Sexuality and Old Age - In India or Anywhere Else

Ok, so this is a taboo subject … for all of us … in India or anywhere else, except may be in some of the tribes who have not been infected by our kind of “civilization”.

So what is it that I want to write about? Sexuality in old age, or the way society looks at it? I am not sure, for the subject is so vast and there are so many things to say, that I think I will limit this post only on one or two aspects.

First of all, I believe that

- the idea of sexuality for long has been confined largely to heaving, gleaming bodies entwined in lust, but bodies which are young, muscular or shapely.
- that in popular myths, sexuality is, all about lust and fulfillment of that through sexual intercourse and that too is when you are young in your body.
- That Images of people with lined faces, slacking muscles and shaking hands, embracing each other in a lustful way makes some of us feel uncomfortable and evokes disgust and shame.

Sexuality itself is such a taboo subject that we can indulge in it only through forbidden or voyeuristic pleasures or by sublimating it a higher philosophical plane where the body does not exist. In this scenario, sexuality in the elderly is not part of our collectively held image of the elderly in India.

In India, one of the collective images about the elderly is that of people who surrender in prayer to the divine, engaging in morning or evening walks to keep sickness at bay, playing the role of the babysitter/additional helping hand at home and/or waiting for death to come and rescue them. The other collective picture of the elderly (now brought to the fore by the media) is the healthy, smart, enthusiastic and independent (read deep pocketed) individual who doesn’t mind flirting with her spouse, goes out on holidays and has a good time.

I am not claiming that either of these pictures is undesirable. The issue that I am trying to bring to the fore is that what certainly happens in old age is that your body becomes less agile and one certainly feels less enthusiastic about sexuality as one did before. Immediate fulfillment of lust may not even be as important as it was before, but that does not mean that older people lose their lustfulness, their sexual arousal or their need for passionate and tender love from their partners.

Where I have a problem is that either older people are shown as “less than able” as compared to the youthful generation or their image is carefully built so that youthfulness is preserved in these characters. So even when they flirt or are provocative, they necessarily imitate the younger generation, and when get caught, they feel ashamed and have a strong need to hide it from others! (Remember one of the monthly income scheme ad?). My protest is towards inducing the subtle element of shame in these pictures. What is there to feel ashamed of?

Some of the recent studies state and I quote

“Humans have sex for several reasons. Sex serves many purposes not related to reproduction. Sex is a way to express love and it also provides the feeling of security and reconfirms the feelings shared between people, regardless of age. Sex has also been shown to calm people in stressful periods. Sex has a symbolic value, which is independent of age.

However sex between elderly people is often treated as a taboo by society. Whilst sex itself is a sensitive topic due to its private nature, sex between seniors is often treated with extra care. This attitude is especially common among younger people and it has been suggested that this may be caused by younger people's belief that the lust and ability to have sex diminishes once the primary reason for sex is no longer present.”

Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_in_older_age

(for more information, you may also like to visit http://www.apa.org/pi/aging/resources/guides/sexuality.aspx)

All that I am trying to put up here is that as people grow older, their physical and emotional needs become different than when they were younger. While sexuality is certainly not only about sexual coitus but also of passion, intimacy, tenderness and is emotionally fulfilling; physical intimacy and yes, the bad word "intercourse" does play a significant part in it. Therefore, why look at the older person as someone who is wise and tranquil and does not have an iota of lust in them? Can we for a change look at them as people who are matured (at least in age), and have similar need for a fulfilling physical intimate relationship with the desired partner, be it intercourse or gentle loving touch? Can we concede to ourselves that youthfulness may not be all that important to have a zest for life?

What are your views? What do you think?

Re inventing feminism

I found this talk both hopeful and inspiring, especially when it is so easy and"tempting" to feel overwhelmed and disillusioned in the current context of the world.

Courtney E Martin chronicles and encourages the current generation of young activists and feminists. She's the author of "Do it Anyway - the new generation of activists" and an editor of www.feministing.com

Amazing women in my life - part 5

Although I am writing this on International Women's Day, I personally do not believe that we have to have a special day to commemorate women ... we ought to do it every single day at all moments in our lives.  This can not be a politically correct, nice to do thing, it has to be in our bones, in our blood and in our hearts.

I started to write this note about another woman that I met recently .... She is 90 plus years old, lives in an ashram in Haridwar ... all by herself.  Her children live in India but away from her.  She has been living in that Ashram for the last 28 years.  While going to the ashram, I was expecting to see someone who was old, withering and waiting to somehow spend the last days of her life .... instead I met someone who was old alright, but boy, oh, boy, was she feisty!   Her energy, memory and zest for life hit right at some of the sterotypical ideas I was holding about being old and about old women.

Her name is Santosh Rani ... She was born in Peshawar in the early twentieth century, came to India after the partition, is the eldest of six siblings.  Got married, borne six children, four of whom are alive.  After her husband passed away, she chose to stay at this Ashram as she valued her freedom and her own way of living.

After she met me for the first time,  she asked me about my family, my daughter, as though she had known me for ever.  In fact, she had only heard about me and my family from her daughter some months back.

As she sat there talking about her children, I could not help but notice the utter pragmatism with which she approached life ... she weighed pros and cons carefully, believed in  choosing that which made most sense, even if that meant having to give up some immediate gains and losses.

After chatting with her for a while  I  gingerly asked her whether she wished to come with us to Hrishikesh but it would also mean 4 to 5 hours drive? Her face lit up and she said "Main to chal padungi"! (I would gladly hop in and come along).  First layer of my stereotyping of older women peeled off at that moment.

Not only did she come with us and enjoyed the journey, she also chatted about her life, every detail intact in her memory, where all she stayed, which year were her children born, how was life then, everything.  The second layer of forgetful, old women picture peeled off.

While we were at Hrishikesh, she insisted that we should keep her seated on a wheelchair  at a corner of a fairly busy road, and go down and visit Lachhmanjhula (the famous hanging bridge over Ganga at Hrishikesh).  I was petrified at the idea of keeping her seated on the wheelchair at a corner but she insisted ... "Go, go, have a good time, look around, I will be fine".  While we went down to the river and visited the bridge, I felt very anxious and wanted to come back as early as possible.  When we came back, she was calmly sitting there and  exclaimed that we had come back rather early!  She wanted us to spend some more time but we declined.   I was amazed as to how calm she was and that there was no sense of anxiety at all in her voice.

She came back to the ashram .... laid down on her bed and rested for a while.  We waited for her domestic help to return to be with her.  She talked about needing someone to be with her as it gives her some sense of comfort .... she said if she was as fit as she was earlier, even this would not have been needed!  As though if she could, she would have taken care of herself, and of others, all by herself.

She peeled off the last layer of my imaginary stereotype as she suggested that next time I was there she would "take"  me to Shimla for a trip.  I loved her!

Santosh Rani helped me to believe that helplessness and lack of courage is learnt and are not associated with age or ailments, and that being a woman is a celebration of life.

happy womens day to all of you!

Gender & Identity Lab

Ooops, I have not written for so long and my apologies.  Many stories are waiting to be told and muh sharing is waiting at the doorstep.  I have been busy with very little breaks in between to give the right amount of focus and attention to the blog.  My apologies :-(
But I do want to share with you an interesting program that I and some of my colleagues will be facilitating in Bangalore next month.  It is called Gender and Identity.  The idea is to explore how we are influenced by our ideas of who we are and a very significant portion of "who am I" is coded in  our ideas of the kind of Man or Woman that we believe we are or we wish to be.
I am giving below an excerpt from the brochure to give you some details of what will be explored in this program.  Do write to me if you are interested to attend or simply with your comments about what do you think about the idea.

The Program

What does being a man or woman mean to us?

The meanings that we give to being a man or a woman are extremely significant in how we look at ourselves, and how we perceive and relate with others in the world.

Traditionally, the meanings given to gender were predominantly defined by the social roles associated with them. However, advancements in technology have influenced the social fabric in such a way that it has considerably reduced the need for gender to be a significant determinant of these roles. The polarities here are traditional values and socio-technical parameters.

In other words, our social identity is becoming increasingly gender neutral. This brings in a welcome relief from the traditional stereotypes of gender roles. It is therefore not surprising that many people today feel more comfortable being a ‘person’ rather than being a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’. However, since this transition is not seamless, people also find themselves struggling with values that have been inherited and new ones that are being created in the changing world around them.

This creates considerable confusion in our personal, work and community spaces about a very basic question:

What does being a “man” or a “woman” really mean to us and it’s impact on our role taking processes?

This question is especially relevant when we hold gender stereotypes within and yet function from a platform of gender neutrality, which seems to have become the new norm.

The answers perhaps lie in looking at how we derive the meanings we give to our gender.

The Concept feminine and masculine

In our understanding this meaning making is derived from three significant sources: -

a) our personal history, particularly in respect to our encounters with significant others, i.e. family members, close relationships both in personal as well as work/secondary spaces;

b) our socio-cultural symbols associated with masculinity and femininity through direct experience and through the world of myths, folktales and folklore, language, history, media, politics and literature; and

c) our bio existential associations with our gender.

In our opinion, femininity and masculinity are abstract concepts, not the qualities, traits or energies of biological men and women. The principles of femininity and masculinity are configured in our psyche through various symbols and are held uniquely by each of us. These symbols, through their unique configuration in each individual offer their share of myths, perceptions, dilemmas and confusions. These, then, shape our day-to-day role taking processes in our personal and work spaces.

In this context, this program will provide the participants an opportunity to explore:

• The individualized, unique meanings of our gender roles and images of our selves and our bodies.

• The ways in which we relate to significant others in our relationships; the meanings and rules we develop around these relationships – in personal and in workspaces.

• Our internal values frames about morality, sexuality, intimacy, etc

• Residues of aggression, guilt, joy, shame, etc and their impact on codes of expression,

evocation and inhibition.

• And, the opportunity of creating a new perspective and a new anchorage in our gendered identity. This then may lead to new frames about the human context in personal as well as work/group/community spaces.

For Whom

This program is meant for people interested in exploring these issues; and may be particularly relevant for men and women who are working as Change Agents, Institution Builders and Leaders in the field of Management, Art and Social Services, especially in the area of Gender Diversity.

If you wish to know more, please visit www.sumedhas.org or contact me at sarbari.gomes@gmail.com. 

Do let me know what you think of the idea.

Amazing women in my life - part 4

This story is about B .... she was born in erstwhile Bangladesh, eldest of three sisters. She grew up being educated in the village school and finished her Matriculate. The stories that I heard from her about those days, were full of her liveliness, her feeling one with nature, her writing poetries, her curiosity about people, life and the world in general. She loved teaching and did not really care about getting married.

But this was not to be ... being the eldest of three sisters and remaining unmarried and blocking the queue was not a conceivable idea for a girl some seventy five years ago. To top it, her father was not really a very efficient person who looked after the family well, hence the mother grew more and more anxious.

B was quite a plane jane to look at and she was dark. But one asset that she had was her hair, which went below her knee, long, black, thick, shiny, straight hair.

Being poor, her parents were worried about getting their daughters married off and in came a proposal from another family of the same community. The man was slightly older, very fair, could hardly speak Bengali, was a city bred and a practicing criminal lawyer. The only taint that he had was that his family had a kind of ill repute vis-a-vis marriages, etc and people were not very keen to send their daughters to this family.

However, B's parents could not say no to such a proposal as he seemed too good to be true. Besides, they had other two daughters waiting in line. Hence, to clear the line, B was married off much against her wishes and she gradually accepted her fate.

She came to Kolkata with her husband and discovered that while he earned a lot, he had almost zero savings and would spend his earnings with his friends drinking and playing cards, etc.

She decided to change the state of affairs ... it was not an easy task but she did not give up. To make matters worse, she became pregnant and slowly discovered to her horror that remaining pregnant was the order of the day as she often was forced into marital rape as per her account.

She tried to look after the children - all nine of them - as much as possible - she did not allow them to go astray, she did not leave them and went away with her mother which could have easily been done as her mother could not see her daughter's condition deteriorate any further.

Her days would pass trying to organise and keep her family together between her husband's psychological disturbances, to his erratic earnings and frequent non earning phases. She kept up feeding, clothing, educating all nine children and perhaps treated them a little too harshly lest they went astray. She succeeded, most of her children became well educated and became successful professionals in their own right.

Then slowly nature started taking its toll, gone was the free flowing, determined, life loving woman and was replaced by a angst ridden, neurotic person who lived either in the past regret or in the fear of the future. Her children for who she spent her youth, started turning away from her as they too could not deal with her anxiety, her neurosis of keeping some fights alive among her children, her paranoia about outsiders which prevented her children from brining any friends home or having any fun at home. She even prevented brothers and sisters playing with one another.

The time I got to know her, she was in her fifties, and obviously she did not take kindly to me as i was dating one of her sons and later married. My relationship with her remained tumultuous as she could never trust me with her well being, nor did she make any effort of providing me with any affection. While this made me feel angry and unhappy with her, I later realized that she did not have the wherewithal to trust anyone with her well being, not her husband, nor her children, nor her own sisters. Continuously dealing with anxiety and uncertainty had pushed her into such a corner, that coming back was very difficult.

I got to see her for about 15 years during my courtship and later days and there was these rare moments when I would get a glimpse of that teenager who loved to be one with nature, who would be curious like a child and who would want to write poems and show them around shyly and would dream about better days. Those were the days that I really loved her, though I never told her that as she would have never believed me and would have created a new drama from her paranoia.

I sometimes wondered, what would have happened had she received a different life where she could have steered the ship herself and made her life worthwhile. It was a pity to see a talented person filling her life with regrets and bitternes while there was a huge potential for her to be a great teacher, a poet and a philosopher.

B died suddenly, one afternoon in a heart attack, as though that was the last game that she played with others.

Being Female!

I was quite stirred by an article called “Unwanted daughters” by Harsh Mander in the Hindu Sunday Magazine dated 29^th August, 2010  on a major recent study done on female feticide in India by Action Aid India and International Development Research Centre, Canada. 

The article among  disturbing facts like methods of killing the female child, neglect, illegal connivances of doctors and nurses, etc also talks about some interesting explanations cited up by the study that they believe perpetuate this evil norms in India.  The explanations talk about the paradox that how some of the progressive policies of the Government such as inheritance rights for women, higher age for marriage, etc make them much more of an economic burden to the families as further expenditure on the girl and any property owned by them would only benefit the husband’s family after marriage as also that the woman’s physical capabilities like child bearing, productive abilities, caring abilities become the property of the husband’s household.  Hence the article goes on to say that the female feticide is taking place  more out of economic and material reasons rather than a desire for make child over female ones. 

The articl  then goes on to suggest as to how only through long term social reforms such as society changing their view of women, parents willing to live with their daughters in the old age, stoppage of dowry and other practices and enhancing the social and economic power of women within families can bring about any changes in this most heinous  and inhuman practices in our society. It also brought the fact to the fore that some of urban areas and the educated class are also very much part of the female feticide trend. 

After I read the article, I was with two contradictory emotions, one was of understanding and some empathy for the families who were killing their female infants (understanding and empathy would not tantamount to supporting them) and the other was a slight hopelessness and shame as to whether our society will ever be able to look at itself differently and even if it does, how will it take for us to bring any changes in these customs and how aware are we, the so called educated and progressive part of the society which has at least in paper, the capacity to influence positive social reforms through activism, practice and awareness. 

While pondering over these, I also thought another incident that I was a part of in the recent past. 

I was working with a multinational organisation where large number of men and women work together.  The group that I worked with had the following demographic data: their average age is between 25 to 35, average education qualification ranges from postgraduate to MBA from prestigious institutions, most of them come from middle or upper middle class, most of them live in metros and have lived there for most of their lives, their take home salaries range between Rs. 15 to 30 lacs per annum.   The group had about forty percent women and sixty percent men. 

While working with this group, a particular narrative triggered off a question for them to explore the psychological status given to femininity in the organisation and we suggested that perhaps the status given to females and femininity in the minds of people (both men and women) were lower than the masculine traits and qualities.  This created a furore in the group and many of them, especially some women were outraged that we could even hint at a possibility like this in their organisation context, while some others agreed with the hypothesis.  

During a subsequent dialogue some of them argued that they never experienced any discrimination either during their growing up years nor do they experience any discrimination in their work places.  What was hard for them to understand that even if they did not personally experience this differentiation, that there was a strong possibility of its presence in their organisation context and that it was probable that they themselves would be blind to their own biases and prejudices.  The data that they presented in the context of the workshop, however, pointed towards a generally held psychological bias more towards masculine attributes and qualities as more desirable as compared to feminine attributes and qualities.  The argument presented to them was that since both men and women would possess both masculine and feminine attributes in themselves, whether it was worthwhile for them to explore whether such a bias existed in the group and the repercussion of it in their work context.  

This has been my experience in not only this organisation but in working with groups both within a work context or outside, that while most  people  condemn the overtly displayed patriarchal norms of unjust and  inhibiting practices, they often remain blind to their own biases and prejudices.  Most do not take into account that most of us in the world today are products of the patriarchal culture, values and norms and that our belief system, biases, assumptions and practices would be highly impacted by the super structure of the context.  Hence injustice towards  anyone who is weak in the eyes of the powers that be in any context when happening somewhere else, is easier to condemn but when it is happening within me or in my personal context by me towards others, or vice versa or towards others, we are often blind to it. 

If I were to talk about myself, I became painfully aware of my own biases towards femininity when I was looking at strong biases held by people and by me shortly after the 26/11 incident in India.  It is in my blog post called "Communalism Revisited" (http://sharbori21.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html).   

I believe that today being female is not just about having a strong voice, opinion, capabilities, competence, financial power, status and power, but also about being self reflective, being sensitive to the larger context and towards oneself, having a sense of respect towards self as well as towards others irrespective of their social class or milieu and above all, living with a sense of conviction, commitment and responsibility towards oneself and towards the context, and living with this question: How do I wish to live? What is the quality of life that I wish to build around myself and around others, what responsibility do I have towards the larger context and finally what am I owing up and what am I disowning?

And needless to say the same argument holds true for men as well but I believe women of today need to be more aware of what is happening within as much as they need to be aware of what is happening outside.  

What has been your experience?  I would be interested to know and be happy if you share.  :-)

Do we know who we are? Really?

"I seem to see my self from his eyes while i have always possessed the
intelligence and politics to know or perhaps i should say interpret
who i am as a woman. But this knowledge i cannot assimilate in me, the
experience is of being in ruin, ............ "

mail from a dear friend to me, in response to an anguished mail sent to her.

Says another vivacious, lively, intelligent, perceptive woman, to me, on her first meeting with me as a therapist:

" I am so sorry that I have cried.... I mean this is a first meeting with you and all that".

"Why the shame?" I ask her.

"shouldn't I be calm and composed and not really show my emotions at all? I mean isn't this what the world wants from me, from you, from all of us?" she responds, albeit a bit surprised that i am even asking her this question.

"well you are here to meet a therapist, and you are talking about your distress and while you share all that, you would feel emotional - most of all, this is not a social visit" I try to pose another exploration point.

She pauses for a while ... and then she talks about her aspiration of wanting to be someone who should take all the shit coming her way and not flinch, not react but remain calm.  and her "role model" is a person who actually looks down upon the whole world and their cousins, has cholesterol problem, not able to have a healthy conjugal life and so on.

when i point this out to her, she agrees quickly but is not really convinced about being who she is really.

As I look at two of these instances and many others including myself at times, I often wonder, do we really have an idea of who we really are?   Or has this "me" become an amalgamation of images and perceptions generated and received from people around us, images which have provided a temporary relief, images which have saved us from many embarrassing moments,  images which tell us who we "should" be and not who we "are"?

for many of us, the inner being is shrouded in shame for being too alive, too impulsive, too demanding, too verbose, too sensuous, too argumentative, too questioning, too much to take.

for some others, it may be that the inner being is held back lest others make fun of us, lest others take advantage of us, lest others desert us, lest others make us feel weak and so on and so forth?

so what is our stance of being who we are?  how do we experience ourselves internally?   What is our politics of who we are?

The world  of relationships is totally made of perception.  We never really see the other person as who he or she is, but what we perceive he or she is, through our unique and individual looking glass made up of our world view, our biases and our values.  In other words, it is humanly impossible to see the person as it is.  What we can gather are only the objective data about name, family name, degrees, work, education, etc but can never be objective about the person.  We look at the world through perception and it is always subjective.

So, in all these, how do we perceive us?  Do we look at ourselves through these looking glasses as well?  is there a difference between me perceiving myself and others perceiving me?  what happens when there is a difference?  Is there a struggle to say this is who I am?

When I look at myself, I see myself and I quote from a mail that I have written to a friend, below:


quote:
"like i was telling you the other day, i feel very masculine internally, so my first descriptors of myself always are that I am intelligent, tough, quick on my feet, analytical and highly action oriented.  the next level would be that i am sensuous (not the way a woman is described) i.e. my senses are strong, i hear keenly, i smell keenly, i see keenly and i am quite aware of touch of any kind.  i am also very intuitive and am aware of the bodily sensations that i experience.

all these are devoid of other people, i.e. I look at myself irrespective of how others see me as.

the trouble starts from now on - any other descriptors of me such as:

loving, gracious, accepting, rude, scary, generous, pretty, ugly, argumentative, petty, kind, irrational, intellectual, stubborn, giving, caring, loyal, sexy, unsexy (can't think of anything else at the moment that describes me) are all other people dependent.  If they see me like this then i am like this, otherwise, i don't see myself as scary, petty, rude, etc, etc."

unquote.


I wonder what is it for others?  do we even ask these questions or do we tell ourselves, oh well, I have no problem in declaring to the world who I am and if they can't take it, it is their problem?  Really?

or do we tell ourselves, actually I don't even want to know who I am as it is too much of a bother, or it is of no use.  Too much of intellectualisation.  Really?

I don't believe people actually like to imprison themselves in either of these two extremes, most of us perhaps live in the in between world.  what about you?

is feminism a "out of fashion" word for privileged women?

ambition and women or is it about ambitious women (men)?

What is it about ambitious women that sends the society in  a tizzy?   It sounds as though ambitions of women ought to be fulfilled through their near and dear ones, like through children, through husband, father, brother, etc but never for herself?  Take for example Sunanda Pushkar and the IPL row - columns and columns are being written about her and Tharoor's relationship (how it matters to other people, i am yet to get a clue), about her ambition, her social climbing, including her plastic surgery, etc.  yuck, how low can we get?

But if i were to take all the things that are written about her ambition and her "social climbing", I can see a pattern that gets established between being ambitious and being a woman, that I am sure many women have faced and are facing in their lives.  I remember my corporate days when I used to be an aggressive marketing person and I was questioned by one of the most revered HR practitioners in the Company as to why was I so ambitious? This question of course had a link to his wife who was also involved in business link with us, but that is another story at some other time.  Being in the awe of the gentleman in question and always ready to take the "blame,  I felt suitably chastised and small and decided that being ambitious was against having a sense of well being for oneself and for the context.  It took me nearly ten more years to come back to square one and accept that being "ambitious" was a healthy and powerful part of oneself that makes us realise our dreams and helps us shape our chosen destiny.  Of course, I am not talking about fulfilling ambition at all costs and trampling everything and everyone who come in the way.   But to accept ambition for what it is and accept that as a natural phenomena for women, i think is still fraught with ambivalence in our society.

I am cognizant about women being encouraged to study, to take up employment, to take up entrepreneurship and to fulfill their ambition in today's society.  However, if we are to take a moment here and actually follow an end to end path, then i am not sure how many actually end up fulfilling their chosen dream - it can be due to marriage, to child birth, to family pressure or simply because one is a woman in an area which is traditionally dominated by men.  I know these are cliched but lets not hide behind it any more.  I was watching with dismay all the things written about Sunanda Pushkar in the various media including Facebook and the tonality used about her.  Not many people wrote about Tharoor or Modi and their ambition but people went to town about her and her "amorous" linkage with Tharoor.  I found it disgusting.

Lets come back to "ambition". I think ambition and power are inextricably linked.  Power and women are a lethal and unsavoury combination in many people's mind, more so with women.  Women who do make through the corridors of power, often have to pay a heavy price, usually character assassination being the primary among them.  But beyond these done to death issues, are there other areas that we usually don't deal with when it comes to power and ambition?  what are they?  how do we view them for ourselves?  what has been our experience?

If I were to look at my life, I find that actually accepting my ambitions to myself has been the greatest task for me and often times, the ambitions felt illegitimate for a variety of reasons - for not having the right pedigree, for not having the right connections, for fear of loss of a fragile balance, for fear of being perceived as an aggressive person, etc, etc.  Hence my action and my responses to my own ambitions have always been ambivalent and hesitant and the result has been less than what I could have achieved or should have achieved.

My question here to others are - what has been your experience, both as a man or as a woman? how have you experienced ambition for yourself?  what has been the enablers and the blocks as you faced them?

the bipolarity of static masculine and dynamic feminine

Hmmm ... all the good things that i experienced over the last two weeks went out of the window in the last four days. i was on an emotional roller coaster, hardly having any control over my rawness, ended up having meaningless fights and arguments and loathed myself the most. there were some moments when i just wanted to die ... notwithstanding my need to dramatise my life.

but some insights and resolutions ...

first the insights:

I have been reading this book "Masculine and Feminine" and it talks about the two types of masculinity and femininity and the interplay between static and dynamic. one such bipolarity is between static masculine and dynamic feminine. in simple terms, people who are more towards this pole negatively, are torn between being rigid, opinionated, vocal, intrusive, dictatorial, idealistic, etc, etc on one hand, and between being reckless, impulsive, histrionic, rebellious, self loathing, drowning on self pity, lacking self control, etc, etc.

there is of course the positive polarities of this dynamics and there is the other set between Static Feminine and Dynamic Masculine; and that too has its positive and negative bi-polarity.

most people are torn between the polarities and most people end up splitting one or the other from their psyche. For example, if i take my example, i am caught in the bi-polarity of Static Masculine and Dynamic Feminine and often in its negative connotations. More over, in my case, i have split the Static Masculine from my psyche and projected it onto other people, i.e. both the positives and negatives of the pole are projected onto other people. For example, i would admire other people who can bind themselves and others, who has a sense of proportion, balance, can gently but firmly stand by his or her own principles, has a strong sense of self or self worth, can bring in a sense of order in a chaotic situation, can look at the whole picture without being overwhelmed most of the time, etc, etc; on the other hand i stay away or dislike either the same people or some others who are (in my perception) unnecessarily rigid, righteous, views the world from his/her high horses, unfair, autocratic, moralistic, judgemental, opinionated, silent critic, etc, etc.

As for the Dynamic feminine, the positives are: creativity, taking the uncertainty of life in its stride, being able to live with the tension of continuous change, spontaneous, vivacious, energetic, having a zest for life, able to bring out the positive from every negatives, etc, etc. the negatives are histrionic, overcome with emotional turbulence hence can be hysterical, prone to excesses of addiction, mood swings, self loathing, despair, suicidal tendencies, etc, etc.

now where am I in all the above? i do see myself caught in the negative bi-polarity of the Static Masculine (SM) and Dynamic Feminine (DM). while i don't see to garner enough self control when i am feeling angst ridden, i also invite aggression and criticism of the SM from others.

In one particular event, i was caught in this loop with another person who is also (in my perception) caught in the same negative bi-polarity of SM and DM and in my encounter with her, we ended up hurting each other from our denied and hence most strongly held negative static masculine. we were critical, bitter, reactive and vengeful to each other and just could not see where the other was coming from. There was one more character in this context, on whom i have projected both the positives and negatives of the static masculine and this person too in my experience was drowning me with silent criticism, often in collusion with the other person. I experienced myself being an untouchable and it was so vivid that i could not just be there physically.

physically i felt suffocated, abandoned, ostracised and being made into an untouchable both by me and by them. These feelings were so strong that i had to physically look for a person to who i could just cry and feel being accepted in my most raw and "ugly" state of being. however, there were none. but this incident opened my eyes to many aspects of me and of this phenomena.

it took me almost the whole night to steady myself and have some sense of self control over the inner turmoil i was facing.

some other insights are:

i would often face this with people whose primary experience of mother is one of "insanity", i.e. if i take my daughter, she has experienced me (despite who i may have been) as erratic, judgemental, contradictory, irrational, sometimes insensitive and sometimes out of control. Here the frame of "insantity" is distorted and consequently the frame of "sanity" that is built therefore is also distorted. in my perception, the frame of this "sanity" is to be appropriate, sensitive, controlled, bound, balanced and accepting, in other words some of the positive aspect of the static masculine. now, there is nothing wrong with this frame except one thing, all negatives of both static masculine and dynamic feminine are rejected in this frame.

therefore, with this set of people, presumably whose primary experience with female authority figures have been negative, i would draw projection rightly or wrongly of being "insane" and the person would then operate from a righteous location of the static masculine who needs to bring this irrationality into order by criticising, by being directive, by being reactive, i.e. by control and not by acceptance of the folly. and often the concerns of these people would be the concerns for the under dogs, or concern for the appropriateness of the situation. therefore, the moment a cycle of "inappropriate" behaviour starts, will start the cycle of stopping it, binding it and negating it from these set of people. I often experience this from my daughter who some times experiences me as volatile, irresponsible, insensitive and somewhat "out of control". and then the fight that we have between us is precisely "who has the last word about the situation; the "sane" one or the "insane" one"? No one wins and both parties get hurt tremendously and i often end up loathing myself to bits and this, predictably, reinforces her belief in my "insanity".

The third set of insight that i have is that there have been some gentically endowed characteristics that i have developed. These are more in the frame of the dynamic feminine but my childhood experience of female relatives around me have instilled the negatives of the DM much more than the positive ones. Not having had a positive father figure influence, or rather, having had a negative father figure influence has pushed it further to the realms of fragmenting the positives of the SM from the psyche and identifying with the negatives of the dynamic feminine. One of the ways of getting out of this loop of bipolarity is to go through the fire, i.e. dealing with the rage, raw emotions internally and not letting it come out to the world. it is very tough, as of now i have not found a suitable way of dealing with it but i hope to.

The fourth set of insight and some resolutions:

Often while i am in the grip of this, i would take the criticisms as they come, tell myself that i deserved it and others are right. This also is a distortion as it makes everyone else into perfect human beings except self.

I am going to work on the positives of both these polarity and work towards bringing in more balance rather than projecting it outside. it is going to cause some disturbances around as people who criticise me also like to experience my wild side, my energetic side, my unconventional side but they are unwilling to experience the negatives of this side. Rather than saying "this is all my fault", i am putting a boundary around myself now and i am making a decision of minimising my interface with such people who in my perception are caught in this loop with me. I do not want to be with people who make me feel "not OK" being who i am, while at the same time being aware of what i am bringing into the situation, i.e. operating from my positive static masculine and positive static feminine.

what i experienced during this experience is abject orphan hood i.e. lacking both a positive affirming father and a loving, nurturing mother internally. when i frantically searched for such people in my life, only two names came to me, both of who are female friends. What i receive from these two people are a lot of acceptance of me, the good, the bad and the ugly. I am not sure i return the favour to them in same measure, but i know that the do.

i am still feeling raw from the experience but as the positives of the dynamic feminine would point out, there is always a silver line around the dark cloud.

encounters with identities

I had a very interesting day recently.  it started with a petty fight with A over a very petty thing but we brought out the worst in each other.  was not very pleasant way to start a day, but ..... :-(

i went out of the house, went to my work space, vowed to myself to be "absolutely and completely" self sufficient (as though there can exist a reality like that) but i think i gave it a good try!  i finished lots of odd things that were just pending.  i vowed to start driving again; i guess it was my way of putting myself in the driver's seat again!

then the strange things started happening - i started meeting various facets of my identity or shall i say, various facets of women's identities, all of them on the same day.  

came the first encounter.  some one who i did not know from before, came to meet me.  the more i listened to her, i told myself, it is amazing that i had to meet her this morning when i am so full with the same issues at least on a transient mode;  need to feel needed, feeling trapped, feeling intensely unhappy with self, yet, looking for way out, trying to make sense of things and not given up hope.  talking to her made me question "what is it that women look for"? i could not come up with any answer.  this was one facet of me/all women which is trapped in "being needed" mode and the only mode the being has known to express itself is to offer oneself like an infrastructure (non assertive, proper, obsessive, caring, efficient and competent) but keeping the righteous moralistic upper hand to whip the "wrong doers" who dare to refuse her offerings.

then came lunch with an old friend, who was in the city for a short while and was leaving soon after. After we caught up with each other, during the course of the conversation she started talking about not really knowing what would make her happy.  again i thought how similar the line of thinking was and yet it was not the same ... perhaps we were barking up the wrong tree.  perhaps the real question to ask was whether we were intrinsically happy or unhappy?  it was as though all of us have this invisible emotional switch that has either a off or a on button for having a positive self regard and a basic sense of contentment for who we are, and not desperately looking for affirmation of it outside of ourselves, or it is most times switched off for some of us.  It is that facet of me/all women (may be for men as well) which screams "i wish things were different, i was different, others were different, only then, oh, only then, would i feel at peace with myself and with the world"

anyway, the lunch session had to close abruptly as she had to catch her flight and i came back home with my lunch packed and had a TV lunch. 

After that as i was sinking into the peaceful slumber, the cell phone rang and at the opposite end, was the voice of some one who was completely drunk, feeling rather hopeless, self deprecating and condemning and was in need of help.  i went over to her place, spent some time with her, took care of her a little bit so that she could physically become better.  my encounter with this women put me in touch with this facet of me/all women (may be men too) which has the intense need to punish the self by bringing on shame, guilt and anger.  This facet keeps whispering in our ears how worthless and unlovable we are, makes us feel desperate and lonely and then as last resort, we scream for attention and simultaneously push people away by refusing to be helped, attended to and to be cared for.  This gives us the golden opportunity to reinforce the belief that we are completely unworthy while the real anger is with the world that it is vicious and uncaring and unloving and hence we need to constantly grab its attention, and thus completing the loop of convincing ourselves that the act of grabbing attention was shameful, feel guilty, to only repeat the act again and again.

my last encounter was with a very dear friend of mine, with who i was supposed to have dinner and spend the night over with.  as we sat and chatted, i was seeing the other in me and simultaneously the stark dissimilarities.  She was this facet of me/all women which is inherently melancholic, has a short handle on reactivity and anxiety, dynamic, assertive, caring, loving, wise, balanced, matured, open and accepting of others in more ways than one.This is the facet which is very rich and very beautiful and attractive and yet is utterly unconvinced and/or critical of its inherent richness and beauty but is totally convinced about  its competence and functionality.  This makes it into a great companion and a work horse but seldom gives it space to enjoy its own beauty in all its aliveness, be it scary, stormy, dark or welcoming, full of life and vivacious.

i went to bed with this thought that while the day started with a fight which made me feel quite empty, hopeless and futile, at the end of the day, with all those encounters of various identities i felt more real as though i had to meet each and every one of them today to feel the richness of life and what it has to offer and how every encounter is only a beginning of new direction and not an end in itself. 

Thank you life! 

anima and animus

well, i am not going to write about them, for i don't know much.  i have been intrigued by my dreams of the last one week.  most of them are angst ridden, full of rage, angry dreams about people and houses.  either i am not getting full control of my own house, or i am being disapproved by some other or both.

this led me to look at the main characters of my dreams. in most cases, there is this middle to oldish man, who seems to be mocking at me and suggesting all kinds of insinuations.  there is this youngish woman who seems to be a party to this man, more silent but cunning and manipulative, and one or two hangers on, who are not saying anything but not supporting me either.  i am filled with rage in my dreams and feeling quite helpless that there is not anyone who will help.

this brought me to the anima and animus and i might be killed by others for writing this.  but then, lets take a chance..... 

In one of the discussions with a Jungian analyst, we were looking at how Indian women have learnt to be women, but finds it difficult to integrate the positive male internally,  i.e. positive, encouraging, contained, protective, confident, spirited, wise and free.  this inner male seems to be a problem for most women that i know.  

it is not that the women do not know how to be all those things above, but they are never there together for the self.  it is more often than not, offered to the other, to the loved ones, to the subordinates, to people who need to be looked after.  Rarely for the self. 

the moment it comes to the self, choice making becomes difficult, guilt rises to the fore, and often defiance takes the front seat. women are rarely approaching their right place without feeling like a victim who now has enough power to claim victory over it.

women in my experience, find it easier to be macho but not a positive male.  or they relegate themselves to be a patriarchal male, with all taboos intact, with a little bit of polish to make it more acceptable.  

anyway, let me come to the anima and the animus.  one definition of the anima and animus as has been given by Erich Neumann, in The Origins and History of 

Consciousness (Princeton University Press, 1954) xxii n.7.is  

"The Anima is the personification of all feminine psychological tendencies within a man, the archetypal feminine symbolism within a man's unconscious. TheAnimus is the personification of all masculine psychological tendencies within a woman, the archetypal masculine symbolism within a woman's unconscious" 

now for me, this archetypal masculine symbolism has become very important.  As i often use myself as a case study, i am discovering that the first imprint or one of the important imprints of animus comes from the first encounters with the significant male figures in one's life.  and if i look at mine and the significant encounters, then one of the sources of this animus formation would be male psyche who had passed on this message to me: "women should be gentle, obedient, well behaved, soft, feminine, attractive and demure"  with a rider "however, without intelligence, aliveness and seduction" she will lose my attention.  this got me.  because there was no way i could be both.  one had to be a manipulator to be the other.  

and it is only now, that i realise that how the internal male psyche holds the internal feminine in such a vice like grip, never letting her to be free and is always taunting and disrespectful.

there is so much more to write.  

i am sure for men too, their first significant encounters with females, would have helped shaped the anima for themselves.

are there others who think like i do?  i would love to hear.

disconnecting - Loss and fear of it

Death ...



such an ominous word. most are scared of it, it is unknown, full of fantasy and visions. so much has been written, talked about, discoursed with ....



i have been with this word for a while. ever since my divorce proceedings started actually.



Divorce, as per dictionary meaning is



-to separate; cut off

-a judicial declaration dissolving a marriage in whole or in part

-total separation; disunion

-to break the marriage contract between oneself and (one's spouse)



synonyms are dissociate, divide, disconnect, split, disjoin ....



i experienced "real" death for the first time in my divorce proceedings. I have experienced many many physical death before but the experience of what death actually feels like was like a bullet that gets lodged.

It was not simply dissolving the marriage between two people. I was initiating the processing of discontinuing the history of 30 years between two people that was held in a certain way. the disjointing of relationships tween them, around them, in the immediate family, the extended familial structure, the social circle, everything.



it was to put a full stop to something that has been in process .... for many years ....

yes, separating from someone or something is like a death experience. although people remain, the places remain, the memories remain, but not the relationship. Not the way each individual held it in his/her mind.

Sometimes i think for me at least, fear of death, is really fear of separation. fear of divorce, this time from life, from aliveness, from all senses .... unto who knows where.

and strangely enough, i am not really scared of my death, but of death of dear ones.

Death, i feel will take them away for ever, never to come back and they will then just fade into memory, sepia coloured ones.

and i have experienced death many times in my life, through death of near and dear ones, starting at age 3, but never been so anxious about it before.

what does it mean to disjoint from the other? are we ever joined?

and in all these, life, the pulsating life, kicking, alive, screaming, is perhaps slipping through the moments ... tick tock tick tock .....

i am alive, and so are the others, right at this moment. celebrate this moment!

hope returns just when you give up on it

here i have been feeling very low and depressed ... for no particular reason really ... just the mornings are so dreary and tiring ... and i never was like that. my mornings were almost always nice and cheerful.

then i reminded myself that every day waking up means i have to depend upon others for small movements and worse still, i can not do half the things i used to do.

asked A what makes him so happy ... he said he was the "happy sort" ... hmm .. then he thought some more and said what makes him happy is that he feels free to be able to do what he feels like, does not have any worry or load on him .....

i asked myself how come i do not feel the same way ... what makes me feel so weighed down? Have I lost the ability to feel good or hopeful about life itself?

then i remembered a conversation with K yesterday and he was talking about his childhood and his mother and how his mom wanted to give birth to him even when his father was unsure and they were not even married then! and then he talked about the place he grew up in, his home and his relatives and his growing up .... and then i thought about him now and his plans ...

what then occurred to me is that may be most of us take the present moment as the absolute certainty ... like "this is the way life is " and miss the ever changing moments of life as it is changing continuously.

But again, i can think and understand the same intellectually very well but can not feel the ever changingness of life ... i look at it post fact after it has happened and staring me in the eye

right now as i am sitting in front of my desk top and writing this, all the windows in the room are open and sunlight is streaming in albeit with lots of noise and pollution ... but also with some nice breeze and feeling of hope ...

it is not a hope about me or anything, just that life is alive and it is continuous and is ever changing ... and i hope someday i will be able to just wake up and feel good about being born as a human being and being alive!