Our Shadow's Grip

In dark doldrums 
Slovenly sunken
The mind lingers
Dreaming of light

In fearfulness
Screeching 
That formidable force
That swift blow strikes

Again and yet again
The nimble shadow’s grip
Tightens

So great, so humbling

The Chimp in Me

What helps at times is seeing the chimp in me:  Annabee, a 44 year old, alert female.  A loner of some sorts and best not be messed with.

Grunt

So a recent study by University of Pennsylvania’s neuroscience department found a statistically significant difference in certain aspects of operative functioning between male and female brains.  Studies like this one are neither new nor are they conclusive.  

What is interesting is that we keep looking for scientific proofs for something we seem to know already.  Women and men are different.  Feminist theory generally scoffs at this and tends to hold cultural factors accountable, although it should even surprise the most bone headed academician that every culture seems to flaunt a fair number of misogyinist attitudes on one level or another, meaning that they must be similar in some significant way.  

Indeed all cultures comprise of women and men.  The mere fact alone that women and men are stuck together in an existentialist parody seems to acount for gendered behaviour  and socio-economic structures which catapult men into positions of power and women into precarious dependencies.  

I would therefore suggest that instead of obsessing about what women or men are good at and whether the methodology was sound or the outcome is relevent, it would be much more interesting to acknowledge that whatever men do (for whatever reason) is overvalued and whatever women tend to do is underappreciated producing at times the most grotesque inequities.

But that is an uncomfortable fact, scientifically proven or not, that no one likes to delve into whether male or female.  Too close for comfort.  

Grunt.

Only Natural

There is that nagging feeling that if only we were able to get a hold of the inner ape in us, that fearful wanting beast, things would be different.