Camilla and Daniel Ainley Draper
After posting my previous blog about Wild Women ~ the first comment I received was from a man ~ telling me to relax and lighten up ~ take it easy ~ because nobody really cares.
So many men just do not want to hear about the struggles that women face ~ and the sad reality is that so many men in our society are weak and compromised. The power of a strong woman speaking her truth is just too threatening and confronting.
Masculinity
Women ~ especially wild women ~ have no problem with masculinity ~ we have a problem with the lack of it. Weak men are defensive ~ which makes them spiteful, condescending and vindictive. These are not men thriving in their masculine selves. They are men unable to face their shadow ~ or feel the full intensity of their emotions ~ because their fear overwhelms their strength. Fear is the root of toxic masculinity.
Strong men ~ grounded in their divine masculinity ~ are loving, kind and supportive to women and harness their innate vulnerability to intensify their intrinsic power. They instinctively feel no need to control or subjugate ~ because they are not threatened by the strength of a women ~ in fact they thrive from it. Rather than live in the shadow of their woman ~ strong men revel in her radiance.
Pitifully ~ the structures which hold up our society ~ schooling systems ~ the media ~ the workplace ~ mostly serve to make men feel inferior and locked into their base chakras of animalistic urges and survival instinct. If you want to be a successful man in this sick society ~ he needs to have readily available money at his disposal - and the means to keep that money flowing ~ and that will ensure that he can attain desirable women for romance, marriage and affairs. This is a nightmarish distortion of the archetype of men as providers - because in an economy of scarcity ~ very few men have the necessary attributes ~ offering insufficient or unsustainable provision for his woman and his family. Toxic masculinity lives in the shadow of a toxic way of life.
The sublime power of consumerism
Our super commodified consumer culture is entrenched with patriarchy ~ and men suffer as equals with women in this perverse paradigm. They desperately lack the support to explore their emotional integrity and grow into their divine masculinity ~ confused, distracted and misled through false programming and the lack of healthy male role-models. But we’ve also lost the ancient spiritual initiations that guide the growth and development of men. And we’ve paid a heavy price for it.
Statistics for the UK are shameful and tragic. The suicide rate for young females is the highest ever with a third of young women having had suicidal thoughts and a quarter having self harmed. But still ~ it’s the young men who are significantly more likely than young women to end their own lives. This isn’t a crisis ~ it’s a disaster unfolding in real time on every single street in Britain.
Last year was the first time I returned to the UK for three years. I stood in Heathrow airport waiting for our luggage ~ with a giant billboard that defied any waiting passenger to ignore it ~ an obscenely proportioned image of a semi-naked provocative young lady ~ her legs salaciously spread ~ inviting sexual possibilities ~ all whilst us weary passengers waited for our bags to appear.
This public image was one of thousands ~ hundreds of thousands - of similar young women whose images I’ve consumed ~ violations of privacy and the sacred nature of divine sexuality. But this time I was disturbed and disgusted ~ perhaps because my desert life had sheltered me from the poisons of the media for so long ~ and now this vulgar hyper-sexualisation of women was forced into my psyche ~ as it must have been also for my young children. There was no escaping it. Horrific. It suddenly felt so grotesquely apparent ~ that I had needed to remove myself from my own society and immerse myself in nature ~ so that my eyes could be fully open to the dysfunctional abusive norms that asphyxiate modern western life.
Memories of middle age
One of the earliest poignant moments I still recall from growing up in London ~ was walking down Kings Road where my father lived ~ looking at all these middle aged women desperately (but mostly unsuccessfully) trying to hold on to their youth through plastic surgery. It had made me so sad. Was this what I had to look forward to as I aged? Perhaps one day when my youth waned I too might need to erase those signs of time and experience ~ desperately holding off natures most fundamental truth ~ so as to preserve my worth and value ~ in the eyes of men. It seemed so unfair ~ that society was already discarding middle-aged women ~ like an old pair of shoes slung out for not being so shiny - for the creases that had begun creeping into their leathery contours. Women were being ushered slowly and surely into the fringes of society ~ the penance of isolation punishing them ~ at precisely the same stage in life that men were apparently reaching their prime. Sometimes it was even worse ~ public humiliation ~ attacked, scorned and ridiculed by a disparaging media feeding frenzy - routinely preying on wise women who boldly remained visible past her younger days. How dare she…
In the indigenous oasis where I live ~ matriarchs continue to be highly esteemed. Formidable ~ present and engaged ~ ensuring that new mothers are supported and new fathers are guided to serve their community and family with responsibility and strength. These older women are waited on hand and foot by the younger generation ~ revered not least because while her physical strength gradually diminishes ~ her wisdom is fierce and flourishing. She is the one to keep her community in line. Her role remains critical ~ vital for the health of her people.
Our modern society is like a rampaging teenager on steroids with no sensible person to turn for advice and support ~ astray. The over-sexualisation that inhibits and entraps young women ~ the impossible to achieve contra-positive pressures on young men ~ deny them both the opportunities to grow into embodiments of their divine selves.
The absent value of the crone as a pivotal pillar of her community has resulted in a culture deeply lacking in perspective for the mundane ~ and desperately short of the spiritual nourishment for that which is more abstract and ethereal.
The Patriarchal Paradox in a toxic culture
Men have always been afraid of the crone. It is men who have persecuted her ~ chased her from the towns and villages ~ forced her to dwell on the edges. Men are still afraid ~ too weak to honour the divine feminine ~ deferential instead to their shredded self-esteem and embattled egos. The collective wisdom of the crone ~ the embodied divine feminine ~ shines too bright a light on men’s shadows ~ their failings. Crones impart truths too potent to suppress ~ exposing weaknesses and vulnerabilities in mens pathetic patriarchal apparatus that they desperately cling on to. In this spectacular subversion of divine balance - men don’t even see that their self-made paragon of patriarchy simultaneously undermines and dissipates their own true masculine power. Patriarchy is ~ in itself ~ the most hideous paradox ~ a devastating parasite of women ~ and men.
How will our society ever produce men strong enough to embrace the deep and authentic wisdom of the ancestors? Men empowered enough to honour and respect women for who they are ~ protecting them from exploitation and abuse ~ learning from their deep wisdom. Because women deserve to shine without threatening society.
I ask this to myself ~ now that I raise my two boys ~ wishing to lead them away from toxic masculinity. Hoping that I can help these boys see patriarchy for what it is ~ to grow strong enough to embody their emotions ~ face their fears ~ and love with all their heart.
How to fulfill this task when it is so at odds with society and its programming ~ and at the same time guiding and supporting my little girl to grow into an intrepid and capable woman. Impervious of the pressures that will be present everyday ~ telling her that she is not enough. Not beautiful enough, not thin enough, not enough to keep her man. In this culture of scarcity ~ she can never be enough.
My daughter deserves to feel safe ~ not to live in fear of toxic masculinity ~ fundamentally self-sabotaging as it is ~ through its own project that perpetuates patriarchy. She just deserves to be loved ~ cherished ~ free.
May we all have the courage to venture into the underworld and acknowledge our dysfunctional society for what it is ~ toxic. Let us look into the uncomfortable shadows and face the ugly truths so we may liberate ourselves and our children from the power that thrives on our ignorance. Let us not be distracted by all the obvious struggles so that we can change things and work towards breaking the cycles of dysfunction. Our children deserve to reap the benefits of freedom ~ empowered by divine wisdom, courage and insights that allow their souls to be clean and healthy in this beautiful and magical world.
