CFN -When it comes to the question of women’s leadership in the community it is a puzzle that has many pieces and a lot of work remaining to put it together into a coherent whole. Really, if you think of it as a puzzle without the cardbox box cover showing you what it’s going to end up looking like it is no wonder that we, as individuals, cannot access our power to work together. At its most basic, the principle of the equality of men and women is an essential prerequisite to world peace.
“Equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who’s confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now.”
― Joss Whedon
The thing is that when women are seen as ambitious they get attacked, ridiculed, and now, in small numbers, elected to positions of power. Women are influencing every single area of human development. Yet, do we really know what it is that constitutes women’s leadership? It seems that they may lead from a very different place than the traditional masculine model.
Feminine qualities exist in both men and women and in order for the world to really become peaceful we’re going to need to understand that reality. We associate masculine qualities with those that are out there, or external: penetration, control, pushing, goal orientation, doing, even the use of force. With respect to the feminine there is a more internal model of qualities: softness, being, love-centered, home, holding, non-linear thinking and the use of leverage. These are just general but useful groupings for the purpose of understanding the need for a balanced relationship with ourselves.
I think that as we come to understand how we can become more balanced we can then connect with other individuals who share the same vision. For a more peaceful world, to collectively be part of a shared vision for peace, the use of force is going to have to be reassessed at a profound level. This will require us to reflect on how we use force to do everything nowadays. It is a fact that we are now way beyond the capacity of the Earth to sustain us in our current lifestyles.
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The Earth’s systems are in a state of collapse, we are out of balance, we are out of order and we need to reassess what we are doing and infuse our collective human identity with a full range of the feminine qualities in order to bring us back into a state of equilibrium. How can we do this? I would like to hear your ideas on this. The process is going to take a while and I have no doubt we will succeed, however, when we become more conscious in our individual, family and community life. You and I are not going to create world peace but, us, together, working as one unified body, will. We can start now, we can start today, we can use this moment to recommit ourselves to making a difference.
Shirley Barr lives and works in Cornwall and is a member of the Bahá’í Community. Please contact through: spiritmatters9@gmail.com
Interesting…thanks for the share Shirley.