Before I go any farther, I want to clarify that I am not speaking of all men. There are a lot of good, strong, protector-type, kind, compassionate men out there.
But I am speaking of THE MAN – an archetypal dominator who has held the purse strings and the control the past few thousand years.
THE MAN who puts the almighty dollar above all else and doesn’t care who he has to step on in order to do so.
I’m sure you can think about quite a few. I would also include some women who behave like THE [DOMINATOR] MAN. The prevalence of this thinking has led to the spot we currently find ourselves in.
Black Friday is one of the most crucial sales periods for many retailers, with some earning a significant portion of their annual revenue during the holiday season. Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2024 alone generated billions of dollars in online sales.
Binding of the norse mythological wolf, Fenrir. From Guerber, H. A. (Hélène Adeline) (1909). Myths of the Norsemen from the Eddas and Sagas. London : Harrap. This illustration is on page 92. Digitized by the Internet Archive Wikimedia Commons
When I was a shamanic trainee, our group spent a lot of time and focus on the “beast within” This concept has had many expressions in different circumstances – the shadow side (Jung), the dark side (Star Wars), letting loose the “dogs of war” (William Shakespeare), reptilian instincts (psychology).
Mythology has many stories about this phenomenon. In our group, we studied the stories as a way to learn what we must do in our own lives to tame the beast so we had this energy available to use the energy without letting the crueler destructive aspects of the beast run rampant. Here are two of the stories as we discussed them.
Fenrir Wolf
Fenrir Wolf is a deity from the Norse tradition who was known and feared as a great monster. Tyr was the only God in Asgard brave enough to tend to Fenrir. For a long time, Tyr fed and cared for him. Eventually, though, Fenrir grew too large to handle and began running throughout the land called Midgard, killing both gods and people. Odin called a council to discuss how Fenrir could be slain.
I’ve often thought that we (in the USA) have been somewhat, albeit reluctantly, willing to discuss and perhaps even change our minds, behavior, policies, and laws when confronted about the long-lived presence of racism in our local and national institutions. However, when it comes to misogyny—not so much.
Shirley Anita ChisholmSt. Hill (1924 – 2005), was an American politician who, in 1968, became the first black woman to be elected to Congress. “Chisholm represented a district centered in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1972, she became the first black candidate for a major-party nomination for President of the U.S. and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Throughout her career, she was known for taking ‘a resolute stand against economic, social, and political injustices’ as well as being a strong supporter of black civil rights and women’s rights” (Wikipedia).
Chisholm noted that “…she had faced much more discrimination during her New York legislative career because she was a woman than for her race” (Wikipedia). Why are not more of us aware of Chisholm’s confession?
It’s been over a week now since I first heard the news on MPR that four people had been shot in their homes near a golf course in Brooklyn Park where my son once lived. My first thought was that I was glad my son was no longer living there. A little while later I learned that this was not a random act of violence, but rather political violence targeting two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses. Gradually the details came in. The lawmakers were Democratic lawmakers, former Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and State Senator John Hoffman and their spouses. And then came the tragic news that Hortman and her husband had been killed. As I drove to pick up a friend to attend the “No Kings” protest downtown, I listened to the news reports of warnings not to attend the protests out of an abundance of caution, with the shooter still at large, as well as the voices of protest leaders saying the tragic events of the morning only strengthened their resolve. In the first few moments of the protest, we observed a moment of silence for Hortman and her husband, and for the recovery of Hoffman and his wife. The entire rally felt like a strange mix of grief and rebellious revelry.
As the identification and eventual arrest of the suspected shooter became known, the tragic events took on an even more ominous tone. The suspect, Vance Boelter, is a far-right Christian nationalist extremist who had preached against abortion and gay rights. He was schooled in his religious beliefs at the Christ for Nations Institute in Dallas, Texas[i] and was aligned with a charismatic Christian movement whose leaders, in the words of The Atlantic columnist Stephanie McCrummen, “speak of spiritual warfare, an army of God, and demon-possessed politicians.”[ii]
“ . . . the uprising of [our] nature is but the effort to give to [our] whole being the opportunity to expand into all [our] essential nobility.” – Sarah Grimké [i]
It wasn’t the first time I had stood in protest on that street corner. I’m sure it won’t be the last. But the gathered crowd was by far the largest I’d been a part of there, covering not just the plaza on the western corner of Lake Avenue and Superior Street, but all the other corners as well, and up and down the sidewalks for half a block. We were a motley crew, from young people perhaps at their first protest to the many well-seasoned grey-haired. Though I met a few indigenous friends there, I was struck by the overwhelming perceived whiteness of the crowd. I imagine Black and Brown people were more reluctant to join a street protest where they might be targeted. Indeed, on my way home I heard a report that the number of “driving while Black and Brown” traffic stops has increased in recent days.
Standing in the wet snow, chanting, “This is what democracy looks like!” and “What do we want? Democracy! When do we want it? Now!,” the atmosphere was more of a party than of a wake.[ii] Yet, when the chants began, I found myself near tears, wanting to sob rather than shout. As some report seeing their lives flash before their eyes when facing imminent death, I saw my protest life flashing before my eyes – all the anti-war marches – from Vietnam to Iraq to the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza, the marches for the ERA, the Take Back the Night marches, the MMIW marches, the Standing Rock and Line 3 protests, the Women’s Marches, the march for science, the vigils after school shootings and nightclub shootings and the murder of George Floyd, the rallies to protect trans rights, . . . the list goes on and on. And I felt like weeping, for all these efforts to bring peace and justice and equality to this land were being trampled on and were under threat of being destroyed.
Moderator’s Note: Below is a letter from Mahmoud Khalil in its entirety, dictated over the phone from Immigrations and Customs (ICE) detention in Louisiana. A permanent resident taken by the government for his political speech. The phrase “who has the right to have rights?” was coined by Hannah Arendt who escaped Nazi Germany and wrote poignantly and pointedly about the rise of fascism. While on the surface, this letter doesn’t have an obvious link to FAR’s mission, we feel it is deeply intertwined. Who has the right the have rights? Women once had no rights and it appears we are losing them again at breakneck speed. Immigrant’s rights in this country are being stripped also at breakneck speed. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. If we can’t answer “EVERYONE” to Arendt and Khalil’s question, then human rights mean nothing for any of us.
Wikimedia Commons: Protests in Thomas Paine Park against the detention of Palestinian activist and Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil. [SWinxy]
My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.
Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.
Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities.
On March 8, I was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours — I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.
ICE has been doing mass round-ups of anyone who looks like “the other.” The people cheered. “This is my country,” they shouted to the deportees. “Go back where you came from.” The people are flush with excitement thinking this is what we voted for, meanwhile ignoring that they came from someplace too. We know this is a publicity stunt. How? Dr. Phil tagged along on one of round-ups. Newly minted secretary Kristi Noem also took her role in the spotlight attending one in NYC and saying dehumanizing words I will not repeat here.
We’ve seen this playbook before. Creating chaos, disorientation and suffering for political points, TV or other publicity ratings. It doesn’t end well – EVER!
The NY Times had a report of how deportees were treated in a dehumanizing manner, being held on a broken plane in the Amazonian heat with no AC, people shackled, children were on board. There are always people available to treat other people as less than human. “I was just doing my job.” “I was only following orders.”
We’ve seen this playbook before. It doesn’t end well – EVER!
First, understand without doubt: I agree with the anti-genocide protesters (and the progressives who are frustrated about our rigged economy). I couldn’t agree more that we need an arms embargo against Israel. I support the progressives who are protesting at Harris rallies, saying they refuse to vote for any candidate who does not commit to an arms embargo, so that no more US arms will be sent to wage ethnic cleansing against the civilians (mostly women and children) of Palestine. Harris has advocated for a ceasefire, she has met with the protesters, and she has responded politely to their protests against the genocide. But when they continue to chant that they won’t vote for her, she responds, “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote in the introduction to her book The Women’s Bible:
The Bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgement seat of Heaven, tried, convicted and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity, a period of suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man’s bounty for all her material wants . .
We are facing the long-term results of these biblical writings. This upcoming election is so unsettling because it is showing patriarchy in all its ugliness. We see how this is being played out, especially regarding abortion, but in all areas of the functioning of women’s bodies. The reason abortion is at the foundation of it all is that the drive to police women’s bodies is the crux which justifies all sorts of cruelties. It is the same with racism. These are issues that span the pantheon of rights; human, economic, healthcare, bodily autonomy. It takes a police state to quell all of these.
Feminism and Religion 