Friday (March 8, 2013) is International Women’s Day, which has me contemplate “gender equality.” Many people might say that they accept gender equality when in actuality their acceptance is blocked at some level because they equate “equality” with “sameness.”
They may not know that they do. But their whole-hearted acceptance of the notion of equality, if looked at closely, will often be found to be shakey because they cannot see how people can be equal and different. Surely differences set up a pecking order. In a social Darwinist society – where nature is said to be red in tooth and claw – differences most certainly do.
They may feel that women are weaker than men. They may look at the fact that women often wear skirts to prove that women are not as powerful as men, cannot do as much, run as fast, etc.
But ours is not a social-Darwinist society. The belief that the weakest go to the wall is not a feature of society in the Golden Age of Gaia.
The ability to accept the notion of human rights, as far as I can see, depends upon people accepting that others can be different and yet remain equal and deserve to be treated equally. Everywhere we look, we see at the basis of the discrimination we’re leaving behind a lack of ability to accept this notion.
Some Jews may look down on Christians; some Christians may look down on Muslims; some Muslims may look down on Jews. Some whites may reject blacks. Some straights may reject gays. On and on the circle goes of people rejecting the notion of equality for those who appear or act differently.
Before someone can be enslaved, they must first be rendered in some way different and then that difference must be represented as rendering the second group unequal. That’s the basis of race theory, for instance. A colder climate is said to make Northern, white people more active, smarter, and more industrious. A warmer climate is said to make Southern, darker people less active, less smart, and effete. Specious arguments such as these have brought misery to the world. (1)
It’s the mark of a civilized people that it can allow the equal treatment of people who are different. People with long hair are treated no differently than people with short. People who won’t shoulder arms under any circumstances are accorded the same rights as people who will. People who worship God one way are accorded the same rights as people who worship God another way or don’t worship God at all.
Certainly the galactics and other higher-dimensional beings here around the planet to help us birth the new consciousness obey the universal Law of Freewill and will not abrogate a person’s right to make the decisions they do. They understand “different but equal.” It’s only in our Third-Dimensional shallowness that we, usually unconsciously, deny equal treatment to those seen as different.
It’s the stuff of movies: In the Heat of the Night, GI Jane, West Side Story, Moses and the Ten Commandments. There are themes in movies – boy meets girl, threat to survival is neutralized – and one very common theme is the subjugation of those perceived as different and therefore unequal.
There was a time, after the Second World War, when much education was going on through our media to produce a society that honored human rights. And then those who themselves were dedicated to undermining those rights produced a “war on terror” which allowed them to divide and conquer by painting whole populations with the brush of difference.
But here we are again, having defeated the would-be masters of the planet, back on the road to honoring human rights by allowing people to be different but equal.
In some important ways, women are different than men. Certainly biologically there are differences, as I believe God intended there to be.
The scheme for procreation, which teaches important spiritual truths about the Holy Father and Divine Mother (apparent aspects of the One God) (2) was meant, I believe, to show us the road back to God. It functions as a teaching tool to acquaint us with aspects of formlessness and form. There are similarities between the creation of human life and the creation of life itself, similarities between how a child is born and raised and how life evolves and returns to God.
The basis for our oneness is that each of us, under the skin, in whatever form or outer container we appear in, is at essence the Light of God. This Light is called different names by different religions: the Self, the Christ, the Atman, the Pearl of great price, etc. Each person is a soul in a body and all souls are … fragments? parts? these words are metaphorical … of the one Soul that is God.
Only one gender creates, carries and gives birth to the young and that makes for differences. These differences serve as the basis for extrapolating roles and roles have been, at times, the basis for mandating and sometimes legislating inequality.
But, as we emerge from Third Dimensionality in degrees and stages, we reach again a point where forward motion requires that we accept that, whether or not people are different, they remain equal as children of the One God. Even animals are children of the One God, a fact which we haven’t yet turned our collective attention to.
Gender does not bestow on one side more rights than the other. It doesn’t justify unequal treatment, whether that treatment has to do with wages, rights, or opportunity. We as a society advance our chances of having peace within and without, joy for ourselves, and security for all when we honor the rights of people to remain different and yet be treated equally.
In fact it could be argued that all advance, spiritual and otherwise, occurs in proportion to the acceptance of differences. Once we accept that the existence of differences does not justify discrimination, we’re on the road to becoming an enlightened society.
And becoming an enlightened society is surely our aim these days.
Different but equal is the notion we must accept. It clears the way to becoming a world at peace and a world that works. It removes the obstacles between us and our love for all beings. It provides the foundation for unitive consciousness, an acceptance of all of us as essentially being one, beyond superficial differences.
Footnotes
(1) In response to the racists of his day, Nineteenth-Century Professor Goldwyn Smith once quipped that stove heat was every bit as enervating as the heat of the Sun.
(2) Countless circumstances in life were created to mirror the nature of the Divine. See the articles under “The Divine Plan for Life” at https://goldenageofgaia.com/spiritual-essays/the-divine-plan-for-life/ and “The Nature of the Divine Mother” at https://goldenageofgaia.com/spiritual-essays/the-nature-of-the-divine-mother/