What a great read! And here's a piece that says essentially the same thing, by Anju Joy in her Unpopular Psychology Substack. She explains how pop psych celebrates women CEOs as the ultimate personifications of all feminist goals - yet doesn't have much to say about stay-at-home mums.
This is spot on. I have been thinking about this for years and have noticed trends that support your idea. I am going to apologize upfront because I am not a good writer, so please let me know if something I write does not come across clearly or make sense. I tend to be a macro thinker and experiencer and my intuitive senses notice things as anomalies and then speculate about the meaning of what I notice. If you are familiar at all with Iain McGilcrist his theories propose that the modern world as we know it has become the product of a right hemispheric brain bias. The neuroscience supports the theory that right hemispheric brain activity tends to be more aligned with the masculine. It tends toward predictability and efficiency and has little room for anything contrary to its own perceptions. We experience something, and our left hemisphere jumps right in and tries to interpret it for us. The research has shown that the right hemisphere if allowed to, has a more accurate interpretation of reality. The right hemisphere is more associated with creativity and intuition and is more associated with things natural to women. An example of how this shows up can be seen in architecture. In the pre-modern world, you see beauty as central to the construction of spaces. Grand Cathedrals with very inefficient motifs were seen as an extension of the human desire to connect the human to the felt experience of a place and how that stirs the inner senses(feminine). This can be seen all through Europe to this day. If you contrast that with the growth of the West and the Capitalistic spirit, you find buildings that feel like prisons. They are cold and efficient spaces that cater to the bottom line of profit. They are not meant to inspire any deeper sense of things at all. The deeper senses that people have are studied by marketers and are considered profit centers.
In the Christian spiritual traditions, you can see this. Besides the places of worship changing and becoming more masculine, you can see it in the tradition's disappearance of the Mother of Jesus. Mary used to play a very significant role in mediating the Christian experience. Intensely dogmatic hierarchies crush the feminine and more mystical side of the tradition and tend towards control of both the system and the narrative. Things like relics, the reality of angels, the actual presence of Christ in the communion elements etc, are virtually non-existent in the Protestant world.
The flat earth movement puzzled me until I read some of the content and watched some documentaries. In reality, it was more about pushing back on material science and moving toward a world where experience of things is more important than knowledge about things. After all, we don't experience the earth as round. We experience it as flat. Many people in that movement don't care about the science and don't take themselves that seriously.
If you take your point to be true, you can also see this in how our culture is railing against masculine hierarchy and blaming men for thriving in a system suited for them. To be at the top of these hierarchical systems is seen as a high achievement. Whatever your feeling about Jordan Peterson is, he has pointed this out repeatedly. I would propose that the abuse of power and the corrupting effect of power can be equally present in women. The system itself has that effect, and in a world where virtue and character are not encouraged, you will have people who are ill-prepared to handle power and the glory that comes with high positions.
The desire for equilibrium in perception and experience will continue to trend until we achieve some sort of balance between feminine and masculine sensibilities and we are able to celebrate both equally.
The folks talking about re-enchantment have their finger on this, in my opinion.
If you take this as true, things like you are noticing start to show up everywhere.
More people will be drawn to nature and the wild feminine. The occult with rise and a trend toward more Eastern spiritual traditions that will displace Western Christianity.
Pagan earth religions and witchcraft will grow in popularity. You are already seeing this with teen girls declaring themselves to be witches.
Anyway, I suppose I carried on too long here. I have noticed many other things on this topic, but I think I have already said more than I needed to. I am very excited to see how your new book emerges. I think I need to grab the first one today and start reading it.
Interesting insights and thanks for the add. Your commend of the 'wild' feminine is interesting and aligned with the essay coming out in two weeks about feminine 'chaos', and masculine 'order'.
This is incredibly powerful and that statement: "To be a successful woman you must be indistinguishable from a successful man," Gives words to an angst I've had that I can now push back against.
Wow thanks for nudging me to this great article! Your use of archetypal illustrations caused me to link this modern, industrial elevation of masculine values to Paul Kingsnorth’s writings on “The Machine.” I’m not enough of a fanatic to know whether he has written much on the male versus the female, but he used to be a pagan, and I know paganism is most popular with women due to its elevation of the goddess.
Glad you appreciated it. I really enjoyed yours too.
I have another on Chaos and Order about the masculine and feminine working together to create an antifragile entity if you're interested. My wife and I work together in exploring these ideas as we are raising two daughters to be strong women.
I have carefully read and analyzed the essay provided. Here's my analysis and proposed short video clip scripts based on the content:
Analysis of main points:
1. The essay argues that modern feminism has shifted towards making women indistinguishable from men, rather than celebrating feminine qualities.
2. The author contends that society values masculine traits over feminine ones, even in efforts to achieve gender equality.
3. The essay explores the historical and mythological importance of feminine divine figures and their unique roles.
4. The author suggests that we need to reclaim and revalue feminine qualities in society.
5. The piece touches on personal experiences and observations, including those of the author's wife.
Writing style observations:
- The author uses a conversational yet intellectual tone, mixing personal anecdotes with cultural and historical references.
- There's a provocative opening statement followed by a "grenade drop" metaphor to emphasize the controversial nature of the topic.
- The writing incorporates quotes and references to support arguments, showing a well-researched approach.
- The author uses rhetorical questions to engage the reader and prompt reflection.
- There's a balance between critique of current societal norms and appreciation for feminine qualities.
Short video clip scripts:
1. "The Forgotten Goddess" (45 seconds)
[Thoughtful tone, with a hint of curiosity]
"Throughout history, cultures celebrated the feminine divine - the Goddesses. These powerful figures weren't just naked forms, but embodiments of nature itself. Unlike their male counterparts, who derived power from social roles, the Goddesses operated in their own character. They were the transformers, carrying us from death to resurrection. But today, we've lost sight of this feminine power. We push women to be indistinguishable from men, ignoring the unique strengths they bring. Isn't it time we reclaimed the feminine divine and recognized its true value in our world?"
2. "The Motherhood Paradox" (40 seconds)
[Deliver with a mix of concern and irony]
"Here's a thought that might surprise you: what we call the gender pay gap is actually a motherhood gap. Women without children generally stay competitive with men in the workforce. But pregnancy? That's a game-changer. Society's solution? Make women more like men. We narrow biological differences with birth control and hormone treatments. We celebrate the 'girl boss' who embodies 'lunatic confidence.' But in doing so, are we truly valuing women, or just forcing them into a masculine mold?"
3. "Redefining Success" (35 seconds)
[Speak with conviction and a touch of challenge]
"We've accepted a questionable value judgment: to be a successful woman, you must be indistinguishable from a successful man. A female scientist is celebrated, but a stay-at-home mother? She'll never make Forbes 30 under 30. We push women into roles focusing on things, away from people - despite science showing their preference for the reverse. It's time to ask ourselves: are we really advancing equality, or are we just devaluing everything feminine?"
4. "The Enigma of Femininity" (50 seconds)
[Deliver with a sense of wonder and respect]
"The things men build are simple, structured, knowable. But the feminine? It's an enigma we get, but don't get. Throughout history, philosophers and religions have grappled with understanding the feminine more than any masculine structure. The Goddess stands with the labrys, the double-headed ax, in her hands - symbolizing both birth and death, the cycle of transformation. She's not just a naked figure, but a force of nature itself. In our rush for equality, have we forgotten this power? Have we hidden it behind hormones, drugs, and career demands, pretending there's no difference when, in fact, the difference might be everything?"
5. "A Personal Revolution" (30 seconds)
[Speak with warmth and conviction]
"My wife, an electrical engineer, chose to be a stay-at-home mother. Not because I asked, but because she didn't want someone else raising her kids. She's embraced her nature - strong, capable, both mother and engineer. She's chosen not to chase what she doesn't want. Maybe that's the real revolution we need - not forcing women into masculine molds, but allowing them to choose and celebrate their own paths, whatever they may be."
[prompt]
You are an expert videographer and copywriter, tasked with analyzing an essay and creating short video clip scripts for content creation based on that essay. Your goal is to fully understand the content and style of the writing, then generate potential content segments that can be easily edited and recorded for short-form video content. First, carefully read and analyze the essay attached as file.
After reading the essay, follow these steps:
1. Analyze the main points: Identify the key arguments, ideas, or themes presented in the essay. Make note of any particularly striking or quotable passages.
2. Observe the writing style: Pay attention to the author's tone, use of language, and any unique stylistic elements that stand out.
3. Generate short video clip scripts: Based on your analysis, create 3-5 short video clip scripts. Each script should: - Be 30-60 seconds long when read aloud - Focus on a single main point or idea from the essay - Capture the essence of the author's writing style - Be engaging and suitable for short-form video content.
Remember - read carefully, closely, and analytically. Pay close attention to nuance, and always keep the authors voice with style, clarity and grace.
The system prompt was generated from your initial post using a developer tool on Anthropic (https://console.anthropic.com/dashboard). I took your explicit goal for the task and fed it, almost word for word, into the prompt generator. The tool returns a revised and elaborated prompt that will yield better outputs. I then fed the revised prompt into a Claude 3.5 Sonnet session.
In regards to the prompt generator: the changes made are often structural - such as breaking down tasks into step by step language, or by having the model define it's reasoning before attempting to answer. The concept is called called chain of thought prompting. On a smaller scale, you can experiment with this by adding this suffix to any prompt "Please define your thinking in <thinking> </thinking> tags before answering in <answer> </answer> tags".
Lastly, I find Anthropic tends to outperform OpenAI's models on almost all writing tasks. I'd like to think it's because their co-founder, Jack Clark, has a formal education and professional background in creative writing prior to his work with LLMs. However, if you end up getting better results with ChatGPT, try their API to make it more steerable: https://platform.openai.com/playground.
I've been using openAI but I'm leaning more and more toward Claude.
Your info lines up with a lot of what I've been reading. A lot of it, for me, is not throwing premium subscriptions everywhere until I have a really good use case to execute.
The most eloquent and amusing description I know of why someone fails to get credit for her work and how she changes her behavior to rectify the situation is in a short story by the Irish writer Maeve Binchy entitled “King’s Cross.” As the story opens, an over-worked and underappreciated assistant manager in a travel office named Sara Gray is interviewing a prospective secretary named Eve who turns out to be a mixture of the Lone Ranger and Mary Poppins. Eve swoops into Sara Gray’s life and transforms it by showing her how to get recognition—and promotion. The first thing Eve does is insist on addressing her boss as “Miss Gray,” even though Sara protests that it sounds “snooty.” Eve points out that the male managers and assistant managers all call Sara by her first name, though she addresses many of them as “Mr.”
When speaking of Miss Gray to others, Eve adopts a tone of respect bordering on awe that gradually creeps into the attitudes of others in the office. Eve tells Sara that “it is absolutely intolerable the way that people think they can come barging in here, taking advantage of your good nature and picking your brains, interrupting us and disturbing you from whatever you are doing.” To put a stop to this, Eve sets herself up at the door to Sara’s office and insists that anyone who wants to see Miss Gray must make an appointment. Eve discovers that Sara has NOT been taking advantage of available perks such as an account at a taxi firm, a clothing allowance, and a small fund for redecorating her office. With the latter, Eve acquires a conference table and suggests how Sara might use it. She points out that when Sara last developed a wildly successful marketing idea, no one but her boss, Garry Edwards, knew that it had been hers, so HE got the credit and the reward, since it came out of his division.
Eve counsels: Next time, I suggest you invite Mr. Edwards and his boss and the marketing director and one or two others to drop in quite casually— don’t dream of saying you are calling a meeting, just suggest that they might all like to come to your office one afternoon. And then, at a nice table where there is plenty of room and plenty of style, put forward your plans. That way they’ll remember you. When Sara prepares work for Garry Edwards, Eve sends copies to others, so everyone knows it’s her work. She encourages Sara to get an assistant who can cover her desk, so indispensability will not be an excuse for failing to send her to conferences or, eventually, promote her.
She makes sure that Sara’s name is on the list of guests to social events attended by executives. When Garry Edwards tries to undo Sara by blaming her for his own mistake, Eve’s filing system yields a document proving that Sara had recommended the correct course of action. Garry Edwards is out, and Sara Gray gets his job, which she had, after all, been doing, without remuneration, all along.
This is, sadly for us all, just a fantasy, a work of fiction, though a delightful one to read. How nice it would be if Eve swept into each of our lives and ensured we got the credit we deserve. But the story, oversimplified (and entertaining) as it is, captures some of what individuals can do (and often fail to do) to achieve that felicitous result on their own.
I think you just made the case for how the matriarchy used to operate. But you also highlighted a perfect example of the feminine vs. the masculine. It lines up very well with what I was trying to articulate in the essay.
I suspect your wife stayed home because she was sure of your relationship (that you wouldn't leave her for a younger woman). My wife did not have that option as her first husband left her. We married when her daughter was 9 and she continued to work full time, going to part time after a bout with cancer when her daughter was 17, and then retiring five years later when a buyout was made available.
Tonite, my trivia team won first place at our local tavern. It's me and four women, all scientists or engineers. All of them knitting while we are playing. Of the four, my wife is the only one who is married. Two of them have been married before (one twice) while the youngest one never married. All of them tell my wife she cannot complain about me as a husband. Funny, years ago the technicians I worked with at the lab said I couldn't complain about my wife (who was an engineer like me at work) because she was CAPABLE of logic, whereas they were not sure their spouses were. :)
The operators in Building 127, who included a couple of working-class philosophers had a mantra: Happy Wife, Happy Life. And it is so true. Men need women to manage them to achieve the best life for the marriage team (and eventually family). Women need men for their ability to suspend emotion and deal with the problem. For example, the pandemic was a stressful period. It was an external stressor and so in man's domain. It was my job to understand what was happening, synthesize the information available and provide guidance to my family.
The key is that men and women are two halves that need to be together to be whole.
Being an engineer is something we've talked about giving her confidence to know she has options though too. She's not stuck in a shittynrelationship with no other financial options. That keeps me on my toes as well.
Humans are shown to evolve from monkeys graphically through the male line. However, the early humans were mother societies as Maria Gimputas showed very clearly in her work. Once cattle and agriculture surplus could be extracted, a male ruling class emerged like the Kings and Lords who extracted all the surplus, sending women into slavery. Renaissance (especially Da Vinci with his master pieces like Monalisa and Last Supper) reasserted art and feminism back into the agenda, which has since progressed through impressionism and cubism. Modern women have escaped from drudgery of kitchen and house hold but women's sex as a commodity has pushed her from the feudal Lords into deep sea of body-shaming and sexuality as commodity. As products get sold through the divinity of woman's body, she shrinks back into her animal body, unable to become the social human that she is capable of becoming.
What bothers me is that if we assume it's only men doing this then we cede that men truly do have the ultimate power and authority to do so. If women can only take their rightful place when men allow it then that's not equality. If women literally have no ability to push back then we admit men are more fit. But I don't agree with that and that misses something else altogether. In two week I have another essay queued that looks at the risk of that assumption.
Bottom-line, history has shown that women can, and have had equal agency through their own power, not when men reinsert them into the conversation.
Although woman gained voting rights 100 years back, we are still waiting for US to elect a woman as head. It is difficult to win a race if your legs are tied by the reproductive organ (without which there will be no humans). In some states like Texas you don't have rights over your body also.
These are interesting points that get kind of complicated on analysis.
42% of women in the US voted for Trump instead of of Hillary. That's a really big number. Women outnumber men in the US so if women wanted a woman leader then they can have one. In fact, they outnumber men so if women wanted to vote for anything they wanted they could have it.
Abortion is an interesting case where well over 41% of women are anti-abortion and a vast majority (~80%) support restrictions on abortions. Anecdotally, in my life, it's been the men who supported abortion (typically to avoid having to pay for a kid) and women who opposed abortion.
I'm curious to know why roughtly 50% of women (and likely more than than in Texas) support limiting women's rights over their own bodies.
It'd be an interesting argument if 100% if a majority of men supported restricting rights and a majority of women supported those rights but that's not how the cards fall.
In fact, foot binding in China back in the day, and genital mutilation in Africa today are enforced and conducted by the matriarchy, not the patriarchy. These are some really tough conversations to have which muddy the water.
I think when you talk about US social-context, one should not talk about other under-developed countries or primitive matriarchal societies whose mode of production was only children. Not only Africa, some parts of India are also very much like that. Women when they gain freedom in the US, not just to vote, but to be able to walk in the street without being afraid and able to participate in society, is not something that should be negotiable. I suppose it is human-rights and constitutional rights, non-negotiable inalienable rights over their body. To put it up for vote itself is demeaning them as humans. Women as they can be in a just human society is not the same as woman as they are now in the US. I hope I am not offending some social sensitivities as our societies are now very alienated, divisive and not ready to listen to any discussions.
I love this sort of conversation and am enjoying your perspective on the topic. There is one thing I wanted to swing back on that you said:
"but to be able to walk in the street without being afraid and able to participate in society, is not something that should be negotiable."
Is it negotiable? Walking in the street with no care is actually happening today. In India the violent crime on women is at the lowest levels in history. Same in America.
There's a prenicious undertone in that statement that something *should not happen. But why? We aren't that far from our Ape Cousins and Nature is metal. Already, in many ways, we have transcended anything natural on Earth and are even transcending our own inclinations. There is nothing like us on the planet.
What drives that expectation is actually something akin to the supernatural a'la Adam and Eve. Two perfectly created humans who decided to sin and if only they work harder they can get back to perfection. If you take this approach then that's fine but I think it will always leave you dissapointed.
It's an interesting point and women have the same legal rights to walk the streets. In fact, crime like that against women is much lower in the US than crime against men.
The interesting aspect is that the patriarchy exists for one primary reason. To constrain negatively behaved men. Whether against men or women. Go back to the Old West in the US and if a man mistreated a woman they'd be killed.
Michael, this is a very good opening salvo! I would love to see further explorations like this one, and I'm glad you recognize that this conversation is more of an opening and not the close of a book. The scope here is huge.
Another way to frame the (very frustrating) insistence that men are the standard by which women are expected to behave, is that men were the only ones allowed to many jobs for decades or centuries (or as long as those jobs existed), so it's only natural that this embedded memory has led to scrutiny on any new entrants (EG, women).
Instead, we should start over and evaluate these career paths and expectations based on what's possible and practical, but starting over to do that isn't easy. We're sort of in the middle of this messy kludge, so even if everyone sort of agrees that we should change the way things are (which is far from the case), it's still a real challenge to begin changing this sort of system.
I don't know where I'm going with this exactly, other than to encourage you to keep thinking along these lines and sharing your thoughts so we can continue these thoughts.
I'm on board as long as we don't have to burn our existing system to the ground to start all over first. The outcomes in the short term would be unacceptable to my human sentiment. But what's a xetriarchy?
Neither a matriarchy nor a patriarchy. I burned everything to the ground in Paradox... And yet the AI still struggled with this topic. There's got to be a better way.
Agree. Incremental change comes to mind, but it has to be consistent, and it'll take a lot of time. Still, seems better than revolutionary change, all things being equal.
Actually I don't agree with how you approached this.
You say again and again: "To be a successful woman you must be indistinguishable from a successful man." Or, "the assumption that the way men engage in the economy is, by default, the more valued." But you never say what that is? So we don't connect why that is the appearance. You are only making assertions, which to you might seem obvious.
Big business is an on-going concern, so women enter into a prevailing business culture. It was developed by men so it is masculine. The masculine are hierarchical, so maintaining "one-up" and assigning "one-down" is the game. It's Dominance. Women have been acculturated to avoid puffing up their image. They might be just as confident and just as capable as their male counterpart, but they don't broadcast it in the same way. Only those attuned to actual results will see that, (I think) women produce better than men do.
Men on the other hand speak in absolutes. I know this and I know that. They might; but it is also the realm of false confidence. That is their modus operandi, they can't say it in any other way. It is the men that have "lunatic confidence", not the women.
With the "nature principle" and the "social principal" you are alluding to something fixed in man and women, and not something programmed. Campbell says all the women are nude and all the men wear the garments of their role. Not to mention that all the women are being gang-raped by those respectable men. Campbell has fallen into centuries of archetypes.
The whole idea of the Goddess, or "the Divine Feminine" IS A MASCULINE FANTASY. Women might play along with it. It is just a made-up category that offers more of the same sexual subjugation. Campbell has softened it to make it more perverse. He is the greater villain for it.
A superior in a large corporate setting with a male culture may have to make a judgment in five minutes about issues the presenters have worked on for months. “I decide,” he explained, “based on how confident they seem. If they seem very confident, I call it a go. If they seem unsure, I figure it’s too risky and nix it.” You judge by a range of signs, including facial expression and body posture, but most of all, speech. Do they hesitate? Do they speak up or swallow half their words? Is their tone of voice declamatory or halting? Do they make bald statements? (He is judging only from male conversational rituals.)
Females have learned to speak in other ways, and hence they are passed over for promotion. Then some blowhard male colleague becomes their boss, and merrily takes credit for everything the female produces. It is about speaking style, and not about ability. High corporate position is all about the ability to coordinate and inspire a team to internalize the company project, and give it their all. Women surely do it better than a male giving orders, and assigning one-up and one-down.
Engineering is a very satisfying occupation. So please ask Lisa, she left it because of lack of interest, or because of lack of recognition. And recognition is based on masculine speaking styles.
I have learned so much lately by reading one of Deborah Tannen's books about the study of linguistics. I have made two posts so far as book reviews, and I will probably make two more. It changes everything.
You accuse me of making assertions yet this entire comment is nothing more than assertions. You haven't provided an alternative view. Cambell highlights centuries of archetypes. You apparently disagree with those archetypes but you haven't offered a new view. If the goddess is a male perversion, what is the feminine alternative?
If I look at this is a more literary perspective, I take Eowyn from Lord of the Rings as an example. The situation is Rohan is in crisis, a real threat has emerged and the king is not responding. His nephew and son refuse to deal with it and are out riding with their peeps doing what they can. The only one left to deal with problem is Eowyn. Gandalf comes and uses his power to heal Theoden and Eowyn is the only member of the royal house present. Theoden, restored now to his role as a man and King acts to defend his people, delegating to Eowryn the job of safeguarding them while he and his men serve as a defensive screen to the forces of Saruman.
When their victory is secure, she abandons the charge to act as monarch in her uncle's stead, in order to defeat the chief of the Ringwraths (no man can kill him) and deprive the host of Mordor of its leader (necessity drove her). The host is defeated and the wounded Eowyn cannot serve further (her service is no longer required). Injured, she finds a class A guy and decides to marry him. I do not recall whether she then had a bunch of kids, but I would not be surprised.
*Recall that God (Illuvatar) was driving events in the background.
What a great read! And here's a piece that says essentially the same thing, by Anju Joy in her Unpopular Psychology Substack. She explains how pop psych celebrates women CEOs as the ultimate personifications of all feminist goals - yet doesn't have much to say about stay-at-home mums.
It's called Fault Feminism. https://unpopularpsychology.substack.com/p/faulty-feminism
Great add!
This is spot on. I have been thinking about this for years and have noticed trends that support your idea. I am going to apologize upfront because I am not a good writer, so please let me know if something I write does not come across clearly or make sense. I tend to be a macro thinker and experiencer and my intuitive senses notice things as anomalies and then speculate about the meaning of what I notice. If you are familiar at all with Iain McGilcrist his theories propose that the modern world as we know it has become the product of a right hemispheric brain bias. The neuroscience supports the theory that right hemispheric brain activity tends to be more aligned with the masculine. It tends toward predictability and efficiency and has little room for anything contrary to its own perceptions. We experience something, and our left hemisphere jumps right in and tries to interpret it for us. The research has shown that the right hemisphere if allowed to, has a more accurate interpretation of reality. The right hemisphere is more associated with creativity and intuition and is more associated with things natural to women. An example of how this shows up can be seen in architecture. In the pre-modern world, you see beauty as central to the construction of spaces. Grand Cathedrals with very inefficient motifs were seen as an extension of the human desire to connect the human to the felt experience of a place and how that stirs the inner senses(feminine). This can be seen all through Europe to this day. If you contrast that with the growth of the West and the Capitalistic spirit, you find buildings that feel like prisons. They are cold and efficient spaces that cater to the bottom line of profit. They are not meant to inspire any deeper sense of things at all. The deeper senses that people have are studied by marketers and are considered profit centers.
In the Christian spiritual traditions, you can see this. Besides the places of worship changing and becoming more masculine, you can see it in the tradition's disappearance of the Mother of Jesus. Mary used to play a very significant role in mediating the Christian experience. Intensely dogmatic hierarchies crush the feminine and more mystical side of the tradition and tend towards control of both the system and the narrative. Things like relics, the reality of angels, the actual presence of Christ in the communion elements etc, are virtually non-existent in the Protestant world.
The flat earth movement puzzled me until I read some of the content and watched some documentaries. In reality, it was more about pushing back on material science and moving toward a world where experience of things is more important than knowledge about things. After all, we don't experience the earth as round. We experience it as flat. Many people in that movement don't care about the science and don't take themselves that seriously.
If you take your point to be true, you can also see this in how our culture is railing against masculine hierarchy and blaming men for thriving in a system suited for them. To be at the top of these hierarchical systems is seen as a high achievement. Whatever your feeling about Jordan Peterson is, he has pointed this out repeatedly. I would propose that the abuse of power and the corrupting effect of power can be equally present in women. The system itself has that effect, and in a world where virtue and character are not encouraged, you will have people who are ill-prepared to handle power and the glory that comes with high positions.
The desire for equilibrium in perception and experience will continue to trend until we achieve some sort of balance between feminine and masculine sensibilities and we are able to celebrate both equally.
The folks talking about re-enchantment have their finger on this, in my opinion.
If you take this as true, things like you are noticing start to show up everywhere.
More people will be drawn to nature and the wild feminine. The occult with rise and a trend toward more Eastern spiritual traditions that will displace Western Christianity.
Pagan earth religions and witchcraft will grow in popularity. You are already seeing this with teen girls declaring themselves to be witches.
Anyway, I suppose I carried on too long here. I have noticed many other things on this topic, but I think I have already said more than I needed to. I am very excited to see how your new book emerges. I think I need to grab the first one today and start reading it.
Interesting insights and thanks for the add. Your commend of the 'wild' feminine is interesting and aligned with the essay coming out in two weeks about feminine 'chaos', and masculine 'order'.
This is incredibly powerful and that statement: "To be a successful woman you must be indistinguishable from a successful man," Gives words to an angst I've had that I can now push back against.
Wow thanks for nudging me to this great article! Your use of archetypal illustrations caused me to link this modern, industrial elevation of masculine values to Paul Kingsnorth’s writings on “The Machine.” I’m not enough of a fanatic to know whether he has written much on the male versus the female, but he used to be a pagan, and I know paganism is most popular with women due to its elevation of the goddess.
Glad you appreciated it. I really enjoyed yours too.
I have another on Chaos and Order about the masculine and feminine working together to create an antifragile entity if you're interested. My wife and I work together in exploring these ideas as we are raising two daughters to be strong women.
Please do point me to it!
Here's Chaos and Order. https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/chaos-and-order
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Michael,
Here is the output from the system prompt.
I have carefully read and analyzed the essay provided. Here's my analysis and proposed short video clip scripts based on the content:
Analysis of main points:
1. The essay argues that modern feminism has shifted towards making women indistinguishable from men, rather than celebrating feminine qualities.
2. The author contends that society values masculine traits over feminine ones, even in efforts to achieve gender equality.
3. The essay explores the historical and mythological importance of feminine divine figures and their unique roles.
4. The author suggests that we need to reclaim and revalue feminine qualities in society.
5. The piece touches on personal experiences and observations, including those of the author's wife.
Writing style observations:
- The author uses a conversational yet intellectual tone, mixing personal anecdotes with cultural and historical references.
- There's a provocative opening statement followed by a "grenade drop" metaphor to emphasize the controversial nature of the topic.
- The writing incorporates quotes and references to support arguments, showing a well-researched approach.
- The author uses rhetorical questions to engage the reader and prompt reflection.
- There's a balance between critique of current societal norms and appreciation for feminine qualities.
Short video clip scripts:
1. "The Forgotten Goddess" (45 seconds)
[Thoughtful tone, with a hint of curiosity]
"Throughout history, cultures celebrated the feminine divine - the Goddesses. These powerful figures weren't just naked forms, but embodiments of nature itself. Unlike their male counterparts, who derived power from social roles, the Goddesses operated in their own character. They were the transformers, carrying us from death to resurrection. But today, we've lost sight of this feminine power. We push women to be indistinguishable from men, ignoring the unique strengths they bring. Isn't it time we reclaimed the feminine divine and recognized its true value in our world?"
2. "The Motherhood Paradox" (40 seconds)
[Deliver with a mix of concern and irony]
"Here's a thought that might surprise you: what we call the gender pay gap is actually a motherhood gap. Women without children generally stay competitive with men in the workforce. But pregnancy? That's a game-changer. Society's solution? Make women more like men. We narrow biological differences with birth control and hormone treatments. We celebrate the 'girl boss' who embodies 'lunatic confidence.' But in doing so, are we truly valuing women, or just forcing them into a masculine mold?"
3. "Redefining Success" (35 seconds)
[Speak with conviction and a touch of challenge]
"We've accepted a questionable value judgment: to be a successful woman, you must be indistinguishable from a successful man. A female scientist is celebrated, but a stay-at-home mother? She'll never make Forbes 30 under 30. We push women into roles focusing on things, away from people - despite science showing their preference for the reverse. It's time to ask ourselves: are we really advancing equality, or are we just devaluing everything feminine?"
4. "The Enigma of Femininity" (50 seconds)
[Deliver with a sense of wonder and respect]
"The things men build are simple, structured, knowable. But the feminine? It's an enigma we get, but don't get. Throughout history, philosophers and religions have grappled with understanding the feminine more than any masculine structure. The Goddess stands with the labrys, the double-headed ax, in her hands - symbolizing both birth and death, the cycle of transformation. She's not just a naked figure, but a force of nature itself. In our rush for equality, have we forgotten this power? Have we hidden it behind hormones, drugs, and career demands, pretending there's no difference when, in fact, the difference might be everything?"
5. "A Personal Revolution" (30 seconds)
[Speak with warmth and conviction]
"My wife, an electrical engineer, chose to be a stay-at-home mother. Not because I asked, but because she didn't want someone else raising her kids. She's embraced her nature - strong, capable, both mother and engineer. She's chosen not to chase what she doesn't want. Maybe that's the real revolution we need - not forcing women into masculine molds, but allowing them to choose and celebrate their own paths, whatever they may be."
[prompt]
You are an expert videographer and copywriter, tasked with analyzing an essay and creating short video clip scripts for content creation based on that essay. Your goal is to fully understand the content and style of the writing, then generate potential content segments that can be easily edited and recorded for short-form video content. First, carefully read and analyze the essay attached as file.
After reading the essay, follow these steps:
1. Analyze the main points: Identify the key arguments, ideas, or themes presented in the essay. Make note of any particularly striking or quotable passages.
2. Observe the writing style: Pay attention to the author's tone, use of language, and any unique stylistic elements that stand out.
3. Generate short video clip scripts: Based on your analysis, create 3-5 short video clip scripts. Each script should: - Be 30-60 seconds long when read aloud - Focus on a single main point or idea from the essay - Capture the essence of the author's writing style - Be engaging and suitable for short-form video content.
Remember - read carefully, closely, and analytically. Pay close attention to nuance, and always keep the authors voice with style, clarity and grace.
Holy hell. Was this ChatGPT?
The system prompt was generated from your initial post using a developer tool on Anthropic (https://console.anthropic.com/dashboard). I took your explicit goal for the task and fed it, almost word for word, into the prompt generator. The tool returns a revised and elaborated prompt that will yield better outputs. I then fed the revised prompt into a Claude 3.5 Sonnet session.
In regards to the prompt generator: the changes made are often structural - such as breaking down tasks into step by step language, or by having the model define it's reasoning before attempting to answer. The concept is called called chain of thought prompting. On a smaller scale, you can experiment with this by adding this suffix to any prompt "Please define your thinking in <thinking> </thinking> tags before answering in <answer> </answer> tags".
Here is more on the matter: https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.11903
Lastly, I find Anthropic tends to outperform OpenAI's models on almost all writing tasks. I'd like to think it's because their co-founder, Jack Clark, has a formal education and professional background in creative writing prior to his work with LLMs. However, if you end up getting better results with ChatGPT, try their API to make it more steerable: https://platform.openai.com/playground.
I've been using openAI but I'm leaning more and more toward Claude.
Your info lines up with a lot of what I've been reading. A lot of it, for me, is not throwing premium subscriptions everywhere until I have a really good use case to execute.
I'LL GIVE AN EXAMPLE OF RECOGNITION
The lessons from a FABLE on page 134
The most eloquent and amusing description I know of why someone fails to get credit for her work and how she changes her behavior to rectify the situation is in a short story by the Irish writer Maeve Binchy entitled “King’s Cross.” As the story opens, an over-worked and underappreciated assistant manager in a travel office named Sara Gray is interviewing a prospective secretary named Eve who turns out to be a mixture of the Lone Ranger and Mary Poppins. Eve swoops into Sara Gray’s life and transforms it by showing her how to get recognition—and promotion. The first thing Eve does is insist on addressing her boss as “Miss Gray,” even though Sara protests that it sounds “snooty.” Eve points out that the male managers and assistant managers all call Sara by her first name, though she addresses many of them as “Mr.”
When speaking of Miss Gray to others, Eve adopts a tone of respect bordering on awe that gradually creeps into the attitudes of others in the office. Eve tells Sara that “it is absolutely intolerable the way that people think they can come barging in here, taking advantage of your good nature and picking your brains, interrupting us and disturbing you from whatever you are doing.” To put a stop to this, Eve sets herself up at the door to Sara’s office and insists that anyone who wants to see Miss Gray must make an appointment. Eve discovers that Sara has NOT been taking advantage of available perks such as an account at a taxi firm, a clothing allowance, and a small fund for redecorating her office. With the latter, Eve acquires a conference table and suggests how Sara might use it. She points out that when Sara last developed a wildly successful marketing idea, no one but her boss, Garry Edwards, knew that it had been hers, so HE got the credit and the reward, since it came out of his division.
Eve counsels: Next time, I suggest you invite Mr. Edwards and his boss and the marketing director and one or two others to drop in quite casually— don’t dream of saying you are calling a meeting, just suggest that they might all like to come to your office one afternoon. And then, at a nice table where there is plenty of room and plenty of style, put forward your plans. That way they’ll remember you. When Sara prepares work for Garry Edwards, Eve sends copies to others, so everyone knows it’s her work. She encourages Sara to get an assistant who can cover her desk, so indispensability will not be an excuse for failing to send her to conferences or, eventually, promote her.
She makes sure that Sara’s name is on the list of guests to social events attended by executives. When Garry Edwards tries to undo Sara by blaming her for his own mistake, Eve’s filing system yields a document proving that Sara had recommended the correct course of action. Garry Edwards is out, and Sara Gray gets his job, which she had, after all, been doing, without remuneration, all along.
This is, sadly for us all, just a fantasy, a work of fiction, though a delightful one to read. How nice it would be if Eve swept into each of our lives and ensured we got the credit we deserve. But the story, oversimplified (and entertaining) as it is, captures some of what individuals can do (and often fail to do) to achieve that felicitous result on their own.
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I think you just made the case for how the matriarchy used to operate. But you also highlighted a perfect example of the feminine vs. the masculine. It lines up very well with what I was trying to articulate in the essay.
I suspect your wife stayed home because she was sure of your relationship (that you wouldn't leave her for a younger woman). My wife did not have that option as her first husband left her. We married when her daughter was 9 and she continued to work full time, going to part time after a bout with cancer when her daughter was 17, and then retiring five years later when a buyout was made available.
Tonite, my trivia team won first place at our local tavern. It's me and four women, all scientists or engineers. All of them knitting while we are playing. Of the four, my wife is the only one who is married. Two of them have been married before (one twice) while the youngest one never married. All of them tell my wife she cannot complain about me as a husband. Funny, years ago the technicians I worked with at the lab said I couldn't complain about my wife (who was an engineer like me at work) because she was CAPABLE of logic, whereas they were not sure their spouses were. :)
The operators in Building 127, who included a couple of working-class philosophers had a mantra: Happy Wife, Happy Life. And it is so true. Men need women to manage them to achieve the best life for the marriage team (and eventually family). Women need men for their ability to suspend emotion and deal with the problem. For example, the pandemic was a stressful period. It was an external stressor and so in man's domain. It was my job to understand what was happening, synthesize the information available and provide guidance to my family.
The key is that men and women are two halves that need to be together to be whole.
Being an engineer is something we've talked about giving her confidence to know she has options though too. She's not stuck in a shittynrelationship with no other financial options. That keeps me on my toes as well.
Humans are shown to evolve from monkeys graphically through the male line. However, the early humans were mother societies as Maria Gimputas showed very clearly in her work. Once cattle and agriculture surplus could be extracted, a male ruling class emerged like the Kings and Lords who extracted all the surplus, sending women into slavery. Renaissance (especially Da Vinci with his master pieces like Monalisa and Last Supper) reasserted art and feminism back into the agenda, which has since progressed through impressionism and cubism. Modern women have escaped from drudgery of kitchen and house hold but women's sex as a commodity has pushed her from the feudal Lords into deep sea of body-shaming and sexuality as commodity. As products get sold through the divinity of woman's body, she shrinks back into her animal body, unable to become the social human that she is capable of becoming.
But why? You make some good observations here.
What bothers me is that if we assume it's only men doing this then we cede that men truly do have the ultimate power and authority to do so. If women can only take their rightful place when men allow it then that's not equality. If women literally have no ability to push back then we admit men are more fit. But I don't agree with that and that misses something else altogether. In two week I have another essay queued that looks at the risk of that assumption.
Bottom-line, history has shown that women can, and have had equal agency through their own power, not when men reinsert them into the conversation.
Although woman gained voting rights 100 years back, we are still waiting for US to elect a woman as head. It is difficult to win a race if your legs are tied by the reproductive organ (without which there will be no humans). In some states like Texas you don't have rights over your body also.
These are interesting points that get kind of complicated on analysis.
42% of women in the US voted for Trump instead of of Hillary. That's a really big number. Women outnumber men in the US so if women wanted a woman leader then they can have one. In fact, they outnumber men so if women wanted to vote for anything they wanted they could have it.
Abortion is an interesting case where well over 41% of women are anti-abortion and a vast majority (~80%) support restrictions on abortions. Anecdotally, in my life, it's been the men who supported abortion (typically to avoid having to pay for a kid) and women who opposed abortion.
I'm curious to know why roughtly 50% of women (and likely more than than in Texas) support limiting women's rights over their own bodies.
It'd be an interesting argument if 100% if a majority of men supported restricting rights and a majority of women supported those rights but that's not how the cards fall.
In fact, foot binding in China back in the day, and genital mutilation in Africa today are enforced and conducted by the matriarchy, not the patriarchy. These are some really tough conversations to have which muddy the water.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/245618/abortion-trends-gender.aspx#:~:text=Trends%20in%20Preferred%20Abortion%20Label%2C%20by%20Gender
I think when you talk about US social-context, one should not talk about other under-developed countries or primitive matriarchal societies whose mode of production was only children. Not only Africa, some parts of India are also very much like that. Women when they gain freedom in the US, not just to vote, but to be able to walk in the street without being afraid and able to participate in society, is not something that should be negotiable. I suppose it is human-rights and constitutional rights, non-negotiable inalienable rights over their body. To put it up for vote itself is demeaning them as humans. Women as they can be in a just human society is not the same as woman as they are now in the US. I hope I am not offending some social sensitivities as our societies are now very alienated, divisive and not ready to listen to any discussions.
I love this sort of conversation and am enjoying your perspective on the topic. There is one thing I wanted to swing back on that you said:
"but to be able to walk in the street without being afraid and able to participate in society, is not something that should be negotiable."
Is it negotiable? Walking in the street with no care is actually happening today. In India the violent crime on women is at the lowest levels in history. Same in America.
There's a prenicious undertone in that statement that something *should not happen. But why? We aren't that far from our Ape Cousins and Nature is metal. Already, in many ways, we have transcended anything natural on Earth and are even transcending our own inclinations. There is nothing like us on the planet.
What drives that expectation is actually something akin to the supernatural a'la Adam and Eve. Two perfectly created humans who decided to sin and if only they work harder they can get back to perfection. If you take this approach then that's fine but I think it will always leave you dissapointed.
It's an interesting point and women have the same legal rights to walk the streets. In fact, crime like that against women is much lower in the US than crime against men.
The interesting aspect is that the patriarchy exists for one primary reason. To constrain negatively behaved men. Whether against men or women. Go back to the Old West in the US and if a man mistreated a woman they'd be killed.
Michael, this is a very good opening salvo! I would love to see further explorations like this one, and I'm glad you recognize that this conversation is more of an opening and not the close of a book. The scope here is huge.
Another way to frame the (very frustrating) insistence that men are the standard by which women are expected to behave, is that men were the only ones allowed to many jobs for decades or centuries (or as long as those jobs existed), so it's only natural that this embedded memory has led to scrutiny on any new entrants (EG, women).
Instead, we should start over and evaluate these career paths and expectations based on what's possible and practical, but starting over to do that isn't easy. We're sort of in the middle of this messy kludge, so even if everyone sort of agrees that we should change the way things are (which is far from the case), it's still a real challenge to begin changing this sort of system.
I don't know where I'm going with this exactly, other than to encourage you to keep thinking along these lines and sharing your thoughts so we can continue these thoughts.
I've advocated a Xetriarchy where we throw out all the bias and build something new!
I'm on board as long as we don't have to burn our existing system to the ground to start all over first. The outcomes in the short term would be unacceptable to my human sentiment. But what's a xetriarchy?
Neither a matriarchy nor a patriarchy. I burned everything to the ground in Paradox... And yet the AI still struggled with this topic. There's got to be a better way.
Agree. Incremental change comes to mind, but it has to be consistent, and it'll take a lot of time. Still, seems better than revolutionary change, all things being equal.
That's the best thing I have ever read. And trust me, I have read a lot. Congratulations!
That's awesome to hear. Thanks so much for the kind words!
Actually I don't agree with how you approached this.
You say again and again: "To be a successful woman you must be indistinguishable from a successful man." Or, "the assumption that the way men engage in the economy is, by default, the more valued." But you never say what that is? So we don't connect why that is the appearance. You are only making assertions, which to you might seem obvious.
Big business is an on-going concern, so women enter into a prevailing business culture. It was developed by men so it is masculine. The masculine are hierarchical, so maintaining "one-up" and assigning "one-down" is the game. It's Dominance. Women have been acculturated to avoid puffing up their image. They might be just as confident and just as capable as their male counterpart, but they don't broadcast it in the same way. Only those attuned to actual results will see that, (I think) women produce better than men do.
Men on the other hand speak in absolutes. I know this and I know that. They might; but it is also the realm of false confidence. That is their modus operandi, they can't say it in any other way. It is the men that have "lunatic confidence", not the women.
With the "nature principle" and the "social principal" you are alluding to something fixed in man and women, and not something programmed. Campbell says all the women are nude and all the men wear the garments of their role. Not to mention that all the women are being gang-raped by those respectable men. Campbell has fallen into centuries of archetypes.
The whole idea of the Goddess, or "the Divine Feminine" IS A MASCULINE FANTASY. Women might play along with it. It is just a made-up category that offers more of the same sexual subjugation. Campbell has softened it to make it more perverse. He is the greater villain for it.
A superior in a large corporate setting with a male culture may have to make a judgment in five minutes about issues the presenters have worked on for months. “I decide,” he explained, “based on how confident they seem. If they seem very confident, I call it a go. If they seem unsure, I figure it’s too risky and nix it.” You judge by a range of signs, including facial expression and body posture, but most of all, speech. Do they hesitate? Do they speak up or swallow half their words? Is their tone of voice declamatory or halting? Do they make bald statements? (He is judging only from male conversational rituals.)
Females have learned to speak in other ways, and hence they are passed over for promotion. Then some blowhard male colleague becomes their boss, and merrily takes credit for everything the female produces. It is about speaking style, and not about ability. High corporate position is all about the ability to coordinate and inspire a team to internalize the company project, and give it their all. Women surely do it better than a male giving orders, and assigning one-up and one-down.
Engineering is a very satisfying occupation. So please ask Lisa, she left it because of lack of interest, or because of lack of recognition. And recognition is based on masculine speaking styles.
I have learned so much lately by reading one of Deborah Tannen's books about the study of linguistics. I have made two posts so far as book reviews, and I will probably make two more. It changes everything.
https://whynotthink.substack.com/p/14-wnt-book-review-1-talking-from
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You accuse me of making assertions yet this entire comment is nothing more than assertions. You haven't provided an alternative view. Cambell highlights centuries of archetypes. You apparently disagree with those archetypes but you haven't offered a new view. If the goddess is a male perversion, what is the feminine alternative?
If I look at this is a more literary perspective, I take Eowyn from Lord of the Rings as an example. The situation is Rohan is in crisis, a real threat has emerged and the king is not responding. His nephew and son refuse to deal with it and are out riding with their peeps doing what they can. The only one left to deal with problem is Eowyn. Gandalf comes and uses his power to heal Theoden and Eowyn is the only member of the royal house present. Theoden, restored now to his role as a man and King acts to defend his people, delegating to Eowryn the job of safeguarding them while he and his men serve as a defensive screen to the forces of Saruman.
When their victory is secure, she abandons the charge to act as monarch in her uncle's stead, in order to defeat the chief of the Ringwraths (no man can kill him) and deprive the host of Mordor of its leader (necessity drove her). The host is defeated and the wounded Eowyn cannot serve further (her service is no longer required). Injured, she finds a class A guy and decides to marry him. I do not recall whether she then had a bunch of kids, but I would not be surprised.
*Recall that God (Illuvatar) was driving events in the background.
It's interesting the thick waves in culture.