HOW WOMEN WILL SAVE THE WORLD

Note: About once a month a group of friends comes together at my house for a potluck dinner and discussion. Recently I presented this essay to the group and also emailed it to some other persons that I thought might find it of interest. Here is a copy of the essay and following the text are comments by two men whose observations I feel are especially thoughtful and offer a slightly different, or enlarged, perspective on my topic. Peter was the youngest person in my class at Pacifica, and I was the oldest, so he calls me “Grandmother.” Rev. Ted is an interfaith minister and is a member of our discussion group. Additional remarks by anyone reading this piece are always welcome.

Perhaps like me, many of you have become deeply discouraged about the state of the world. Conditions like climate change, widespread poverty, population pressures, war, and terrorism can seem overwhelming, creating a sense of despair and hopelessness. Many observers of economic and social trends see Western civilization and our country, especially, in a downward spiral, destined to lose its position of power and influence. I agree that there are many seemingly insurmountable problems and I cannot refute many of the negative indicators, but I wish to look at some other, more positive indications that a possible paradigm shift is taking place that might help save the world from some of the worst prognostications.

My title—How Women Will Save the World—is not altogether accurate in that it is not, of course, women alone who will bring about this change. However, there is increasing evidence that when women are empowered—or when so-called feminine principles and qualities are engaged—positive effects are set in motion. Recently I have come upon, rather by chance, a number of writers and thinkers who present surprisingly similar ideas about how we might view, and hopefully defuse, some of the perils facing our planet. This confluence of perspectives gives me hope that we may look forward to a greater possibility of cooperation and peace in our world.

One of the most important books on this topic is Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, written by Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn, correspondents for The New York Times and the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism. They describe—often in horrible detail—the brutal treatment of women and girls in developing countries and provide an inspiring portrait of the courage and resilience these women display in the face of great injustice. They point out that whereas in the nineteenth century the challenge was slavery and in the twentieth century the battle against totalitarianism, the primary moral challenge facing the world today is the struggle for gender equality in the developing world.

As we know, many undeveloped countries (and many developed ones as well) are largely patriarchal, and some of the tribal societies within these countries, such as the Taliban, even refuse to allow their female children to attend school. Kristof and WuDunn point out that by bringing women and girls into schools, the workplace, government, and business, not only is the economy boosted but also conflict is reduced, because the influence of women tends to diminish the testosterone-laden values of these countries. With greater participation of women in the society at large, there is apt to be less violence, making for more stable governments and a safer world. They see a profound shift taking place as these women find their rightful place in society.

Environmental issues such as climate change would not seem to be directly affected by the education or participation of women in positions of influence. However, we know that more educated women have fewer children, and that the best way to cut down on population growth in a society is to educate girls and give them job opportunities. So, to the extent that population pressures play a role in environmental strains, providing schooling and work for women will indeed ease some environmental threats.

One recent innovation helping women in developing countries is microfinance. Professor Muhammad Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank Project in Bangladesh, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work, developed a method of credit in which micro-loans are made to small entrpreneurs who would not ordinarily be eligible for loans. One distinctive feature of the bank's credit program is that a significant majority of its borrowers are women. Women, it seems, are more reliable recipients than men.

As most of you know, my granddaughter has founded her own microfinance nonprofit organization called Nest (www.buildanest.com) which makes loans to women artisans in developing countries. Her approach is different in that rather than being repaid with money, women repay their loans in products which she then markets and sells in the United States. She also has artists in the U.S. who mentor and train the women in modern techniques and designs so their goods will be more appealing to an international clientele. This is how she explains why her loans go exclusively to women:

Women are more likely to both repay their loans and devote their earnings to assisting the family. Furthermore, when women are given the opportunity to create their own businesses and earn a stable income, their social standing in the family and in the community improves. By giving women the tools they need to provide for their families, micro-credit loans give stability and hope to families and communities.

Empowered and economically independent women have resources to help educate their children and are much more likely to create healthier, happier homes. Perhaps some of you heard that during the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, some agencies handing out desperately needed water and food gave it only to women, for that way they felt reasonably assured it would go to those in need and not be sold on the black market. Women almost always put the needs of children and family first. This attitude makes for a more stable environment in the midst of chaos.

Now I would like to leave the issue of women per se for a moment and talk about another interesting perspective regarding future trends. Daniel H. Pink is the author of a book titled A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. Pink points out that for almost a century the prevailing philosophy of Western society and the United States in particular has been based on linear, reductive thinking and analytical approaches to problems. The resulting technological innovations created the Information Age, in which well-educated persons utilize and manipulate information, an ability which depends largely on the left hemisphere of the brain.

Pink maintains that due to a number of factors, among which he says are “material abundance that is deepening our nonmaterial yearnings, globalization that is shipping white-collar work overseas, and powerful technologies that are eliminating certain kinds of work altogether,” we are now entering a new age. This new era, which he calls The Conceptual Age, requires a greater utilization of our right brain. Accordingly, he suggests that rather than lawyers, accountants, and computer programmers, the future belongs to artists, inventors, and storytellers, persons with creative and holistic abilities.

According to Pink, the future will be “animated by a different form of thinking and a new approach to life”—one that “involves the capacity to detect patterns and opportunities, to create artistic and emotional beauty, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into something new.” In addition, this shift will involve “the ability to empathize, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one’s self and to elicit it in others, and to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning.”
Pink lists six essential aptitudes on which professional success and personal fulfillment now depend. These “senses,” as he calls them—Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning—are more dependent on the right brain, and are not usually thought of as strongly masculine traits.

Perhaps some of you have read the book A Stroke of Insight in which Jill Bolte Taylor, a scientist involved in studying the brain, describes in great detail her experience of having a stroke. The stroke damaged her left hemisphere, while the right hemisphere remained intact, a condition that—being the scientist she is—allowed her to clearly observe and differentiate what each had to offer. When she entered the consciousness of her right brain, she felt at one with all the energy of the universe, was overcome with beauty, peacefulness, and compassion, an experience she called nirvana. When her linear, left brain reasserted itself she felt the presence of her ego, her separateness, and instead of being in the moment she was concerned about the past or the future. She maintains that we can choose which world we wish to live in and says that when we step from the consciousness of our left brain to that of our right, we can find more peace in the world. This is another example of how we may learn to value the strengths of our right brains and as a result develop a gentler outlook on life.

Both men and women use both sides of their brains, of course, but some studies indicate that there are distinct differences in the ways that women’s and men’s minds operate. Simon Baron-Cohen, a Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at Trinity College of Cambridge, posits that the female brain is hard-wired for empathizing, whereas the male brain is hard-wired for systemizing. He defines empathizing as “the drive to identify another person’s emotions and thoughts and to respond with an appropriate emotion.” He says that empathy helps us “to understand another person, to predict their behavior, and to connect or resonate with them emotionally. “Systemizing,” on the other hand, “is the drive to analyze, explore, and construct a system. The systemizer intuitively figures out how things work and extracts the underlying rules that govern the behavior of the system. This is done to understand and predict the system, or to invent a new one.” So it seems that right brain thinking, such as that of women, leads to greater empathy.

Now I will take what might seem like a major detour, but one that eventually will bring us back to my theme of the emergence of feminine influence on world problems. Perhaps many of you are aware of the fairly recent discovery of an ancient manuscript titled The Gospel of Judas. This controversial document upends the traditional New Testament version of Judas’s relationship with Jesus. As you recall, in the canonical gospels Judas is described as a traitor, the most despised and vilified of the disciples, the one who betrayed his master for 30 pieces of silver. In this document, Judas is seen not as a traitor, but as the disciple closest to Jesus, and the one chosen to act as his agent in helping carry out a series of events that ended Jesus’ life, just as had been planned—the only one of the twelve who was privileged with this secret information and the only one who truly understood Jesus’ mission.

Gottfried Heuer, a European Jungian analyst, sees this new understanding of the relationship between Jesus and Judas as a hopeful sign, suggesting in the title of an article he wrote, that it is “An Emerging Potential for World Peace.” Heuer reminds us of Jung’s reaction when the Catholic church proclaimed the Assumption of Mary—the bodily ascension of Mary to Heaven—as dogma, an act that Jung understood as an integration of the feminine principle into the Christian conception of the Godhead: the Trinity was now a Quaternity. Heuer links this with the extraordinary surge of feminism that occurred in the following decade.

Heuer claims that analysis, politics, and spirituality are deeply intertwined and that each embraces the other two in such a way that enhances the other. In this sense he explores, from an analytical point of view, some of the wider sociopolitical implications of what he calls “the current enantiodromia regarding the Judas figure in Christianity.” For those of you not familiar with that term, it means the transformation of a concept into its opposite.

The Gospel of Judas presents a radically different kind of Jesus than the one in the canonical gospels, a more joyful figure who laughs and jokes with his followers. Rather than a tragic figure who will soon die in agony on the cross, we see him as a friendly and benevolent teacher blessed with a sense of humor. Furthermore, Heuer interprets the kiss that Judas plants on Jesus as a sign of devotion and relationship, not an act of deception and betrayal. He suggests that if we could replace the cross as the pre-eminent Christian symbol with that of a loving embrace, then we might find a new Christian paradigm for the new millennium, one that is far more relational—as well as being truly healing. And since the disciplines of analysis, politics, and spirituality are intimately connected, all would benefit from the revised image.

Perhaps Heuer reads too much into this new gospel, and perhaps he expects too much when he sees its publication as “an important step towards reconciliation, and ultimately, world peace,” but there are some profound implications here. If we could, indeed, shift our basic world view from a focus on suffering and pathology—in our psychological as well as our spiritual and political outlooks—to one which focuses on relationship and healing, then surely that would make a huge difference in our culture and in our lives.

Now I would like to look again at some changes in women’s status, particularly here in the United States. The Pew Research Center recently released some very interesting data on salaries and employment. One part of the report, titled “The Rise of Wives,” found that in nearly a third of couples the wife is better educated than her husband, and that though men still earn more than women, women are now the primary breadwinners in 22 percent of households, up from 7 percent in 1970. These changes have had a positive effect, contributing to lower divorce rates and happier marriages. The statistics indicate that the more education and the more economic independence a woman has, the more likely she is to stay married.

Stephanie Coontz, a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and research director for the Council on Contemporary Families, says that “We’ve known for some time that men need marriage more than women from the standpoint of physical and mental well-being. Now it is becoming increasingly important to their economic well-being as well.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at age 22, 185 women have graduated from college for every 100 men who have done so. According to other studies, men suffer most in the recent recession in that more of them have lost their jobs. For the first time ever, more women than men are employed. These social changes will surely result in women having more power and women’s values having a greater influence in all aspects of our society.

Another factor in this possible paradigm shift is social networking. We are now, due to major technological innovations, more connected than ever, in fact, some contend we are hyperconnected—far beyond our usual boundaries. A recent book called Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis and James N. Fowler is a fascinating account of just how prevalent social networks are and how they form. When the connections are plotted, they show a variety of configurations depending on just what binds the individuals together.

The authors contend that we are affected in mysterious ways by those in our networks—even those we do not know personally, but who might know those we know. They show, for example, that if a friend of a friend—someone we have never met—gains weight, we are more likely to gain weight. These networks exhibit a kind of independent intelligence that augments or complements individual intelligence, such as establishing norms of trust, determining what products to buy, deciding which political parties to support, or, indeed, who might get a sexually transmitted disease. The networks to which we belong help shape our beliefs and our behavior.

Christakis and Fowler see much good emerging from this phenomenon, and say that “Some degree of altruism and reciprocity, and indeed some degree of positive emotions such as love and happiness, are therefore crucial for the emergence and endurance of social networks.” By recognizing and maintaining these interconnections, we are acknowledging how important relationships are. In fact, our connections and their resultant communities are fundamental to our humanity.

As I mentioned, this vision of an upcoming major shift in our way of looking at the world, based on books and articles I have read, has been incubating in my mind for almost a year, but it was not until quite recently that I discovered a book that explores in great depth most of what I have discussed here in a more cursory manner. The book is a 700 page tome called The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis by Jeremy Rifkin. Rifkin is an economist, who draws on multiple disciplines as he examines what he sees as the end of the modern era, largely brought about by the dangers of climate change due to our dependence on fossil fuels, a situation which threatens the survival of our species. The change required to avoid catastrophe is, in Rifkin’s opinion, a drastic change in how we view human nature.

Rifkin traces our current crisis back to the rise of the modern market economy and the emergence of nation states. The philosophical underpinnings come from the notion that humans are “rational, detached, autonomous, acquisitive, and utilitarian,” and that we are engaged in a fierce competitive battle over resources and material gain. We are beginning to see the fallacies in our assumption that material progress is natural and is unlimited.

Rifkin reviews recent discoveries in brain science and in child development that challenge these old suppositions. He cites the discovery by neuroscientists of mirror-neurons—sometimes called empathy neurons—that light up when we observe someone who is exhibiting signs of stress or of joy. They demonstrate our neurological capacity to feel and understand the emotions and situations of others. He also cites child development psychologists who argue the primacy of relationship and who see empathy as the means through which a sense of selfhood and self-awareness is developed in children. He sees our deepening awareness of empathy as an evolutionary trend that has been, up until now, overlooked by social scientists and historians. He feels that the rich diversity of our exposure through our broader access to social networks and improved communication will help extend our empathic awareness, and he sees its development in all of us as crucial to saving the world.

I personally have begun to notice some of the benefits of these networks. Recently I received an email from a woman in Australia who had read my blog and found it helpful because her father was turning eighty. That astounds me, but probably seems routine to many of today’s youngsters. However, I am not naïve enough to believe that this kind of drastic upheaval of long-held beliefs and assumptions about human nature will be easily overturned. I rather suspect that we will go through a period of deep confusion and frightening chaos, and undoubtedly will experience considerable backlash from those most fearful of change, and especially from those who feel threatened by a loss of power and status.

Elisabet Sahtouris, an evolution biologist and futurist and member of the consciousness group that my husband and I attended for many years, recently sent me a draft copy of a chapter she is writing for a book titled Crisis as Opportunity. Sahtouris acknowledges that there are three major crises facing the world today—in energy, economy, and climate—but she says that these are challenges that we should celebrate. Why? “Because,” she says, “nothing short of a fundamental review, revisioning and revising our entire way of life on planet Earth is required to face these three interrelated challenges successfully. That makes this an amazing time of opportunity to create the world we all deeply want!”

Sahtouris points out that “Humans dreamed up and then realized our economic systems, including our technological path via the exploitation of nature and our grand focus on consumerism.” We are now beginning to realize how unsustainable our current systems are and that insight provides an unparalleled opportunity to utilize the creativity and resourcefulness of our species to find new ways of thinking and doing that can bring about the changes so desperately needed.

Sahtouris calls on her expertise as an evolution biologist to remind us of the many crises that have challenged our planet in the past and how each time “life responded with a stunning new lifestyle invention.” She focuses on what can survive under extreme conditions, and concludes that “sustainability of any entity depends on its coming into harmony with whatever surrounds it in a mutual give and take that makes it more or less indispensable to the whole in which it is embedded.” To me this sounds like a variation of what might be called relationship and empathy.

I find it fascinating that my limited reading suggests a common theme, that of the huge role relationship and empathy must play in shaping our future. I am impressed with the fact that there are journalists, psychologists, neuroscientists, evolution biologists, and economists, all recognizing the importance of these qualities that were once thought to belong largely to women.

Perhaps this signifies that we are shifting away from a predominantly patriarchal world into one that can approximate a more balanced sharing between women and men. Perhaps more nations can become partnership societies, symbolized, as Riane Eisler put it in her book The Chalice and the Blade published in the mid-1980s, by the life-sustaining and enhancing Chalice rather than the lethal and destructive Blade.

Perhaps, we are, as Jeremy Rifkin puts it, “an affectionate species that continuously seeks to broaden and deepen our relationships and connections to others”, and that “It is the empathetic moments in one’s life that are the most powerful memories and the experiences that comfort and give a sense of connection, participation, and meaning to one’s sojourn.”

Let’s hope that he is right.

References:

Baron-Cohen, Simon. The Essential Difference: Male and Female Brains and the Truth about Autism. New York: Basic Books, 2003.

Brooks, David. “The Lean Years.” The New York Times 16 Feb. 2010, natl. ed.: A23.

- - -. “The Power Elite.” The New York Times 19 Feb. 2010, natl. ed.: A21

Christakis, Nicholas. A. and James H. Fowler. Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009.

Eisler, Riane. The Chalice & the Blade: Our History, Our Future. New York: HarperCollins, 1987.

Heuer, Gottfried. “For ‘A New Heaven and a New Earth:’ The Gospel of Judas—An Emerging Potential for World Peace? A Jungian Perspective.” Spring Journal, Spring, 2009, Vol. 81. The Psychology of Violence.

Kousky, Rebecca. Mission Statement. www.buildanest.com.

Kristof, Nicholas D. and Sheryl WuDunn. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2009.

Parker-Pope, Tara. “She Works, They Are Happy.” The New York Times 24 Jan. 2010, natl. ed.: STl.

Pink, Daniel H. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. New York: Riverhead Books, 2006.

Rifkin, Jeremy. The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 2010.

Roberts, Sam. “More Men Marrying Better Educated, Wealthier Wives.” The New York Times 19 Jan. 2010, natl. ed.: A20.

Sahtouris, Elisabet. “Celebrating Crisis,” Crisis as Opportunity. Edinburgh: Floris Books, 2010.

Leah Friedman
February, 2010


Grandmother:
I have read your essay, "How Women Will Save the World" and I found it masterfully written and full of great connections bringing various discipline threads and weaving them into a well crafted work. I am so glad you are continuing to listen to your voice and it is prompting you to write for the community at large (who ever that may be). I am glad that you are continuing your "studies" and that it is producing written work. We never really graduate do we!

I appreciate that you acknowledge that it is not women alone who will bring about this change; for I believe that there is no difference between one pole to the other in fundamentalism: i.e. a patriarchal society to a matriarchal one, fundamentalism is fundamentalism, at either end of the spectrum.

I printed out your essay so I can read it with pen in hand to jot down my comments: take them as you wish.

I wanted to know your thoughts on birth control in the empowerment and equalization of women in the world. I think this is a fascinating and crucial component to the evolution of our societies. I believe the power of women's choice to have (or control) children is a viable way to "save the world." (As a side note: Ginette Paris wrote a great essay on abortion that is published by Spring that I think you would find very interesting and powerful--it is used in abortion clinics in Canada--focusing on Artemis).

I liked your look at the Gospel of Judas as a reexamination of the Christ story and challenging us to change our mythos on the subject from suffering to healing. I think this is a crucial understanding of the "Christ" as a metaphoric myth to our current consciousness. I know that the holy rollers would never go for this they have made too much money on the cross to ever change their paradigm. I equally understand that it is helpful to have a "suffering" god as a model for people's own suffering but perhaps it is not that useful anymore when we have our modernity, science and technology to relieve us from our suffering! In truth I am a big fan about changing the whole Christ story. 2000 years is enough for any myth!

I was not surprised by the research about men and marriage and how it was beneficial for them. Is that because they cannot function on their own in regards to feeding, clothing, and sustaining themselves? Or is it because the "system" is set up that way so that women or "wives" help sustain them and prop them up for "success"?

I also like how you connected "social networks" as a function of interconnectedness and as a function of one's well being. As we are more inter-connected we can empathize with our various differences and connect with our various similar human conditions. This helps elevate some of the "us" vs. "them" mentality that we have been living off of for many years. Suddenly time and space have become instantaneous and that has reshaped our beliefs and our conceptualization of the "other".

I agree that despite our connectedness there will be a backlash of chaos and destruction from those who are fearful of this coming age of interconnectedness (or Age of Aquarius). The old ways will demand a return to its former existence, that of the clinched fist.

The only overall comment I want to pose to you as a "gay man" is the role of gender in your discussion. I know your title is "How Women Will Change the World" but as a man, who has "feminine aspects" of empathy, compassion, understanding and interrelatedness, I wanted to question the defining factors of man vs. woman. Could we say, or extrapolate, that it is traditionally feminine aspects, (and name them as qualities much like archetypes) as a way to "change the world," instead of having them solidified in one gender versus the other? Not that I disagree with your assessment as overall the analysis is probably true. But being one on the fringe, or the in-between I think there is an opportunity to look beyond gender as a qualifying factor and an opportunity to get out of binary opposites. To be honest I know many women who have masculine attributes and do not exemplify the feminine principles that you bring to light. I also similarly know many men who have (myself included--though you can decide!) "feminine principles" that would bring about change in our current paradigm. I offer this as another avenue of thought, not as a criticism.

I really enjoyed reading your essay. At Pacifica I realized we don't always get to hear each other's ideas, and connections, nor each other's papers. I think we really missed out on what we each had to say, especially how we write! I hope this is helpful. I look forward to more essays! Thank you for sharing. I think this can go on your blog!

Be well Grandmother. Thanks again!

Love, Peter (Plessas)

Leah:
Some additional thoughts that I couldn't as easily articulate in the group:

1. I think it's not a good sign that the number of male college graduates is falling. I take this to be a failure of the educational system, especially for younger boys, when the different learning styles between the genders is so pronounced. I hate to pin the future of life on earth on the failure of men to be as highly educated as women.

2. I too am optimistic about the Third World through the empowerment of women. However, I'm more likely to ascribe the success of making micro-loans to women to their traditional roles as home-makers and child-caregivers, not to an innate advantage in empathic capability. While there may be profound differences between male and female neurophysiology, the mind is very plastic and can be adapted to almost any role the society makes available. Witness male nurses and stay-at-home dads; female astronauts, CEO's, lawyers and scientists / mathematicians.

3. There is a new book out called "The Evolution of God" by an agnostic journalist who argues that the Abrahamic religions have encouraged a fitful but real journey toward better moral behavior in human relationships. Using game theory, he characterizes this journey as moving from reliance on win-lose models (I kill your tribe or am killed) to win-win models (I empower women in third-world countries thus making myself and family safer). I think this is an interesting hypothesis, and explains the situation as well as a systematize / empathize dialectic. [One might claim that win-win models are more "feminine", but I wouldn't.]

4. As I feebly attempted to advance during the meeting, dismantling the structures of patriarchy (if that's the main culprit) -- it's laws, institutions, and rewards systems -- is a big challenge, and has no real scaled-up models in the modern world to use as patterns. Whether the vestiges of patriarchy can be expunged from the US Constitution and etc without revolution or catastrophe is anyone's guess. Nevertheless, I applaud your hopefulness, and believe that hope is essential to our survival as a species. While many (such as J. Hillman, R. Niebuhr) have argued that hope is not warranted, neither can we make the hard decisions and sustain a movement for change without hope. And a hopeful vision is needed to mobilize the masses. So if patriarchy cannot be dismantled without a belief in the ascendancy of the feminine brain hemisphere, then count me in. And I will continue to celebrate the return of "the goddess" to the religious traditions of which I am a leader.

Thanks for sharing and including me in your company.

Yours, Rev. Ted (Lau)