Helder recalled walking on the 16th Street mall in Downtown Denver in 1968 and noticing two young women walking together, carrying leather briefcases and wearing men’s business suits. Given the context and cultural time, he knew the intent was to provoke. He noticed.

He said the feminist movement of the late ’60s in Denver was edgy, in-your-face, and provocative. Its goal was genuine equality, and I fully supported it. But, he lamented, the feminist movement seems to have abandoned the noble quest for equality for the allure of power.

The suit and the briefcase were symbolic, helping us all to confront the obvious, that window dressing was the only actual difference between men and women in the marketplace. Men are not more clever, more intelligent, or more ‘gifted by god,’ only physically stronger, and they weigh more, which has been used from the beginning of time to enforce on her the dark myth that men should rule over and have their way with her.

…abandoned the noble quest for equality for the allure of power.

• • •

First Wrong Turn

Passerby,
Please read chapter eight in Fr Richards’ Eager to Love for one of the finer discussions of the balance between the Sacred Feminine and the Holy Masculine that exists in all mature mystics and mature religions.

We two being one, are it! —John Donne.

The genesis of our problem—evidenced by the social injustices inherent in our human domination systems of politics, economics, and religion—is our horrific history of the domination and abuse of women by men in love with money, sex, and power. The relationship between men and women is our first and most foundational relationship. When humans got this wrong, nothing else could ever be right again.

The relationship between men and women is our first and most foundational relationship.

I am not placing the blame for this documented abuse on the doorstep of men generally. Obviously, many men find this history as repugnant as I do. Nor am I suggesting that any blanket standard of behavior, roles, or attributes should be applied to males or to females, for that matter. But, when the foundation is broken, nothing good will ever be built on it.

Both Psychology and Spirituality support the concept that a more healed human incorporates the positive attributes of both male and female. Also, while I am sympathetic, an argument for the existence of genders other than female and male is way above my pay grade. My comments and conclusions are based on my observations of history and devotion to Rabbi Jesus’s teaching.

• • •

Elohim did not create the concept of power over others. Women did not make it so. Men did. Human males, because they are physically stronger than females generally are, made it so.

The concept of someone giving, assuming, or taking power and having control over another human being is not the teaching of Rabbi Jesus. He taught quite the opposite.

“He said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, … But you are not so. Instead, let him who is greatest among you be as the younger, and he who rules as he who serves. … I am among you as He who serves.”

—Jesus, Luke 22:25-27

And,

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth (Matthew 5.).” The gentle, not the strong.

And so also believed the writer of the letter to the koinonia at Ephesus:

“…giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Messiah.” Ephesians 5:20b-21

And again, in Paul’s letter to the koinonia at Corinth,

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” And “When I am weak, then I am strong.”

And, as St Francis said,

“You should not seek to be in the charge of another. You should seek just to be the servant of all people”.