Stereotyping Limits us All

My least favorite thing about social media is some of the memes people share. Yes, some are funny and some are inspirational. Nonetheless, I would rather read my friends’ original thoughts.

It also seems that people share things without really thinking about them. So many memes, especially the political ones, are filled with misinformation and half-truths. People share them anyway.

The ones that drive me most crazy, though, are the ones that are supposed to be funny, cute or meaningful, but are really just hurtful.  Memes about gender stereotypes come to mind as a prime example.

I have always hated gender stereotypes. In kindergarten I was reprimanded for playing with a “toy for boys.” I had to relinquish the airplanes to a group of boys, simply because of their gender, and mine.

When my son was about the same age he came home from school with a revelation. He had discovered that, in some families, the mommy did the food shopping and cooking and the daddy went to work outside the home.  He had come to the deduction, based on his observation, that either gender could perform either task. My heart burst with pride. I was doing my part to remove gender stereotypes from our culture in the next generation.

Of course, my optimism was premature. My son is an adult now, and I see plenty of evidence that we still cling to the idea that men do certain things and women do certain other things, and that men are one way and women another.

It seems first-world-problemy to talk about gender issues here in the US, while our sisters on the other side of the world deal with oppression on a scale that seems beyond our comprehension.

On the other hand, we need to fight the battles that happen on our turf. Here in the US we are lucky that, these days, many of our battles involve words, rather than bullets.

The words in my sites right now are from a cutesy meme that says, “Your husband will always be your biggest and oldest child that requires the most adult supervision.”

It is everything I can do, when I see this meme posted (at least once a day) not to unleash a sputtering troll-fest of ridicule on someone’s wall.

Misandry is just as hurtful as misogyny, and just as dangerous. We say that men are immature, and then throw them in jail when they don’t take their adult responsibilities seriously and pay their child support. Does anyone else see a problem here? It doesn’t feel like we are doing everything we could to set our young men up for success if we expect them to never grow up.

Misandry is unfair to both men and women. In the example of this meme, we are telling women to expect men to behave a certain way (poorly) and to accept it with good humor when they do.

I think men and women are capable of better.

When we make assumptions about the way men are, or the way women are, we aren’t allowing people to simply be themselves. We aren’t encouraging people to be the best they can be.

When we propagate gender stereotypes we limit each other, and limit ourselves.

All stereotypes are limiting, but they are usually based on some grain of truth. For instance, boys really mature less quickly than girls.  The error comes when we assume that slow maturation is the same as no maturation.

What kind of limitless world could we create if we stopped expecting people to live up to our stereotypes of them?

Think about that the next time you are tempted to push the “share” button on a meme that promotes stereotypes!

Origin Stories

I love superhero comics and movies. I still go to the Marvel Universe movies even though my kids don’t need me to take them anymore. One thing that all superheroes have in common is a great origin story.

Regular people have origin stories, too.

Sometimes we design our origin stories to cast ourselves as the victim, and avoid responsibility for our own failures.

Sometimes we design our origin stories to be so full of sunshine and rainbows that we are never able to acknowledge or heal from our childhood hurts.

I often say that most of us spend the majority of our adult lives healing from our first twenty years. Every parent gives their kids something to tell their therapist.

Other things have origin stories as well. Often origin stories don’ts hold up well to actual research.

Tarot, for instance, has numerous origin stories, all historically inaccurate. What is thought to be the historical truth is a much less fantastic story than the myths that grown around tarot.

My new favorite exercise form, Chinese Wand, has a fabulous origin story that began in 1977, and is apparently completely false.

Most of the history we learned in school was inaccurate. The origin stories of countries seem to be just as inaccurate as every other origin story.

As the world wages war over religions that are thousands of years old, I am convinced that the stories that support these heinous acts are just as inaccurate as every other origin story.

Maybe it’s time we leave the origin stories to the comics, and get better at separating fact from fiction in our lives.

Tarot is a wonderful tool to help us understand truth and release fiction.

How might you use tarot to find a true and helpful origin story for yourself?

Tarot and the Woman Alone

A recent conversation got me thinking, once again, about tarot and feminism. I think about tarot and feminism a lot. I like feminist tarot decks. I like to think about the ways women are portrayed in tarot. I like to see how societal attitudes about women are reflected in tarot art and archetypes. I like to think about tarot and culture in general.

I notice that a lot of tarot readers and clients are female. Often we use the cards to find our power and strength as women.
The irony is this. Tarot, as a device that emerged from Renaissance Italy, is, by its very nature, not feminist. Tarot is also not inclusive in many other ways.

And yet, tarot is totally inclusive and totally without prejudice in the way it operates. Tarot speaks to all of us, if we let it.

To make tarot more inclusive, modern tarot artists and authors have produced decks that show people of various ages, ethnicities and sizes. The Court cards are often redefined to be less patriarchal. Some of the classic-but-misogynistic interpretations of certain cards are falling out of favor with modern tarotists. Those old-fashioned interpretations are being replaced with interpretations that regard powerful, truthful women as positive and helpful rather than negative and dangerous.

The thing is, every tool, every text and every artwork is a product of its times, no matter how sacred and meaningful it might be. As we grow and evolve, we have to find a way to allow our sacred tools to grow with us. Tarot never seems to have a problem doing that.

Women, and feminine energy, are portrayed in tarot in many different ways. Today I am thinking about two Minor Arcana cards that traditionally indicate “a woman alone.” It’s interesting to think about how our feelings about women’s relationships and behaviors have changed in the 500 years of tarot’s existence.

The first card I want to discuss is the Queen of Swords. Traditionally, the Queen of Swords is, of the four Queens, the Queen most likely to be widowed, single, childless or divorced.

Historically, the Queen of Swords is unfortunate, sad, or ill-tempered. One wonders which came first, her poor temperament or her single status.

In many older tarot books the Queen of Swords is accompanied by interpretations such as “Don’t trust this woman!” Typically, the Queen of Swords is seen as sharp-tongued.  I think the reason for this is her association with the element of Air.

As the Queen of Air, the Queen of Swords is compelled to speak the truth, and to speak her mind. In a society where women are expected to be silent and to have no opinions, the Queen of Swords would be quite unwelcome.

Today, the Queen of Swords can be a business leader, a trustworthy companion, a teacher, writer or student, or the friend who will indeed tell you that you dress makes your butt look huge.

Truly, the essence of the card itself has not changed. Our ability to value the intelligence of a woman has.

The second “woman alone” card is the Nine of Pentacles. Key words for this card often include “security” and “inheritance.” What we see in the RWS (Rider Waite Smith) image is a woman whose security and autonomy comes from the protection of her father. Here, there is family money. She remains alone in her garden unmolested because she enjoys the privilege of wealth and position.

Today, we often interpret the Nine of Pentacles as being secure in oneself. That is, secure enough to be happily single. We may see the Nine of Pentacles as a woman who is able to pay her own way, or to create her own security. Today, she is under her own protection, rather than that of male relative.

Over time, it seems the energy around these two cards has changed, just as our perception of women has changed.
In their traditional archetypes, each card might be seen as expressing a certain level of misogyny.

The Queen of Swords is undesirable because she speaks her truth, and in her undesirability she is unhappy and unenviable.

The Nine of Pentacles is secure not because of her own strength, but because of the male protection afforded her.

Today, we may see both these cards as symbols of feminine empowerment. Today, both these cards remind us that it is fine to be single. Both these cards now affirm our strength, and our ability to be self-determining.

While the archetypes in tarot remain fixed, our attitudes about those archetypes change. In many ways, tarot becomes not just a mirror of the self, but also a reflection of our changing society.

Getting Real

I’m fascinated by the way we use the word “real.” “Real” can mean “authentic.” We sometimes use the word “real” to describe people who seem honest and unpretentious.

“Real” can also mean “true” and “existent,” as in “Faeries are real.”

“Real” can also mean “exemplary” and “definitive,” as in this Facebook meme I found today.

“A real woman can do it all by herself, but a real man won’t let her.”

A recent blog post gone viral on the Derniere website by E. Mackey, entitled “An Open Letter to Women: What Men Really Want” spoke a great deal about “real men” and “real women.”

I let myself get sucked into the comment war on that post. Along with many, I needed to point out the fallacies E. Mackey was enthusiastically promoting.

The thing I wanted to say, but couldn’t figure out exactly how, was this.
We can’t suggest that a particular behavior or attitude makes a person “real.” When it comes to gender, we can’t even say that physiology reliably denotes reality.

The word “real’ is hurtful in blended families. “But she’s not your real daughter.” “You’re not my real father.”

People have been throwing around the word “real” as a way of creating division for a long time. In church you might be accused of not being a real Christian. The same could happen at a Pagan event; group members might decide that you are not a real Pagan.

I’ll bet this comes up in every community. He’s not a real philatelist. She’s not a real nudist. He’s not a real Republican. She’s not a real feminist.

"Real" and "not real" are categories we use to judge each other.

How do we decide who is real? How is it we are audacious enough to try to rob an individual of their very being, denying them their sense of identity?

Sometimes people ask me if tarot is real. Those are the words they use. “Is tarot real?”

As a joke I usually pick the deck up and examine it. “Yup, it’s real.”

I know that’s not what they are really asking, though. They want to know if the experience that comes from tarot is valuable.

And maybe there’s the problem with the word “real.” It also means “valuable.” “These earrings are real,” means they are highly valued. A “real man” is a man who is valuable.

The problem is, it’s all subjective because we value different things.

We are all real. We all have a right to own the identity that feels real to us. No one should be able to take that way. Real men do all sorts of different things. Real women do all sorts of different things.

We can choose the sorts of people we want in our lives. But we are not choosing between real and unreal. We are choosing what works for us. Everyone has a right to be considered “real,” whether we are behaving in a way that a particular person finds acceptable, or not.

Symbols in Tarot and in Life

More and more it seems that Americans condense their concerns into simple symbols, the cover of the Rolling Stone or a hooded sweatshirt, for instance.

Twitter teaches us to say it all in one hundred and forty characters or less.

No one seems to have the time or ability to read the whole story and make a thoughtful judgment about anything.

From a tarot perspective, this trend toward symbols-over-substance is interesting.

Tarot uses symbols – pictures and archetypes – to tell stories.

We look at the pictures and they lead us to a place where we can fill in the blanks. We can find the details once we see the symbols.

What’s happening in our greater culture seems to be the opposite of that. We accept the symbols and dig no deeper to find truth.

Could tarot help us reverse this trend?

Now more than ever tarot is making an appearance in daily life and pop culture. Elite fashions houses are basing lines of clothing and perfume on tarot. Designers are participating in tarot art projects. Even members of Catholicism are embracing the game of tarot, although not its spiritual message.

As tarot becomes a reference for the masses instead of simply a tool of the esoteric occult we may have an opportunity to shift the pop culture consciousness from the superficial to the truly significant.

If we can teach ourselves and each other to look deeper, as tarot teaches us to do, what difference might that make in our society?

Would the dreck of the 24-hour news cycle cease to captivate us?

Would marketers have to show us the facts instead of simply inciting our emotions to make a sale?

Would we be able to discuss the difficulties in our country in terms of deeper realities rather than surface appearances and slogans?

Perhaps no one understands the importance of symbolism more than tarotists do. But we also know that the symbol itself is not the whole of the information.

Symbols lead us to find the truth. They are not themselves the truth.

Perhaps the more we are able to bring tarot to the public eye and enlist the curious in its study, the more we will become the country we need to be; a society of thinkers and problem solvers.

Thinking and problem solving is what tarot teaches us to do. Tarot also teaches us to communicate and to be objective.

The poster child and the rallying point serve to get out attention. The tarot card does much the same. When we look within and beyond the initial symbol we have the opportunity to create healing in ourselves and in our greater community.