Greetings, Friendlies!
Last time we looked at how the Interpreter Module (IM) uses not just individual pieces of information but also views and narratives when constructing the world.
My IM wears some pretty thick angry-feminist goggles.
And fair enough. I’m 5’4 (162cm), small framed, and for many decades, kind of adorable.
I’ve worked in construction, in science, in the military, in aviation. People have said unbelievably mean or just stupid things to me. I have been sexually pursued by bosses and subordinates and colleagues and their wives. I have been denigrated, dismissed, and accused.
Western culture is certainly not the worst place for a person with a vagina, and there are many marginalized beings in our world. Still, I and my friends have been the recipients of objectification and violence. And that leaves a mark.
Looking beyond my personal experience, the numbers are clear that, compared to XY-genome persons, XX-genome persons are paid less, are respected less, have violence enacted upon them by their close acquaintances. There is sexism and there is predation and there is gaslighting.
The trouble, of course, is that there is not always sexism or always predation or always gaslighting.
So here I am. With an IM, and probably beneath that, probably down in the sympathetic nervous system, on the lookout for examples of bias and physical threat. And as Kleck & Strenta cleverly demonstrated, look and ye shall find.
Your thoughts?
Dharma PhD 
4 replies on “PPP, Part 21, My Angry-Femme Interpreter Module, An Introduction”
Hola Shannon!
I see your point, but I don’t think the numbers tell the whole story. While it’s true that women, on average, earn less, the wage gap largely disappears when you compare men and women doing the same job with the same experience and working the same hours. The difference comes mostly from career choices, work hours, and the fact that women often take on more family responsibilities, which affects promotions and high-paying positions —that’s another topic.
Also, men face serious disadvantages too. They are far more likely to die by suicide, work in dangerous jobs, and suffer from violence as well—especially in public spaces. And they ‘have to be strong’ and don’t complain or feel vulnerable.These are systemic issues that often get overlooked in gender debates. If we want true equality, we should consider all aspects of the picture, not just those that fit a particular narrative…
Abrazos
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Hola, Berta! Thank you so much.
Yes, of course. I did not mean to say that I belong to the only category of humans suffering within a particular system.
Quería decir, which was perhaps insufficiently expressed, is that regardless of how I or others were treated in the past, I allow… nay, I _anticipate_, I _seek_ out, that treatment in the present. The toxins from those experiences poison the present, and I am complicit, however understandably, I am complicit in that poisoning.
It’s really great to hear from you. And thanks for helping me refine my thoughts and expression. I appreciate youuuuuu. :)))
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First of all, you are still adorable!!
Wow, Shannon. Thank you for so powerfully expressing your rage and fear, anger and pain. There’s no denying the “truths” you report. My own experience validates them.
Thank you, also, for vividly illustrating the relationship between dukha and attachment. Those goggles! Could they be a portal for practicing non-reactivity and equanimity? (I use politics for that practice, but your goggles may serve the same useful purpose.)
Finally, I’m GLAD that you’re a female being – my dharma sister. I love you.
Smilingly, Sharon
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Hello, Sharon. Thanks so much for writing.
It’s kind of you to write, particularly since you have seen the angry-femme goggles in action. 😬
“Could they be a portal for practicing non-reactivity and equanimity?”
Absolutely. 100%. Or that’s my hope, anyway.
Where I’m at right now (for context: I wrote this post in August. What I am writing today is scheduled out for _May_) where I’m at right now is that it’s the anattā, the clinging around ego, that flares up the whole mess of dukkha in the first place.
You know, too, it may be the case that where I’m at right now is not so much working with the dukkha goggles as trying to cultivate a deeper and deeper sensitivity to the experience of sukha and upekkha. The more sensitive I am to those _as lived experiences_, the more they become the norm of my being, the more sensitive I become to shifts that suggest reactivity is arising, regardless of the vector, the storyline, through which it is arising. (My IM wears many goggles.)
It’s still early days on all this. But that’s my line of thinking.
How does the political thing work for you?
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