I
know a man that for 20 years has been a faithful friend to his wife, staying by
her side through breast cancer, an auto-immune disease making it extremely
difficult to walk, sometimes affecting vision and the use of her hands, more
breast cancer requiring surgery and chemo, a broken hip; year after year of
countless doctor visits and treatments, some very painful. With all that, their
lives together have also been wonderful and magical in so many ways-- the love
and committed friendship, the wife will tell you, has meant everything. They
live far beyond mere survival and enjoy a quality of life unimaginable but for
that deep and abiding commitment. It’s been a beautiful thing for me to witness up
close.
There
are so many examples of men as friends, allies and partners with women in
intimate relationships, work relationships, co-operating in extreme adventure
of all kinds and quality; from war to space exploration, parenting to politics.
Old tropes about a battle between the sexes is not only outdated, it never was
true. There has always been a “partnership society,” even in the midst of
bigoted pedagogues, oppressive patriarchal regimes and distorted religions that
would have it otherwise. I am talking about partnerships that do not place
anyone above another on the basis of gender and exhibit a deep honoring of each
other’s strengths and gifts.
That
said, those regimes and distorted religions have much to do with why
partnership societies are far from universal in the 21st century.
The idea that men are superior and women are inferior is still a mental virus
afflicting significant portions of populations around the world. The symptoms
of the disease; sexual harassment, rape in war, the military, universities and
elsewhere, domestic violence, the large scale sex and slavery trades, genital
mutilation, female infanticide, wage inequality and others must be treated
along with implementing the cure.
Among
the many allies and friends of women is a 90-year-old man whose efforts are
among the most widespread, thorough and often effective on a global scale. He
was the 39th American President, and the only one that did not start
or maintain a war but used what political influence he had to wage peace. He is
Jimmy Carter and with his equal partner in life Rosalyn and his team of 175 at
the Carter Center established in l983 works tirelessly to eliminate disease,
injustice, inequality and violence in dozens of countries.
And
while doing so, Jimmy Carter now writes passionately about his chief mission in
life—to end violence against and discrimination of women in all forms with a
particular emphasis on examining the abuse of religion that becomes a tool for
justifying discrimination. A biblical scholar and teacher for life, Jimmy
Carter works with other religious scholars who agree that there is no authentic
basis for discrimination in religious texts, only out of context and distorted
references that speciously support dominance and control, a sense of male
entitlement and privilege that has no basis in reality and would not be approved
of by the original founders or the source of inspiration for the creation of
world religions.
Jimmy Carter's new book A Call To Action: Women,
Religion, Violence and Power draws attention to the symptoms I mentioned
above and provides the impassioned but calm, balanced and fair treatment of the
problem with a perspective that all men could benefit from, as men also suffer
when their mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and communities are diminished or destroyed
by this discrimination that affects everyone.
"It's
not a so-called woman's issue," Jimmy insists. "All of society is
affected by what is both an injustice and a tragedy.
In
reading the book I have to admit that with my erstwhile background in rape and
domestic violence education and men’s role in family planning and parenting
notwithstanding, there are staggering statistics that took me by surprise. Case
in point, there are more slaves today than before the US Civil War, most of
these women and tens of thousands passing through Carter’s native state of
Georgia, USA!
If
statistics seem cold and aloof, Carter’s reach for collaborative solutions are
anything but. I was inspired and encouraged to learn about how many men at high
levels of leadership care and are involved in doing larger scale systems
thinking while generating and delivering solutions on the ground in partnership
with women. Carter is a member of an international group of men and women
called The Elders, many of them former leaders of state. The men in this
working group have either recovered from the mental virus that still helps drive isolated, marginalized and disenfranchised young men to a movement like ISIS or
they were fortunately exposed as I was at an earlier age to the truth about
gender equality by select families, teachers and communities.
So,
what then is the cure for the ongoing violence and discrimination? Running with
my epidemiological metaphor a bit longer, we need an anti-viral agent. And as
with most diseases the cure often comes in the same package as the disease, or
the solution is contained within the problem.
The
virus we want to spread is the news about boys and men being inherently
good—I’ve never known a male baby to go to war or rape someone. We begin as
whole human beings, malleable, but whole. One powerful protein in this positive
virus is parenting. How we cuddle and talk to boys, the messages they receive
about their inherent worth and lovability is not turning them into something
they are not to begin with, it’s maintaining and further nurturing their strong
sense of self and humanity. We need to root out sometimes invisibly different
treatment boys receive in school that fosters bad or anti-social behavior and
see to it that any and all kinds of sexist references in media are eliminated.
We need to help boys discover and live their passions and talents with teaching
and mentoring that supports their passions and sense of purpose.
One
of the strongest proteins in this pro-virus are the men who are consciously
building strong communities to provide women-respecting role models of what it
means to be a man as a partner with women, modeling that at home, work and in
public in a variety of ways and scales.
Having
worked with former gangbangers creating new lives for themselves, I know that
much of the violence they were forced into perpetrating is simply a distorted
means to receiving attention, recognition, a sense of belonging and even love.
And that they were usually first violated in some way before they violated
others. From gangbangers, to campus and military rapists, to tribal warlords
and ruthless despots, under these distortions of maleness is the need for human
closeness and friendship that remains constant. It is possible for every man to
learn how to be a woman’s best friend. Let’s join Jimmy.
Read
more here: http://theelders.org/article/jimmy-carter-womens-man
Become
aware of and join the larger global movement called 1 Billion Rising Revolution
now joining together people and partnerships across all nations
Please
click this link: http://www.onebillionrising.org/rise-raise