Obstacles Impeding Equality
In the entries
196,
197,
211,
212 and
213 I already describe some aspects of male dominance, which causes a lot of agony to women. I have already explained, that men can establish domination over women by taking advantage of their physical strength and of the vulnerability of breeding women, and that only the laws and rules of society limit it.
This fatal situation could be the effect of the hierarchy instinct, that not only causes male domination, but also women's submission and sacrifice in favor of the benefits for their offspring and it could be aggravated by the parents' role model and the social norms brainwashing women to the point, that true equality is even beyond their imagination.
In Wyman's second lecture he not only gives evidence, how widespread the battering of women is, but also, how much women can be brainwashed into accepting such an outrage.
http://www.cosmolearning.com/video-lectures/sex-and-violence-among-the-apes-6746/
Quotes:
"Battering is extremely common almost all over the earth and for as far back in history as we know. [.....] In Punjab in North India, 75% of scheduled cast women, that's lower caste women, reported being beaten frequently by their husbands. There's an agreement there, 75% of the men report beating their wives."
"in the culture--both the men and the women feel that it is the husband's right to beat the woman, and it's justified. It's the woman's due. She should be beaten, and they talk about this quite openly; 40% to 80% again in different surveys, 40% to 80% of wives agree that a beating is justified if a wife neglects household chores or is disobedient."
"Severe beating is almost uniformly justified and condoned for many reasons, including for example, a husband--a woman disobeying her husband's orders. If a husband gives a woman a direct order and she does not follow it, she gets beaten. It's her duty to obey her husband and they describe it--the women talking to each other and talking to investigators describe it as selfish when she follows what she wants to do, "
"the numbers are something like 50% of U.S. women will be physically abused by the men with whom they live, so again this is partner violence. Six million will be really battered"
I doubt, that in the west, the battered women would agree to deserve such treatment. But there are more subtle psychological mechanism as a consequence of male enforced dominance.
Women, who are intimidated and desensitized by the countless daily instances of male domination of some lesser degree than violence and who may have experienced it already in previous relationships, may well aspire for as much as what they dare to consider as equality. In reality they only aspire for a kind of pseudo-equality, because they are not even able to imagine, what real equality could be.
There are the complementary men, who from infancy on have been brainwashed to be entitled to dominate, but who in spite of this are willing to accept the woman's equality. Unfortunately many times, they start to confound the pseudo-equality with real equality, because in their experience, all women settle for it.
The result are couples, where both are mistaken to believe, that their relationship were one of equality, but seen from a neutral perspective, it is one of reduced domination. As long as they are happy together, there is no problem.
Equality is binary, two persons are either equal or not. Domination is gradual, there can be more or less domination. Therefore pseudo-equality is a form of reduced domination.
But there is a deep conflict, when such a man, who sincerely believes to be an egalitarian partner and who confounds reduced domination were real equality, meets a woman, who aspires for what is real equality in her own perception. Because of this disagreement, he then starts to experience her behavior as if she were attempting to dominate.
It is a really tragic constellation. Two partners, for both of whom equality is a part of their value system, perceive each other as someone attempting to dominate.
This can lead to a power struggle, where the man has the advantage of the better weapons of his physical strength. His fights against her alleged attempts to dominate with real domination. The woman lacks adequate means to protect herself, she can stay and suffer or leave. Such a relationship is doomed.
For a woman like me, being dominated hurts so much, that it destroys the relationship. But being the target of a man's defiant reactions to his accusation of my alleged attempts to dominate also hurts so much, that it destroys the relationship. I need true equality.
I know, what is good for me, maybe more than many women, who have been brainwashed into subordination to male dominance without even being aware of it. But knowing, what is good for me is independent of attempting to get it by taking advantage of another or in a selfish way by disregarding the other. What I want as part of a committed relationship is neither to be dominated nor to dominate, but to find consent about the meaning of equality as part of the commitment governance.
The conflict of dissent about equality can be resolved by constructive communication, only if the two partners also agree as a part of their value system, that a power struggle between two equal partners is destructive and detrimental and has to be avoided by all means.
To find consent about what is a fair and balanced egalitarian commitment governance, requires that both partners are independent thinkers, not blurred by the distortions of the ubiquitous social norm of male dominance.
In addition to a profound knowledge of each other's needs, both partners need more than the simple empathy to put themselves in each other's shoes. They need the mental ability of enough abstraction in their thinking, that they can evaluate and compare their own needs with those of the partner from the impartial perspective of a third person. They also need the ability to communicate profoundly and they need the motivation to spend as much time as it needs in the process of creating the commitment governance.
