Patriarchy will be the end of us all

The news is full of reports that Arctic ice has shrunk to the lowest level on record this summer. Scientists monitoring the ice are saying that the reduction this year has been extreme, way beyond any models. There has been a drop of some 1,000,000 square kilometres in just one summer. Since 1980 the arctic sea ice extent has fallen from 7,800,000 sq. km to just 4,200,000 sq. km - an average of 133,000 sq. km a year.

And what is the spin on this given to us by the media? Would you believe they are talking up the "opportunities" this will give for vessels to trim thousands of miles from Europe to Asia by bypassing the Panama Canal. And if that is not bad enough they then go on to tell us that 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas could be hidden in the Arctic and there is now going to be a rush from countries including Russia, Norway, Denmark, Canada and the United States to claim territory and exploit the oil and gas.

So our patriarchal response to an environmental catastrophe of monumental proportions brought on by our over use of oil and gas is for nation states to prepare for war to claim the right to extract even more oil and gas so that an environmental catastrophe can be turned into an environmental cataclysm. And a once pristine environment which has become a sink for human pollution is to become even more polluted by ship owners and multinationals making a quick buck.

I am utterly speechless.


How did we become so disconnected from our Mother's body that we seek to disfigure and rape her for our own short term satisfaction and sense of power ?

When we treat our Mother like this it is so easy to treat women like this too. According to amnesty international 1 in 3 women have been beaten, raped or abused in their lifetime. Seventy percent of the casualties of recent conflicts have been non-combatants and 80% of these have been women and children.

Reporting on Darfur amnesty said, "Women and girls are being attacked, not only to dehumanize the women themselves but also to humiliate, punish, control, inflict fear and displace women and to persecute the community to which they belong… The suffering and abuse endured by these women goes far beyond the actual rape. Rape has a devastating and ongoing impact on the health of women and girls and survivors now face a lifetime of stigma and marginalisation from their own families and communities." One harrowing interview includes the following, "Five to six men would rape us, one after the other, for hours during six days, every night. My husband could not forgive me after this, he disowned me."

In the face of this amnesty international called for women to have access to health care when complications arise from abortion and to defend women's access to abortion, when their health or human rights are in danger.

And the patriarchal response to this massive human tragedy in a land that has no oil below its deserts is to call for a cut of all funding for amnesty's work. No wonder one of the fathers of this patriarchal sect included this line in his daily prayer, "Father, I thank you that I was not born a woman."

I am utterly speechless.

I long and yearn for the day when to be born a woman is the highest honour and all people are re-connected to our Mother. My Goddess prayer is that it is not too late.