Replying to LO24535 --
Dear Sajeela,
I'm replying again (re-replying) to an old (dating back to may 2nd 2000)
contribution of yours. Although i know well the book you mentioned:
"Women's Ways of Knowing", i found much interest in your short and bright
summary. By the way, did you also read the collection of essays inspired
by this book "Knowledge, Difference and Power"?
When reading your second contribution to the same subject, the feed-back
to At's mail (should i have written male? - it's a real question i pose),
i felt a certain unease, that developed slowly to a sort of "Connected
Understanding" - one of the terms you defined so clearly in that mail from
may 2nd. i'll try to share it:
I agree that in At's answer, there was more "Separate Knowing" than
"Connected Understanding", but i didn't feel that much un-balance as your
later mail (here i'll rather write male) reflected. i liked to read his
personal background, and smiled when i realized how embarassed he might
have felt, to ask me, a quite personal question (not a person like At
would be short or negligent in language usage).
Your answer to him, was even less balanced, and i was glad to read that
you were much aware of the style you chose (and performed).
So where can we obtain some Connected Understanding, from all this? i
found it in your second mail (may 16th) - let me quote your words:
"how do you know that God created women or men? Did it ever occur to you
that there is a Goddess creator? How is it you seem to know that man was
asleep when woman was created? Were you there?"
I think that there wouldn't have been much difference in the story of the
Godess creator - maybe none. I came to this conclusion after i opened the
first chapter in Genesis and read the story again (HIS story, as written
in hebrew):
At the beginning there was darkness, and God created light. Well now, is
darkness feminine or masculine? who was created first, and who existed
from the very begining? in hebrew ther'se a strict linguistic
differenciation - and both darkness and light are masculine - so it
becomes a mattere of our (the readers) interpretation.
It is written nowhere that darkness or light were suposed to become
permanent, only that God was satisfied with the outcome of his creation
(ZF - zero fault!). Would Godess have create differently? It is us who
added valuation and stagnation into the system - it doesn't exist there:
we, human beings, witnesses change from light to darkness, day to night,
sunrise to sunset - all is there - in constant tension (evenly
distributed, on the large scale) - to make the wheels go round.
The second days output was not much different: there were the waters above
and the waters beneath - and we know they constantly exchange - don't we?
Well then, why not tolerate AND master both - Knowledge and Understanding?
Separate and Connected?
I think the book you mentioned should have emphasised this - and maybe
more male readers would have found interest in learning from it, when in
search for "understanding" - if this is the missing attribute you called
for.
I'd want to think that much choice is available for each of us, males,
females, boys, girls. More than we implemented so far.
And personally, i'm very glad we're different - it's just for our joy and
benefit.
regards,
Judy
Dr. Judy R. Tal
LCL-Learning Cycles (1999)
+972 3 6997903
+972 54 666294
judyt@netvision.net.il
--Judy Tal <judyt@netvision.net.il>
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