David Fuller:
You watched the Cathy Newman/Jordan Peterson interview. What did you think?
Feminine Compassionate Fragile Woman "FCFW":
My body contracted [hand touching heart] and I felt so sad for womanhood [nodding earnestly]. I felt disappointed and I could see how the shadow part of womanhood was acting out, I could see how the collective rage was acting through Cathy Newman and this is what happens is that when that is unowned [she waggles a finger at the camera] it is projected blindly to whatever [her whole body moves dramatically in a waggle] it sticks, and it was already clear that she had an agenda and she already had a projection that she was just looking to stick. She was just looking to have that confirmed, and she was trying so hard and I felt that this was just a classical example of feminine manipulation [nodding sagaciously], of the deep shadow manipulation, control, abuse [waggling her head in a circle]. So I felt on behalf of women, I feel sad and disappointed [nodding sadly and in a disappointed way] because we need to have intelligent conversations [inexplicably making motions of twisting something in her hand] that is aligned with the evolutionary dream, that is aligned with creating a future not destroying but finding those values. Have an intelligent conversation. In that sense I would have loved to see Jordan Peterson become present with that in that moment and say OK, I want a time out from the debate that we are having and I want to explore exactly what's going on right here because I can feel you're coming with a lot of anger and I think it's important that that anger gets acknowledged, but that we become real with what's going on and say "It's a projection, I understand why it's there, I would like us to find a way to move through it. This is what we need as men and women instead of blindly projecting our rage on to whoever man shows up for it."
DF:
You said she came in as a victim but under the surface was abuse?
FCFW:
I felt it was abusive that she was manipulating everything that he was saying. She was manipulating into the image she had in her head and she would just twist [her hands demonstrate a twist in case we didn't get what she meant] what he was saying and she would not listen, so it was not a conversation, it was a power game [she nods emphatically and seriously at this revelation], and she was the abuser. I felt cringey on behalf of women that this is not an empowerment, this is not the empowered feminine, this is the underbelly of feminism, this is when feminism goes wrong. This is not the future. This is not the future to blame and project and to persecute.
DF:
Can you explain a bit more about what you mean when feminism goes wrong?
FCFW:
When feminism goes wrong we allow the collective rage to act out through us. [She makes sweeping stroking motions over her body as if inviting her interviewer to think of stroking her body to calm her down.] So we see every situation, we see every man, we see every encounter with the lens of the victim and we are so angry about it and it's boiling in every woman right under the surface and [snaps her fingers dramatically] so she will quickly snap if there is a reason or an apparent reason because it's so strong it hasn't discharged, it's in the collective and that rage needs to discharge but it needs to discharge in an intelligent way, not in an unconscious way.
DF:
And you said before that that rage is often directed at men not showing up [for dates?]?
FCFW:
I'd say it's two way because yes it's targeted at men not showing up [for dates?] or they are causing but it's very often projected out to men that are trying to show up, that is actually engaging with women and actually talking about these things so that's when we bring up this topic and it's so easy for women to tap into that collective pool of rage and it just comes out.
DF:
And it's also difficult as well because one imagines that combative attitude is something that has served her well in the past and something that maybe she felt forced into because of the nature of the society that she is operating in, so it's a kind of Catch 22 situation for many successful women because they are pushed to be more masculine and then when they are more masculine they get judged for being more masculine.
FCFW:
It's very sad and I can see that dynamics being played out absolutely but the only thing we can do is to take responsibility and say OK, I'm doing that. Do I really want to compromise my femininity? [makes gestures and posture suggesting femininity] Do I really want to compromise my integrity? [makes gestures and posture suggesting integrity with a pained expression] Do I really want to compromise my gender? Is there another way I can be powerful without being aggressive, without playing a power game but resting in my natural power [her eyes dart across the room as if trying to locate her natural power], resting in my natural dignity, resting in that deep-rootedness that we both have in our genders that when we are at peace with it and when we acknowledge it in our selves [very emphatically], it's there as a natural thing. I don't want to make this personal about Cathy Newman because that potential is in every woman but it is because we are persecuting our own femininity. What's being played out there we are doing to ourselves because we don't trust that it's good enough to be a woman. We don't trust that it is good enough to have conversations that come from a felt embodied perspective, we don't trust that we are connected to truth because these masculine ways have been very strong and women have been denying their own power.
DF:
This is not specific to Cathy Newman. The fact that that interview has resonated with so many people, that it's been so popular, shows that something archetypal was going on in that interaction and I think as well why it's gone viral is that a lot of people watching it recognise the dynamics. I've been in conversations like that. I've been in this conversation when nothing I say works, when nothing I say gets through so there's something fundamental about the masculine feminine dynamic going on in there. What do you think that is?
FCFW:
I think Jordan Peterson. he's everyman. Cathy Newman, she's everywoman. I can tap into this rage like this [making a motion of snapping her fingers without snapping them]. I know it in myself and women who say they don't are denying this because it is in the collective. So in that sense it just highlighted what's there. It's wonderful because here we really get to look at why this is so important, [making a gesture that suggests that she is holding a new born infant that she is about to sacrifice to the deity of feminism] why it is so important to really listen to a thinker like Jordan Peterson and take it seriously and say "What can we do with it?" It's just so obvious that it's needed [looking down at the infant she is about to sacrifice on the altar of feminism], because if this is where we are, if this is society, if this is our ability to have an intelligent conversation, we are in trouble.
DF:
In the interview I had with Jordan Peterson he said the animus-possessed woman, which is the woman in our masculine side. the kind of defence for the feminine side sees every man or projects on to every man the patriarchy
Cut to Jordan Peterson spewing psychobabble.
and the way of out that is to see it from a Jungian perspective that the masculine archetype has both sides. The masculine archetype is both the tyrannical senile king and the benevolent father at the same time, and so they are multi-layered and see either side in any man [seems to suggest by his hand gestures that he is holding a transparent ball containing a man who is both a tyrannical senile king and a benevolent father and looking at him from different angles] but the animus-possessed woman sees only one side, and that is patriarchy and that is the tyrannical system, that is something that just needs to be destroyed. Does that make a lot of sense to you?
FCFW:
[As if receiving an expensive gift from him] I feel that that is precisely what's going on, it's a blind projection that makes every man and situation, it makes it into an image, and that image is where all the rage can go, so I would absolutely agree with that, but another thing I want to say is that that rage that is waiting for an outlet also is important information in the sense that it needs to be heard, it needs to be acknowledged and it is also there because women haven't found a way to be in our power which is not necessarily the way of the mind and the way of having an intellectual conversation about something. It's about coming back to the body and about coming back to feeling the energy of what's going on and really trust that we know in our body a deep truth that cannot necessarily be met or acknowledged in an intellectual conversation and because women have not been able to articulate that deep truth, that deep wisdom, that deep power, that's also where the rage comes because we know that deep down there's something that hasn't been seen or acknowledged by men and we're so angry about that and just forget that we have to start with ourselves, and to say "OK, I feel something is going on here. How can we address this is an intelligent way that is not just pure philosophy and not just a pure intellectual conversation, but it's in touch with what's real, it's in touch with life, it's in touch with co-creating illusion, co-creating consciousness and we can't do that only in an intellectual conversation where we are just arguing against each other's shadows [shaking head sadly], it's not real.
DF:
It's a disembodied ideological conflict. That reminds of something I've heard before, that men test ideas and women teste men, and there's some truth in that from what you're saying because women know on a deeper level than men [as if holding his heart and offering it to her] and women know when men are out of alignment on a deeper level than men often do and so there is something about women's embodied way of knowing and a genuine [as if making a grab for her breast with his right hand] ... It's essential for women to test men, so how aligned are you? [his hand darts out again as if to grab her breast] and that is what I think is playing out on the wider culture. The excesses of feminism you could say are men being tested on an epic cultural level to show up, to grow up, to acknowledge our shadows and be present, and that the evolutionary step that we need to see also but then you're saying women also need to acknowledge their shadows as well.
FCFW:
[All the while she is nodding earnestly and rhythmically in response to his words and gestures as if they were two birds conducting an elaborate dance or mating ritual with their words] But I think that was playing up perfectly in the interview in the sense that Cathy she just got more and more angry and the reason why, what was missing out was the masculine being present with her and feeling her [she says the last two words in a husky whisper as if in invitation to DF to feel her] instead of meeting her with the mind because that is only going to feel overpowering if you're in your motions and in your body, instead of being really present and saying "I feel your rage, I understand it" so that's where we can start moving on because the feminine will feel seen, it will feel respected in that embodied truth, because, yes, women have something to be enraged about, for sure, and we need that to become real and not just to become a power battle, so, yes, women test men to call them into presence and embodiment and just an intellectual conversation is not enough, it's going to keep stirring up the rage, so we need to find a way to have that conversation where both the body, the deeper wisdom, the deeper intelligence and the mind is there present on both sides. That's what I mean about having an intelligent conversation. It's not just a conversation of the mind, it's a conversation about what's real, what's aligned with life, and that's a whole different conversation. It's a different way of communicating. [She seems to be saying that Jordan Peterson could have either turned Cathy Newman on to him either by making her want to have sex with him or by agreeing with her to stop her from becoming upset at him by winning the argument.]
DF:
So what Jordan Peterson could have done better in that interview was to have said "I can feel where you're coming from"?
FCFW:
I think that could have changed the whole energy and dynamic and it could have moved it forward, but it's impossible to move it forward when we're both in battle mode and so, yes, I really feel that there is this collective subconscious rage [slowing down and emphasising with hand gestures the last three words and even looking a little angry in case we miss the point] that is just boiling in women and it's coming up in so many ways we see in the media and what's going on is this unknown rage that comes up in many different ways. On the one hand, it needs to come out, we need to clear it, it needs to be expressed, it needs to be acknowledged. On the other hand, it's not enough. This is only breaking the ice so that the next step of evolution can, you know, consciousness can start coming through, and that's what lacking in women. We need to take responsibility for what we do as women in our manipulation, in our seduction, in our control, and it's so easy for women to say "But that's just because we're angry and men did this and patriarchy", but that's such a lack of responsibility, and this women really need to know.
DF:
Because we could say look at me too which has been kind of ongoing for a long time and still a massive force and we can say it's brought up a lot of male shadows, it's shown up a lot of male behaviour that is just inexcusable, should not happen and it certainly started as a positive thing but then there is perhaps a danger of it flipping into a very simplistic narrative of men as only aggressors and women as only victims. Is that something you are worried about?
FCFW:
I am very worried about that because what it feels like is because it has displayed the male shadow, but who talks about the female shadow, the rage that women are expressing blindly and projecting on to whichever situation and whichever man that they can. This is where women need to step up and take responsibility and stop blaming men, it's pointless. We need to transcend this, we can't solve this problem from the same level [makes levelling motions with her hands] and look at how I am adding to this dynamic as a woman because we are, we are co-creating it in perfect harmony. If women are angry, we absolutely need to take responsibility for getting ourselves to another place.
DF:
I mean, that's the kind of shadow work, the acceptance that we all have shadows that men certainly have a shadow, there is a shadow around masculinity, but there's also a shadow around femininity while part of the cultural conversation now is toxic masculinity and everyone knows what you mean by toxic masculinity, if you talk about toxic femininity, everyone still knows what you mean, but you can't have that conversation. It's interesting what's allowed to be said and what's allowed not to be said at the moment and that I think is very dangerous that certain topics, certain conversations are off limits.
FCFW:
And this is where we see the victim persecutor dynamics activated [makes twisting motions with her hand]. Women become the victims, we make ourselves the victims and we persecute men but in that aggression, in that rage and when we are the victims, we are in perfect control [sic]. We become the persecutors because we say ... it's all about blame. [nonsensically] Men did this and men need to take responsibility, but in that we become the persecutors.
DF:
It's also a problem with the media because the short attention span of the media wants to polarise things. It's a very straightforward narrative - victim perpetrator - and yet the true dynamics needs something more than just the short analysis or a soundbite. It needs to be unpacked over time and it's easily taken out of context, which is why it is such a hot potato for the media to handle.
FCFW:
[Nodding vigorously in sympathy] It's also a very old story about you cannot say to a woman in a public debate take responsibility for what you are doing, take responsibility for the role you're playing into and I want to talk for a moment about the Presidents Club. I don't know very much about the details, but I think women in this country when we enter the room we have an absolute right to put up a boundary [her eyes dart around as if looking for this boundary] and the ability to put a boundary and say "I'm not going to play this game, I'm not going to co-create this antagonism between men and women and I'm not going to co-create this patriarchal structure and be a victim if I work in a bar somewhere and someone is groping me, [looking at her own body as if to imagining where she might be groped], I have the responsibility to say "Stop it right now" or to my manage "Have that person kicked out" or walk out of the room. No one needs to be a victim and this is what women just simply don't want to hear. They don't want to take responsibility for we are co-creating it, we like being the victims, we like blaming men instead of doing our own work and say "What am I getting from this whole seduction control manipulation?" I get power - the power of the victim - and it's the easy power, it's the cheap power and it's not long-lasting. We really need to have this conversation in a balanced way.
DF:
Cos I started teaching men's work maybe a year ago or so and the biggest reason for that was that I could see a need for it individually and among a lot of the men I know but because also culturally it felt like a time when men are being challenged to step up to evolve as men, to integrate our shadows and be confronted with negative traits in masculinity and to integrate them and move forward, but some people might look at men's work and say "It's divisive. What you're doing is perpetuating the patriarchy" for example. What do you think of that as a criticism?
FCFW:
It's a really good question because in my experience when I work with men and women, for me it's very obvious that women really relate to self-development and to going deep emotionally in themselves where I feel men are more vague or not as on it and it might be that I am a woman and men want more kind of safe environments where there's only men to do that, but I feel that men have been somehow lacking in really engaging with their own personal development, really taking personal responsibility for their belief patterns, for their emotions for how they show up in the world, and in my work I feel I am going deep in womanhood. What does it mean to be a woman? This is what interests me. This is what I am passionate about. It's about the deep feminine and women are drawn to that, so many women come to me and say "Thank you for showing up in the world like this now" I'm getting a sense of something that hasn't ... I haven't had it modelled. You know, in my therapy practice we talk a lot about childhood and how were your parents and so few women have modelled a healthy feminine, so that's what I'm passionate about, but in that work I feel I have gotten to a point in my life where I am thinking "Where's the men?" I don't know about men [waggling her body dramatically to signify ignorance], I don't know what's going on with men, I don't feel them, I don't feel they are showing up, and I'm talking very general but this is what I feel, it's a lack of willingness to show up with a woman that is present, and this is what I'm missing, this is why I feel men's work is so important because women are trying to do their work and there's a lot to do still - I really want to admit that - but men need to show up and right now there's one man here [pointing to an imaginary man in the room] and there's one man there [pointing to another imaginary man in the room] but most men out there are boys still, and I'm sad to say this but that's what I feel, and most women are girls, so on both sides we have so much work to do.
DF:
I always found men's work really helpful. I've done a lot of self-development work and really found that the men's work was that landing in my masculinity, landing with other men [makes hand gestures indicating he means his sex organs], feeling comfortable in myself around other men healing those wounds then really allowed me to meet women [dramatic big hand gestures suggesting that he was embracing the women he met big time] from a much more grounded place and I found my relationships with women improving with the amount of men's work that I had been doing and so I wanted to start leading men's work and bring that kind of work to other men [and thereby get more pussy] and then my background as a journalist because I have always been interested in following the media and then I saw the same dynamics playing out in the political sphere. The Trump/Hillary election was just so clearly from my perspective that we're so clearly desperate for genuine masculine values and so missing them that somehow some strange caricature and facsimile of genuine masculine values people are voting for and suddenly this guy who's a boy pretending to be a man is the most powerful man in the world so these dynamics are playing out in all of our lives and then on the wider scale. It's quite astonishing to see that.
[As you can see, David Fuller is not a Trump supporter.]
FCFW:
I think that was perfectly highlighting the sickness of Postmodernism [the Disease of the Mind that is Feminism?]. We needed to smash the values so Postmodernism is a good thing, but we cannot stay there. We've smashed the values. No one knows what it is to be a man and no one knows what it is to be a woman. And we see these caricatures. We seem someone stepping up and doing something and "Oh let's go that way" because we have lost ground. Men have lost ground, women have lost ground. We're calling for a more empowered feminine that's all in the world and old patriarchy, now we need to call in the deep feminine, but what about the masculine? We seen an absolute caricature of a man being so powerful in the world because it's exactly where we are. If we don't change, this is what we get so it's a very very healthy lesson for the world to see if we don't start changing this is our future, we've arrived to our future. What are we going to do about that? [The more feminazi the feminazis get, the Trumpier Trump and his supporters will become.]
DF:
And also I think it is important to say that what I'm talking about and tell me if you think this is what you're talking about as well about going back to the old masculine feminine dynamics. It's not saying men have to be stereotypically masculine, women have to be stereotypically feminine. It's going through this kind of gender neutral space and re-embracing the sort of our masculine and feminine essence and playing those roles out more consciously. For me, it's like an evolutionary step.
FCFW:
I absolutely agree. We need to go through this, we need to pull everything apart, but we need to put it together again and say we never have the truth. Where is the truth? The truth is always changing. We are in a stream of evolution. We never arrive at that place, but we need to keep questioning and we need to put together those pieces that create solid ground for us that creates these [making snakelike movements] maps, so that we know where to go, so we have role models, we have people, we have values that we resonate with so we are not just lost, and we see that - I'm from Scandinavia. Scandinavia is one of the places in the world where we have the highest amount of gender equality, but what also happens is that we see a somehow gender neutral space where men and women are the same and it's so important to move through that, but especially ...
DF:
[interjecting inexplicably] Great friends and bad sex!
FCFW:
[equally inexplicably] Yes, exactly! Men are completely losing their identity and losing their power and losing the essence of their masculinity and women are somehow taking that over and getting bitter and resentful about it, so at the surface it looks like a really equal society but in terms of relationships [makes shimmying motions with her shoulders] and in terms of polarity, it's not working very well.
No comments:
Post a Comment