Standing In The “Shadow” of Fear

I did an essay for Nisi Shawl comparing Jordan Peele’s US to Ursula K. Le Guin’s THE ONES WHO WALK AWAY FROM OMELAS, and M.K. Jemisin’s THE ONES WHO STAY AND FIGHT. She asked me to explicitly address a question: how does becoming a whole human being stop men from wanting to oppress women?

To answer that question, I had to broaden it to: how is it that a human being owning their strength AND their softness stop them from feeling the need to manipulate, control, or feel intimidated by the opposite sex?

THAT question I can answer. But I thought it might be even more interesting to see what came out of that topic during a conversation with Dawn Callan, a lady who has drawn a fascinating and powerful connection between spiritual work and practical no-b.s. self defense. She associates the “Heart Center” with the “Shadow”, the dark side of our own drives and emotions. Connection and empathy lead to love, while distancing ourselves allows us to push our own negative characteristics onto other people, which creates this “shadow.” Bigotry and racism arise from this, for instance in the inability to grasp the damage of slavery and its aftermath, the conclusion is that the victims were the perpetrators of their own misery. It occurred to me that this was like blaming rape victims for wearing makeup. So I asked Dawn about this: how exactly does this “shadow” lead to sexism?

And she replied: “It’s the belief in separation. And as soon as we separate, that’s the original fall from grace, Stevie. God wanted us to do it…