The consequence of turning femanine equality into an ideology

[Jade]

Jade, I honestly think you are surmising this out of an expectation, which no one could blame you for. But it is not a fact. It may be likely, but not necessarily true.  You simply can't know from words on a page what another person's intent was, especially when there may be emotional content built up.

Is there a point in continuing to engage on a forum, if it's impossible to tell a person's intent from their words?

Here is the context for what I have to discern someone's intent:

You don't want to call me sexist, I'm aware of my feelings of misogyny, I refuse to allow them or the decade of porn brainwashing to make me truly feel a woman is any different from I.

I greatly admire the female form, it is truly one of divine beauty that should be treated with integrity, dignity, pride, love, and respect.
I feel (less sexually so) the same about the male formations and energies.

Obviously what is being said here isn't inherently negative. But it's certainly without thought to the context of the conversation. It's also framed with a major cause/symptom - the porn addiction, which, as far as I'm aware hasn't been broken yet according to Joseph, so it seems disingenuous when he says "I'm not going to let porn control me - I love the female form!" This is doublespeak anyway. He also said he loves the female form but he loves the male "formations and energies". This may not exactly define his intent, but his words are obviously biased.

I'm not trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, but it is pretty sad to me that I have to explain and defend my feelings so thoroughly - why I feel that trying to placate a woman by complimenting her appearance shouldn't be a default reaction. "I honestly try not to hate women, I admire their form!" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement to ridding yourself of biased thoughts.

1. As an artist myself, I understand appreciation of the female form very much. The reason you don't see as many male nudes is not because painted nudes are seen as sexual in nature (for the most part; I couldn't be absolute on this); it's because the female form with its curves and shape is much more interesting and delightful to paint/draw (ask any artist). Perhaps some may think sexual thoughts when they see a painted nude, but you can't blame a person for the amount of testosterone in their system.

So here's my question because you seem to contradict yourself a bit here: Should I just forgive him because I misperceived a faux pas, or is it true, as you say here at the end of your post, that it was likely he was making a sexual comment?

And another question, Diana, is do you think that your experience of being a beautiful, self-sufficient business woman for over 30 years might have protected you from some of the struggles that average women in our society typically experience?

B4 will always be welcome to women,

Are you the person here who decides this? Because I feel decidedly unwelcome after things like this, and I'm not the only one who has said so in this thread. Do you not recognize that there is a HUGE demographic skew to males on this forum? A similar instance that compounds this one was when a poster hypothetically threatened to rape me while reading the Ra material to me - and back then, everyone also thought I was overreacting. But it's obvious from this thread that this is not the case, and I feel this strongly. But, it seems consensus is that I should defer to the male majority about how women should feel about what others say, and how women should put a positive spin on misogynistic statements.

I'm not sure if you read the right blog that I was talking about. The links to the blog were removed. It was "Religion Confidence Trick" (reader beware.) I hadn't read the other blog link that's still up, but it seems the first post is about the "female attraction to violence" and how this creates "bad boys" - ah yes, it must be because women love violence so much that men commit 80%+ of violent crimes. Still, the first few paragraphs of that article weren't -near- as disgusting as the article I read on the other blog that was emphatically endorsed by e_s.

Joseph, two quick things to you:
1. You say that we should have left e_s's post up, but haven't you also recently called for more moderation?
2. You have explicitly asked me to beat you over the head if I think you are being dense about something. For those who may be judging my tone, please keep this in mind. This service was asked of me. And trust me, it's not easy, and you've done an okay job of handling it Joseph. But I still think there is so much misunderstanding here. I don't think I can be the only one to bridge the gap when the way I choose to defend women is considered hateful, causing shame, "yelling at/blowing up at people", and misandrist.

Did anyone even read the Q'uo channeling I posted on the first page? Is Q'uo also just making stuff up when they are talking about our androcentric society and the repression of the feminine?
http://llresearch.org/transcripts/issues..._0204.aspx

I don't know, it sounds more ignorant to me than anything else, mostly because black people and women are different systems of energies in parts, feminine equality is a red ray issue for me, racial equality is an orange ray issue, to offer one in context of the other is a bit hard to answer a question of.  The feminine equality belongs to every racial label we have in society, and in a way it ties the yellow ray energies of family into the orange ray qualities of racial equality.  I do not believe e_s intended to come off in the manner you hear of him, I sort of wish he would come back and expand on what he was getting at because I think he greatly misrepresented his actual opinions if these are the reactions to them.

Joseph, here is something you said in a previous post:

I clump racism and sexism as things worthy of being discussed together because at the most core of their roots, are the same causes.

Can you see why it is frustrating, nay, infuriating to attempt to continue this conversation in an open-hearted manner, when you especially keep twisting around and dodging and denying things that you have said and things that others have said?

How about this, does this fall upon you at all as hate speech? Or am I just completely triggered by something that is neutral?

"Gay people are too lazy to contribute anything to society. Gay people shouldn't be allowed to have children because they raise their girls to be narcissistic airheads and their boys to be subservient slaves to women. Gay people oppress gay people (and everyone else) more than straight people."

If someone said that here on this forum, would you feel any desire stand up for homosexuals?

I certainly know from experience that if you call someone homophobic, that is considered hate speech by the male majority on this forum and is actually a huge faux pas. Seems a pattern may be emerging.