The feminist tipping point

The subject has come up: what is the difference between the tone of the Piscean Age and the Aquarian into which we now plunge head-long?

I discussed them amongst my friends, all of whom are well-educated, well-informed, and critical thinkers. We began by describing what we felt was different between what we FELT about living 6 months ago, and what we FELT now. Then, we pooled what we could of information about the Aquarian nature, and tried to sort out which of our observations about our feelings and observations about the turning of the age fitted that model without too much massaging. There was an almost perfect match. So, I went hunting to find some info from astrologers who might have given a more knowledgeable description, and I found http://www.bewaretheaquarianage.com/uploads/3/0/5/0/3050484/aquarian_age.pdf.

This piece of it worried me:


Masculine Energy:  
a. If denial of feminine continues in this atmosphere there will be no supporting basis and all aspects of feminine energy will be ignored, except basic physical sexual needs.
b. If feminine energy is accepted in its proper place it will provide a foundation for understanding for the next level of enlightenment.

examples:
a. Women will lose all social status. Intuitive aspects will become universally ignored.
Analysis will dominate all things – yet the “why” and inspiration will be absent.
The imagination will be derided more than ever before.
Love will be considered just emotion and chemistry – lust will take center stage.
Real self esteem will be lost with denial of half of self. 
Resulting inner chaos is highly destructive.
Imagine a world led by a bunch of run-amuck mad scientists aided by computers filled with misinformation and no sense of individual worth.
b. Women will become full and equal partners and participants in all aspects of society.
The intuitive will be powerfully linked with logic to open a new era of light and exploration.
Understanding of love will become clarified and separated from lust, sacrifice and emotional baggage.

It reminded me of the dire warnings of two great women I have listened to recently.

In 1999, Germaine Greer wrote a book "Whole Woman" where she bemoaned the failure of the feminist movement to uplift women to a position of self-value. She looks at the last decades of the 20th century and sees how women have become more sexualised and objectified than ever, that young women have turned to male traits to be powerful, and that rape statistics have not subsided for all the legislation that has passed through the western world. She berated women for their complicity in their disenfranchisement, their defeminisation, their dehumanisation - as did her predecessor, Wollstonecraft, 100 years before.

Next was Dr Frene Ginwala, the fabulous first Speaker of the House in the democratic South African parliament (now retired). A veteran of the human rights movement in SA, she looked back at the last 15 years in my country, and, addressing a hall full of senior school girls, warned them that their liberty was at stake to a degree similar to the disenfranchisement of their grandmothers. She too referenced statistics around violence towards women, the diminishment of women in top government positions. She pointed out that South African women (in general) are more in the power of traditional (patriarchal) leaders now than they have been for 60 years. (This would not worry me so much had I not had the opportunity to meet many of these traditional leaders in recent years - our elected president himself is a polygamist.)

This woke me up with a big start. It brought to mind the image of an Afghan woman that appeared on the cover of Time magazine, having had her ears and nose cut off under Sharia law.

And so I noticed this: as far and fast as women colonise the middle-management and small business owning ranks of the western economy, just so fast are women in other parts of the world being smothered in heartless, misogynistic bullying.

Perhaps there really is a watershed moment arising for women. If we do not make a firm and conscious effort to maintain the ground we've gained in self-determination, if we don't bring our daughters up to be strong and independently-minded, we will subject future generations to another era of suffering under the dark side of masculine domination.

In our country this year, the violent death of Anene Booysen has rekindled these issues in media debate. My daughter's school (the very same where Frene Ginwala proclaimed her warning) will stage a public demonstration of solidarity with the freedom-of-women movement - unprecedented in its 110 year history.

I salute you, Jeppe Girls. I hope to see solidarity of the same calibre from your brother schools.

Stand your ground, girls - your survival, and that of your daughters depends on it.