"I Like Women"

What is amazing to me that it has taken me 63 years to figure out that I really like women. I was taught to lust at, leer at, jeer at, sneer at, joke at and completely objectify girls and women. In my patriarchal up-bringing women were to be ruled, used and abused. Except for mom and sisters, who of course are in some strange mystical way not really viewed as women.

Some call it a love-hate relationship most men have toward women. Here's what Sam Keen wrote decades ago:
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MAN’S UNCONSCIOUS BONDAGE TO WOMAN

Cliché and common wisdom tell us that “it’s a man’s world.” In the accepted mythology of our time, men are independent and women dependent; men dominate and women yield; men make history and women provide emotional support. Folklore, lately expanded into a cottage industry of books about the uncommitted male, has it that men are phobic about intimacy, are tongue tied about emotions, and generally keep an antiseptic distance between themselves and females of their species. At best, or so the complaint goes, we end up committing ourselves because we want a secure sexual connection. Otherwise we follow George Washington’s advice and avoid entangling alliances. Real men don’t depend on women. We stand tall and alone. In locker rooms all across America, boys who are just beginning to sprout pubic hair learn the ancient adolescent litany of the five F’s that prescribes the proper relationship with women: Find ‘em, fool ‘em, feel ‘em, f... ‘em and forget ‘em. The average man spends a lifetime denying, defending against, trying to control, and reacting to the power of WOMAN. We have invested so much of our identity, committed so much of our energy, and squandered so much of our power trying to control, avoid, conquer, or demean women because we are so vulnerable to their mysterious power over us.

Adapted from Keen, S. Fire in the belly: On being a man. New York, Bantam Books.
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So what's this all about--really? And despite some of Sam Keen's interesting insights, I really don't think we need to blame "women's mysterious power over us". It really seems to me to be more about us not being afraid to be men or for us as men not being afraid of women being women. And being honest about what's really going on (even if we don't know). It's not really rocket science my fellow male friends. My guess is that women have known it for years, maybe from the very beginning. Us men just are not all that complicated. And we really need to listen, really listen to what women have been trying to tell us for years. For one thing: grow up!

Men come into the world like all children do, with an X and a Y sex chromosome and are socialized to think with the organ between our legs-- which has veto power over the organ between our ears--our brains. Females come into the world with 2 X sex-chromosomes and have been socialized to think with the organ behind their breasts (their hearts)--which has veto power over the organ between their ears. Certainly this is a super over simplified analogy--because remember, being a man, I'm not all that complicated. And men we aren't stupid. Unaware certainly, but not stupid.

And please guys, I'm really trying my best not to "MAN-BASH". (I don't believe in bashing men, women, children or Republicans :). It's ironic that the male sex chromosomes determine the gender of the beautiful being brought into the world known as "child". Also as ironic, is that population speaking, men are the minority. And if this really was a democratic republic--where majority rules--it could be us men who were oppressed, ignored, dominated, controlled and "put in their place" by women. Imagine that John Lennon, "Imagine" that.

I say "could be", yet I would hope that no one would be oppressed because of their gender, orientation, age, belief, race, religion, income or political affiliation.

So, all that was said as an introduction to why "I Like Women" and here are some of the reasons why:

I LIKE WOMEN BECAUSE---

1. Women are people.

2. Women are intelligent people.

3. Women are intelligent, beautiful people who are amazingly complex.

4 Women are intelligent, beautiful people who are amazingly complex and know how to have fun.

5. Women are intelligent, beautiful people who are amazingly complex and know how to have fun without hurting...

6. Women are intelligent, beautiful people wha are amazingly complex and know how to have fun without hurting; and women are made in the very image of GOD as are men.

7. Women are intelligent, beautiful people who are amazingly complex and know how to have fun without hurting; and women are made in the very image of God as are men and we both can become ONE with GOD's Heart and ours.

" To be continued" (My plan is to take these and expand on each one.)