The older people get the more their characters become set in a particular way and the harder it is to change basic character structure. It may even be that much of what becomes deeply misshapen in the character is not due to patriarchal violence but due to some features of masculine awesomeness. In other words, not the bad aspects of patriarchy, which would lead one to shrink away or get upset and angry, but the more beguiling and seductive characteristics of the systems promoting male power. This would mean that one is not so much frightened into submission, but drawn, which may well solidify a self-denying character structure more effectively than threats or fear.
In any case, one can apply rational thought to a threat, but not to a seduction or a state of being mesmerized in the presence of awesomeness.
This may be a problem with women not being naturally negative enough — not being sufficiently, and from the core, suspicious, or defensive or antagonistic.
If this is so, then only an extreme situation, which makes life seem not worth living in a submissive or deferential state, can awaken those negative components of the character, to start a fight for one’s survival.
I am lucky because I had such an experience where I was pushed to my limits and it seemed as a if a gene that had been switched off suddenly switched on for me. It was the strangest thing because I went from not understanding how I was implicated in my own sad state of affairs to suddenly having what seemed like heat detecting goggles on my face, so I could see the outlines of people plotting in the dark. I just suddenly noticed, “Oh, wow. I’m in a battle! Who would have thought it?”
And immediately I saw this, I was capable and prepared to fight, but before that switch turned in my mind (after many years building up to this) I would not have been able to see anything. I was too mesmerized by an idea that I had to play a role.
I’m lucky that I was able to begin to turn the tide in my mid to late twenties, or I suspect it may have been too late.
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