruit, ere it is formed, lieth potentially within the tree. Were the tree to be cut into pieces, no sign nor any part of the fruit, however small, could be detected. When it appeareth, however, it manifesteth itself, as thou hast observed, in its wondrous beauty and glorious perfection. Certain fruits, indeed, attain their fullest development only after being severed from the tree.
(Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 153)
I’m loving this conversation too. Thanks, all!
My thoughts on discussing gender differences are these: that whether by biology or by socialization, differences exist. Those differences are not absolute or consistent (every woman is not more inclined to work cooperatively and in groups.) It is certainly the case that millennia of powerful social programming has impacted us all to such an extent that I don’t think we can know for sure what is innate and what is learned. I do know that I have made and continue to make with my daughter a tremendous effort NOT to categorize her by old stereotypes. And yet… her pretend play is almost all about relationships and families, and my nephew, who is being raised similarly, loves to play trucks and dinosaurs. Many parents have had the same experience. And of course, some children don’t fall into that pattern and their right to pursue their interests must be protected. But regardless of the source of differences, because they exist and they impact us individually and as a society, I think it’s fair game to discuss them. The original question related to how having more women involved in scientific undertakings might impact the field and naturally the qualities “generally associated with” women will bear on that. Scientific study has affirmed the existence of some of these differences– that women *in general* operate differently from men when in positions of authority, drawing on habits of networking and consensus building that are often absent from organizations run by men. Let’s recognize the “value-added” of having women rise to the highest levels of achievement, and benefit from it. One of the legacies of the feminist movement (and resistance to equality) has been this mantra of “if you want to be equal, you have to be the same,” an attitude which has on occasion spawned some ridiculous examples of bureaucracy in action, organizational policies that punished women for seeking equality and demanded that we leave behind any trait or characteristic that felt “soft” or “womanly”. You gotta be a man in a man’s world; you have to compete! I disagree with this approach. Womankind and the qualities associated with her have been traditionally undervalued; I think it’s ok to recognize some of the wonderful things she brings to the table, even if they are generalizations. While trying to make it safe for people of either gender to acquire all sorts of productive behaviors, let’s benefit from our differences as they are now.
There is a need to find different possibilities in trying to overcome adherence to gender stereotypes. Truth is not fragmented. It is human conceptions of truth that are in some sense fragmentary, which distances us from reality. the creation of stereotypes between men and women is a consequence of such fragmentation. Although women and men may be distinguished from one another by their physical characteristics, yet we are aware of the fact that all human beings have been imbued with one same essence.
Regarding the question of sensitivity, I think we need to see what does it mean “to be sensitive”? How can we be sensitive to the needs of others in a manner that will be conducive to further progress and growth? How can this sense of sensitivity be channelized in a manner that it contributes towards change and progress? Does it not manifest itself in actions of men and women who are both striving to bring about change?
There are other questions too, which have to do with the structures of society. How can we overcome the obstacles within our social structures which impel progress? How can each one of us contribute towards bringing about change in the structures of society? Are the capacities of each and every human being been drawn upon and utilized to a maximum extent? These are just some of the questions which come to mind.
The paper at this link is titled: The Responsibility of Men in Achieving Equality Between the Sexes. It opens with the a listing of the premises underlying the paper. These are the concluding premises:
In order for men to play their part in stopping the oppression of women, men must liberate their true and inherent reality from beneath the learned habits, attitudes, and patterns of behavior that perpetuate this oppression – patterns which were forced on them by an “oppressive” social system (which included both men and women) during their formative developmental years.
The responsibility of every man, then, in working to achieve equality between the sexes is for him to undergo personal psychological and spiritual transformation, and then to work collectively with all other humans to assist other men in their spiritual transformation. In the process and as a result humanity will experience the replacement of social structures that tend to keep the oppression of both women and men as a part of the status quo.
All are oppressed, and from a young age developmentally. The patterns are deep-seated – root them out!
From what age?
Wow, these comments are so thought provoking. Thank you to everyone who has contributed. I want to respond to two questions that seem to be weaving in and out of the conversation –
1) Whether it is productive to try to identify gender differences (whether we believe them to be real or constructed)
2) Whether it is productive to speak of our own painful experiences as a result of gender stereotypes
I’ve struggled a lot with both of these questions, in relation to more stereotypes than just gender. In striving to become a better person and a positive influence on my environment, my first inclination is often to put the negative and the personal stuff on the back burner… I tell myself “don’t believe the stereotypes, don’t let them affect you.” I think, “your issues are not that important, put them aside so that you can focus on serving others,” so much so that I sometimes feel guilty speaking about my own experiences. What I’ve found, though, is that depending on the attitude and the specific approach I take to forgetting ‘the world’ and my self, I sometimes end up pushing myself further away from my loved ones and my community. This is not my intended result.
From my understanding, my efforts backfire when I forget two things, justice and humility. Essentially, I mess up when I don’t want to admit that something wrong happened, that I’m in pain, and when I won’t allow myself to accept love and support.
I believe that, when we are exhorted to set our eyes on justice, this also implies treating ourselves with justice (not just others), as we make the committed and self-sacrificing effort to understand what justice really means. In doing so, we acknowledge that we are feeble and are inseparable from our environment, inevitably affected by it. When we live in a world that we understand to be corrupt and misguided in many ways, we need to deepen on what guidance we have from the Manifestations of God, to pray, to serve, and to strive to understand how to bring our lives into greater unity with truth. In doing so, we will necessarily perceive what is wrong with the world around us, and we may even become more acutely aware of the pain that we feel because of it. If we discuss these things with a desire to improve ourselves and our community, then we can contribute to the transformation of the world around us. If we bring up the negative things about the world and about our lives out of a desire to get attention or to promote some other agenda, then it’s not so productive. But if our goal is to create a world characterized by love and fellowship, and dedicated to the promotion of God’s teachings, then what more intimate and powerful way is there to do this than by supporting each other through our tests and difficulties?
I’ve found the guidance from Shoghi Effendi below helpful in trying to distinguish between the two kinds of self: our true identity and our ego, and in assessing whether conversations are uplifting or simply dwelling on the negative things of life…
“Regarding the questions you asked: Self has really two meanings, or is used in two senses, in the Bahá’í writings; one is self, the identity of the individual created by God. This is the self mentioned in such passages as ‘he hath known God who hath known himself etc.’. The other self is the ego, the dark, animalistic heritage each one of us has, the lower nature that can develop into a monster of selfishness, brutality, lust and so on. It is this self we must struggle against, or this side of our natures, in order to strengthen and free the spirit within us and help it to attain perfection.”
“Self-sacrifice means to subordinate this lower nature and its desires to the more godly and noble side of ourselves. Ultimately, in its highest sense, self-sacrifice means to give our will and our all to God to do with as He pleases. Then He purifies and glorifies our true self until it becomes a shining and wonderful reality.”
(From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, December 10, 1947)
This thread has certainly been rich and thought-provoking. I’ve been considering this question of whether or not there is any use dwelling on differences–constructed or innate–and how we can move from a culture of criticism to a culture of construction. I think we all agree that the current social structures are not really conducive to the realization of the full potentialities of *any* human being– male, female, child, adult, wealthy, poor, etc. We are all struggling to do something with our lives, to spend the fleeting days we’ve been given in this life for something meaningful; to help ourselves and to help our loved ones; to improve the lot of our fellow human beings; to learn more about the mysteries of the universe; to be joyful and happy beings; and ultimately to grow and learn each day. And if we are aware that we are deeply affected by the environment we live in–by the scientific discoveries and technological advances that impact our daily lives; by the media content that inunandates our lives, shaping the way we perceive and treat one another; and by a myriad other forces– we have to start thinking deeply and critically about these forces and how we can ensure that our environment is one that to allows us to fulfill all of the above.
I think there is undoubtedly some benefit to being critical and to analyzing our world; this includes the differences which we perceive between the genders. Is there value to identifying if these are innate or constructed? I think so…If we see that these perceived differences have been the cause of conflict, and we were to find, for instance, that many of those so-called biological differences are actually socially constructed, it stands to reason that we could begin to combat these false dichotomies and nurture those aspects of self that are positive and universal. If we find that some of these difference are innate, then we could also focus on the aspects of each that are positive, that can help us in this process of working towards the betterment of humanity. At the same time, dwelling indefinitely on anything is pointless. So everything we do should be with a purpose, and the purpose should manifest itself in action. If we’re analyzing these things, why are we doing it? How will we use what we learn to improve our social conditions? To rebuild the structures of society?
Two days ago I had a dream that I was becoming a woman. I looked up for the meaning of the dream in one of the dream interpretation website and it said: “To dream that you are the opposite sex, suggests that you need to incorporate certain qualities of the opposite sex. Ask yourself, how do you feel being a man or a woman? In what ways can you incorporate those feelings into your waking life?”
I have been brought up in a very male dominated family where men were strictly the providers and female the homemakers. Thus, I am very hard-wired, by socialization, to the role of being the provider of the family and not a home maker. Not that I am a wonderful provider either, but that is what comes naturally to me. When I am at home, my wife has to tell me what to do and how to do it as I am not at all conscious of what all needs to be done at the house and neither am I as considerate of others as my wife is. Because of the way I was brought up I have a great difficulty in expressing my feelings to others, including my wife. I am not a good talker and have difficulty building relationship with others. Socialization certainly has a lot to do with it.
This morning as my wife (who is in the last month of her pregnancy) and I were saying prayers, I had an “aha moment” when I read: “Aid Thou Thy trusted servants to have loving and tender hearts”. “Tender hearts” is not a quality we associate with the male gender and in this prayer, irrespective of what gender we are, we pray to God to “aid” His servants to have “tender hearts”.
There is no doubt that there are differences between the two genders, some due to socialization and some due to the biological differences. But if the soul is the true reality of each human being then there cannot be much difference in our capacity to reflect the qualities of the soul.
The reason I’m coming back to this post is a discussion I had with a few friends over the weekend which is realted to stereotypes…
A group of us got talking after watching a movie (Jogwaa – which revolves around one of the religious & gender issues in India) As mentioned earlier in the post…. we tend set expectations what is considered as behaviours/attitudes from each of the genders. e.g the kind of toys that a child prefers or their inclination to sports, music, hobbies etc. If a boy from a young age tends to have an inclination to classical dance, cooking or other activties which currently are assumed for ‘girls’ then he is more often than not ridiculed among his peers and parents also get worried and wonder if their child has any issues they need to be aware of etc.
Another friend shared of how her father was usually very concious of crying in front of a group as it wasn’t expected of from a man….nd its only now that he’s old and with family that he’s more comfortable and shared that it was a concern when he was young.
We spoke about toys: how usually girls are expected to play with barbies and other indoor games etc. but if a boy was to be engaged with them in indoor games then it would become a concern.
The group spoke of how these factors tend to limit us from looking beyond the physical reality and appreciate talents and potentials that need to be nurtured in the children.
Thank you all for your posts and enriching discussion!!
What a discussion! I guess this is why it makes sense to read these posts on a timely basis, so that one might actually participate in the ensuing dialogue rather than throwing in one’s opinion after everyone’s moved on!
Anyhow, the response posts went every which way in their ideas, yet I was personally struck with one issue which Feminin Hans appeared to also be concerned with: the specifics of the singer and her message.
May mentions that one of her friends took issue with a particular artist because of the way he felt that artist negatively portrays men. Honestly speaking, I could not read that comment without being reminded of a previous post that mentioned about the comment section for Eve Ensler’s TED talk (the post was dated Aug 17). In that post May brought up a complaint from a male commenter who took issue with Ensler’s choice to speak of a “girl self” or “embracing your inner girl.” He felt that such gendered labels seemed to alienate men. Yet just as when I read his and other comments on the TED talk webpage, hearing this complaint about women that portray men unfairly seemed to leave me unsettled. The real motivation behind my discomfort with such complaints can be found in a long post I made earlier (under “Engendering Equality?” dated Aug 30th), however I will try to make a brief point again here.
My concern is that by taking issue with instances where women, or any group that has experienced historical forms of oppression, attempt to process that oppression, we only end up deflecting from the real issue, which is the truth behind such claims. Is it true that all men are jerks or incapable of maintaining a loving relationship? Or perhaps more to the point: is it true that all men desire to exert their will over women, to intentionally or unintentionally contribute to silencing them, to committing abusive (both psychological and physical) acts against them, etc.? Certainly most if not all of us would agree that this is not the case, that all men do not hold these desires. Yet is it not true that some men do (whether as a result of their conditioning by society or by conscious choice)? And if it is true that some men do, what is wrong with bringing these examples to our attention?
Certainly one might argue that some forms of “pointing out injustice,” so to speak, are more constructive than others. I wouldn’t sit around defending the right of historically oppressed groups to merely spout random anger and obscenities towards those that (again, consciously or unconsciously) contribute to their unequal position. “All men are evil.” “America and the West are made up of only heartless, greedy people.” “White people are oppressors.” “The rich are oppressors.” I might understand the need for venting, but I would not condone unwarranted, blanket complaints that likely lack constructive purpose or intended direction.
Yet we cannot use our discomfort with anger or criticism as an excuse to ignore the reality that often underlays such expression in the first place. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” If someone is expressing a certain viewpoint that many others are drawn to (particularly with respect to oppression and injustice), it is hard to believe that there is not some motivation behind attraction to those ideas. More important than dismissing ideologies with such attractive power would be an attempt to understanding the reasons they resonate with others, similar to what the Gail Dines “Playboy” article attempts to do (on a side note, how sad is it that in a conversation with numerous quotations from the writings of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, I somehow manage only to work in a reference to the playboy article)..
Anyway, this is just my roundabout way of reiterating a single point, that we must avoid the tendency to get sidetracked with discussions that start off with “yeah well what about me? I’m not like that.” or “yeah well I also experience oppression or injustice.” Sure, you may, but does that really invalidate the need to understand something so pervasive as the historical discrimination of women, or of the poor, or of racial “minorities”?
I totally agree with Joseph that people need space to vent, express their frustrations, and be heard. The person or group listening can give them a great gift by truly listening with a detached and loving heart, even if they personally have never done the particular things the first person is angry about or has experienced oppression through. This whole idea made me think of this quote from the Baha’i Writings, especially the part about the insistent self:
“O ye loved ones of God! In this, the Bahá’í dispensation, God’s Cause is spirit unalloyed. His Cause belongeth not to the material world. It cometh neither for strife nor war, nor for acts of mischief or of shame; it is neither for quarrelling with other Faiths, nor for conflicts with the nations. Its only army is the love of God, its only joy the clear wine of His knowledge, its only battle the expounding of the Truth; its one crusade is against the insistent self, the evil promptings of the human heart. Its victory is to submit and yield, and to be selfless is its everlasting glory. In brief, it is spirit upon spirit.”
~’Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 256
How amazing – the crusade of the Cause of God is actually against the insistent self, the ego. The more we can all truly listen to each other and create a safe and sacred space for genuine consultation and reflection about these crucial issues, without taking it personally, the greater will our progress and advancement be, the more unity we will have, and the more genuine love we will feel in our hearts.