Listening to Keith Witt and Corey deVos and I think again to myself: They are offering beautiful talks and insights, as do Jeff Salzman and last not least Ken. I am enjoying listening and learning - and at the same time I am painfully aware that they are expressing the masculine/male perspective although they try to include the feminine, but they simply have a masculine way of seeing the world and expressing themselves.
How come that there is no interview series with women? There are many smart integral women in the world, they are not so in the forefront, but if you were at the Conference in Hungary, the genders were quite balanced.
What about looking for female integralists to talk with? It is not about claiming a quote, but the total imbalance is just not to ignore. You might need to adjust your topics and be prepared that women, at least more often than not, are less interested in theoretical gymnastics but more to bring down to earth, into real life, what they know (and that can seem âinferiorâ to all the theoretical warriors who value more the mental than the practical).
Letâs address this shadow in the integral community and how integral is expressed into the world by you (leading) guys!
Hi Heidi! Just a quick note to let you know that I am totally tracking this imbalance, and trying to find ways to address it. I certainly donât want to enforce any kind of green âquotaâ mechanism here, but when an imbalance like this is so obvious, then something needs to be done to address it. Especially since, over the last year or two, our traffic demographics have changed considerably â whereas 5 years ago the ratio was something like 65% men and 35% women coming to the site, now itâs much closer to 50/50, and I very much want to be sure that integral feminine voice is being represented.
The problem, as you say, is that for whatever reason, integral women âare not so in the forefrontâ, and the ones who are are often super involved with their own projects that require all their time and attention, and therefore donât have the time/energy to perform a monthly show for us. But I am looking, and hope to make some traction here soon.
Also, I do have one of my favorite women â Beena Sharma â lined up to do her own monthly show, which I think would be absolutely fantastic. The only problem is she has been struggling with illness recently, and that has delayed our plans quite a bit. But I am hoping that we can start something new with her in the months to come. We are already working with her on a new Integral Polarity Management course, which should be available mid-year. And there is another demographic bonus working with Beena â sheâs not a white dude
Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I am tracking this, and hope to find some ways to address the imbalance in the relatively near future.
Hi Corey,
Thanks for the info. I am glad that we are at 50/50 nowadays, it took some time until more women were attracted to integral as it had so much emphasis on the mental, the theory and discussions around it so that many women didnât feel at home. This has changed a lot, in Germany in the Integrales Forum and in Hungary at the conferences, not so much in US, seems to me, having been on the live stream of your conference last year.
If you cannot find women for a regular show, so why not ask several women to do one or two episodes? It would also be great if you could include people who are not based in US as your audience is international.
You might ask Bence Ganti who certainly can give you some hints of amazing women who would be ready to talk with you!
Heidiâs concerns and Coreyâs announcement that Beena will have a show reminds me of Susan Cook Greuter. I admire them greatly. It would be wonderful to see both on ILC though Iâm sure Susan is busy too. In this, I heard from Corey some time ago that sheâs working on a book. Corey, if you are reading this, do you know when it will be out and if you or Ken will be interviewing her? I sincerely hope sheâs in good health and Seema gets well too!!
I want to particularly refer to the talk on abortion. I found it rolling on with blatant blindspots which would not have been if there was a woman in the room. The biggest one: where is the male participant to the pregnancy. No word! Which quadrant do we need to invent here?
Now, this topic has got me thinking. To me the abortion question does not come down to right or wrong. That approach is not really sophisticated enough for the people who are taking an integral approach. However if the debate is at that level, then I, as a man could have something useful to add. Right or wrong is based on an interpretation of truth values. Truth values are gender free and so it matters not whether the input comes from a man, woman or any other identity. There is no need to put yourself in the shoes of the woman in any meaningful way.
Now, if we get a little bit more sophisticated we can ask the question: what is the appropriate answer? Right and wrong inform the answer but do not provide the answer. They are necessary but insufficient. An appropriate answer will look at, inter alia, input from the male participant to the pregnancy. All four quadrants come into play. Cultural, social, economic, physical aspects all come into the equation.
My concern here is then, at this level, what role a male might have in helping the decision to be made as opposed to input from a woman? If I have decision to make about cutting off a limb, I am happy to get the input of a woman as she can put herself in my shoes: she too can have a limb cut off. What I can never do as a man is put myself in the position of a woman considering an abortion. Its like trying to see the world through the eyes of a bat. However much you try, you never see the world as a bat does. You just see what its like to imagine seeing the world as a bat does. So it appears to me that if a man has the view that he can have equal input to a woman into the decision of whether an abortion takes place, they are necessarily reducing a foetus to the level of a thumb or some other such limb.
So what can a man do? I guess they can be there to hold the arena and support the woman as she works her way through the question.
Good job I didnât use a frog as an example!
Actually, I was referring to a philosophy text out there which deals with the issue of seeing things from other perspectives and why you canât âknowâ that you are perceiving things in the same way as another person.The title refers to bats. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2183914 is one link to it.
Beige - MASCULINE (survival)
Purple - FEMENINE (tribal)
Red - MASCULINE (dominance)
Blue - FEMENINE (rule and role / religious)
Orange - MASCULINE (ratioanlity)
Green - FEMENINE (sensitivity)
â Teir 2 â
Touquois - more balanced⌠but leaning towards MASCULINE (seeing the forest)
Teal - more balanced⌠but leaning towards FEMENINE (touching the trees)
Just picked up about Alabama Abortion Bill. Interesting discussion - some suggestion is that abortion outlawed from a date that is often before woman even knows she is pregnant - if so then for those women it is a simple ban.
Iâd like to suggest that Heidi be given an opportunity to develop and deliver a segment for IL if she has the bandwidth.
Iâve known and followed Heidi on Facebook, YouTube and through email since we were both students in the inaugural SuperHumanOS online course a few years ago.
Her courage and tenacity in continuing the programming that she and her late husband Mark developed is exemplary - inspirational. She is a highly skilled facilitator and attracts group members and presenters of both genders who regularly participate with diverse and valuable contributions. From what I know, she has a solid grasp of Integral principles, practices, and structures.
From my observation of her methods and presence, having Heidi on board in some capacity would provide a space where women would probably be more likely to feel comfortable and encouraged to participate without having to have the obligatory âwomenâs topicsâ which - to me - can be awkward and unnatural. Iâd much rather see the feminine perspective bubble up organically both more often in existing conversations and in of course in the form of new topics as they happen to emerge.
Thank you for your observations, Heidi, and for speaking up.
In closing: Heidi would bring a mature, broad, and experienced feminine perspective to the IL âcommunityâ. Please consider giving her a role if thatâs what she desires.
Newbie here and not used to this forum format⌠I think I may have added my comments as a reply to the last respondent instead of to the general conversation. Please see my contribution below. Itâs for everyone but especially intended for @Heidi and @corey-devos. Thanks!
Wow, Robin! I am deeply moved and honoured by what you are writing here. It is rare that we podcasters get such a beautiful feedback and promotion. We mainly feel to talk into empty space and get our satisfaction by the communication with our guests. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart! This gives me new inspiration to go ahead.
I am open to collaboration in whatever way with the integral community. I already have an online womensâ group running for several years.https://thewisdomfactory.net/women-matters/ If it fits into the ideas of @çorey-devos I would be up to it. Any other way, too.
my intention is to bring integral theory to the audience by inviting integrally informed people to talk about their work and ideas, but from their experience and embodied in their lives, not so much as theoretical lectures (which is appealing only to few people, in my opinion)
Sounds great, Heidi! Iâm happy if my regard landed well for you.
Iâve been stealthily watching your replays on YT sometimes immediately after the live event because, in my time zone, itâs not a convenient time for me to join live.
Iâve really enjoyed most if not all of them and hope to be able to join all of you in the future!
Hope to maybe connect and compare notes on our projects sometime soon!
So you are in Australia, Asia or so? Never mind. Actually, since March I am live streaming at that time in my evenings, but I actually record the conversations before. I tried for a long time to bring Zoom without costs into Youtube, but it didât work well. Before I used Hangouts, but they are getting very unreliable and bad quality lately. So I decided for better quality but not immediate live, also because our comment stream disappeared with the closure of Google plus. So if you want to join me for a show we can record it any other time and day!
I will be off to the African Integral Tour and Conference for the next weeks, but letâs connect after that. Please contact me then at heidi56@me.com. Letâs see what we women can create!
Thanks for bringing this up, Heidi! I left the âintegrally informed communityâ for several reasons, but one of them was the lack of women and the female perspective. The main reason, however, is the result: That we have a âtheoretical gymnasticsâ point of view much more than an embodied view. Indeed, I would never have joined in the first place as I was so not attracted to Ken Wilber or any of the lighthouse people here. It was only because I met someone so engulfed in it that I had to overcome my aversion (and green shadow) and see what the fuss was about. Iâm glad I did but I ended up not seeing a perspective in it. In the community, I mean, not in integral theory. I havenât joined in for years, so I donât know the status now. But in our society, the lack of balance between all the AQAL aspects are ruining the world.
