Keeping a Broad Focus
With our twenty-four our news cycle we become obsessed with the story of the moment. Such a focus means we often do not see the big picture. Women’s issues are not to be overlooked even amidst our strife with autocracy. In America there is a struggle for the maintenance of women’s health care. In the Middle East women are struggling against their invisibility while they are being cloaked from sight. The stories are varied across the world but hold a common theme of suppression and resistance.
Which leads us to the necessity to question what is happening in the larger picture. In part, the larger picture is conveyed by Sally Armstrong in her book Uprising: A New Age Is Dawning for Every Mother’s Daughter. I’m a huge fan of this book because it helps us shape and understand the breadth of what is happening.
The Struggle with Change
In our day to day existence we often miss the impact of change even as it settles upon us personally. Today I sit here writing on my computer which did not exist not so long ago. I wanted to confirm the reference to Sally Armstrong’s book and had it within seconds. Looking back I see asymptotic changes in many areas. And I believe such changes are not merely happening in the world of technology. How we deal with them is another matter.
Culture Sweeps Us Along
Leslie White, the distinguished anthropologist, defined culture for us and referred to it as an extrasomatic stream since it flows outside of humankind. It is, indeed, a process and a stream which has a life of its own as it flows in us and around us. Calculus was “invented” by three people at the same time when they were not in contact with each other. The basis for calculus was in the stream.
And now we have a stream process which is impacting the roles of women which means all of us. I would contend that we have a process of incalculable meaning. This is not a battle for just one issue like equality of pay or reproductive rights. This is a monumental movement. After all of human history we are seeing women coming to power and that means true partnership with men.
Choosing the Core
It was precisely because of this groundswell that is becoming an asymptote that I chose women as the moving force in my trilogy of Gaia’s Majesty. Put it how you will, we are seeing something which will almost surely be transformational for humanity and the benefits we are only just now beginning to see. Women are more social, less inclined to put power first and offer a range of creativity among other things. As they rise amongst us it will surely have beneficial effects we can only dimly perceive. But it will involve monumental struggle. The shape of the transformation is yet to come into view.
What form of transformation do you want or expect?