Boys play with soldiers, girls play with dolls. This sentence describes a 19th century state of facts, but also a way of socializing children that goes back a long way, before toy soldiers and dolls. The fact that women are now serving in the military is worsening the situation, not improving it.
The deep split identifying males with violence and females with home-making is still there; the deep notion that what men do is better than what women do is there as well; and the consequence is under everybody’s eyes: immature men making war decisions as if it was all just a game, disregarding the unspeakable suffering that they inflict on others.
Last week I received several comments to my series on Walt Whitman and masculinity. One of such comments, sent by a man named Daniel, consisted of a beautiful quote by Etty Hillesum, which inspired me to write this week on such an important figure. I would like to share it with the whole readership of these DMs. Hillesum says:
Women’s historical task for the future [is] to show the man the road to his own soul through her soul. (…) And I also think that the most important pioneers of the future will be those men who have a large dose of femininity—and are yet real men—men like (…) Rilke —that’s such men, yes, that they are signposts to the soul. And not he-men, those Führers and heroes in uniform. Not the so-called “real men.”
She was influenced by Jung’s work on the feminine soul of men, which was very much a new thing at the time of her writing. Notice also that she was writing from a Nazi concentration/transit camp.
The quote continues, however, by saying that perhaps the kind of men I have in mind only exist in the imagination of women.
She was wrong on this point: there are today plenty of men who are true signposts to the soul. That is, they represent an option showing a different lifestyle from men who are still obeying the imperative of violence. But there are not numerically enough.
In my life as a queer man I received my share of aggressions from “real men” and even from patriarchally-identified women. Sometimes they are subtle, yet very visible to my trained queer eye, such as when I am accused of being “too sophisticated” or “too intellectual.”
The real aim of the accusation is the queerness, which is verified by the fact that plenty of people find my presentations very plain and understandable.
If we don’t pay attention to the subtle dynamics that we are living through every day, we run the risk of replaying them for ever, and never upgrade away from playing with soldiers and dolls, which means playing with war and destruction.
Etty Hillesum, Etty, The Letters and Diaries, 1941-1943, transl. Arnold J. Pomerans, p. 289
See Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
See also Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Also Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
Also Fox, Trump and the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Banner Image: “Major Kong Rides the Bomb.” Still from Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, from the U.S. Department of Defense. Public Domain.
Queries for Contemplation
How do I identify in my behaviors the “codes” (including the “gender codes”) that I play, even beyond my own conscious recognition?
Recommended Reading
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
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