Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men? Part 1. Redefining the Relationships Between Men and Women.

Dr. Warren Farrell and Ken Wilber discuss some of the ingredients of an Integral account of human sexuality, while exploring the nuances of relationships between men and women, the many attempts of feminism to redefine sex and gender, and the historic causes behind the division of labor and the rigid patriarchies that followed….

"It's definitely true that men, as a rule today in industrialized societies, are basically where women were in the 1950's, psychologically and socially. Part of what is keeping men there is being blamed for having power that is really a camouflage for the powerlessness. Real power is control over my own life."

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Who: Dr. Warren Farrell is a founding member of Integral Institute and the author of six books, including the international best-sellers Why Men Are the Way They Are and The Myth of Male Power. Dr. Farrell is the only man in the US to have been elected three times to the Board of Directors of the National Organization for Women in New York City; and he has also served on the boards of three national men's organizations. Over a period of 25 years, Warren has formed over 600 women's and men's groups and has worked with more than a quarter million men and women from all walks of life. The Chicago Tribune described Warren as "the Gloria Steinem of Men's Liberation." (Warren, though, has more gray hair.)

Summary: It is amazing to consider how much has changed in the past five decades in regard to sexual liberation and empowerment.  The woman’s role in today’s society is almost unrecognizable compared to the early 20th century, and would be wholly unimaginable in the centuries prior.  In America, attitudes toward sexuality and gender began to dramatically shift with the Boomer generation (and the newly emerging pluralistic values they brought with them), as birth control, free love, and several new schools of “second wave” feminism began to challenge the traditional attitudes that defined preceding generations.  Since the early sixties, there has been a tremendous amount of movement toward redefining ourselves as men and women—some forward, some backward, and plenty of jogging-in-place.  In the ensuing decades, we have witnessed the masculinization of women, the feminization of men, the neutralization of both genders, the roles of helpless victim set upon women, the witch hunts of fallacious prosecution set against men, genuine transformation of attitudes and behaviors of both sexes, the movement to procure equal rights for homosexuals, the advent of sex-change surgery, the rise of pornography as a multi-billion dollar industry, and the capitalization of just about every kink, fetish, and fixation imaginable.  And through it all, not surprisingly, men and women in the 21st century still seem to look at each other with the same bewilderment they did 20,000 years ago.

In order to come to any coherent definition of ourselves as sexual beings, we must take as comprehensive a view of sexuality as possible.  Ken Wilber has developed a theoretical model known as the “Four Quadrants,” which, when applied to nearly any field of human knowledge, offers a very simple way to ensure that all bases are being covered and that nothing is being left out.  The Four Quadrant model accounts for the interior and exterior dimensions of both the individual and the collective, yielding four major realms of consciousness: intentional, cultural, behavioral, and social (or “I”, “we”, “it”, and “its”, respectively, for those interested in tracking pronouns).  All four of these dimensions are closely related, with each quadrant having strong correlates in the others—though none of these quadrants can be reduced to each other (despite the entire history of human thought being essentially an attempt to do exactly this.)

When applied to human sexuality, the Four Quadrants allow us to clearly see the respective roles of biological sex (male vs. female), interior sexuality (masculine vs. feminine), and sexual gender (man vs. woman, as defined by cultural beliefs and expectations), while also accounting for the various technological and economic systems all of these are situated in.  By differentiating each of these important dimensions of sexuality, we are able to see how each is able to develop along its own trajectory, with its own history, without needing to confuse one’s sexual orientation with one’s sense of “manliness,” one’s secret desires with one’s cultural taboos, or even one’s gender with one’s genitals.

As previously mentioned, each of these major dimensions of human sexuality (sex, sexuality, gender, and sociological factors) grows through several distinct stages of unfolding.  Just as the human body grows through stages of physical maturity—from fetal to infancy, to toddler-hood, to adolescence, to reproductive maturity—so do we grow psychologically, culturally, and socially.  In fact, it is only toward the higher reaches of psychological growth that these sorts of important differentiations between biology, psychology, culture, and society can be made—and only from within a relatively advanced culture can significant strides be made on behalf of sexual identity, expression, and liberation.  Both men and women evolve through ego-centric, ethno-centric, and world-centric stages of development, creating cultures that reflect these ever-deepening and increasingly inclusive values as they go.

A special note should be made in regards to our techno-economic development, which arguably has the most influence upon development in the other quadrants, for a variety of reasons.  By looking to the history of economic production, we can find the history of gender roles themselves—in the earliest stages of civilization, men and women were able to produce food fairly equally, as men would hunt and women would gather, and even later when we moved into the horticultural stage and both men and women could use a digging stick to grow crops.  Things changed, however, when we moved into agricultural mode of production, requiring the training of large animals to pull heavy plows through the fields.  As men possess more upper-body strength than women, and women were much more susceptible to birth complications under this sort of physical labor, men and women both made the mutual decision to each tend to different spheres of life.  This is we begin to see our first true divisions of labor, with men responsible for the public sphere, and women responsible for the private sphere. (And as an interesting footnote, most of the cultures from the early foraging and horticultural eras worshiped gods that were predominantly matriarchal or evenly split between male and female deities, as opposed to agrarian societies who typically only worshiped male deities.) In societies still struggling with survivalist needs, women became valued as humanity’s most precious resource, and men became valued for their disposability, and are expected to compete for the opportunity to protect these resources.

For the next several thousand years, men did what they do best: construct rigid and elaborate patriarchies, in all flavors of tribalism, nationalism, religion, aristocracies, meritocracies, and steel cage matches.  And, in these testosterone-driven social hierarchies, a woman’s proper place in the public sphere was all too clear: she had none whatsoever.  And though modern and post-modern feminists can (and do) scoff at the unabashed sexual inequities within these patriarchies, the fact that this was an intentional, necessary, and mutually beneficial decision made by both sexes early in history is regrettably forgotten.  Most men aren’t the oppressive beasts they are often made out to be, and most women aren’t the helpless victims of men’s oppression that they are often made out to be.

Of course, we are now in a completely different era of history, with modes of technology that have rendered many, if not all, of these prior decisions about labor division obsolete.  Much of the physical labor men traditionally had to do has been replaced first by the steam engine, then by combustion, and now by the microchip.  This is probably the single most important factor in terms of the rise of women’s liberation, and has brought into relief one of the most frustrating aspects of collective transformation: although the technology can change overnight, the culture is much more slow to adapt, often requiring entire generations to die off before real change can be enacted throughout society.  Or, as Ken has bleakly joked elsewhere: “the knowledge quest can only proceed funeral by funeral….”

All in all, it is an amazing time to be alive—to be a man or a woman, male or a female, masculine or feminine, gay or straight.  We are bearing witness to an entire new wave of individual and collective values, an Integral wave of development which, when it reaches the tipping point of its emergence, will make just as extraordinary a splash upon history as the European renaissance or the postmodern revolution of the sixties.  And while each previous revolution has occurred only to steer the world away from the pathologies and excesses of what came before, the Integral revolution will be markedly different—while creating a space of personal and collective transformation that is radically and unmistakably new, Integral consciousness will also help to bring a tremendous amount of healing, stability, and sanity to the rest of the world, with the crucial understanding that everyone must start at square one before evolving to Integral consciousness.  With as comprehensive a view of human sexuality as Integral consciousness provides, it becomes apparent that all of our old and apparently obsolete methods of relating to each other will always exist, and we must therefore allow them to exist on their own terms, while simultaneously liberating ourselves from definitions of sexual maturity that no longer seem to apply to us or our relationships.

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In the Company of Truth. Part 1. Mapping the World of Form.

In this discussion, Mokie and Ken discuss the concept of Integral Satsang, an Indian term that roughly translates as "in company of the truth." While typically associated with the Advaita Vedanta tradition, the concept of satsang can be applied to any spiritual tradition, East or West. How can the Integral map help us better relate to spiritual truth, teachers, and communities?

"It's like the effulgence of consciousness is illumining those higher levels [of development], as you start to really see life in a totally different way—it actually brings forth life in a totally different way."

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Who:  Mokshananda (or Mokie, as he is commonly known) was born Joe Sousa in 1958, and is disciple of Gurumayi and Adyashanti.  In addition to his psychotherapy practice, Mokie teaches at FreeWater Sangha in Santa Cruz CA.  He also travels the western United States and Canada offering Satsang, intensives, and teachings.

Summary:  In this discussion, Mokie and Ken discuss the concept of Integral Satsang, an Indian term that roughly translates as "in company of the truth." The word satsang is derived from the Sanskrit roots sat (true) and sanga (company), and can be interpreted in three important ways: a) the company of the "highest truth," b) the company of a group of students or practitioners gathered to study, discuss, and assimilate that truth, and c) the company of a spiritual teacher who acts as a conduit between the people and the truth.  While typically associated with the Advaita Vedanta tradition, the concept of satsang can be applied to any spiritual tradition or community, East, West, contemplative or traditional.  Whether you find yourself in the church, the mosque, the synagogue, or the zendo—you are in some form of satsang, seeking to understand some version of spiritual truth, taught by some spiritual teacher or leader, to a community of other seekers and practitioners.

Satsang can be universally applied to any community committed to discovering the "highest truth" because the highest truth itself is universal.  And this universal truth lies at the core of every spiritual tradition around the world, in the heart of every great saint, sage, and spiritual teacher throughout history, and at the center of every human experience ever had.  It is, in fact, the only thing any of us have ever known.

But if this "truth," this knowledge and experience of our inherent spiritual nature is so universal, then why, for God's sake, is it so hard to discover?  Why have so few been able to recognize this supposedly universal liberation, if it is indeed “closer to us than our own skin,” as it has been described in the past?  The answer is simple.  So simple, in fact, that you cannot really fault yourself for not seeing it. 

The universal is only half the story.  The other half is the relative world—the world of form, of distinction, of this and that, me and you, inside and outside.  The universal world may have been the only thing any of us have ever known, but the relative world is the only thing most of us have ever seen.

The relative world is, by nature, broken.  It has to be—it is only because of the inherent brokenness of the world that we can actually exist, that form itself can exist.  It is the only reason that evolution can continue its relentless surge toward more novelty, more complexity, and more consciousness, in endless pursuit of a state of wholeness and completion it can get ever closer to, but never actually attain.  It is the only reason that we can distinguish between ourselves and our surroundings, between mountains and valleys, between heaven and earth, between right and wrong, and between good ideas and bad ideas.  It is only because of the inherent brokenness of the world that we have the power of free will and choice—and it is the reason that we suffer. 

The relative world is the arena of the separate self, the turbulent abode of passion, pain, love, hate, birth, death, light, darkness, creativity, and decay.  It is the world we can touch, taste, hear, and see—and it is our prison. 

We typically feel trapped in the relative world, identifying with mere fragments of form, subjectifying ourselves with the world of objects.  This is why we tend to think of ourselves as "inside" of our brains and our bodies, "inside" the house, car, or office, and "inside" the surrounding world.  We have grown so accustomed to the shackles of our relativistic prisons that we seldom notice that we are not actually "inside" any of these objects, but that all these objects are actually "inside" our consciousness—that consciousness itself is "bigger" than all of these things.  So big, in fact, that you could think of it as the canvas upon which the entire manifest universe is painted. 

The purpose of satsang, in any form, is simple: to escape the prison of the relative world.  And every prison break requires the most detailed map possible, which is why the concept of Integral satsang is so crucial—the Integral framework is by far the most complete map of human potential currently available, offering a comprehensive way to account for absolutely every manifestation in the universe, as well as every experience people can have.

The Integral framework suggests that there are two important axes of spiritual experience to be considered—states of consciousness, and stages of consciousness. 

States refer to the actual experiences of transcendent truth themselves—of which the Absolute is one of several possible states—ranging from gross, to subtle, to causal, to nondual experiences. 

Stages refers to the developmental structure of consciousness, which determines how state experiences are interpreted and assimilated by the self.  Stages (also called structures) progress from magic, to mythic, to rational, to pluralistic, to integral stages of consciousness, and beyond. 

Taken together, we discover a rich matrix of human experience, represented in the following model, known as the Wilber/Combs Lattice:

As previously mentioned, the term satsang consists of two central concepts: truth and company, whether company with others in a community, with a spiritual teacher or guide, or with the experience of truth itself.  Therefore, as it pertains to satsang, the following important questions should be kept in mind:

a) In regard to truth, what states of consciousness are trying to be expressed?  Gross, physical, waking states?  Subtle, visionary, dream states?  Deep, dreamless, formless states?  Or effortless, "always already" nondual states?

b) In regard to the company of spiritual teachers or a spiritual community, what stage of consciousness is the state of spiritual truth being spoken from, and being spoken to?  The mythic, traditional, and absolutist stage (amber)?  The rational, modern, and materialist stage (orange)?  The pluralistic, postmodern, multicultural stage?  Or the vision-logic, self-actualized, integral stage (teal/turquoise)?

While the essence of truth in this formulation is indeed universal and Absolute, we are stuck in a difficult paradox: absolutely nothing can be said about the absolute truth, including this very sentence.  The absolute truth cannot be described, only experienced.  The moment we try to describe the truth is the moment we massacre the truth—words, after all, are mere ornaments of the relative world, and as soon as someone tries to wrap a sentence around the Absolute, it is immediately subject to the inherent brokenness of relative thinking, relative growth, and relative experience.

The best we can do is to use words judicially, in order to construct the very best maps of our shared prison.  And by virtue of being relative, our descriptions of transcendent truth are subject to our interpretations of that truth, which depend entirely upon the stage of consciousness we are at when the experience is had. The Heart Sutra states one of the most celebrated paradoxes in all of Buddhist thought: form is emptiness, and emptiness is form.  Which means that, if we seek to understand emptiness, we must therefore seek to understand form, since they are ultimately not-two.  There are better and worse descriptions of both the relative and the Absolute, which means that, although all forms are equally empty, some are more equal than others—or more reflective of the inherent emptiness of this and every moment.

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