I wonder if any other xmcaers are aware of this work? Without going into
detail about Wilber's analyses of the feminist movement I would like to say
that from his perspective (which he closely identifies with Habermas' theory
of communicative evolution), traditional male dominance is closely tied to
plow culture and structures of mytholigical and rational-mythological
socio-cultural integration. Men were focused with other men in the direct
relations of production (the "agentive" side of total social reproduction),
women were focused in the reproductive, caring, and nuturing aspects
(representing "communion" in the structures of overall cultural
intetgration). These relative positions were structured by the respective
biological functions and physical characteristics of the male and female of
the human species. The full blown emergence of rational socio-cultural
integration (cerca 17th century) in the Western cultures led to a
dissociation of the noosphere (I won't try to explicate this concept but
basically the dimensions of language and thought, representative systems of
social integration) and the biosphere (no need for explication? including
technological interactions between humans and non-human nature) with the
result that cultural integration no longer depended on images grounded in
the human socio-economic and biological relations of species reproduction.
This transition produced the grounds for women's assumption of agency; the
systemic, historical and structural conditions for which were previously
absent. Wilber points out that in evolutionary terms, the transition in
women's social roles which has been made in a mere two hundred years in
relative male/female are astoundingly rapid compared to other historical
evolutionary transitions. He credits this to the inherent intelligence and
will of women; also distinguishing that women have preserved a certain
relations to embodiedness that men have tended to ignore, forget, or
disvalue (or all three). He's not saying that there doesn't need to be a
fuller transformation, just that what has been done so far in this
evolutionarily necessary transition has been somewhat rapid.
So from this perspective, male abdication (as in looking for work teaching
elementary school instead of seeking jobs in the university teaching women
to teach in elementary schools) does not need to be seen as the adoption of
regressive roles of female subjugation but perhaps the adoption of some of
the caring/nurturing roles which women had been historically assigned and
for which men had been socialized to ignore. I personally think a lot of
men would be relieved of a lot of anxiety if they felt that such choices
weren't signs of weakness.
This topic is vast. I'm just trying to point to a chunk of ice floating
over there on the water. I would heartily recommend Wilber's work to anyone
interested in the meaning of social formative evolution.
Paul H. Dillon
dillonph who-is-at mail.tidepool.com