Tag: gender

On gender and sexuality

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When Steiner looked ahead to the future that would become reality if humanity didn’t rise to the occasion and rediscover their spiritual selves last century, he saw a world of decadence and sexual depravity, including homosexuality.

This is of course happening. We are now seeing a move not just towards accepting (even admiring / aspiring to?) homosexuality, but also bisexuality, trans-gender identity…

But perhaps these are necessary steps, not necessarily signs of disaster.

Surely our spiritual selves don’t have gender? So surely if we are going to cast off our physical chains, one of the things that has to go is the binding of gender roles and relationships? Perhaps it is too big a step for humanity to cease to be bound by gender and simultaneously rise above sexuality completely. If that were the case, surely there would be an evolutionary step where we would still experience sexuality but not the strict gender roles – so it would be natural for gender lines to be blurred and new types of relationships to form.

It’s hard enough for me to conceive of the idea that what we are witnessing around us could be called spiritual progress. So I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if Steiner had felt the same but even more strongly, and misinterpreted his insight!

…

The gender divide was first breached after World War One with the emancipation of women, when they started working and wearing men’s clothes because their dresses were impractical. What a shock to a 1920s family to see their daughter wearing trousers! In the sixties men started wearing more feminine clothes too, but they stopped in the eighties. Perhaps when they reached a certain age and discovered that they wanted power in their jobs and their families and re asserted their masculine dominance.

Now, so many young men have no need to demonstrate masculinity to further a career – there are no careers for them – so perhaps that is ‘freeing’ them to allow the gender barrier to break down a bit more. Of course this is all unconscious, but surely the deeds of the unconscious masses are like an indicator paper.

I think I will see the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender ‘movement’ in a different light now, and try to better understand it and what it signifies for humanity.

On men and women

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Generally speaking, a woman will only want something for herself if it doesn’t cause harm or upset to anyone else in the family. If it does, she will cease to want it. She will also feel so guilty if she isn’t there for the family when she’s needed that she is unable to ever switch off and exist for just herself.

Men tend not to be like that. They allow their needs to take a front seat, and pursue what they want often at the expense of family dynamics. But why?

Perhaps because they tend to view people and relationships mechanistically and separately, believing that if their actions upset anyone the damage can simply be repaired and moved beyond. “If I work late yet again, I’ll buy my wife flowers and she’ll forgive me.” “If I sit here and watch TV while everyone else washes up, and no one complains, that must mean they don’t mind.” The individual event is not put into the context of all other similar events to form a bigger picture.

That being the case, if indeed it is, the question is: do men do this consciously because it makes their lives easier and their egos make it possible for them to ignore that bigger picture, or are they actually incapable of seeing the complexities that women see? In other words, do women have to tolerate it if they want to be in a relationship?