One more remark despite the risk of turning this in to an epic comment thread.

Aggregating your own words, one could say you are trying to: do a massive reframing to free us from a myth that feminist scholarship in particular is responsible for perpetuating?

I see a certain assignment of blame and a certain assumption of agency.

I am asking you to consider seriously that feminist scholarship is not the culprit but the key. It has done what it needed to do but you are blaming its old aspects rather than recognizing and learning from its new ones.

The first time I was called out for using the myth of oppression was in a Women’s Studies class where I guest lectured about some ethnographic work on gender in Central America. The feminist professor and several students critiqued me strongly for overlooking women’s constitutive role in the gender relationship, and told me my own framing of the “problem” was backward-looking. One student did a deft resurrection of Nietzche’s master-slave relationship stuff (which I later re-read with delight). That was in the year 2000.

Anyway. Take a closer look at these purportedly myth-ridden Women’s Studies conversations.

As you know, Integral could do a better job of appreciating the feminine side of analytical power. There is a reason I mostly don’t bother to jump in to conversations.

My only quick reaction to this is to say that, as i mentioned in the email i just sent you, saying there are such things as “Myths of Oppression” is not the same as saying that “oppression is a myth.” It is a turn of phrase that i am using to be kind of provocative, but also to try to make a massive cultural subject into object and reframe our mutual struggle as a DEVELOPMENTAL struggle, rather than as the story of women trying to free themselves from under the inherently-abusive thumb of men.

If i wrote a post about the “Myths of Spirituality,” would you take that to mean that i am arguing against spirituality itself? Or that maybe there was something about the “actual” nature of spirituality that is being OBSCURED by myth?

Another example: Ken’s “Myth of the Given.” This doesn’t mean that there are no givens–everything that came before humanity (holonically speaking) is a given to humanity. But there is no single monolithic capital-G GIVEN being imposed upon the universe. In the same way, there is no single monolithic capital-O OPPRESSION being universally imposed upon women by men. There is oppression, no denying that–but as long as women are painted as perpetual victims and men as perpetual perpetrators, we will never be able to see that oppression for what it is: the heart-breaking violence inherent to development itself.

Jason, your remarks here resonate with me.

My sense is that a good way to keep fading ideas strong is to debunk them as they become weaker–and especially to debunk them in ways that are hyperbolic, shadowy or just not analytically or factually whole. Scholarly opportunism is blood in the water: it invites people who want to agree to instead take a devil’s advocate position in order to require you to be more honest.

Thus we are putting all our energy in to strengthening an old thesis/antithesis, both sides of which are of course valid.

My own strategy is to seek out the leading edge and throw my energy in to supporting and broadcasting it. If I have a vague idea that feels innovative, chances are many others out there have already had it. That’s what the Web of Science and Google Scholar are for.

Warm wishes from an avatar whose owner happens to be female.

I still feel that the phrase ‘Myth of Oppression’ is wrongly placed. You seem to be talking about gender dynamics in western societies. Oppression itself is pre-rational…

According to Wiki, The definition of Oppression is: 1. the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner. 2. an act or instance of oppressing. 3. the state of being oppressed. 4. the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically, by troubles, adverse conditions, anxiety, etc.

The Oppression of women actually happened, has been documented, and is still happening. The Feminists have not overstated the case.

Saying that both men and women are oppressed and therefore gender specific conclusions are mis-led is not a valid argument.

Are you aware that the Nazis killed 3 million Christians? Would you call this the Myth of Antisemitism? Of course not… that would be inaccurate and insensitive.

I also think Ken Wilber’s Critique of Feminism does not accurately restate the views of feminism. (something he complains about his critics) It is stated in Hyperbolic fashion and would not hold up to academic rigor (as stated by OvO).

I want to re-iterate that many Pluralistic ideas are deeply compatible with an integral worldview… Of all the first tier memes Green offers the most balanced view of history.

I have experienced the mutual limitationing of both genders in college, while I am one of two guys who attends the course. The subject I’m learning is youthwork, and it is dominated, pardon the pun, by the woman kind.

I usually find such integral ideas good to hang on to.

Hmmm…. You took inventory? Speaking as an academic and student of intellectual cultures, I assure you that feminist scholarship is not what you claim, nor has it been such anytime in the past decade.

It is far, far more subtle and subversive than you would like to imagine.

Your version of this argument would be more useful if you ramped up the intellectual honesty.

a) Society is composed of equally rational agents
b) A disproportional amount of rational agents (men) willingly choose to abuse other rational agents (women).

Therefore:

c) Men are intrinsically oppressive
d) Women are inherently oppressed

Which leads to:

e) If women want equality and to be valued by society, they have to surrender their femininity and learn skills in the public sphere
f) If men want women to have equality and value in society, they must surrender their masculinity and even neuter themselves psychologically (e.g. the 90′s “Sensitive Guy” shtick)

The Myth of Oppression is very real, and can be found in the majority of liberal women’s studies classes in universities around the country. Which is not to say that this interpretation is not an exceptionally important rung in the developmental ladder–it certainly is–but while i am making a bit of a straw man out of some feminist thinking here, this has been the predominant narrative in universities for some time now.

And i will continue to insist that the only way we can actually begin to help the 200,000 women who have been brutally victimized in Eastern Congo is to STOP demonizing or feminizing men, and begin seeing all of this another heart-wrenching example of the very real horrors of development that are occurring at every moment all around the world.

I appreciate your blog post, and respect your point of view. I just don’t agree. Women are being systematically oppressed around the planet today. We don’t have to look into history.

Nicaragua recently passed a series of laws attempting to make abortion not only illegal, but impossible to justify under any circumstances including rape.

Wow, not even resembling the truth? Well, i’m honestly not sure how to respond to that. Thanks for stopping by, i guess?

“Any Place that Red shows up as a dominant meme, women are abused and subjugated, anyplace that blue shows up as a dominant meme, women are oppressed.”

I thought i made this point clearly enough in the piece, albeit without color-coded language. I tried to remain very sensitive to the fact that debunking the “Myth of Oppression” does not in any way minimize the “Facts of Oppression.” In fact, one of the points i am trying to make is that the “Myths” can actually REINFORCE the “Facts,” and that the best way forward is for men to begin looking to their own personal, cultural, and social growth with the same introspective intensity as women have been for decades, while both men AND women work together toward a genuinely integrative model of sex and gender.

I know that your views here are in line with what Ken writes about and are often thought of as the 3rd school of feminism among integrals.

However, I want to express that your views are not anything remotely resembling the truth. The interpretation of history as systematic oppression of women arose in a culture of pluralism… but that doesnt make it wrong or bad. Its an interpretation that has a downside, which you illuminate rightly. BUT its an interpretation that is clearly in line with an integral and or evolutionary worldview.

Any Place that Red shows up as a dominant meme, women are abused and subjugated, anyplace that blue shows up as a dominant meme, women are oppressed. At orange we begin to have equality, at green we begin to actually feel cultural remorse for these atrocities. At integral we have to integrate all this information.

200,000 comfimed cases of rape in eastern congo
http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=34226