Women and Trump -and an old patriarchal order - Will women be his undoing?

Trump and family, Moore, and the like remind me of reading the Faulkner novel, The Sound and the Fury; in which the characters act out dramas based on an antiquated value system.  In contrast, Salma Hayek's recent Op Ed addition to the me-too movement shows exactly why that value system serves no one but entitled white men.       

Jeanne, this is fascinating. I definitely think that female energy is galvanizing in preparation of the moment when Pluto's power is revoked. I moderate an online resistance group comprised of 32,000 people, and not only are women the most vocal members of the forum, they are really doing some major emotional labor to figure out how to unseat the "shadow" as you call it. Which leads to the dream I had this week on the eve of the Alabama election.

In the dream, I am one of thousands of women (all shapes, races, ages are represented) wading naked in a pool of dark contaminated water. The environment looks like a sewer; there is no way out of the pool except by climbing up steep walls, but they are covered in slime, which prevents us from getting out. In the dream, the shared understanding is that there will never be a way out of the insidious murk unless we clean the slime off the walls using just little frayed washcloths and help each other out of the pit. Anyone who tries to bypass this strategy by trying to get out alone simply slides back into the water, helpless. There was no resolution to this dream; I believe it was a metaphorical representation of the current plight of American women and what we need to do to solve it.

As I engage with the women in my resistance group (a group that represents the MD, VA, and DC areas), despite everyone being united in the pursuit of progressive change, I'm seeing some truly difficult conversations and confrontations between the women there regarding racism and sexism, and how both those factors have brought us to this moment in history. In particular, the women of color among us have been educating white women - often with exasperation - that progressive white women must stop distancing themselves from women who would vote for Roy Moore and embrace a leadership role that could finally affect change. This reality has existed longer than the year that Trump has been president. For POCs, this has been their world all their lives - they've been screaming into the void about it for ages, warning us that their daily experience of inequality and disenfranchisement could come for us all one day - and many of us with privilege have only just woken up to it.

These online confrontations can get very heated as some of us get shaken loose from old ideas, but I'm so heartened by the results. Like molecules in a primordial soup, even when disagreements happen, or perhaps because of them, the women in these communities are discovering the value of sticking together, lifting each other up, and using what power we have to amplify disenfranchised and oppressed voices. We're all becoming more mindful of unconscious biases that make us all complicit in a system that degrades women and minorities, and we're taking what we learn out into the greater world.

It may be time to revise the old myth about Persephone. While she's in captivity, she's anything but idle. She's making an escape plan.  

Vida, you are the second woman I know of leading a massive resistance group of over 30,000 members online.  The other woman leads a group nationally from New York.  How interesting that you both echo Jeanne's belief in the rise of women and the end of patriarchy.  And like Jeanne, you other two also have tremendous gifts of spirit and eloquent leadership.  I can't help but think of the three of you as part of the Ghandian army of peace and love that Zoron (formerly known as G____) has written about so eloquently.  He foresees like-minded enlightened people  connected through the internet having great power to turn our world towards the good.

Vida, I was reading over this thread and had a thought about your dream. The women trapped in the sewer of tall slimy walls is Freudian in the female vagina sense of the term. 

Female sexuality is tied up in patriarchy.  The teachings of patriarchal societies - of the Catholic Church, just one example with huge influence, have twisted our sexuality to enslavement. The church has screwed us all up - not just how we are treated, but about what turns us on when it comes to men and sex. 

For hundreds of years and scores of generations, they have defined what it means to be attractive, how sex should be done, and how women should behave around men.  It is all tied up in a twisted patriarchal order.

Even when times modernize and attitudes about sex change, as I have seen since the 1960's, the old patriarchal order continues to rule and influence. Mothers pass it to their daughters who pass it to their daughters.  

According to your dream, it is not possible for one woman to free herself from this system. It will take a tribal approach, a whole culture and multiple generations working together for this change to happen from the inside out.   The "me too" movement is how we start.  

There is so much abuse I put up with growing up in the sixties turning 20 in the seventies. And all silently. Shamefully.  Abuse from employers, from doctors, teachers, colleagues, friends.    Although I had thought of myself as pretty liberated from all that, I realize from the "me too" movement that I have a long way to go deep in my psyche.

 I had a strong reaction when I watched Michele Obama reacting to Trump's Access Hollywood tape where he bragged about assaulting women.  Watching Michele's body visibly revolted by Trump's story had a huge effect on me.  It reached back into all that abuse and brought up outrage like a volcanic eruption. I am grateful to her for that, and to those women in Alabama for their stories. 

It takes a collective unrelenting pushback from women, and perhaps from men too, to clean those sewer walls. 

Jeanne, this post hit me where I live.  Covered this very topic in a private conversation today.  Like the women in the dream, I'm still trying to scrub out the slimy leftovers of what the patriarchy did to me in my formative years....interesting how the imagery resonates with the vaginal clean-off necessitated by rape.  

How hard it is to reclaim one's power--regenerate it, really, after having it stamped out by internalized patriarchy. 

That goes deep, is an intergenerational handoff. 

One of my ancestors was Susannah North Martin, hung as a witch in Salem--and I am convinced that a 'lesson' about keeping one's head down was encoded in the family genes at that point. We were 'taught a lesson.'  The women in my family are all bright, multiply degreed...and all have struggled with curtailment by the patriarchy, and struggle to let our light shine. 

Yep, Vida, that was one powerfully true condensed vision of exactly the work that has to happen now.  -R1-

Ok. What I see, late This century. The final liberation of women will be achieved. It will survive even Climate change disaster, amongst the survivors. This will not be Matriarchy, it will  not be Patriarchy. It will be Autarky. Of the individual, from control and suppression. A new culture is being born. This is a major shift in human society. It will be irreversible. It is coming, this century.Something like Kropotkins "Mutual aide."It is the future. it will not happen, everywhere, at once, but bit by bit. But as the emergence of the Abused women has shown, it is irreversible. 

 Although I had thought of myself as pretty liberated from all that, I realize from the "me too" movement that I have a long way to go deep in my psyche.

 

Jeanne, it is so true. This #meeToo movement has been hard on me. I too have to realize how deep it runs. Abuse that I had stuffed away reemerged, intense anger of not being taken seriously by society (especially as woman of color); how I have played in this patriarchal system with the "oh, i should be/ look/ behave/ crave this or that and not the other. The audacity of having to chose between the good, Holy Mary version of the woman or the Femme Fatale and having been denied the entire spectrum of womanhood in between. Oh how much of our female expression has just been cut to match the male gaze. I'm done with that shit. Fuck it all. I am, we are, going to unearth our power and there is nothing that can stop it. I can feel it in every inch of my body!

Tee, you go, girl!  I'm coming with you. 

Jeanne,

As I pondered what it would REALLY take for Trump to lose the support of his fanatics, I was reminded, yesterday, about Katie Johnson - she was the woman who said Trump forced her into sex acts with him as well with another girl when she was 13 years old (back in ~1994).   Would Trump supporters continue to support him if it was proved he is a pedophile.

Assuming Katie Johnson was being honest in her account (and this assumption seems more plausible than Trump's denial), will she ever be vindicated and will this vindication be Trump's undoing among his supporters?

Codyroo your thoughts make sense if people are decent, but that's assuming a lot from Trumpers. Remember that there were credible allegations against him during the presidential campaign and a majority of white women still voted for him. Also remember Roy Moore who won the vote of a majority of white women in Alabama, while Doug Jones won the support of the majority of African Americans. Right now the lunatic right wing is in full blown conspiracy mode claiming that the students from Marjorie Stoneham high school that are speaking up in favor of gun control are paid actors. If anything is proved against Trump, it doesn't matter, his supporters will claim a conspiracy and that he was framed, they won't believe it. This is a cult, and there is no low that they won't sink to in order to defend their fragile egos and view of the world.

Totally understand where you are coming from Natalie.  I often wonder if there is ANYTHING that would dissuade Trump supporters.  Their ability to disregard anything approaching normal/reasonable and embrace extremist/unreasonable explanations is alarming.  It doesn't seem like his base is willing to hold him accountable, and would really prefer to blame others.  Fox News certainly is complicit in feeding this trend.  If Trumpers weren't allowed to listen to far right biased information sources (Alex Jones, Breibart, Fox News) and had to listen to news sources that were centrist, they might be able to recognize and pull out of this self destructive nose dive.

But that requires a LOT of empathy, and there seems to be precious little of that being exhibited by his base.  As a society, the divisions are running deep and tribes are forming strong.  This isn't good for the overall health of the country.  It may be that if weather changes due to polar ice melting (and shifting winds)  cause the center part of the country to be a dust bowl, they'd have to uproot and seek the aid of others outside their tribe.  By doing that, "them" becomes "us".  And it is that connection that will, ultimately, win out and save us.

If it comes down to it I will definitely help people no matter their political affiliation if they are in need, but I am disgusted by the trumpers nonetheless. Maybe they will reap what they sow, but they drag us all down with them and we have to fight incredibly hard to make sure that they're perverse vision of the world is defeated. Imagine if no one fought back, our species would be gone far sooner than we'd think. I do get fired up and angry and I don't mean to, but honestly it's hard to help it. 

I think this sums it up for the "healers" of the world in the here and now....(especially those of us of the appropriate "vintage" to know/love Super Chicken)

Found several article of scientific studies that show the difference in brain and reactions between conservative and liberals.

I’ve posted a couple here, but was amazed by the amount of studies dedicated to this subject. Maybe it will help someday to bridge the gap between fearful trumpees and the rest of the planet. 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/calling-truce-political-wars/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201612/fear-and-anxiety-drive-conservatives-political-attitudes

Hi Laura,

That was an excellent post on social conservatives. What is the "Great unmentionable", though, is that  these differences, from ordinary human beings, date back to the ice age, and are actually physiological and genetic. We are dealing, here, literally with "Mutants" who went through "Epigenetic stress" due to the severe conditions of the ice age, and became a rather nasty, savage, and dominant sub-species of  "Standard Humans". Yup, those NAZI's and "Conservatives", are genetic freaks. people simply do not wish to face up to the scientific reality of the genetics and behavioural instincts of these critters. But we have to. Basically, we are dealing here with a sub-race of genetically altered people  who are very dangerous, aggressive, and hostile to others, and have little or no socialisation. They are in fact,  asocial,  and anti-social, by nature. They are genetically programmed to be that way. The "Ice-age Gene", is not a myth. It is a reality. Their social existence involves primarily their preying on others. Welcome to the Ice-Age ancestors of the Nazi's, and the American Right.

All of this may horrify people, but we have to face, realistically, the truth, and to start thinking about how such people can be contained, and the huge amount of social damage they do, limited. At the moment, any discussion of this is not even happening. in the meantime, their primitive "Hunter-Gatherer instincts" are destroying the planet. Anybody got any ideas?

I think step one is to name it/them. You can't fight an enemy, an ideology or an issue if the greater population doesn't even know it exists. People who subscribe to a fear-based and authoritarian mindset need to be recognized by the greater society as an existential threat. I would address it more as a way of thinking than as a genetic kind of thing (which can smack of a lot of stuff that is usually directed at other people BY this very group).

Thank you Zoron. There is so much I have to say about this. I have long known that the brains of conservatives and liberals are wired differently, but my own experience tells me that people exist more on a spectrum than on absolutes. My father growing up was always conservative, annoyingly so, voted conservative in Canada, liked the Republican party when he moved to the states etc.... But he was never immune to reason, when Trump came along he couldn't stand him and then decided that he couldn't stand any one else that was running in the Republican primary (he also didn't like Bernie or Hillary, so I really get confused as to who he would like now), and he had well thought out reasons for his dislike of each individual. He still adhered to conservative trickle down economic theory, but all of a sudden he became aware of police brutality on minorities and began to lecture me about how terrible it was every time I'd visit. He is an example of a conservative who can be persuaded. I have other examples of people who absolutely cannot be persuaded and live in a reality of fear, self loathing, and just hell. But on the note about anxiety being one of the character traits of these people, I have to say that I used to suffer from severe anxiety and panic attacks, so bad that I couldn't function. Medication helps me with this, but otherwise my hard wiring and/or upbringing makes me unable to really function optimally. And I am a hardcore bleeding heart lib, one of those snow flakes the right wing loves to taunt - except that I can give as good as I get. 

I also want to delve deeper into this ice age gene. I believe you Zoron when you say that this is where it comes from, but then how do you explain the behaviors of people who's ancestors never experienced the ice age, namely populations in the middle east and sub Saharan Africa. There are plenty of right wingers among them too. Is this gene related to the neanderthals and our interbreeding with them? Is there any way to cure someone of this genetic tendency? I just have so many questions. 

Hi Zoron,

Thank you, I appreciate your comments!  I have been trying to find a way to understand these unfathomable (at least to me, lol!) people and their behaviors.  I recently re-read "People of the Lie" by Scott Peck and the way he describes his scientific observations of what he called evil in people ties in to what you said about a genetic component of how this group of people are in their behaviors and brain structures.

As to your question, I saw one article that talked about a study that took such things as climate change as a subject and presented it to conservatives in a way that climate change was described to them as a "threat to American way of life" and the study noted more were willing to sign petitions that were about the stoppage of drilling in the Arctic, as an example. It seems that perhaps, and I'm only guessing, if language were used that triggered their brains to respond in a way that would be favorable toward cooperation and problem solving it might have an impact.  I have been looking for ways to effectively communicate with these people and find it nearly impossible.  "Never the less, I persist"  ?  

Right wing organizations like the NRA have tapped into this "fear factor" quite well.  They are now floundering because they don't have a specific target to point people towards such as President Obama or Secretary Clinton. And, the high school students are - as Rachel said last night - shining a light and the cockroaches are scattering.  I have hope that NRA and other RWO's can be greatly diminished through the determination and anger of the youth who are currently showing up.  Might we somehow co-opt this kind of manipulation - for that is surely what it is - for the good of everyone, including those who are hardwired for lack of empathy?  

Hi Natalie,

Your observations are good ones, but a number of studies have found that conservatives have a slightly larger right side of their amygdala which then reacts to threats or perceived threats more readily.  I have found studies that show that they can be persuaded to change and even become more empathetic with training and a willingness to learn.  I too, have anxiety that my neurologist, who is also a researcher, indicated has a genetic component to it and I too, and a "bleeding heart" libtard, lol!  

That said, I feel compelled to say something in defense of Neanderthals.  It has recently been discovered through improved carbon dating techniques that cave drawings found in caves such as the Ardales cave in Spain are older than originally thought.  They were thought to be within the time when modern homo sapiens was in that area were drawn by HS.  Instead they have now found that those paintings are twice as old as originally thought - 64,000 years old and only Neanderthal hominids were in that part of Europe on up through the Neander valley in Germany at that time.  So the question is - who influenced who? Of all the studies I have read on the culture and anthropology of early humans - Neanderthal, Homo Sapiens Sapiens and Denisovians, it appears that Neanderthals had a fairly cohesive community with culture and ritual which is more than was originally credited to that group.  

Out of curiosity, a few years ago I did the National Geographic Genographic project DNA test 1 and 2.0.  2.0 test is specifically to determine how much Neanderthal and Denisovian gene variants are in one's genetic make up.  They have discovered that many humans can carry as much as 1-2 % of DNA variant that trace to these two groups.  My results came back 2 % Neanderthal (average in their test population of 888,000 is 1.3%) and 2.7 % Denisovan (average in test population is 2.1%). 

So from an intuitive view, my sense is that Neanderthals and Denisovans who existed before modern humans arrived on the scene were more intuitive, more connected to earth and the beings they coexisted with and hunted. I get the sense that perhaps these two groups co-existed peacefully prior to the arrival of Homo Sapiens.  Homo Sapiens didn't arrive in Europe until 30-40,000 odd years ago and perhaps they had the larger right amygdala that pushed their threat sensitivity way off the scale compared to what the other two groups had. It was a harsh environment for all living hominids, so all would have had a high sensitivity to threat, but perhaps there was something else that was in HS that was not in the other two groups. There was about a 10-20,000 year overlap between all three groups before Neanderthals in particular died out at about 30,000 years ago.  It would be very interesting to see what the Genographic 2.0 test would show for those in this group.  It might be interesting to see if there is a higher or lower percentage of these to genomes in people who are highly intuitive.  Perhaps my genome, despite the anxiety, has me wired in a way that contributes to my liberalism.