Rape Culture or the Western Burka

            The “us and them” mentality allows us to continue to lie to ourselves in comfort.  Consider the Muslim woman’s burka so reviled by westerners, used to demonstrate how fanatical Islam oppresses its women.  Stand back for just a moment to see how hypocritical this is.  Our “rape culture” is synonymous with the burka.

            Consider: the burka’s purpose is to protect women from lustful men’s minds, putting the responsibility completely on women to protect themselves from rape or other violence.  This suggests that a woman’s purity is sacrosanct, while a man’s is non-existent and it is unreasonable to expect men to control themselves.

            Rape culture is no different.  We blame women for their own rape and murder if the circumstances were such that she was wearing revealing clothing, and perhaps drunk and/or stoned.  Her own behavior was so bad that a man couldn’t possibly be expected to control himself.  What we’re really saying is that the only way for women to protect themselves from violence is to wear a burka.  Oh, hold on a second, we look down on Muslim women for wearing the burka, and on the men who require that they wear them.

            We can’t have it both ways.  Either we should face up to our hypocrisy and expect Western women to start wearing the burka or men have to accept responsibility for their own sexual and violent urges.  I vote for the latter, and somehow I don’t think most non-Muslim women are going to start wearing the burka.  This leaves us in a bit of a quandary.

            In a perfect world, my daughters should be able to show up at a party, naked, drunk and stoned, and be safe from violence from the men at the party, who are also, by the way, naked, drunk and stoned.  We do not, however, live in a perfect world.  In fact, we live in a world that values personal rights and freedoms above the use of common sense (which, by the way, is hardly common as one person’s common sense is another person’s nonsense).  Therefore, it makes us angry when our daughters show up at parties, almost naked, drunk and stoned, and get raped or killed.

            Am I blaming the victim?  Not for a moment.  I’m blaming a society that believes that, even though high school health education teaches our children that the first thing to go when we start to consume alcohol is our judgment, we still think our daughters should be safe from violence when they show up at parties almost naked, drunk and stoned, and therefore allow them to participate in such social events.  On the one hand, society is right.  They SHOULD BE safe, because anything else is an affront to human dignity.  The reality is, and we have chosen this in preferring our personal rights and freedoms over the safety of our children, our daughters are not safe from rape or other violence, regardless of whether they show up at parties naked or wearing a burka.  Furthermore, our sons are not responsible when using substances that their own parents use, and are being taught by their parents that it is the girl’s fault if she gets raped, because she didn’t cover herself up enough, or was drunk, or stoned.

            It doesn’t matter which culture you look at, Eastern Muslim or Western, er, whatever we are, the foundations for what we live and die with every day have been firmly laid by none other than ourselves.  In the west, we think we are so far advanced over the backward Muslims, we are so proud of our personal liberties and freedoms, but we still blame the victim.  One could even say that, in the Muslim world, at least they’re honest about it – they require the women to protect themselves.  We Westerners like to sit on our smug belief that we treat women with equality because they can dress any way they want and then continue to blame women for the crimes committed against them.  True, crimes against women in the East are appalling – but any crime is appalling, and the inequality is simply manifested in different ways between East and West.   The moment you start saying, “At least we don’t… (insert crime here)” you are dismissing our culpability in different but equally vile crimes that happen every minute of every day in the West.   

   

            I am not suggesting that we eliminate the concept of our personal rights and freedoms.  There are few concepts more conducive to a society’s well-being.  I AM suggesting that we be honest about those things that may well be personal rights but in reality contribute to the destruction of lives, families and society as a whole, like the consumption of alcohol, and accept that teaching our children to use it in moderation doesn’t work.  If even a tiny percentage of the population is going to be unable to control their response to alcohol and therefore contribute to what we see happening every day, its use needs to be eliminated.   Prohibition clearly showed that making alcohol illegal does not work, so it has to be done in our daily personal choices.  We have to willingly accept that while it may be our right to drink alcohol, it is also our right to choose to refuse to for the good of those who can’t control its use.  This goes for anything that falls under the category of “personal right or freedom”.  If it contributes to a societal problem, we need to let it go.  We need to choose to teach our children to take responsibility for their own actions, that a victim is never to blame, and then set the example. 

We need to stop pointing fingers.  We need to stop seeing each other as “other” in ways that allow us to deny the need to make changes in ourselves.  We need to take that hard look at ourselves and ask, “How did I contribute to this problem?”  Pointing fingers simply perpetuates inequalities of any kind, racial, religious, ethnic or sexual, and continues to threaten the safety and lives of our children.  As long as we are willing to blame someone else, whether it be the victim or the Muslim, our children will continue to be martyrs to our belief in the sovereignty of our personal rights and freedoms.

Laughable - if not so sad...

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/westjet-passenger-leaves-super-sexist-note-female-pilot-162023626.html

Why I'm Still a Baha'i

We're living in an increasingly frantic and confusing world.  If we have the tremendous wealth and opportunity to have access to modern technology, we even choose to invite that frantic and confusing world into our hearts and minds, voluntarily, with regularity.  We allow ourselves to be shaped by it, and believe that by sharing our own perspective with it, we also influence it.  We may even be right about that.  There are so many perspectives out there, however, that sifting through them all to find the truth seems impossible.  Most of us don't have the patience to genuinely do that, instead latching on to what feels right in the moment, or clinging to the safety of the belief system with which we were raised. Either of those can become lifelong commitments but not necessarily a lifelong search for truth.

I was born into a Baha'i family, of Protestant background.  Besides their absolute, undying commitment to the Faith of Baha'u'llah, my parents, particularly my mother, were rigid in following Baha'i law.   Baha'i law wasn't so very different from Protestant belief.  Above all else, Mom wanted her children to be obedient to Baha'u'llah, to be firm in His Covenant.  She wanted the same thing for her grandchildren, and her grandchildren's children.  That's what she asked for when she finally went on the one pilgrimage to Haifa that she managed in her life.  She asked that her children and their descendants be faithful to the Covenant of Baha'u'llah.

On the surface, it would appear that her prayers were not answered, but that's where my own lifelong search for truth comes in.  Mother taught me a lot about black and white, good and bad, right and wrong.  I am grateful to her for that, even though very little is black and white, good and bad, right and wrong, and the Baha'i Writings don't suggest that it is.  I am grateful because the world is incredibly confusing and I'm as human as anyone else in the need to find something that makes sense to which I can cling.  No, my mother's concept of right and wrong was not it, but I still found something in what she taught me as I waded through all the perspectives out there to which I could return and know in my soul that this was the whole point.

First though, I had to do the wading.  Oh, I didn't like wading.  Just as I put my feet into what looked like interesting water, a huge wave came and knocked me over.  I didn't like that kind of surprise.  I wanted calm water as I waded, easy, predictable, certainly not scary or life-threatening.   In my case the wave looked like a man with a shotgun, who threatened myself, family and friends in my own home.  In one big wave, any sense of security was knocked out from under me.  Why?  Why would God let such a thing happen?

I don't know that I have ever figured that one out, with the possible exception of my own need for humility. Why shouldn't God let such a thing happen to me?  I'm nobody special, at least if I hold myself up in comparison to the other members of the human race, and most of the world lives with no sense of security whatsoever.   Where's the security?  I've looked everywhere in the world for something that will make me feel physically safe.  It doesn't exist.

Then, of course, came the challenges to my belief system, mostly from outside myself.  A favorite for many people to reject Baha'u'llah - if we really believe in the equality of men and women, why are there no women permitted on our highest governing authority, the Universal House of Justice?  It is one of the few things about which the Baha'i teachings say we must just have faith, and the reason "... will ere long be made manifest as clearly as the sun at high noon." ('Abdu'l-Baha) That's not good enough for most people, especially if they come across this apparent hypocrisy as a first thing in their investigation of the Faith.  And because it is a matter of faith, the explanation that I came up with for myself is entirely a personal one, that I wouldn't expect anyone else to accept.  However, for anyone's interest - comparing the Universal House of Justice to any country's government or even to the United Nations is like comparing the most beautiful, pristine castle built high in the clouds with a broken down, rotting, mold-and-vermin-infested hovel rapidly becoming part of a heap of refuse.  Whatever system of government is out there, it is based on a system of worldly power - worldly power, which, I might add, is not working for anyone on the planet.  The Universal House of Justice has nothing to do with worldly power, it is entirely about service.  Service on the Universal House of Justice means a life of sacrifice for those poor souls who are elected to it - greater sacrifice than most of us can imagine.  Sure, they get to live in a wonderful mansion in the clouds, but the sacrifice required - normal family life, for one - nope, I don't even want to think about what I would have to give up were I elected to the Universal House of Justice.  The men can have it.

Another challenge to my belief system came from another belief system.  You see, somewhere in my wading through the often muddy waters of truth-searching, I really, really heard what the Christians were saying about there being no salvation but in Jesus.  It actually caused a little inner fear.  What if I AM wrong?  What if Muhammad and The Bab and Baha'u'llah are NOT the continuation of the Christ Spirit?  I spent quite a bit of time studying the Bible through the eyes of a Christian, or genuinely trying to anyway, and faced that battle of interpretation.  After a while, it became a very simple matter for me.  Never mind the different ways that individual passages in the Bible can be used to prove any individual's point of view - which is why I know several individual Christians raising their children to have no understanding of the Bible but their own and won't even attend church because the churches have got it all wrong.  The whole idea of personal salvation is anathema to me.  What do I care if my soul is guaranteed a place in heaven when the world is suffering so unbearably?  There was a time for personal salvation - in Jesus' time - but that time is passed.  There's a whole world that needs saving, and arguing about who's got it right is wasting time in achieving that goal, and actually contributing to the suffering. Don't get me wrong, I really wish I could be satisfied with my own soul's salvation.  I look at my Christian friends and wish I could feel that comfortable, that certain of my place in the world and the world hereafter.  I just can't.

Comparing that perspective to Baha'u'llah's plan to build the Kingdom of God on Earth and what is required for that - I lost interest in the battle of interpretation.  It actually came down to the physical resurrection - real or imagined?  For a Baha'i - imagined.   The significance of the Resurrection is entirely spiritual.   My Christian friend who guided me through his interpretation said that since Baha'u'llah couldn't resurrect physically, He conveniently said it didn't really happen.  My own emphasis weighed the balance with what Baha'u'llah did do, the way He had fulfilled prophecy (more than once) and the plans He gave us for continuing to fulfill Christ's prophecies.  It was enough for me to deny the accusation and believe that Baha'u'llah knew better than those who interpret the Gospel literally.  Interestingly enough, most Christians don't believe I've really done the study needed - I couldn't have if I reached the wrong conclusion.  This is another reason I lost interest in the battle of interpretation.

It was shortly after that rather lengthy time of wading through some pretty rough water that my life reached a climax.  I thought I had reached the end of my ability to deal with God's tests - particularly in the area of our inability to support our family financially.  I was so tired of being broke, and worrying about how I was going to pay the mortgage and  buy groceries.  In this regard, the suffering and starvation of the vast majority of the world financially did not help me feel grateful for what I had.  I had no explanation for that suffering, but I had enough belief in the Christian concept of a personal God that I believed if I prayed hard enough, God would fix things for me.  In particular, I had the needed goal of selling our house in mind, and felt that my children's prayers added to mine would produce the desired result.  My children and I spent two hours in intense prayer - and did not get the desired result.  It was the end of my belief in the existence of a God.  If He wouldn't answer those beautiful children's prayers, He simply wasn't there to do so.

I have never felt more empty in my life.  Everything to which I had devoted my life was a lie.  Never mind all the atheists' rational arguments, my God had failed me, and more importantly my children, therefore He couldn't be there.  I was so lost.  I had raised my children to rely on God, I had a husband whose love for God was unshakeable.  How could I continue on a completely different path from the one I had lived all my life?  All I really knew was that I had to be true to myself, though I did beg my husband for help.  "Please help me get my faith back."  He shrugged and said, "Sorry, dear, you're on your own."   From a Catholic background, my husband's favorite principle from Baha'u'llah was "the independent investigation of truth."  He knew he couldn't give me faith.  Meanwhile I was wondering what my loss of faith would do to my marriage, how it would affect my children, what my sisters and brother and parents would think.

There was no one thing that helped me back.  I didn't wake up one morning and have my faith back.  I did continue, out of habit, to do the Baha'i things.  Something in me had enough wisdom to keep it to myself, for the time at least.  I did stop praying, but that wasn't the first time I had done that.  Sometimes, no matter what the test we're going through, a person just can't pray anymore.  Several months after my loss of Faith I was at a Feast with a member of the family - one of my mother's grandchildren - who told me she was an atheist.  It didn't surprise me, but I did ask why.  The answer was, "I don't want to believe in God just to fill a void."

It was quite a profound moment for me.  I responded rather lightly, "I have no problem with belief in God to fill a void."  And it was the truth - because without God, my life held a great, huge, unfillable-by-anything else void.  Lack of belief in God WAS the void.  Life was pretty awful when I did have faith, but without faith it was worse than awful - it was empty.  There was nothing for me to rely on, nothing for me to turn to for comfort or solace.  Life had come down to a choice between atheism and Baha'u'llah.  Even if I was wrong, I preferred to have something to work for, that wasn't one isolated issue of justice, than to believe in nothing.

Unfortunately, there was still more wading to do.  There always will be, but that is why search is lifelong and I will probably never again say, "I know this is the truth."

The next water I waded in was a little above my depth, but I didn't know it at the time.  I got into energy healing, because the allopathic doctors weren't helping my daughter with a minor neck injury.  It was completely disconcerting.  I walked into a Reiki course with plenty of skepticism and walked out being able to feel the energy running through my body, on my scalp, out of my hands, everywhere.  I did NOT like that.  The Reiki master was so comfortable with working with energy that it didn't occur to her to warn us that the other side of "nobody can take this away from you" was "nobody can get rid of this for you."  It was a choice of living uncomfortably or learning to appreciate and fine tune the energy - there is no "controlling" it.  "It" may be a physical thing, but it is acknowledged that "It" comes from Something much greater than the healer.  "It" wasn't my energy.

Energy healing is a whole other belief system that many other belief systems, including the Baha'i community, have avoided as "woo woo" or "witchcraft".   I had to deal with this myself because I knew from the Baha'i Writings that there is no such thing as a "Baha'i healer".  I did, however, find a place in the Writings in which 'Abdu'l-Baha said that healing in the future would be done by "the laying on of hands".  That was what Reiki was, generally.   In my wading through these waters, I have come to cling to the "right and wrong" that my mother taught me because so many energy healers suffer from what that clever saying about keeping an open mind suggests can happen, "Don't keep such an open mind that your brains fall out."

There is no organization in energy healing.  There is no plan for a better future in energy healing.  There is belief in a better future through love, but no blueprint for it.  There's a LOT of love and peace and anything goes in energy healing, but there's no structure to fix the world.  Because working with energy produces what appears to be miraculous results, many believers in energy think that it's enough.    I knew, from my understanding of Baha'u'llah's Covenant, that it couldn't be.

The "anything goes" mentality of many energy healers actually contributes to the prolongation of the suffering of the world.  Why?  There seems to be what the Universal House of Justice calls a "false dichotomy" in the world.  Believers in energy have generally abandoned any form of organized religion because organized religion causes wars, or judgmental attitudes.  It is either religious organization as we have known it, or no organization at all.  So there are no rules in this mentality.  If it feels good, do it.  True, this belief system has made great strides in stopping hate, in particular against homosexuals, but without fully understanding why.  What they don't realize is that we shouldn't hate homosexuals because we shouldn't hate, period.   However, the Kingdom of God on Earth will not be built on "anything goes".  Humanity abandoned any respect for living a chaste life, heterosexually or homosexually, before we even gave God an opportunity to teach us WHY He wants us to live with respect for our bodies.  None of the religions have taught that promiscuity or living a homosexual life are acceptable means of building God's Kingdom on Earth.  We've just never listened and have created the multitude of social problems that exist in our world because of it.

Baha'u'llah also says that our part in His Covenant with us, necessary for building Christ's promised Kingdom, is to abandon the use of alcohol.  This is another law we haven't paid any attention to, since God first gave it to us in the time of Muhammad.

In our pursuit of our individual rights and freedoms we've lost sight of what the world needs, which is to subjugate our own rights for what is best for the whole world.

I am still a Baha'i, with my 44th birthday coming up in a few days, because the world keeps getting worse and Baha'u'llah's Covenant is the only thing that I have seen that offers a means to fix it.  I may not understand why He says certain things, like why a homosexual lifestyle isn't part of the Kingdom of God on Earth, but I can see that what the rest of the world has to offer isn't going to make the changes that we need. What's most beautiful about it is that part of Baha'u'llah's Covenant that is the independent investigation of truth.  Nobody reading this has to agree with me.  You don't have to agree with Baha'u'llah.  He's not going to force anyone into anything.   Some of my mother's grandchildren decided they didn't agree with Him, apparently not answering my mother's pilgrimage prayer.  It is all part of the process, and none of them is "condemned to hell" because they've chosen another way.   I was not "condemned to hell" when I decided that God must not be there.  God has allowed us to go through the learning process, He hasn't taken away our free will.  So, we continue to wade through the waters, sometimes finding a cleaner spot, sometimes getting stuck in the mud.   When each soul, going through what it must, voluntarily turns toward building God's Kingdom on earth, eventually that Kingdom will be built.  That's why I'm still a Baha'i.

http://webtv.un.org/search/malala-yousafzai-addresses-united-nations-youth-assembly/2542094251001?term=Malala

Ideas Anyone?

I'm thinking that those of you who have read my posts so far are as stuck as I am about how men will benefit from women achieving outward equality.  So this one starts with an extract from a letter written by the Universal House of Justice, the world governing body of the Baha'i community, addressed to The Peoples of the World, in 1985:

"The emancipation of women, the achievement of full equality between the sexes, is one of the most important, though less acknowledged prerequisites of peace. The denial of such equality perpetrates an injustice against one half of the world’s population and promotes in men harmful attitudes and habits that are carried from the family to the workplace, to political life, and ultimately to international relations. There are no grounds, moral, practical, or biological, upon which such denial can be justified.Only as women are welcomed into full partnership in all fields of human endeavour will the moral and psychological climate be created in which international peace can emerge."

Many people around the world want peace.  Everyone I have ever spoken with about it WANTS it.  There are varying levels of belief as to whether we can achieve it.  If it weren't for Baha'u'llah's assurance that it is inevitable, I would be one of the people who only believes peace to be possible on a good day.  Nonetheless, it is not only possible, but inevitable.  Since the above paragraph says that equality is a prerequisite for peace, it would seem that achieving outward equality between men and women is also inevitable, and must come first.

Note I say "outward equality".  This is an important distinction for me because the Baha'i Writings say that men and women are spiritually equal.  We don't have to work to attain that - it just is.  It is important to me because, knowing I am every man's equal, I don't have anything to prove to anyone.  The world may want me to prove myself, but all I have to do is remind myself that God says men and women are and have always been spiritually equal, and I let go of the urge to get into that battle.  What makes me sad is how so many women don't understand that basic fact about themselves.

However, the point of this blog is to look for ways that outward equality will benefit men.

As I said earlier, I struggle with this one myself, and the only thing I know to do is draw on my own life.  So let's make it personal:  How does my husband benefit from treating me as his equal?

I've asked him:  He's pretty abstract about it:  "You complement me.  I wouldn't feel complete if you were not my equal."  He also compared us to a mix of cement: the cement without the water is useless.  OK, I'm water.

I create a balance in his life.

On another level:  I help him to deal with his own insecurities.  If you've ever met my husband, you'd know he doesn't have many.

Guess what?  My dear husband can't come up with any concrete examples either. He ended his attempt to help me with, "Hmm.  That's a tough one."   I'll attribute that to him being one of the few men I know who functions more on heart and intuition than most men.  Any other explanation and I'd be tempted to hit him over the head with a baseball bat.

So, all we've got so far is the grander scheme of things:  men will live in a peaceful world when women have achieved equality.  There HAS to be some more immediate reason for men to encourage women to achieve true equality.  Will it be enough for most men that it's because it is what is just?  That is, treat women as their equals because it is the right thing to do?  Maybe it is that simple, but I'd like to think that there will be personal benefit for men to work for equality, that it isn't only about world peace.

Interesting Article About How we Talk to Little Girls

So What's My Point?

Since I shared my introductory post through different places, the comments and responses have come through those.  I am intrigued by the variety of reactions, though mostly positive.

To respond to one question - do Belizean men have any redeeming qualities?  Of course.  Everyone does.  Nobody is all bad.  No culture is all bad.  My childhood hero was not all bad - I loved him dearly and still do, though he has "crossed over" as I like to think of death now.  I did not mention in that essay that one of my two closest Belizean friends is a Baha'i man.  I will always be grateful to him for both being who he is and for making me laugh when I most needed it.  When my mother first went into the hospital in Belize about ten years ago now, he dropped everything and came to look after the house so my sister and I could look after Mom.  The fact that he was born and raised into that traditional male attitude and dropped everything to come and do "women's work" says volumes, about his own choices and the power of transformation.

The point is not that there are individuals who are "exceptions to the rule".  There always are.  The point is that historically, this is the way it has been, and it is the way it is now.  My life experiences in Belize and Canada have also been countered with "women try to seduce men too", "women disrespect men too", "women (including me) put themselves in situations where being victimized is likely to happen."

Don't I know it?  Guilty as charged.  I am not a woman who believes that women don't make stupid choices and as a result become victims, nor do I think that women are never the aggressors.  The problem lies not in that but that the level of our inequality means that we CAN put ourselves in situations, through naivete or stupidity or whatever, where we are likely to be victimized.  It isn't our fault except in thinking that we SHOULD be safe and therefore we WILL BE safe.  Just because I SHOULD be safe walking into a bar by myself where people are consuming a substance that impedes their judgment as soon as they start consuming it - if attitudes towards women were healthy - doesn't mean that I AM safe doing so.  My views on such subjects are not popular - the "rape is rape is rape" argument doesn't wash with me when everyone involved is under the influence of alcohol.  And in this connection, since I many times DID enter bars in Belize, out of sheer loneliness, I've frequently since thought of this part of a prayer by The Bab:

"Guide my steps, O my God, unto that which is acceptable and pleasing to Thee. Shield me, through Thy might, from the fury of Thy wrath and chastisement, and hold me back from entering habitations not desired by Thee." (Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 205)

Also, when women become aggressors, it is often through the misguided belief that equality means we must become like men.  Women haven't got equality figured out any better than men do, including myself.

My life experiences are not prejudice against men, or Belizean men.  They are simply those experiences of mine that confirm what can be seen daily on the news or read about in history.  I like men.  I do not feel unsafe with men - generally.  Truthfully, my experiences with Belizean men were such that it was very difficult to get to know a man any deeper than the sexual innuendo he was throwing at me, often just while walking down the street.  I could not say that I knew well or deeply more than one Belizean man in a platonic way.  Since I wasn't interested in non-platonic for most of my younger life in Belize, that meant that I knew a few Baha'i brothers in a Baha'i-community sort of way, but they never became close, intimate friends, according to my own definition of that.  That could have been as much my fault as theirs.

My perspective is only that - a perspective.  I'm not trying to vilify men.  I'm actually trying to look for solutions, and in particular want other perspectives - not to whine about the present or the past - but to think of small, concrete actions that we all can take to improve what is, as well as to focus on how men will benefit from equality.  If women in general become highly educated on a par with men, what benefit is it to men?  If men take an equal role in household chores (and I know many men that do), of what benefit is it to them?

There was in Belize a popular song that both played loudly from the bars and I heard men singing to themselves as they sauntered down the street.  Had it been a different kind of song it would have been a delight to see, (what's not to love about a culture where people happily saunter down the streets singing to themselves?) but the lyrics were, "Oh my demanding wife, she's going to destroy my life."   The purpose of my having started this blog is to generate ideas on how men will become free by encouraging and respecting and being faithful to women, rather seeing us as a "ball and chain".    I really do want input on this because my own imagination is struggling.  I can easily see what's wrong.  It is harder for me to imagine what the world will look like when things are right.