Gender urge

There is no urge to write today. No urge in the conscious nor in the unconscious. Something might be lurking in the unconscious but if ‘I’ knew what it was then it would no longer be in the unconscious.

There is a mild stream of flimsy topics passing through the attention centre. Some came from the social networks that I cruised earlier (email, Facebook and Twitter), some from recent social interactions, and some from today’s Guardian online.

The Guardian pointed to a short YouTube video that went viral. “What would life be like if women ruled the world? - According to a vision in a short film, Oppressed Majority  … it would be a pretty grim place for men. In the fantasy world of the film, women are thriving – they have the better jobs, they go jogging topless, they urinate in public and they alternately undermine or sexually harass every man they encounter.”

I was disappointed. The screenplay called for a reversal of the normal gender rules rather than for a transformation of them. So an opportunity was missed. But I do not presently have ideas for an alternative screenplay. I could Google the topic …

The gender of God has been a hot topic in the major religions for a long time. (ref http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_of_God ) All main contemporary religions are patriarchal.

I vaguely remember a theory that early human cultures were matriarchal and the Gods were female. Patriarchy did not set in till humanity moved beyond hunting and gathering (ref Joseph Campbell). In “Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine” - “Campbell traces the evolution of the feminine divine from one Great Goddess to many, from Neolithic Old Europe to the Renaissance. He sheds new light on classical motifs and reveals how the feminine divine symbolizes the archetypal energies of transformation, initiation, and inspiration.” http://astore.amazon.com/josepcampbfou-20/detail/1608681823

Evolutionary psychology and neuroscience deal with patterns of human sexuality and gender. Eg ref Wendy Wood and Alice H. Eagly Evolution of Human Sex Differences http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2009/05/sci-brief.aspx#Wood%20and%20Eagly . There is considerable cultural plasticity.

SO?

The topic is she-gods; the female principle - if there is such a thing. Males and females have evolved to be anatomically and psychologically different. There will be some hard wiring related to body shape and cognitive orientation for both daily cultural chores and for mating and child rearing. But it would be dysfunctional to have things too rigid and final. There is need for variety so that natural selection has something to work on in the fast changing modern world (especially the last 4000 years).

A pause for reflection. There is dis-ease when I am left holding cognitive loose ends. There is an almost irresistible urge to see patterns and to hypothesise agents such that God is in his (her) heaven and all is well. When I am anxious and stressed it is because of the churn in the unconscious throwing juicy stuff into the attention centre where the conscious aspect of the mindbrain gives careful thought to the issue.

A pause for reflection. ‘I’ am not in control of what is going on. The mindbrain might have some things sorted out but there is still a huge residue of threads that have been in the same neural pathways for many years. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

SO?

The urge to write eventually appeared following a merger of memories and media inputs. The topic was the possible path of modern gender enculturation. Most of the thinking was done in the unconscious. The conscious time was used to (a) cruise the internet for ideas and (b) ensure the use of appropriate words, sentences, and paragraphs.