Now I turn to Maureen Murdock’s own words at the beginning of the introduction to The Heroine’s Journey. She tells us that she is a therapist who has worked with women, particularly those between the ages of thirty and sixty, and says, “I have heard a resounding cry of dissatisfaction with the successes won in the marketplace.” In the next paragraph, she writes:
The image they [these dissatisfied women] held of the view from the top did not include sacrifice of body and soul. In noticing the physical and emotional damage incurred by women on this heroic quest, I have concluded that the reason they are experiencing so much pain is that they chose to follow a model that denies who they are.
For me, this model is the patriarchy. Such a loaded term: engineered to be that way in order to cause division, to shut down dialogue and encourage retreat to islands where one finds only like-minded people. What else would one expect from the Patriarchy*? Months ago, when I first read this book for the discussion group offered by Jung Archademy, I was just beginning to get comfortable with the p-word, but I mean, just barely. Those who had turned the word into a weapon had done their job well, up to that point and beyond. It divided me from my Soul—what I truly felt, no matter what anyone else thought—and it divided me both from those who love the word and those who roll their eyes and shut down each time it’s uttered or printed. Why? Because my exterior words and actions, trained to align with what certain people, groups, and institutions expected, played well with the eye rollers, but what I felt inside was akin to what (I believe) the p-word lovers instinctually felt.
So, it took reading The Ravaged Bridegroom by Marion Woodman, the next book up in the discussion group, for me to understand what “patriarchy” truly means (no matter what anyone else says it means). From where I stand (after sitting with the word for quite some time), “patriarchy” denotes an effective and overarching system of control that divides individual women and men from others because it divides each of them: driving mind, body, and soul apart, with mind wearing the tyrant’s crown. Patriarchy pushes, relentlessly pushes, the idea that rationalism, efficiency, and outcome are the greatest goods. Patriarchy keeps us living in the future, constantly worried about where our thoughts and actions will lead (and what the neighbors will say). Then, when the stress of this worry gets to be too much, Patriarchy and its minions happily sell us anything we could possibly want with which to escape.
While the system of patriarchy comes from the masculine energy of the psyche, which is concerned with action and its results, both men and women embrace it and wield it. The feminine, on the other hand, is about patience and waiting. It’s about being: full immersion in the present. If that seems contradictory to the idea of waiting, in can be, but that’s because we can immerse ourselves in the waiting, fully appreciating it, or we can use waiting as a means of not living. (I read, in either a book by Thich Nhat Hahn or one by Pema Chödrön, that in paying attention to the breath, we should be most attentive to the outbreath, because at any time, it could be the last one. That, for me, fully encapsulates the idea of being in the present.)
But that contradiction between the masculine and feminine? I see it nicely depicted in the Gospel story of Martha and Mary, where Martha would represent the masculine energy and Mary, the feminine. Martha complains to Jesus about all the work she is doing and all the work Mary is not doing. Like the system of patriarchy, Martha’s masculine energy is being used to push division, but Jesus rejects that, expressing appreciation for Martha’s efforts and pointing out the appropriateness of Mary’s stillness. I see (hear?) his words as unifying, as acknowledging that there is a time to work and a time to be still.
*I capitalize the word when I use it to denote what I think of as an entity.
2 responses to “It Takes Two, Together”
First, very interesting that you bring up Martha and Mary because it plays a role in my upcoming post on wounds. Upcoming in the sense that it’s in my head – the barest of outlines- but probably won’t be actually written out for the next few days.
Second, I did cringe at the p-word and my immediate gut-level response was to replace it with something like “capitalism” or “rationalism” or whatever term Ian McGilcrist uses for the left-hemisphere dominated ages like ours. Ok, I’ll sit with patriarchy and let it swirl around in my mouth because I do like how you defined it as the initiator of division. That is a stellar insight.
My final reaction – and this is to Murdock’s text in the intro – is that I don’t relate to these women who had career success and then discovered they felt empty. I never climbed a corporate ladder, I never gave up everything to get ahead in the world of men. So why do I still feel like I ran into a wall at 50? I think this is part of what I meant when I said that she seems very much of her age and generation: progressive baby boomer.
I hope this isn’t coming across too negatively. I am really looking forward to the book and just being very critical so that I can really understand and apply any insights. Make sense?
I’m going to hold off on replying directly to this comment, Jessica, in light of the com-box conversation on your post, but yes, I do understand what you’re saying.