March 11, 2003

• First, an Iditarod interlude:

  
  

  Several people commented on the menu for that gourmet meal Robert Sorlie was served for being first off the Yukon River. This picture of Sorlie enjoying his feast was on iditarod.com today.  He looks tired and burnt–sun and wind burnt and burnt out.  The word from the dog watchers is that his team is “strong.”

  
  

  Pilot Joe Pientka loads 30 dropped dogs in Penair caravan plane for a ride from Unalakleet back to Anchorage.

  
  

  “Take your seats please and buckle up!”

  
  

  update:

  
  

  As of 14:27 today, Sorlie is in Koyuk with 9 dogs.  Only five more checkpoints to go:  Elim, Golovin, White Mountain, Safety and Nome.

  
  

  Ramy Brooks with 8 dogs and Jeff King with 12 are out of Shaktoolik on the way to Koyuk. 

  
  

  Martin Buser and  John Baker, each with 10 dogs, are in Shaktoolik with Ken Anderson and his eight dogs.  The next eight mushers are in Unalakleet.  Dogs are sacked out in the sun and mushers are napping and/or schmoozing in the village.  Unalakleet’s hospitality is famous.  It is a popular place to rest.

  
  

  Out of Kaltag 2 on the way to Unalakleet, in nineteenth place with nine dogs, is Dee Dee Jonrowe.

  
  

  Thirteen mushers have scratched.

  
  

  In Nome, the snow has been hauled in on Front Street and the Burled Triumphal Arch has been set up.  The live webcam is at:  http://www.iditarod.com/multimedia/#webcams

  
  

  

  
  

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  

  …and now:

  
  

  back to my rant du jour—

  
  

  WOMEN & men 

  
  

  Exmortis started this discussion and several men and women of Xanga engaged in the debate.  It has remained on my mind.  Last night, I had put the laptop away and crawled under the covers to read and relax, relaxing more than reading.  Sitting there spacing out, I had some insights I knew I had to write down or risk losing.  Instead of dragging myself out of bed to deal with Schpeedy Trackbawl, I picked up the steno pad beside the bed and jotted down a few notes.  Then I thought of something else.  Then I had 4 pages of notes.  It went roughly like this:

  
  

  Much male/female conflict stems from disagreement over marriage and commitment.  These are not fundamental mammalian, primate or human conflicts.  They stem from civilization and culture.

  
  

  In recent history, women have maneuvered the relationship commitment issue into a corner with their expectations that ALL men should materially uphold parental responsibility for the children they father.

  
  

  Men set us all up for this by establishing the institution of marriage to cement/legitimize their property rights to a woman acquired by capture or purchase, and their exclusive rights to her progeny.

  
  

  That was a long time ago:  prehistoric when the institutions were founded.  They were already long established by the time our oldest histories were recorded.

  
  

  As with other animals with two sexes, the mating urge brings us together.  Pair bonding occurs and keeps many couples together.  Not all pairs who have offspring bond with each other.  Some of them bond only temporarily before one or both become disillusioned or disappointed.  They would part if not for religiosociocultural taboos and the bond each parent has with the children even when the bond between the parents is one of pain or anger.

  
  

  When the children of absent or financially irresponsible (which is not necessarily accompanied by emotional or social irresponsibility) fathers are supported by the state, or when a single mother petitions the court and wins child support, some men face ruined careers and even incarceration.  This relatively new development revives the long-unpopular debtor’s prison.

  
  

  From a feminine perspective, Neolithic culture had a charming simplicity.  Men worshipped us and we all worshipped the mother goddess.  Men held us in awe because we held the secret power of life.  In defense of us, they took on the power of death.  It balanced out.

  
  

  Then the Hellenes figured out that a man was necessary for procreation.  They let their size, strength and killing skills go to their heads and swung to the assumption that women were merely vessels for their seed. 

  
  

  We, as a species, as a culture, have long known that it takes two, but some of our institutions, myths, laws and customs still act as if women were merely vessels for men’s seed.   Add to that the self-evident fact that women have never lost their Neolithic sense of divinity—want evidence?  okay, Divas, drama queens, Women’s Mysteries, covens… it’s evident, I say—along with all the newer contradictions that arose as we became urbanized and globalized.  Our culture and political structure are so full of internal conflict that they appear to  be ready for a revolutionary break with tradition.  Uranus rules Aquarius.

  
  

  Now that virtually the entire planet knows about genetics, how many generations do you suppose it will take before the sexes begin to interact rationally in respect to the issues of mating and offspring?

  
  

  In both sexes there is the urge to mate, to experience the physical pleasure of genital contact and orgasm.  It’s a seductive thing, addictive even.  In myth, Zeus and Hera argued over whose pleasure was greater in sex.  Hera won.  But for some reason men seem to want it as much as women do.

  
  

  Besides the mating urge, most mammalian females have a maternal urge to nurture small helpless things.  They need something to mother so desperately that they will render big hulking things helpless just so they can nurture them.  Some of the big hulking things learn to pretend helplessness to get the women’s attention so they can have sex with them.

  
  

  With mammalian mating urges roughly equal between the genders, adding that maternal urge into the balance makes the true responsiblity for pregnancy the woman’s.   Not in a moral sense, but in terms of the driving motivations and the initiating actions, the seductive maneuvering that leads men to think they were initiating things, women are usually the aggressors in mating.

  
  

  In an ideal society, in pairs where both partners understand basic facts of reproductive biology and both have access to contraception, no woman should have an unwanted pregnancy and no man should create a child he does not desire and intend to parent socially, emotionally and materially.

  
  

  In our society, most mating occurs when people are too young to know what they want.  Some pairs exchange vows of commitment because it is expected of them or because one or both of them are insecure and need to be needed.  Other pairs have various sorts of “understandings” and in most cases what she understands the relationship is about is not the same as what he understands.  I think a revolutionary change is overdue.

  
  

  

  • 9:00 pm
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