Gender Equality – how do we lose the fight?
Gender equality should be a given. It is a basic human right.
‘Should Gay people be allowed to get legally married?’ is a question that should never have even had to be asked. Similarly, the fact that we still find ourselves caught in a myriad of debates about women’s human rights points to the devastating state we find ourselves in as a global society.
As Natalie Benhayon observed in a recent presentation, “reaching gender equality alone will not equal women’s empowerment. It is simply a correction.” A correction to an ill that has long permeated society – we need to aim much higher. We don’t even know what empowerment looks like, because we haven’t even reached basic equality yet.
So how do we achieve it? Can we keep fighting for it? For years it would seem we have fought hard for it without substantial result.
It is a little known fact that with the rise of the #metoo movement the death toll of women killed by their partners also rose. Worldwide.
The problem with getting caught in the fight is that it blinds us to the prize. And currently the prize is rotten.
In other words, in the fight for gender equality have we stopped to ask what are we trying to be equal to?
The number 1 has a value. In order to be equal to 1 you have to match the value of 1. One is not the same as Five. 1 is 1 and only another number of equal value can be considered equal to the value of 1.
Why the very basic maths lesson?
Because numbers don’t lie. But humans do.
According to popular culture the fight for gender equality is a cause worth fighting for.
According to the numbers, the fight for gender equality was lost before it even began.
It is no secret that in terms of physical dominance and roles that exert power over others, men come up trumps.
Men are the number 1 gender employed on boards and in government. The number 1 money earners, and the number 1 killers of women. They also come in number 1 when it comes to rates of suicide and overall homicides.
80% of all homicides in 2017 were of men.
And yet this does not lessen the horror of the fact that comparative to men, women constituted 82 per cent of people killed by a partner or former partner.
The problem with the fight for gender equality is that we do not have a benchmark worth equaling.
Do we want to be equal to the current number 1?
Do we really want equal pay in a corrupt system? Do we want equal roles in government when the government is rotten? As absurd as this sounds, do we want 50% of all homicides to be of women by women? Of course we don’t.
So do we really want gender equality or do we want a complete re-founding of the qualities that define the genders altogether?
There is an argument that if we just fight hard enough, fight for the respect and insist on the equal numbers in board rooms and in government then the culture will change.
But men have been fighting for eons and they are suffering for it. How do we expect to make true change if we sell out our energetic quality to get there?
If we fight for equality to that which fights we solidify our bodies with the aggression and force that we are fighting against.
Again it is basic maths, if you assume the characteristics of that which you abhor, whether to beat it or simply give up and enjoin it, you will only end up abhorring yourself and the characteristics you have assumed.
And yet, femicide is a word that exists in the English language. If we don’t fight, how will we rise up from the horrible oppression of women and girls globally?
What if there were a way that communicates and makes change without being forceful or oppressive? A way that is not found in peaceful protest, or in choosing subjugation and staying passive either?
Would we recognize it? Would we even believe it exists?
And what if it were a way that innately recognized, not the equalness of men and women but the one-ness of them.
To have equalness is to have at least 2 fragments that are equal in value. But to have a sense of ‘one-ness’ is to know that at our essence we are indivisible.
Oneness doesn’t mean we don’t have a difference in expression but it does mean that all our movements are always holding of the whole.
We rise out of oppression through the freedom of our movements – the way we live – our choice of quality in all that we do. The depth to the way we love and regard ourselves sends a far more powerful message to those around us than we can imagine. It takes time and healing, but this level of honouring of our own bodies and ourselves, is a repellant to abusive behavior, first of ourselves by ourselves (there is no place for it) and then what we will allow from another towards us.
This is not a magic pill. It is a vibrational shift that will be seismic when enough of us take it up.
This might sound naïve when we consider the atrocities that women face worldwide, but in a world in which gender-based violence is endemic and women’s rights to their own bodies are a subject of political debate the fact remains that the only thing we have true sovereignty over is our own sacredness.
So what if sacredness in movement was the antidote to the disparity that we experience daily?
Would it be too simple to believe its feasibility?
Case in point. Natalie Benhayon is the founder of Sacred Movement, a modality which supports women and men to reconnect to a sense of their power through movement. She is CEO of a network of women through Esoteric Women’s Health. She lives the movement of Sacredness in daily life. It is not something that she ‘puts on’ for the duration of a Sacred Movement Class. As she constantly reiterates – Sacred Movement is not meant to be kept to the simple movements explored in the Sacred Movement class, they are simply a means to an end. A way to remind and re-ignite people to develop a relationship with a quality that can be lived in daily life.
You wouldn’t describe Natalie Benhayon as someone who ‘fights’ for the rights of women and yet she is a tireless advocate for women’s health.
Interestingly and not typical of a woman who has such a dedicated focus on women’s health, she is equally revered for her work as a practitioner and presenter by men.
Ask any man who has engaged her for sessions and healing treatments and you will find a theme – no judgement, absolute honouring and understanding are foundational to all her sessions. The person is first a soul before they are any gendered expression. The knowing of this, allows the person she is treating to let ‘the best version’ of themselves come to the fore (to use an over-used catchphrase).
In truth it is not ‘a version of themselves’ but the real deal, the truth of who we are unencumbered by the pictures and expectations that are imposed on us from the societal roles we think we have to play.
And what is beyond the pictures? The essence that both men and women have in equal measure. The one-ness of the soul. When sacredness is surrendered to, the practical expression of the soul is a given.
Sacredness is a quality that innately confirms our depth – beyond flesh and bone, gendered roles and rules and beyond the superficiality of our differences. With this expression men are naturally Gentle Men and women are free to express their true sass, beauty and unreserved power.
Is this a utopia?
No.
Is it perfect?
No.
Being in a relationship with a man who regularly sees Natalie Benhayon for sessions I can tell you that we are not always ‘the best version of ourselves’ and yet we now have a marker – a benchmark worth deepening too. A way of communicating from and with our essence that is a game changer. And from this space is there a ‘battle of the sexes?’ Is there a ‘fight for gender equality’? There doesn’t have to be. The battle is not only already won…. it doesn’t even have to be fought. Gender equality is a given – no questions asked.
References:
UNITED NATIONS OFFICE ON DRUGS AND CRIME, Global Study on Homicide, accessed 4/3/2019 [https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/GSH2018/GSH18_Gender-related_killing_of_women_and_girls.pdf]
Article: Biwa Kwan 'More than half of women killed in 2017 died at hands of partner or relative' [https://www.sbs.com.au/news/more-than-half-of-women-killed-in-2017-died-at-hands-of-partner-or-relative] accessed 4/3/2019
