Talking Bollocks

I would like to invite women to play a significant role in helping to orchestrate a better future for the planet and all who occupy it – humankind and animals alike. All of nature, for that matter.

If we continue to pursue a path of negativity, an apocalypse could be the outcome. To avoid that happening, we need to make more conscious efforts to think, speak and act positively to create a more peaceful, compassionate and harmonious future. By developing a more positive outlook on life we could in the future create a haven on earth.

Well, how can we women play a significant role in making the changes which will improve the quality of life on this planet?

1. Firstly, I think we need to return to the qualities of the goddess. The god, I feel, has outlived its time, a time of wars and destruction, a lack of regard for the planet and an abundance of greed and selfishness.

The god or masculine energy – yang – needs to be replaced or rebalanced by the energy of the female – yin, the nurturing and compassionate.

In order to achieve a balance which could significantly improve the quality of life on this planet these are the changes I would like to suggest.

Bring wars to an end so that we may live in harmony with all of our brothers and sisters regardless of background, nationality, skin colour or status.

Wars have been perpetrated by men since time immemorial and continue in this so called age of enlightenment. With more women in positions of influence in decision making, a more peaceful environment could develop over time, changing future generations of men from a war like to a more peaceful harmonious species.

Another of my suggestions is to have a closer look at the effects religion has had on society as a whole.

Religion is a system introduced and organised by men and if looked at more closely is quite disturbing. For example:

God is portrayed as being male

Woman (Eve) was created from the rib of a man (Adam)

It was the woman (Eve) who disobeyed the word of the Lord and ate the ‘fruit of the tree’ and was cast out of the garden along with the man (Adam).

Men were given the freedom to ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’ (Genesis 9) whereas the woman was told by the Lord ‘I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you – Genesis 3-16.

As one continues to read Genesis there is little mention of daughters, but sons were constantly being portrayed.

Until quite recently, women were not allowed to be ordained as priests (priestesses?) Even now, the Catholic church continues to forbid women from being ordained. Although religion has been around for a very long time, have we stopped to consider how much or how little it has served us?

Religion over the centuries has been the cause of countless brutal wars and remains the cause up to the present day. Because of our advanced technology regarding the war machinery, far more people are being killed as a result with little regard for civilians. Men’s yang energy is one of the likely causes of this aggressive behaviour.

It is my belief that a good strong healthy seed of spirituality was implanted in each and every one of us at birth, but has sadly been contaminated by religion.

Religion was introduced into our lives at a very early age, either by our parents, our teachers or the church. When we look more closely at the teachings of religion, there is more fear taught than hope.

Fear is one of the most negative of emotions and seems to have a much stronger influence on the minds of young children than the more positive emotion of hope.

As children we are force fed religion and at that early age we are not equipped with the discerning faculties to make the distinction between religion and spirituality. They know of no way of regurgitating the religious teachings as they grow older and as a result they pass the teaching on to their children when they become adults.

Children have a natural tendency to live in the moment, but as they grow older they seem to lose that ability and learn instead to live in fear. Fear of doing or saying the wrong thing and from the religious point of view, there is fear of going to hell.

I speak of no one ‘brand’ of religion, but religion across the board.

2 While we are considering change, why not abolish marriage altogether. Give couples the choice, without denying them any possible benefits, to consider a binding contract for a specific length of time which can be renewed when they come to the end of the said contract.

I see marriage as a form of slavery – ‘my’ husband, ‘my’ wife! One should have the freedom to live and love without the feeling of ownership hanging over one. Let me quote this passage which is a part of the marriage ceremony: ‘until death do us part’. This is another stumbling block in a marriage ceremony. We have to remember that nothing is permanent, including marriage.

One can put one’s best efforts in trying to maintain a happy, peaceful and loving marriage for as long as one can, but nothing remains static. Everything around us is changing all the time and so are we humans. Marriage is no exception.

It would be an ideal situation if both parties in a marriage changed in the same ways and at the same time and remained compatible. This, no doubt, happens, it seems, in some cases but obviously not in all as we see from the increasing number of divorces year by year.

It is no less an insult on the part of politicians who try to bribe couples to stay together by offering monitory incentives. Whatever the incentives I think it is a grave insult. We have to think of the impact on children in a family where there is no love between partners but constant conflicts.

What I think, is for us to recognise our strong procreative instincts. One of the most powerful instincts in most women is to have a child. In men their most powerful instinct is to ‘sow their seed’. The institute of marriage, organised by religion, has created deceit in men who lie to their wives about their movements when the need to ‘sow their seed’ becomes pressing.

Children are extremely delicate creatures who need as much quality of life as possible in their early childhood. Having to adjust to both the male and female energies at such an early stage of their development cannot be easy for them.

As the female energy is all encompassing – loving, gentle, kind and nurturing, children thrive better in such an environment without having to adjust to the male energy which tends to be more destructive.

Now don’t get me wrong. I do not hate men. On the contrary, I cannot begin to think what life would be like without them. But we have to recognise the difference between the male and female energies and allow our children to benefit from them at the appropriate times.

We have to think of the impact of our behaviour on our children. Perhaps it would be better for couples to separate amicably for the sake of the health and well being of their children than to stay together in a loveless atmosphere, shrouded in continuous conflict.

Contract unions between consenting adults could replace marriage.

In the first instance, couples could elect to stay together for a specific length of time, eg seven years, under a legally binding document. At the end of that period, if they were able to maintain a strong loving relationship, they could consider renewing the contract, the length of which could be agreed between them.

We all know of the seven year itch. After a period of time the itch may become unbearable, in which case the couple could decide to live apart and not renew the contract. The children would remain the responsibility of both parties even in this situation.

In some African tribes, children of both sexes are brought up solely by their mothers until about the age of seven when the male children are sent to live with their fathers in order to learn male skills.

This seems like an excellent arrangement as both male and female children benefit from the female yin energy in their formative years, not only from their mothers, but from all females in their environment.

Although this system is unlikely to be replicated in our sophisticated western society, there is much from which we could learn and perhaps a modified system adapted.

3 The next change I would like to see are women reclaiming their bodies.

We read about women in developing countries who are encouraged or, more likely, forced to abort female foetuses. This is not acceptable.

Women should retake control of their bodies and not be influenced by their partners or parents. To abort a female foetus simply to perpetuate cultural demands, in favour of a male child, in order to carry on the family name, or to be able to fight for their country as adults, or for whatever other spurious reason, should not be allowed to continue. This sort of pressure and procedure can create untold damage to a woman’s psyche.

Men have both the X and Y factors in the sperm and are therefore responsible for determining the sex of the foetus. But it is the woman who bears the foetus and should be the one to make the decision as to whether she wishes to bring the gestation period to its normal conclusion or to abort the foetus. This should be wholly the decision of the woman.

If this trend were allowed to continue, future generations of men will be deprived of females with which to procreate. What then? Let us be a bit more far sighted and stop this unacceptable trend in its tracks.

- Hilda Carni