Women who seek knowledge

[Laura]

Pretty simple. I have a belief about something that I realize is perhaps based on a selective reading of some information, that I never really questioned. So I decide to read counter arguments to my belief, without prejudice, and see if they sway me in any way, being careful to suspend belief in my original thesis.

Exactly what one has to do in academic studies. While doing the reading and research for "From Paul to Mark", which I consider my magnum opus so far, I probably read five times as many counter arguments to what I was thinking simply searching to find if there was anything at all valid to them. I have included a reasonable selection of those as citations in the book with explanations as to why they do not fly. I really wanted to know if what I was thinking had legs and the only way to do that is to check out all the possible opposing angles.

 

[Tauriel]

This whole topic is still of some mystery to me.
Growing up in the 70's as a single child I came into this world with a very clear notion of men and women being equals.
My parents are ordinary people with a simple education and lots of trauma in their background and upbringing.

I didn't have a female role model to learn from. As a kid I wasn't able to see my mother as such. I felt intellectually superior to her which is a sad state of affairs for a child and which supported the narcissistic tendencies I have.
Of course I couldn't explain these feelings to myself but I clearly lacked respect for her and felt bad about it.
She was a stay-at-home mom but somehow she never seemed to be really present. Some years later I learned why but the real implications just dawned on me much later.
She always had lovers and somehow my whole childhood was accompanied by her constant schemes around her affairs creating an environment based on lies.
So I turned to my father for emotional support and he gladly took it on but couldn't feed me in the way I yearned for.
Books became my friend and I became an enthusiastic reader. I was also crazy for sports.... and a fighter in a literal sense.

I preferred boys for company while girls only seldomly had my respect. With the boys I wanted to be boss and from 7-10 years of age I instigated fist fights with them almost daily.
I was clearly taking on a 'male' attitude by fighting and showing off my imaginary 'intellectual and physical prowess'. This of course left me without a best female friend and the boys where more afraid of me rather than accepting me as one of their own.
Elementary school came easy to me, I was easily bored and became a pompous nincompoop.
Switching to academic high school (Gymnasium in German) humbled me in a not inconsiderable way realizing that many kids were smarter than me which was a pill hard to swallow for the pompous little ego and so it refused. I simply referred my means of self importance to sports.
There was still no female role model in sight, nor anyone close to me (male or female) who could feed my hunger for knowledge or answer any of my questions. So I encountered different religions, spiritual paths, philosophy, other worlds and bigger dreams via books. Reading was (and to a certain degree still is) a getaway as well.

Fist fights, of course, became obsolete at the new school so I switched to fighting people with my quick wit and sharp tongue often with the pretense of fighting for justice, equality and... , yes, women rights. Which was a kind of travesty since I never really felt very much at home in the company of girls although I became good at pretending when I couldn't avoid it altogether.
After puberty I stopped feeling at home with boys as well because the whole game changed. They thought me attractive and a little scary, I think. I was worthy prey for them- they were worthy prey for me, really fooling myself into believing that it's an even battleground. So instead of fighting with boys I changed the game altogether by starting to lure and to flirt.

Being so busy with inner and outer fighting I somehow lost hold of me being female in this body. I did not know how to nurture it into life nor how to heal it.
I went to university for a short while but received no moral or financial support from my parents. They just could't see an university degree as advantageous and they were busy creating new lifes of their own after their divorce.
I didn't have it in me to go for an academic education all on my own but instead became a nurse.
I felt stupid and embarrassed about this for a long time.
Just in recent years I began to appreciate the lesson and to be proud of what I do. I've been a good ICU nurse and in my field now I'm often called for 'complicated' patients.
It dawned on me that I should thank my subconscious/higher self for having pushed me away from some sort of career where nuturing and caring would have been superfluous or even a hindrance. It probably would have been desastrous for the tendencies I need to overcome. This is also the reason why I never applied for a leadership position in my job, to avoid feeding the 'male bully' in me.

So reading and learning were always my escape and solace and a reliable constant.

Marrying and having two kids helped to energetically heal some parts of my womanhood but I clearly could have done better had I realized earlier in life what to take care of and what is of real importance.
I'm just now starting to realize that all my reading and learning is useless; that all my cleverness is useless; that a good looking body is useless (fortunately this has a termination date) and that it's time to start applying all this theoretical knowledge, to network and to trust, also in my womanhood.

In the light of what I've just written I cannot overstress the importance of Laura and all the women who have applied themselves in the field of knowledge and science AND nuturing AND motherhood. Same goes for the women in this forum.
It's not that I cherish them or what they have to say more. It's not that I prefer them to men.
But their frequency helps me on the path of accepting and healing my womanhood. And I don't mean this is any 'woke' way.
It's just that in this life I'm obviously a woman who must come to fully accept reality.

 

[Possibility of Being]

Exactly what one has to do in academic studies. While doing the reading and research for "From Paul to Mark", which I consider my magnum opus so far, I probably read five times as many counter arguments to what I was thinking simply searching to find if there was anything at all valid to them. I have included a reasonable selection of those as citations in the book with explanations as to why they do not fly. I really wanted to know if what I was thinking had legs and the only way to do that is to check out all the possible opposing angles.

Also, it is a very common method used in mathematics an logic called "proof by contradiction" or "proof by reductio ad absurdum" (with a few other names and variations) and it is a proof that determines the truth of a statement by assuming that the proposition is false, then working to show its falsity until the result of that assumption is a contradiction.

The Wiki entry needs a basic knowledge of math and logic notation. Maybe this page would be easier to understand? Intro:

Indirect proof

Quite frequently you will find that it is difficult (or impossible) to prove something directly, but easier (at least possible) to prove it indirectly. The essence of the idea is simple: for example, suppose you want to know whether it is overcast or sunny, but you can't see the sky through your window. You usually can tell, indirectly, by the quality of light that you can see. Without formalizing the process, you make use of something like the following: If it is sunny I will be able to see areas of bright light and areas of shadow in the garden; I don't, so it must be (at least partially) overcast.

There are two methods of indirect proof: proof of the contrapositive and proof by contradiction. They are closely related, even interchangeable in some circumstances, though proof by contradiction is more powerful. What unites them is that they both start by assuming the denial of the conclusion.

 

[candasiri]

I think I should point out that I did my quest under the worst conditions imaginable. Everything that can be said about a suppressed or repressed woman applied to my circumstances, yet as they say, where there is a will, there is a way.

This thread, which I interpret as how woman seek knowledge and how it manifests through them, made me think of one my meditation teacher's teachers--Dipa Ma. She was remarkable Indian yogi/meditation master who was not a nun but was drawn to meditation as a way to literally save her life while she was in her 40s after intense grief--infertility as an Indian woman, a child dying at an early age, a child who was stillborn, the loss of her very kindly husband whom she loved--caused her health to fail and she was crippled with anxiety and dependency.

I was moved by how men and women can support each other, provide the emotional ballast for deep awakening. Hers was an arranged marriage, but she and her husband fell in love and he supported her through infertility, losses of children, and refused to divorce her when his family urged him to leave her d/t infertility and marry again. He was always kind and gentle. Then he died suddenly.

Dipa Ma took up meditation at center after that but was bitten by a dog and needed medical care and to recuperate at home. She found a teacher who was a man named Munindra who was also not a monk but had taken certain basic Buddhist vows. She invited him into her home and he taught her and, eventually, taught him.

Dipa Ma had certain attainments which makes me think that she became an STO being completely: going backward in time to meet the Buddha, diving into the earth and coming out wet, cooking food on her hands.

What is so inspiring to me was what it was like to be around her--the quality of her awakening. She allowed people to emote, and people generally felt enveloped by this ocean of love. However, there was great fierceness to her as well as power. Anyways, below is a video about her life and what it was like to be around her--an awakened feminine being:

 

[Sybil]

I think I should point out that I did my quest under the worst conditions imaginable. Everything that can be said about a suppressed or repressed woman applied to my circumstances, yet as they say, where there is a will, there is a way.

Initially, that inspired me to 'burst out' here, with some ignorance towards the feelings of the other sex. Many women, in the same situation, would sink into, depression, self-pity, or apathy. You extracted the negative energy from your circumstances and turned it into a positive one, a drive to seek knowledge.

 

[Joe]

So what's our preliminary conclusions here in terms of women who seek "objective knowledge"?

Is it reasonable to suggest that the suffering and discrimination that women experienced at certain times in history isn't really relevant to the topic because if women throughout history had never experienced such, the vast majority of them would, like most men, not have bothered searching for objective knowledge anyway? That they would, like most women (and men) today, have simply distracted themselves with relative trivialities and the daily chores of life?

 

[msante]

So what's our preliminary conclusions here in terms of women who seek "objective knowledge"?

Is it reasonable to suggest that the suffering and discrimination that women experienced at certain times in history isn't really relevant to the topic because if women throughout history had never experienced such, the vast majority of them would, like most men, not have bothered searching for objective knowledge anyway? That they would, like most women (and men) today, have simply distracted themselves with relative trivialities and the daily chores of life?

That makes a lot of sense to me. It doesn't seem to be relevant to gender or the specific torments that men and women have gone through throughout history as a determining factor in going into the adventure of the quest for Knowledge.

Q: (L) What is it that gives some people this drive, this steamroller effect that they are determined to get to the absolute bottom of everything and strip away every lie until there is nothing left but the naked truth? What is the source of this desire?

A: Wrong concept. It is simply that one is at that point on the learning cycle. At that point, no drive is needed.

As far as I understand it, it is a natural process that takes place on a level that is above the 3D physical reality and the incarnation in a specific body (be it male or female). At a certain point in a soul's learning cycle, it becomes conscious enough to decide to enter into this adventure in a more active way, regardless of whether it is male or female during that particular incarnation. Can suffering be the catalyst for this sort of leap in consciousness? I think so, but suffering does not discriminate and has no gender and manifests itself in the life of each one of us taking different forms.

It also occurs to me that the beginning of the search for Knowledge does not have to be framed in a single life or be thought of as a single event, it can be something that occurs in stages through several incarnations.

 

[Joe]

That makes a lot of sense to me. It doesn't seem to be relevant to gender or the specific torments that men and women have gone through throughout history as a determining factor in going into the adventure of the quest for Knowledge.



As far as I understand it, it is a natural process that takes place on a level that is above the 3D physical reality and the incarnation in a specific body (be it male or female). At a certain point in a soul's learning cycle, it becomes conscious enough to decide to enter into this adventure in a more active way, regardless of whether it is male or female during that particular incarnation. Can suffering be the catalyst for this sort of leap in consciousness? I think so, but suffering does not discriminate and has no gender and manifests itself in the life of each one of us taking different forms.

It also occurs to me that the beginning of the search for Knowledge does not have to be framed in a single life or be thought of as a single event, it can be something that occurs in stages through several incarnations.

I think that pretty much nails it. Which then leaves the question of what value there is in (at least from the perspective you outline) in digging up the history of discrimination against whichever gender. What is the aim of someone who does that? If it's simply for the purpose of learning about it as a historical fact, then that's fine, but if it used as a justification for some action by some people today against some group or system or whatever, does that make any sense? The only way I can see it would be justified is if the same discrimination was present today. But I don't think anyone is seriously claiming that, are they?

 

[Sybil]

So what's our preliminary conclusions here in terms of women who seek "objective knowledge"?

Is it reasonable to suggest that the suffering and discrimination that women experienced at certain times in history isn't really relevant to the topic because if women throughout history had never experienced such, the vast majority of them would, like most men, not have bothered searching for objective knowledge anyway? That they would, like most women (and men) today, have simply distracted themselves with relative trivialities and the daily chores of life?

Pain and suffering suppose to help us grow. Lifetimes, when one experiences suffering but turns to self-pity instead of taking it as an opportunity to grow, feel like a wasted life if we look at the bigger picture.

 

[msante]

Pain and suffering suppose to help us grow. Lifetimes, when one experiences suffering but turns to self-pity instead of taking it as an opportunity to grow, feel like a wasted life if we look at the bigger picture.

IMO lifetimes in which one experiences suffering but resorts to self-pity, if we look at the bigger picture, are quite the opposite. Maybe from a life-framed perspective it could looks like a wasted life, but from the perspective of the full learning cycle, "a life of self-pity" may be part of the necessary lessons...

 

[Ina]

So what's our preliminary conclusions here in terms of women who seek "objective knowledge"?

Is it reasonable to suggest that the suffering and discrimination that women experienced at certain times in history isn't really relevant to the topic because if women throughout history had never experienced such, the vast majority of them would, like most men, not have bothered searching for objective knowledge anyway? That they would, like most women (and men) today, have simply distracted themselves with relative trivialities and the daily chores of life?

It is about the expectation our current society has in regard to the role of a woman in the family and if she has time, otherwise.
It is quite simple. A woman after marriage is expected to deal with all trivialities and daily chores of life, to be kind and to look pretty. The man is expected to ‘hunt’. Should the married couple have the means, they could employ (and pay most of the time) someone dedicated to deal with the trivialities that would progressively include besides cleaning, raising children and cooking. That someone would most likely be another woman.
I am a woman that has a big problem with house work. One can say I am completely reluctant to it. The truth is, since I am not a robot, and everything takes time and energy, I do stuff when I get to do it. Granted, our home does not look like a museum, but when I dedicate the time for it comes pretty close. ( And then I take pictures and send them to my sister).

So, if men and women equally expected in a family to deal with trivialities and stuff, why when a woman deals with all of them, is not acknowledged as such? I am pretty sure that when I got married and would have heard, ... and you’l be doing all the housework and cooking and take care of everyone while having your own job, there would have been no marriage.
It is not about the housework, it is about the principle.

There are three missing components in education, cleaning after yourself, becoming self suficient, and self respect. Once that is taught to both boys and girls then expectations will also change.

 

[Ina]

It is not about the housework, it is about the principle.

There are three missing components in education, cleaning after yourself, becoming self suficient, and self respect. Once that is taught to both boys and girls then expectations will also change.

and by the way, people shold not get married and have children before knowing what cleaning after yourself, being self sufficient and self respect means.

 

[msante]

It is about the expectation our current society has in regard to the role of a woman in the family and if she has time, otherwise.
It is quite simple. A woman after marriage is expected to deal with all trivialities and daily chores of life, to be kind and to look pretty. The man is expected to ‘hunt’. Should the married couple have the means, they could employ (and pay most of the time) someone dedicated to deal with the trivialities that would progressively include besides cleaning, raising children and cooking. That someone would most likely be another woman.
I am a woman that has a big problem with house work. One can say I am completely reluctant to it. The truth is, since I am not a robot, and everything takes time and energy, I do stuff when I get to do it. Granted, our home does not look like a museum, but when I dedicate the time for it comes pretty close. ( And then I take pictures and send them to my sister).

So, if men and women equally expected in a family to deal with trivialities and stuff, why when a woman deals with all of them, is not acknowledged as such? I am pretty sure that when I got married and would have heard, ... and you’l be doing all the housework and cooking and take care of everyone while having your own job, there would have been no marriage.
It is not about the housework, it is about the principle.

There are three missing components in education, cleaning after yourself, becoming self suficient, and self respect. Once that is taught to both boys and girls then expectations will also change.

Well, you quote Joe but your post sounds like a description of your particular situation rather than an answer to Joe's question.

In relation to what you are telling, I can tell you about my situation. I am a male, married, cook, clean, shop, take care of my children and work. My wife also works but only half a day, she has more free time than I do and does not seem to be particularly interested in Work or the pursuit of Knowledge. Our personal experiences are just that, personal. I think that nowadays this distinction between male/female roles does not exist in such an overt way, and eventually when households are organized around the traditional model of "the man provides and the woman takes care of the home", it is largely due to a natural response due to our biology and the roles it determines.

 

[Sybil]

Apologies if this is off base, but some of the posts in this thread remind me of a remake of the Stepford wives, yes I know Wikki is biased, but to give background to my point OSIT.

The Stepford Wives - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Stepford Wives is a 1972 satirical novel by Ira Levin. The story concerns Joanna Eberhart, a talented photographer, wife and young mother who suspects the submissive housewives in her new idyllic Connecticut neighborhood may be robots created by their husbands.

Plot​

The premise involves the married men of the fictional Fairfield County town of Stepford, Connecticut and their fawning, submissive, impossibly beautiful wives. The protagonist is Joanna Eberhart, a talented photographer newly arrived from New York City with her husband and children, eager to start a new life. As time goes on, she becomes increasingly disturbed by the submissive wives of Stepford who seem to lack free will, especially when she sees her once independent-minded friends, fellow new arrivals to Stepford, turn into mindless, docile housewives following a romantic weekend. Her husband, who seems to be spending more and more time at meetings of the local men's association, mocks her fears.

If my memory serves me correctly, a movie was produced, and later shown on TV (which I watched) with much controversy surrounding the implications of the movie regarding living in a male dominated society, this during the dominance in the media of Gloria Steinam and her ideology, regarding women and their place in society, at the same time the Australian feminist activist Germaine Greer was also another darling of the West, who came to prominence, with her book, The Female Eunuch. Coincidence?

Germaine Greer - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So, my thought is that yes, men and women are different, both physically and the pursuits they prefer to adopt intellectually, creatively and empathically, also respect for one another, and the differences they bring to the union, to create. With the deep understanding of each others needs in a relationship, giving each it's due, can a real fusion take place, without the power struggle, we see often happening at this time, with the disintegration in marriages and relationships between men and women, sadly impacting the children that are involved.

Those are my thoughts.

Just remembered 0rlando (1992), a beautiful, magical story of a soul's journey throughout centuries, first in a male and then in a female body. I love the book, but the movie is really enchanting.

 

[Ina]

Well, you quote Joe but your post sounds like a description of your particular situation rather than an answer to Joe's question

It was quite difficult to reply to Joe’s conclusion-question, because it is formulated to cover a long trend in societal development as well as bringing the issue in a common denominator scenario.
I replied as I did.
Intersting is, that you could have given me some pointers, as a work colleague, on how you manage, and how to address my problem. If you would have done that I would have gladly accepted that my wiew about the woman’s role is limited and antiquated.
Indeed, personal experience is just that, personal until one starts to talk about it. You said modern expectations are different and the roles are somewhat shared with unprescribed boundaries. That’s why modern family work projects bring such a nebula of role confusion vibes. I think that is happening because of the modern ‘personal space’ vs ‘shared space’ notions rather than greater interdependance between partners, but that’s my personal unqualified opinion.
Anyway, I apreciate your comment. It does not fully resemble what I see around in the younger couples I interact with, because you seem happy and ‘at home’ with your ‘duties’. That’s where I was curious on how do you do it?