 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
RAY NASCENT: APRIL 2005
TABLE OF CONTENTS Theme For Volume 19 of Ray Nascent: Playing the fool is never appreciated in this culture except on April Fool's Day. The whole premise of April Fool's Day is that someone will be the deceiver and someone else has to play the fool. It couldn't be April Fool's Day without a fool. What makes a real good fool is someone who has certain expectations of a situation only to find himself surprised at the last moment by the shift in his reality. In some ways, we all play the fool to ourselves and others. When we cling to our expectations of how things are instead of allowing a free flow exchange of energy, we invite the wisdom of the fool to enter our lives in order to shift our perception. What it all comes down to is that there is no one deceiving us. We deceive ourselves with false expectations. We also play the prankster to ourselves thus allowing the situation to shift and our reality to transform in the twinkling of an eye. To Contribute to Ray Nascent: Email all submissions to the editor. Recommendations, criticisms, articles, and photos are welcome. No payment for submissions is rendered unless otherwise contracted with the individual. Copyright © 2005 by Claire Moylan. All rights reserved. Visit us at our web site: Prisms of Reality
|
Duality Trap: Gender Expectations I spent over 20 years working in a male-dominated environment. I thought I knew everything about how men think and what they expect. There is a deeply ingrained culture in the male-dominated business world that expects performance to come before all else. When I switched into a female-dominated workplace , it became apparent to me that there was a whole new set of expectations that were important to this type of women-centric culture. In Deborah Tannen's book: "You Just Don't Understand," she talks about how men value status and women value connection. As such, often our expectations clash as women demand and expect intimacy in their conversations and men demand and expect some form of independence.What becomes difficult is when we become rigid in our level of interaction and expect intimacy where independence is being sought or independence when intimacy is expected. Both men and women can benefit from adopting styles that are cross-gender. This takes a great deal of flexibility in our expectations, however. We make a lot of judgments on people based on whether they meet our expectations or not, and if they are gender expectations this can lead to a lot of confusion. Dr. Tannen also discusses the idea that men compete more often as a form of bonding. As such, their primary concern is to not take the "one-down" position. That is why status is important for men. The higher rank, the more a man establishes himself in his male community. Thus, it is expected that men compete and that they try to never allow another to be "one-up" on them. With women, the situation is reversed. Women are expected to connect and thus they excel at making sure they do not feel threatening to other women -- or men. Their forms of competition are indirect and less to do with rank as to do with establishing a larger network. Once, I was dancing in a large hall and in the middle of the dance, two male dance instructors dumped their partners and began dancing with each other as a joke. It shocked everyone's expectations! A dance is male/female and who would lead? Funnily enough, they managed to make it look good as we all laughed uproariously! When men have expectations for how women behave and women also with men, they begin to form self-fulfilling prophecies. It becomes apparent gender expectations are more about cultural adaptations and not about personal choices. When we learn to rise above our gender expectations, we will begin to flow in a dance where there is a synchronous flexibility where there is no need to define a leader or a follower just merely two dancers out for the mere joy of the dance. |