For millennia, womanhood had been perceived mythical. In ancient civilizations, the female form was worshipped for her procreative ability, as the living image of magical Nature. However, after the discovery of the seed transferred the creative source to the male element, her importance perished. Man rose from secondary to dominant element, with Eve recast as the temptress, enticing Adam.
Socially women then became liability, to cloister, protect and rescue within the community, and the booty to capture from the enemy and defile. In many regions of the world even today, groups continue to prey on their fear, weakness and vulnerability.
Socially women then became liability, to cloister, protect and rescue within the community, and the booty to capture from the enemy and defile. In many regions of the world even today, groups continue to prey on their fear, weakness and vulnerability.
Plato’s rationalism attributed “disease-like” emotions to animals and women. Despite periodic attempts to emancipate from connotations, female stereotypes have resisted change. Truth is the emotional mind may actually make them tick. Female hormones alter mental functioning along with the development and maturation of the body. Prolactin, for instance, that causes milk formation in lactating mothers, also generates maternal feelings – perhaps Nature’s unique way of ensuring propagation. Periodic change is a constant in the lives of women. Every stage in life from childhood to senescence biorhythmically produces a new person.
Modern scientific findings have located two thinking pathways in brain circuitry – the slow, rational, unemotional pathway generally favoured by men, and through emotions, the intuitive route associated with women that swiftly tunes into the here-and-now. Because of their inherent adaptability, women may be more adept at reinventing themselves. Words like ‘fickle’ to describe the female psyche, demonstrate the inability of society to understand or keep up with change.
And yet, society bestows on motherhood the role of custodian and perpetuator of family culture and traditions. Its smallest unit, the family, is the learning ground for beliefs of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, and norms of organized living. Generation to generation, they become customs or traditions of how things are or have always been. Mothers socialize children into the culture appropriate for survival through daily activities.
The ability to think, communicate and act in particular ways gains membership in the family and ultimately in society. The traditional gender identification and learning ensure male leadership. As representatives of the Earth Mother, women are expected to subserve and bear all adversity with fortitude, including debasement, violence and rape for the 'good' of others, especially males. In traditional India, sacrifice is a big part of this care-giving role. Hutson indicates that feminine passivity and rape fantasies may become a devious method of control.
On the other hand, in the feminine perspective, education earlier sought for betterment of future family, is now conjoined with employment for women's economic independence and self-actualizing. Ah yes, this forward movement of the women’s groups has been coming for some time, especially in Asia where women in greater numbers are changing certain perspectives; now also asserting their rights to the holders of traditional orthodoxy.
An article published on the Strategy+Business website predicts that by 2020, women previously stunted, under-leveraged, or suppressed around the world (e.g., Asia and Africa), would be “emerging participants in the global marketplace”. Many women in many parts of the world are contributing to this unique grouping. Choices, even of their life partners, are distancing from those of their mothers. The phenomenal success of Twilight, X-men, etc., storylines among girls and women demonstrates that “mortal men no longer cut it!” Women are learning to be in control of their clothing, their movements, their preferences and their lives.
Multiculturalism is now reality, increasing the overlap and interplay of differing contexts. These challenge ethical values, personally, professionally and culturally. ‘Sameness’ is no longer a given within racial boundaries; ‘differences’ between them is also less typical than before. Furthermore, in an increasingly business-driven world, the organization’s socio-cultural context/dynamics greatly impacts individual motivation and action. Social demographic diversity pressures review of the common standards of acceptable/unacceptable behaviours to enable populations to live together in harmony.
The assumption is that the influence of the “third billion” fraction of players will drive the advancement of the whole representative group. However, another emerging trend is that the nuclear social unit, derived from the traditional joint family structure, is now giving way to fractured families – generally, working mothers with children. Despite their economic upsurge, the woman’s perspective is overlooked and child upbringing clearly remains her individual responsibility.
Traditional conditioning and self-actualizing needs collide, and bereft of security, reassurance and social support, ‘empowered’ women undergo emotional distress and trauma that adversely affect their thinking and decision-making capabilities at home and at work. Many women suffer role and identity crises because, despite globalisation, the gender context is slow to change and male leadership remains the norm. Concomitantly, stress-related health issues of women are on the rise: autoimmune, cancer, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, gynaecological, and mental health.
Men comfortable with the social hierarchy are unlikely to want change. Feminine romantic fantasy has been cast in stereotypical moulds – the ‘glass slipper’, the ‘prince charming’, the ‘nobility of care-giving’, the ‘goodness of sacrifice’, and so on, that perpetrate the traditional verbal/nonverbal processes confirming female subservience through new generations.
Women around the world approach motherhood in similar ways - with focus on protecting and nurturing their children. However, those impacted by unexpected losses, are shocked into new reality. Their gender upbringing centred on belongingness within family and social structure, is shattered. Forced by circumstances into previously unknown environments, maternal instincts stimulate their intrinsic changeability, driving the survival of the fledgling family outside mainstream, despite the trauma.
Women need to themselves break the generational social learning. They now have opportunity to overcome conditioned fears. Mothers heading fractured families, thus freed of cloistering chains, may discover “unique” and “progressive” potentialities. Finding within the self the confidence to think and behave creatively, they can strive for equality, conceptualizing new implicit theories to work by. Strength derives from having coped with being sheared off the grid. Astuteness developed from overcoming their emotionally seared experiences would positively contribute to the social evolution of this disorganized section of society.
References for this post:
Women around the world approach motherhood in similar ways - with focus on protecting and nurturing their children. However, those impacted by unexpected losses, are shocked into new reality. Their gender upbringing centred on belongingness within family and social structure, is shattered. Forced by circumstances into previously unknown environments, maternal instincts stimulate their intrinsic changeability, driving the survival of the fledgling family outside mainstream, despite the trauma.
Women need to themselves break the generational social learning. They now have opportunity to overcome conditioned fears. Mothers heading fractured families, thus freed of cloistering chains, may discover “unique” and “progressive” potentialities. Finding within the self the confidence to think and behave creatively, they can strive for equality, conceptualizing new implicit theories to work by. Strength derives from having coped with being sheared off the grid. Astuteness developed from overcoming their emotionally seared experiences would positively contribute to the social evolution of this disorganized section of society.
References for this post:
- Aquirre, DeAnne & Sabbagh, Karim. “The Third Billion” strategy-business.com. Organizations & People. Strategy+Business. May 10, 2010.
- Hansen, Bitsy. “Mommy Wars: Real Issue or Media Myth?” hunch.com. Hunch. March 4, 2010.
- Hutson, Matthew. “Why Do Women Have Erotic Rape Fantasies?” psychologytoday.com. Blogs Psyched! The science of psych. Psychology Today. May 28, 2008.
- Mohammed Wajihuddin. “Burning burqas and bras? Nah. Enter the Islamic feminist” indiatimes.com. The Times of India. 10 July 2010.
- Simmons, Amy. “Vampire romance: mortal men no longer cut it” abc.net.au. ABC News. August 12, 2009.
- “Stress Related Diseases” bazallo.com. Women’s Health Blog. May 08, 2009.
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