Where have all the women gone?

And before you say it- I know- you were going to add a blog just as soon as you'd got the kids to bed and put the laundry on, and phoned your aunt to check she'd taken her medication, and popped round to your neighbour's to see what shopping you can get for her on your way back from work tomorrow....Must stop now. Have just reminded myself that I forgot to put the cotton wash on this morning.

I think men are more comfortable speaking up in situations where women are still trying to determine whether things are safe. Then, men set the tone, by virtue of being in the majority.  I think Wilber calls this 'Doninant Monad'. It means that those who are actually not that comfortable with the dominant style still have to play along, more or less. It tends to be discouraging for those who are in the minority.

Which makes me wonder whether women are actually in the minority on this list?  I do know that there often are fewer women in many integral contexts. Must be that purely rational approach that is transmitted by Integralism's original proponent Ken Wilber. I do believe there are people who I would call 'natural integrals', because they are integral in their thinking and processing without ever having heard of Ken Wilber. My suspicion is that they are not as 'top heavy' as Wilberites are, because they have not received this particular 'Wilber" transmission, as I am assuming all of us here have. 

In its natural occurrence, I think that Integralism would indeed re-integrate rationalism, but it would not have the extreme relative weight that it now has. It would be much more 'integral', in terms of mind, body, emotions, intuition.

The mind heaviness is something that men find especially attractive. Some women do, too, but many women will hesitate. So, this is were I think the male majority comes from.

Another reason for men being the majority at this point is that men just have a stronger urge 'to go where no one has gone before'. I think they really do. They also die more often at a younger age than women do. I think evolution has primed women to value safety more. While men are a bit more expendable, because they are not directly involved in raising the young to the point where they can reproduce, and therefore ensure the survival of those particular genes.

So men are able to take more risk. Which might end up being disastrous for a particular man, as he might get killed. This risk taking trait is of great value for the tribe though, as it enables men to fight wars of either aggression or defense against other tribes. Without the ability to fight wars the tribe would not survive. 

Interestingly enough I think originally the postmodern movement was also dominated by men. Even though that is supposed to be a 'feminine' level of development. Which means we can expect a shift to happen eventually.

How can we speed this up? Many men also will  be less comfortable when the dominant monad is strongly female. I think shifting numbers in some way would help, as Helen did here with starting this thread. Maybe we can find a way to create feminine 'niches,' where the numbers would be reversed.

Thanks Helen, starting this thread was a good idea.

Beate

I'm grateful to be invited into this discussion, and Helen, I admire psychosynthesis.  It was one of my main interests in my master's degree, along with Eugene Genedin's focusing.

Where have we gone?  I suspect you have hit it on the head with your addendum. Many women have multiple, conflicting values and roles.  They/we are busy living them!

Perhaps a more interesting question is where do we want to go?  I joined in hopes of finding/creating community.  I'd love to find it locally (Minneapolis, MN USA).  But it's a lovely question- what is our intent in this forum?  Other than the occasional shadow fun of "I get it better than you" (mentioned in passing by Schalk), what do we want to create here?  I'm curious what we-space we could resonate.

So, Helen, what do you want here?

I suppose, thinking about it (and maybe I should start thinking about it BEFORE I write these blogs..), that this forum was beginning to seem too male. Can there be such a thing as too male?! No, I think I must mean unbalanced in some way. Yes, at times I do think that there's a competitive streak about 'who's the most second tier', 'who understands integral the best', and that is probably more a male thing. Or, at least that's been my assumption, though I'm not saying I've not come across competitive women. I've noticed that when I put a query out about some concept, it's usually the men that come back with definite, rather authoritative sounding answers, whereas the women tend to come back with more questions. I'm grateful for any info I can get that aids my understanding, but I like more questions even better. I have rankled once or twice when I've felt I've been intellectually patronised, but I've not yet had a comment from a woman that's made me feel like that.

Furthermore, one of the things I really like about Ken Wilber is that he can render very complex and sophisticated concepts in easily understandable language. At first I thought that it was my intellect that was at fault that I didn't understand so many of the blogs, or the comments made on them. But hell - I teach adults at Postgrad level. I'm doing a Doctorate. I can't be that dumb. Is the density of some of the language used - mainly by men - on the forum a part of what has been called 'taking risks' in this thread? Or is it just an inabilty to get into the minds of your likely readers and write so that they can more easily understand?! Is this something that women are better at (having been used, or perhaps biologically programmed, to try to understand how our children /mates will hear us?)

What do I think the forum will get from more women contributing (or the same women contributing more often)? What do I think I personally will get from more women on the forum that I'm not getting now? Thank you for asking. I honestly hadn't asked myself that question. Consciously. I wonder why not?

I accept that though there is quite a distance between the traditional roles of male and female, there are a lot of us of both sexes clustered together in the middle of that continuum between the poles. A lot of women have more in common with a lot of men than they do with a lot of other women. And vice versa. But it was a woman, me, who pointed out that there is a dearth of women on the forum, and I must have done so because it was worrying me. Yes, it was worrying me. Even though I think I actually have more traditional male brain patterns than female, and most of my best friends over the years have been male. Because I think I'm worried by what it might mean when one sex is so under-represented on a site about integralism. AND I really want to read PRACTICAL stuff about how to evolve, and I don't want grandstanding and theorising and over-intellectualising to get in the way. Maybe I believe that with more women contributing, the grandstanding will be challenged, the theories will be applied to real life situations, the over-intellectualising will be pricked like a balloon. I want more real life examples of situations that will benefit from an integral viewpoint, and decisions that have been made. I want names. I want doubt. I want rounded flawed identities struggling with trying to take the world the next step, and willing to share their triumphs and failures. I want passion and I want despair shared. There is some of this, from men and women. What there is is more precious than rubies.

Maybe it doesn't need more women contributing for this to happen. Maybe it just needs women AND  men of a certain sort? And that sort is being put off?

Well, thanks for asking, and making me think about that. I still have a lot more thinking to do. Thank you to everybody who contributed. I hope it doesn't stop.

Love,

Helen