“The Western intellectual tradition has been produced and canonized almost entirely by men, and informed mainly by male perspective... The fundamental religious, scientific and philosophical perspectives of western culture have all been affected by this decisive masculinity - beginning four millennia ago with the great patriarchal nomadic conquests in Greece and the Levant over the matriarchal cultures... The crisis of modern man is an essentially masculine crisis.”19
Richard Tarnas
“Reform could begin by having equal numbers of men and women in fixed-seat, senatorial, assemblies.”
Kent Welton
Patriarchy has defined man-kind for millenniums, and industrial society for centuries. Despite some progress, gender imbalance still permeates society. Male thought-forms and socio-economic systems dominate despite an ever-present, near-perfect, numerical balance between the sexes ordained by nature.
Given that a god-nature-existence has seen fit to produce males and females in even numbers, balance is a given indicating nature’s intent to maintain a gender parity in the human species. Unfortunately, in many realms, nature’s balance has been repressed via gender apartheids producing patriarchy and male hegemony.
Obviously, nature’s gender division and balance is necessary as one sex cannot survive without the other. We are lifeless, impoverished, and destructive without the other sex, pole, and energy of nature. Nevertheless, only in recent decades have we begun to emerge from a long winter of gender imbalance.
Humanity is only beginning to feel the profound effects of a re-emergence of feminine power and principle. As the other half of nature is re-empowered and liberated the result is a re-balancing of male-dominated, socio-economic, schemas.
In time, the gender factor alone will revolutionize economic and political theory and practice. From gender parities will emerge an Economics of Balance redefining the nature and purpose of life, liberty, property, and economy.
Surely no study of economic or political theory is complete without inquiry into gender powers and estates in society. Further, any theory trumpeting a “natural” hegemony of one or the other gender is itself unnatural. While divisions of labor may result from the unique physical characteristics of male or female, no reason exists for a male or female social dominance.
Nevertheless, for millenniums, mankind has been locked into male-oriented socio-economic dogma and religious traditions. Male power and predilection for dominance has overwhelmed the feminine role and aspect of nature. As a result of gender enclosure and apartheid, a more violent, Darwinian and imperial, ideation emerges wherever equal representation and influence is denied the other half of nature.
Indeed, religio-economic tyranny and gender fascism have been so pervasive that few now have any experience with societies rooted in a gender balance of sexual right, representation, and social power. Working from only one end of the spectrum, man-kind remains out of balance, unavailable to natural forms of power sharing, more cooperative forms and abilities, and a full employment of our natural wisdom.
Despite the recent gains for women, the practice of any institutionalized gender-power balancing has yet to emerge. To begin to dismantle patriarchy requires reform of gender-imbalanced systems and political institutions. Reform could begin by having equal numbers of men and
women in fixed-seat, senatorial, assemblies. This one change alone may prove invaluable in beginning a re-balancing of male-distorted societies and darwinian, greater-slave-driven, increasingly fascist economies.
In the case of the U.S. Senate, for example, a Gender Re-constitution Amendment might read as follows: “The Senate of the United States will, following passage of this amendment, be, herewith, reconstituted and maintained to include, from each state, one male and one female representative to the United States Senate. Portions of the seventeenth amendment, relating to senatorial vacancies, shall, herewith, be construed in conformance with this amendment. Reconstitution will commence and affect senatorial elections in each state following passage of this amendment. New senators, from elections immediately subsequent to the adoption of the amendment, will be women, unless the other standing senator is female. Thereafter, each state shall maintain one male and one female senator. Subsequent to passage of the amendment, senatorial elections shall be open only to persons of the sex opposite that of the person occupying the other standing seat. This amendment shall not be construed as affecting the election or term of any senator before it becomes a part of the constitution.”
As with other constitutional amendments, a relatively few words may accomplish miracles. No effective democracy or socio-economic balance is possible until we rectify gender disparities serving to effectively disenfranchise one half of nature. Until a balance of humanity is restored in our assemblies - particularly where the number of seats is fixed - then society, democracy, and economy remain out of balance and women are denied equity.
Like a car running on half its cylinders, our political engines may appear to be functioning but, in fact, they are sputtering and going nowhere - all patriarchal smoke and no forward progress.
Where but one-half of nature is represented, or as empowered as the opposite gender, the plus-sum energies of nature’s unified whole are stifled or stilled. Mostly male, half-witted, assemblies are bound to produce imbalance, competition-to-ruin, repression, and war. Short of eliminating senate bodies, gender-based reconstitutions are necessary and long overdue. This single reform will correct a serious defect in democracy and economy.
Nevertheless, this reform is not meant as general mandate for fixed, gender, quotas in other walks of life, or in proportional bodies like a Congress. Merit alone, devoid of gender status, must have its arena, right, and platform. However, we must also realize every other characteristic - i.e., race, creed and color, etc. - is but a subset of, and superimposition upon, nature’s equal gender divide. For this reason, it is only a male-female division that is nature’s given, and so justifiably part of
reform.
As a rule, senates are fixed in size with an equal number of seats for each state or region, and not subject to increase in numbers of representatives.
It is here gender balance should be accomplished. Gender reform of senatorial bodies is a rifle-shot remedy for the single-most glaring defect in our patriarchal political systems. They will not only re-store nature’s balance, equity, and justice but reshape economic, political, and social ideology emanating from male-dominated eras. They bring the other half of life to constitutions and social contracts signed only by men.
When the U.S. constitution was written women were disenfranchised and did not have the right to vote. At the constitutional convention in 1776, there were no women seated since, at that time, they had little or no political status, voice, or vote. In most political assemblies
today, it is clear they still do not. For this reason, as a class, women may legitimately question whether they are bound by any political charter from which they were excluded in the first, ratifying, instance.
One can argue whether women are, in fact, covered and enfranchised subjects. Would they, yesterday or today, ratify a document written only by men, and one from an era so removed from our own. A similar right might apply to other disenfranchised populations - i.e., labor, blacks, Indians, etc - who have not subsequently re-ratified the very charters governing their lives.
Even after gaining the vote, women may question whether they are bound by patriarchal, gender-imbalanced, documents institutionalizing their social and economic disenfranchisement at time of passage, and serving to remove one gender’s rights to balanced political frameworks.
What amendment to the Constitution now gives women - always one half of the population - any equal right and equal representation?
Clearly, the U.S. constitution, and most social charters, are male documents reflecting patriarchal worldviews and religio-economic premises. Their legitimacy is not only suspect but subject to re-ratification, if not overthrow.
Despite being one-half of the human race, women will never achieve equal status or power without benefit of gender-balanced assemblies, particularly within a bicameral schema. Constitutions and assemblies are in need of such reform with regard to equal representation of the sexes. While more women, or all women, might simply be elected, the possibilities of this happening in a male-dominated world are unlikely.
Further, any gender-imbalanced outcome, male or female, is reason to balance fixed-seat assemblies in accordance with nature’s design. A bicameral system is only balanced and representative where an open, congressional, body is offset by a gender-balanced chamber with a fixed number of seats.
However, even unicameral systems might benefit from gender-balanced assemblies as the basis of a natural and just political order - upon which all other differences are allowed full play. Thus, our representatives might be selected in pairs to secure a natural - i.e., one-man, one-woman - political system.
In sum, men and women have the right to nominate and elect any person they choose - without regard for race, sex, religion or creed. Still, as sexual beings with distinct and immutable valences, nature has decreed a certain, primal, division which must be respected. All life depends on this dynamic duality. Without some form and forum of gender-balance and equity, we must conclude our representation is badly distorted, democracy denied, and reform long overdue.
Kent Welton,
PanditPress.com
Excerpt from my book - Cap-com, The Economics Of Balance - available on Amazon.com
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