The Gender Question(Charles E.J. Moulton) THE GENDER QUESTION


by Charles E.J. Moulton


First of all, let me point out how much I admire women. That must be stated and respected as a given. A man is only as strong as the woman who is at his side. Also: most women have a caring quality that sometimes is independent of if they are soft or strong or tender or tough. I have seen incredibly tough women, tougher than any man could be, who take the word “care” so seriously that it borders on religion. The next thing is that a female body, in its most elegant form, really is a work of art: curved, gentile, versatile and impressive. Women are life givers, life savers, life preservers.

Hats off to them.

We also must point out that I believe in reincarnation. That means, of course, that I believe first and foremost in the soul and that the soul is genderless in its definition. I am sure that I was a woman in a previous life, which means that I ultimately am as much to reward or blame for the information and opinions stated in this article.

In his book “Conversations with God,” Neale Donald Walsch claims that in order to be born as a woman you need to be spiritually evolved.


This fact is embedded in every woman. Maybe it is genetic, maybe it’s spiritual. I am not sure. What this means, however, is that men in this day and age are dealing with a highly explosive problem: the validity of their own masculinity. Their roles are changing fundamentally. Now, I am asking the women reading this to try and open up their senses and their minds and their spirits. Imagine yourself having had many, many lives and that you even might have previously been men, women and animals or other creatures on other planets we know nothing of in our present form. This means that you have to be open to see our current sociological infrastructures as simple symptoms of historical shifts. This is not an attack on the female gender or even an utmost uplifting reward for the female gender. It is merely an acute account of what is going on the western world. What is going on in India and in the third world is a different issue, but that thing is a kind of mirror image of our society. We should fight that kind of inequality in the fiercest manner possible.


Women have been abused and misused for centuries. Medieval scholars and clerics were actually debating if women had souls. That made the existence of the female Pope Joan, discovered sometime in the early Middle Ages, an amazing accomplishment on the part of the woman in question. Women like Christine de Pisan, Hildegard von Bingen, Joan of Arc or Saint Birgitta are admirable, to say the least. These women are testaments to female strength in a highly conservative era designed to crush them. These women had real strength. Anybody can be born a king and ride triumphantly at the head of an army and win. But have a thousand old men screaming at you and still come out a winner, then you have real strength.


The real problem begins now and this time we are dealing with something that is as anonymous and as secret as the Protocols of the Twelve Wise Men of Zion. Well, almost.


I have heard it a million times. As a musician, spontaneous projects are an everyday occurrence. “Well,” the colleague replies, “I have to talk to my wife, choose the right moment, catch her at the right time. Maybe then it will work.”

Logical. Perfectly logical. Family members have commitments, must be faithful and loyal. That is not even the issue. What I am asking is this: why do men today have to be afraid of their wives? When did that happen? Has it always been that way? A colleague of mine verified that fact. He told me that all men are afraid of their wives. Is this right? Should it be this way?
Because a woman’s rage hath no fury. I don’t know if I am quoting the phrase right here. Maybe I am completely wrong in my memory of the saying, but the fact remains: when a woman gets angry, plates and cups fly across the room.

No, that is not a cliché. I have seen it happen.


I am not saying that the anger these women feel is unfounded. I am simply saying that the anger causes male fear and that this fear causes men to be unfaithful. So, accordingly, these awful websites like Meet2Cheat and HaveAnAffair, or whatever they’re called, would not exist if men and women would talk to each other.

Yes, talk.
Not scream, not yell, not cry, not holler.
Talk.
Like human beings. About faults, about guilt, about hurt feelings and about improvements, realizing doubts and worries and duties and faults.
Talk.


The problem is first and foremost that we have been building up houses that are founded on muddy ground. There are several different lies that work against each other here.
First of all, it is true that fidelity is a necessity. A child needs faithful parents. It is, however, false that sex is a sin. Read the bible. Their sin was not sex, it was their awareness that they were naked. Nowhere in the bible is it mentioned that Adam and Eve’s apple was seduction or sex. The downfall was their problem with nudity, their shame was shame itself. Simple and yet complicated.

We are lucky to live in a time that is open enough to realize that sex is not a sin.

Think about it, it is logical. Sex is the means with which we are created. If we didn’t like it, we wouldn’t feel drawn to having sex. So we have to like it. The problem begins when people or parents or clerics or teachers say that sex only is made for creating babies. It can’t be.
That was the reason for the 200 000 prostitutes in Victorian London. This supposedly prude and well-behaved society was only well-behaved on the outside. Jack the Ripper was an unfortunate aspect of this very suppressed society, where the women of this new provincial upper class were expected to be decorations in corsets and nothing more. Dracula by Bram Stoker was basically a tale of how dangerous sex could be.
Of course, when misused. But so can alcohol and drugs. You can even use a spoon or a hand to kill, but it doesn’t mean that the spoon is genuinely bad.


I am pulling this discussion into the endless, but the Victorian unwillingness to deal with sexuality is the foundation of the female emancipation we have today. That is the reason why everyone should know a little about history. Otherwise people become like sleepwalkers: completely oblivious to the reason why things are happening the way they are happening. It’s Yin and Yang, cause and effect.


The First World War was the cataclysm of the Old World. Monarchies tumbled like grass mounds in the desert. The Suffragette movement, the Charleston, the Youth Culture of the 50’s, the Sexual Revolution, the Free Love-movement and the Pornographic Web World we have today: all of those things are just natural causes that were logical effects of the decay of the conservative world.

Now, here is the real problem: it can easily be illustrated with a conversation I overheard between two girlfriends in a subway train in Hamburg back in 2003.

“My boyfriend is so stupid,” the girl told her friend, “but he does everything for me so I keep him.”

Keep him? Huh? You mean like a toy? Girl, you don’t own no one!
Now, you might think this is an occurrence that seldom becomes reality. The fact of the matter, though, is that relationships within the context of the western world are built on the foundation of keeping a lid on a male dominance. The women that live today have not experienced the extremities of that male dominance, but the group karma (the mutual collective memories and the duties that parents pass on to their children) is still here. Today’s mothers have heard the stories about women’s difficulties in the past.
In other countries we still have these incredibly difficult circumstances: suppressed women in the Middle East, arranged marriages in India and Third World rape.


Western women, rich and well-to-do women with comparatively many assets, use these tidbits of information to justify that they are afraid that their males will dominate them. Nobody wants to be dominated. Everybody wants freedom, but they also need love. That balancing act is a tough issue.
Every society works on its own premises, however. Today’s Germans should not pay for what the Nazis did and still be able to be nice to foreigners. Likewise, today’s men should not have to pay the price of being dominated within the home and never be able to speak openly about it.
Western society is spoiled, let’s face it. We can spend lots of money and still have a minus in the bank. It is then quite easy to point your finger at other countries and claim that you are fighting for gender equality. You don’t have to fight for it. Not really.


Now, let me point out that gender equality is a necessity. If that’s what it were. The newspaper The Guardian claims that many British authorities ignore male victims of abuse. These claims are often not taken seriously. Fact of the matter is that two out of five victims of domestic abuse are men. We are talking about an estimated 600 000 male victims of domestic abuse annually in Britain alone, but only 4266 women prosecuted for it. In 2007, men made up 43,4 % of all domestic abuse victims in Britain alone.

Juxtaposed to that are the disturbing figures of women being paid less than men for the same work. So we see that the genders keep using each other. I have, on the other hand, seen too many men sit by too many tables and say too many things and be completely ignored. Too many women have spoken badly about their husbands in front of them, acting as if they were not there. Some wives comment about their men’s faults in front of them, sometimes in very demeaning manner. That, of course, does not account for most women. If you do witness that behavior, however, please comment on it. You would do the same for the woman. I know many partners, men and women alike, who take decades of vocal abuse by their partners and end up completely broken people. Please, please, please do not let that happen. We want to help each other, not ruin each other. Regardless of gender.

That is society working its way into people’s minds, clichés of masculine disability with words making its way. Articulation or a way with words is neither gender based nor based on creed or color It is an intellectual and educative issue.


Basically, we should all respect each other, men and women alike.
We should also realize that we are putting the faults of past centuries upon the weak shoulders of our youth. We should teach our girls to be strong and defend themselves when the time is right. We should teach them to fight for equality and fairness. We should teach them to let their husbands speak when they want to, so that they can speak and be listened to. We should teach our boys to be gentlemen and respect their wives.


It’s all about respect. Remember that you can’t invest in a relationship. You don’t own each other. You can’t control each other. What you try to control and dominate will fight for its freedom and you will ultimately loose it. Give your spouse some freedom and you will never have to worry about him or her being unfaithful again. He or she simply will be. What you set free will come to you automatically if it loves you.


Now go out there and inspire and love each other.
Promise me that.

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