Thread: The Human Spirit

I am reposting the following post that I posted some time ago at another forum. The post was triggered by someone claiming women brought domestic violence on themselves, saying that they provoked it, that feminism was rubbish, and that there was no need for feminism at all.

This time I am reposting it because of someone on this forum attacking me / attacking my spirit. Someone that doesn’t know me / doesn’t know my spirit, doesn’t know anything about me, but thinks it’s okay to denigrate me / to intimate about my spirit whatever they like. My spirit is precious to me, I don’t mind that it isn’t precious to others, but I don’t expect others to ridicule / harass my spirit just for others to puff themselves up to feel good about themselves by being mean and derogatory to other people’s spirit. Trying to score points from maligning another person’s spirit is offensive and it speaks to the nasty, soulless aspects of some of the people in this world.

When / if anyone attacks my spirit, I am particularly fierce, and from my past particularly, I had reason to be as fierce as I could to try to survive. My light / my spirit went out many times. Thankfully, it also came back many times, too. And particularly it came back, because of the decency that I was grateful to receive from certain others around me. Decency. A word that cannot be underestimated.

The feminine spirit is unique. It is valuable. But the feminine spirit has been maligned, has been put down for a very long time. The arrogant so-called (purely) rational orientation of certain males has been a “horrific” detriment to this world. Horrific. Some men squelch / kill whatever is “feminine” in themselves, whatever does not concern itself / whatever doesn’t provide them with being able to move along being arrogant and nasty and controlling of others. Whatever gets in their way of being able to puff up their egos like the majestic fools / clowns they are. The pursuit of truth, no, the pursuit of waving immature over-weening ego’s around / and putting down whatever is “different” to them. Everyone must agree with them / be like them because “they know”. They are right so everyone else is wrong. It is a primary school mentality that doesn’t serve anyone – except it serves the preening fools in this world that don’t know HOW to live like decent people in this world: Respecting others as a way of affording respect to themselves.

The last 4 or 5 paragraphs of this story relate specifically / and only to the previous forum I was at, where the "feminine" was trashed on an every single day basis. It's not like that here and I hope it never will be. Still, the stifling of a "feminine" perspective I have found more than evident in some places.


Well, the same way I said about this post the last time I posted it:

It’s personal, so if you don’t like personal stories, please look away. The story is about me. About my spirit. And about how I have negotiated and come through at the other end. Whole. In one piece. And grateful. For the gift of life. And for the gift of being able to connect with others and for the gift of being able to love with others.


And here, the story begins:


I watched the societal discrimination towards my mother, my sister and me from the time that I could barely speak. My mother, beaten senseless every day. Told by the catholic church not to leave her husband, it would be a sin, and to stay with him and try to understand him. No women's refuges in those days, no safe places in those day where my mother could have gone for protection, shelter and help - and especially even more, my father constantly threatened my mother that if she left him he would find her no matter where she went and would kill her. It was a common thing for my father to say he'd kill us in our beds while we were sleeping and that he would bury us in the backyard so no one would find us. I started hearing that from about the age of seven.

My sister was institutionalised for 2 years because my father saw my sister, then sixteen, on the street holding hands with a boy. Holding hands. When he saw my sister holding hands with the boy, he lost control and physically attacked her on the street. He managed to rip off most of her clothes and punched her black and blue. On the street. The matter went to court. My father put on his best face for court, but only until the point when it was becoming apparent that my sister was going to be made a state ward, and that she would be allowed to live away from home, and that my father would no longer have any right or claim to be her father any more. That's when my father lost it, and yelled out in court that if they let her go free, that he would find her and kill her. He yelled half a dozen times in that court that he'd kill her. And that was the reason the court sent my sister to an institution for 2 years - an institution that was an institution for "bad" girls - because they didn't have "infrastructure" back then for any other kind of place to send an adolescent girl that had done no wrong. They didn't lock my father up for threatening to kill my sister. They locked up my sister, put her in a "bad" girls home - for "her own good" - and to "protect her" from the threats that my father had made in the court that day.

I was sent to a children's shelter a number of times in my teens for running away from home. The reason I kept running away from home was because I was trying to save my own life. My father beat me a lot and I was mortified cos he'd go berserk and lose all control when he beat me. To the point I was convinced that he'd end up killing me for sure. The courts didn't factor in the horrendous violence that had made me run away from home. At one hearing in the children's court I was deemed "uncontrollable" and sent to a children's shelter for a few weeks. I'd say it would be hard for any 14 year old not to feel "uncontrollable" when their own father was trying to snuff out their life.

For running away from home, I was expelled from the catholic high school I attended, because the nuns thought I was a bad example for the other girls for running away from home. Some days I used to go to school black and blue in the face - bruises and welts covering my face from being punched or "strapped" by my father. The welt marks across my face were hideous and looked disgusting because of the studs that poked through in my father’s belt that actually would cut into my face. The nuns at the catholic school saw the bruises and welts on my face but never asked about them. And I was too ashamed to tell anyone. But I was expelled all the same. It mattered that I'd run away from home. Nothing else.

As a young girl, starting from about the age of eight, I had worked out how to run next door to my neighbour to ring the police for all those times when my father beat my mother so severely that I was terrified he'd kill her. When the police would come to the house, my father would "change" and put on a "charming" face. My mother would be hysterical and pleading with the police to help her. I remember on one occasion when the police arrived, that my mother was so desperate, and she was frantically showing the policemen all the bruises and welts all over her body, and she was pointing to the places in her mouth where my father had knocked out her teeth. Well, I don't think the policemen were blind, but the policemen ignored all of my mother's pleas... ignored all of the very visible signs of violence on her body. I remember that time that the policemen had said that it was a "domestic dispute" and not a police matter. And then they left. My father worked out that I had called the police, and he beat me and he must have spat in my face a dozen times. According to my father, I had brought shame to the family by calling the police.

My father never went to prison for the decades of tyrannical violence of my mother, my sister, and me. My father was somehow protected and left alone by "society" to continue his violence on us - and to escalate his violence. Even with the sporadic involvement we had of social workers, police, psychiatrists, the courts, the catholic church, and all the appeals I make as a small child to the neighbours in my street for help, and all the relatives, and really just about anyone that had ever come in to any contact with my family at all - well, the truth is that my father was "allowed" to carry on his path of tyrannical violence for decades. No one stopped him.

It occurs to me that I hate this forum... (Political Forum, but I’ll soon hate this forum, too)

In my day to day life now, I never have any call or reason to call myself a feminist. I am blessed with good friends, both men and women, blessed with a career that I have enjoyed immensely, and that I continue to enjoy. I am grateful for the courteous and respectful men and women that I work with. This forum makes me realise how grateful and content I am for the life that I have patiently recreated and recrafted for myself... and I have done this with as much love and care as I could... to call it my own...

I know that I have the freedom to go to the ends of my own thoughts, whatever those thoughts are, and to know that those thoughts are precious and that they are mine alone...

Some men on this forum do a disservice to themselves, but particularly they do a disservice to women. They discriminate against women. It is offensive that the mods don't mind the kind of foul, derogatory things that get said about women on this forum. If anything, it seems that being foul and hateful about women on this forum will bring the man a big bunch of reputation points - which really speaks volumes about the level of misogyny that exists on this forum. I'm so sad I ever came here...

Women are dignified human beings as are men...

The nasty threads started about women on this forum speaks more to the character of the men that start these threads, than it speaks anything at all about women.

Do some men think that they are exemplary and beyond reproach? Or that the wheels of evolution have turned so very much, that they have found the magic lever to perfection?

I find it ironic that the only reason / place I felt any need to call myself a feminist - was here at this forum - and as a way to try to "counteract" all the negative threads started against women here. And you know, perhaps that's how it all really started in the first place - this feminism - as a "counterpoint" to all the negativity and controlling behaviour of how some men regard and behave towards women.

I hope that some of you can open your hearts a bit more... and realise this isn't a dress rehearsal, and to start shaking hands and kissing more. Hating anything puts a big stain and a big strain on our own hearts. It's unproductive, makes us ugly, and makes us lousy people to be around.

I truly hope this board grows a bit more respect for others and stops trashing "humans" to the extent that it does.

Thank you for your sharing.

It is from the heart that the spirit comes and yours is a gentle one. It is trusting and caring.

I have not been in that situation. I do know others that have walked that fine line between love and pain. It is sad to see that in many places women are still treated like a commodity to be traded and bartered.

I read a story about the engagement ring. It is a reflection of how a male is showing his intent to own. The idea came from a rope that was used to tie an animal to the barn. After a time the rope could be released and the animal would not run away. The first engagement rings or betrothal rings was a loop of string. The string represented the rope used to tether the animal. In the case of humanity all that was needed to hold that woman to the barn was a string that said she was owned.

Here in 2010 we are not owned. We are free to love and be loved, to give and not to give.

It is sad to see that even now so many do not see that women have a value and add to the world so much. The Female spirit is strong and loving. It cares and caresses. Yes at times it is abused and wasted on those that treat us so unkindly.

Humanity should be equal.

Originally Posted by TortoiseDream

So I'm not allowed to go to graduate school? If I got smarter, I wouldn't be equal to everyone anymore.

Is that what you mean?

You can go to Grad school. We should all be equal as in same pay for same work. We should all be treated with respect as we are humans.

Originally Posted by Gwendoline

The post was triggered by someone claiming women brought domestic violence on themselves, saying that they provoked it

They were wrong, Gwendoline. No human being deserves to be physically beaten. Self-defense is one thing; if physically attacked, one must be abe to defend themselves even if that means using deadly force. If verbally attacked, one should just walk away. While there is certainly verbal abuse just as there is physical abuse, one can walk away from verbal abuse much easier than the physical version.

Originally Posted by katiegrrl0

You can go to Grad school. We should all be equal as in same pay for same work. We should all be treated with respect as we are humans.

Agreed 100%.

Originally Posted by TortoiseDream

Do you think men should be treated as equals to women?

Did you really need to quote the entire post for this odd question?

Women should be treated as equals to men, but Gwen's story shows how they are not.

Yet Gwen has grown to be more than equal, my deepest respect for anybody who comes through this keeping their self-respect, identity and a gentle, smiling heart.