Metta vs Male/Female Argument

[Cal]

I have been following with astonishment the male/female arguments today. I normally use Dhamma Wheel as a source of sanity, compassion, inspiration and learning. I have found today's outbursts truly off-putting.

I didn't want to cause offence so kept away from the discussion threads. But it now seems to me that it might be timely to remind participants that we're supposed to be practicing metta and right speech here. I find the Buddha's words on loving kindness very relevant :-

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .amar.html

Perhaps people on both 'sides' still feeling aggrieved would consider checking their views and behaviour against this standard?

This is meant in the spirit of reconciliation.



Metta
Cal

[Aloka]

If its ok with everyone, I'd like to take this opportunity to recommend listening to a really excellent Dhamma talk from Ajahn Sumedho. I had the good fortune to attend it myself and enjoyed it so much that I'd like to share it.

"Who Needs Enlightenment when I Have My Opinions ?"


http://forestsanghapublications.org/viewTalk.php?id=639


with metta,

Aloka

[Dan74]

This sort of an issue is the one that seems to bring out the fact that many of us live in different worlds.

For me sexism is not a reality of my daily life. My partner and I have deep mutual respect and we support each other physically and mentally as well as we can, especially now that her brother is very ill and she spends a lot of time in the hospital with him. She works in a supportive and warm environment (mostly female but she gets along very well with the men there too). My working environment is not exactly warm but quite fair and reasonable. She is a strong and active woman, a great organiser with a talent for getting things done and done well. Besides her job and managing the family, she is involved in several community projects, swims and pursues her hobby of pottery. I have never heard her level an accusation of sexism at me, but of course we do have our usual little male/female minds gripes (usually to do with cleaning and organisation, or lack thereof in my case).

Our little daughter is growing up to be an active and inquisitive kid. She likes her dolls but she also like the duplo, riding around on her bike and scooter and generally keeping up with her older brothers.

I don't see patriarchy at work in our little world. But I have seen it elsewhere, so I am not denying the possibility that other women are suffering from sexism.

What has been unfortunate in this episode at DW is the broad brush and hateful approach to it, which to me indicates that people are smarting from their wounds and resentful at men in general. In private I would just say "I am sorry" if confronted with this sort of stuff, but in public it has to be challenged because as a statement of fact, it is unfair to men and unfair to leave it unchallenged.

So a public forum is probably not a good place to get things like these off your chest. It just comes across as an attack and of course people get defensive.

Women here may well have legitimate grievances and I am sorry if they had been mistreated. Hope we can heal enough to see that not all men are sexist and deserving of being scorned and put down. And that the male gender as a whole is not evil.

On the other hand it can be important to acknowledge the biases that are at work in some parts. It's all part of healing together.

I guess I am speaking as one who has had to deal with a fair bit of hurt and prejudice myself, having grown up in a Jewish family in a hotbed of anti-semitism that is the Ukraine, at a time when the memories of massacres like the one at Babi Yar (where 33000 people where killed in a single operation assisted by local collaborators) were still fresh. Should we have harboured hatred towards Ukrainians while living amongst them? We knew a family that had risked their lives hiding their Jewish neighbours during the occupation. They got no fame or reward after the war, nor did they expect any. Later I shared house with some German exchange students here in Australia and we did talk about it all. It is not easy, but holding on to the hatred is even harder I found. But healing does take time and above all the courage to open up to it all (the pain, the disappointment, the guilt, the hate) and the strength to let it go.

[Alex123]

so I am not denying the possibility that other women are suffering from sexism.

Me neither. But there can be discrimination against men too. Life contains dukkha (1st Noble Truth).

[Cittasanto]

anyone who says I deserve or anyone deserves this

is....

if you want a pot against the back of your head while you are sleeping, or think that is ok just because of your sex you need your head sorted!
and that isn't the tip of the iceberg from my actual experience, no historical stuff from a thousand years ago or more which I didn't experiance or could of been a bloke perpetrating and something which no-one can not actually do anything about now.

those three can be as bigoted as they want about men, but one thread dedicated to the injustice men receive, come on, please, no more than an hour! they should of been shut up long before they were! egalitarian? this depends on whos equality (referring to who is making the decision of what is equal, instead of a consensus of moderation standards here of which i am normally satisfied)

I am not saying the mods were being bias; (definitely not) deliberately so; or in favour of any side or who was right or wrong. but it is strange free speech was used by one yet another uses the power they have, which in all fairness should of been used earlier, if one side gets a thread and hijacks another, the other side do not get one thread to try and discuss the actual reality of present day "western" society?

I have been following with astonishment the male/female arguments today. I normally use Dhamma Wheel as a source of sanity, compassion, inspiration and learning. I have found today's outbursts truly off-putting.

I didn't want to cause offence so kept away from the discussion threads. But it now seems to me that it might be timely to remind participants that we're supposed to be practicing metta and right speech here. I find the Buddha's words on loving kindness very relevant :-

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .amar.html

Perhaps people on both 'sides' still feeling aggrieved would consider checking their views and behaviour against this standard?

This is meant in the spirit of reconciliation.



Metta
Cal

[Dan74]

I certainly know a fair few cases where men are on the receiving end of crap. Does it invalidate patriarchy? I don't know. The world is changing.

And perhaps those of us who are younger are not quite cognizant of the kind of sexism that older women have had to put up with.

But I think the reaction here is symptomatic of the dissonance with the victim/aggressor labeling that simply does not fit anymore. It is far too simplistic. We are not the aggressor and most women we know are not victims and would resent this kind of implication. Of course the system is not perfect. It is not perfect for men either. Does it have a male bias? Quite possibly, but it's not the kind of "male" that all males would even identify with.

It is a deep subject and worth exploring but not in the sort of environment like we've been seeing.

[Justsit]

those three can be as bigoted as they want about men, but one thread dedicated to the injustice men receive, come on, please, no more than an hour! they should of been shut up long before they were!

.

Wow.

[daverupa]

Then the bhikkhuni Soma, having understood, "This is Mara the Evil One," replied to him in verses:

"What does womanhood matter at all
When the mind is concentrated well,
When knowledge flows on steadily
As one sees correctly into Dhamma.

"One to whom it might occur,
'I'm a woman' or 'I'm a man'
Or 'I'm anything at all' -
Is fit for Mara to address."

~SN 5.2

[Cittasanto]

Then the bhikkhuni Soma, having understood, "This is Mara the Evil One," replied to him in verses:

"What does womanhood matter at all
When the mind is concentrated well,
When knowledge flows on steadily
As one sees correctly into Dhamma.

"One to whom it might occur,
'I'm a woman' or 'I'm a man'
Or 'I'm anything at all' -
Is fit for Mara to address."

~SN 5.2

[Cittasanto]

those three can be as bigoted as they want about men, but one thread dedicated to the injustice men receive, come on, please, no more than an hour! they should of been shut up long before they were!

.

Wow.

bigottry should be addressed... and

[Justsit]

Of course.
But perhaps opining that anyone should be "shut up" may not be the most skillful way to do it.

[retrofuturist]

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Thank you.

Metta,
Retro.

[Cittasanto]

Of course.
But perhaps opining that anyone should be "shut up" may not be the most skillful way to do it.

a figure of speach not a literal! it was how they were saying it not the topic

[Kim O'Hara]

I have been following with astonishment the male/female arguments today. I normally use Dhamma Wheel as a source of sanity, compassion, inspiration and learning. I have found today's outbursts truly off-putting.

Me too ... times 3.

I didn't want to cause offence so kept away from the discussion threads. But it now seems to me that it might be timely to remind participants that we're supposed to be practicing metta and right speech here. I find the Buddha's words on loving kindness very relevant :-

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .amar.html

Perhaps people on both 'sides' still feeling aggrieved would consider checking their views and behaviour against this standard?

Please?

I have one thing to add, and it's purely a matter of language.
Any time someone writes, "Men do X," or "Women say Y," or "Men think Z," the reader perceives, "ALL men do X," or "ALL women say Y," or "ALL men think Z." That is pretty obviously unfair and untrue, no matter what X, Y and Z happen to be. It might also be unintended.
The solution is to be careful to frame things in terms like, "Many men do X," or "Some women say Y," or "Men often think Z." Doing so ought be be helpful to the writer, encouraging him/her to be careful about who they are really talking about, and should help the reader to avoid the feeling he/she is being unfairly attacked.


Kim

[Reductor]

I didn't come away thinking it was a matter of imprecise language, Kim. :'-(

Anyway, I wish everyone the best. That goes for my young and beautiful son, whom I hope never has to be saddled with a collective guilt he never has earned. May he be treated as more than an ugly generalization.