PUSSY

Now I have your attention, please understand this post will not be about sex but gender.

The reason I am using it is because there is a tendency to blame women which no-one wants to talk about.

There is outrage about the issue of gender. Having lived for 70 years on this planet I can confess my guilt. My school friend Suzanne called me out as a cissy. It was true. I didn't have courage engaging in conflict by expressing my values until after 1975 when a met a couple of women who were educated about world affairs of how women were valued. 

At that time I mostly sensed discrimination in bad behaviour, bad manners, and people who weren't nice. Feminism was not something I thought about other than I thought it dangerous. I experienced issues of discrimination and preferred to fight it discreetly. To call it bad manners. Give it attention.

A neighbour said her husband thought people who write letters to the editor were just seeking attention. This was when I learned if I wanted to get ahead I had to adopt popular beliefs.  Actually I learned to fit in watching sitcoms on TV.

It didn't work. Told I think too much, it hit home. Just look pretty and say yes. Be normal. Don't complain about how you have been treated. It's the pecking order, common sense, normal, natural. No-one will mind if you keep your thoughts to yourself, smile, look happy. 

Since those days I learned there was a lot of anger. Good kind teachers were too soft, kids would not be afraid of them and would misbehave. I was known as having "nice apples" and could get along if I kept my opinions to myself.

Today I see women in the news, in business and politics seemed to indicate we were getting on. Ups and downs were endured. Husband and children doing okay. I can't complain.

But now I know I am dangerous. I listen to news on the radio. I have an arts degree in adult education. I watch documentaries on TV. I read Chomsky and Harari. And the turmoil in our world is about women who have 'nice apples' also have wisdom and courage. We have learned that the path to a good future is to nurture the best in us. Not competing for the most of what each of us wants, not war, not weapons of mass destruction, not authoritarianism. Not lies, not hate, not quick slogans, not accusations not descrimination. Money is powerful if its used for the greater good, not locked up in the bank.

I am not saying we should give everything away. I am saying we should be socially responsible and ask ourselves what will be good for our conscience and our future. We are not just the shape of our genitals. We are thinking creatures, capable of doing a lot of good and perhaps surviving.