Blog Update
I think we can all agree that sexism is an ugly thing. At least, I would like to believe that anti-sexism is one of our values as a society. I have just had my second life experience in which my writing has affected someone else gravely. This should not have been the case, as I did not relate anything that could have been used against another person by the patriarchal inquisition; but naturally, as a power structure, patriarchy does not require logic. It only requires two participants who are involved for their own reasons.
Friendship, I suppose, is also a power structure. But it seems to me that friendship involves a great deal of justice, whereas I have come to see patriarchy as being founded in the emotional insecurity of monads defined as men, who use their socioeconomic privileges to trap and contain another human being for their own emotional security. Ironically, "great" men in our society are painted as stoic and strong. Yet I fail to see anyone who lacks integrity and who uses, in Roddenberry's words, "power without constructive purpose," as strong.
I hope one day we all wake up and realize how patriarchy traps and seeks to define and delimit us. I hope we bring it crashing down and that we cheer in waves at the final destruction of an archaic self-imposed imprisonment. Until then, however, I am headed back to the Colonia to teach my students.
From San José,
Chaim S. Eliyah
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