Love
- A combination of care, commitment, trust, knowledge responsibility, respect.
- Requires the courage to take risks
- Is an action not a feeling
- cannot exist without justice
- abuse and neglect cannot exist with love
- requires a willingness to accept criticism & a capacity to reflect on behavior and change without losing dignity and authority
- truth, not lies, justice requires honesty.
The dance of deception by Harriet Lerner: Women taught by sexist socialization to pretend and manipulate and lie as a way to please. This constant pretense and lying alienate women from their real feelings.
Estrangement from feelings makes it easier to lie because one is in a trance state utilizing survival strategies. The inability to connect with others carries with it an inability to assume responsibility for causing pain. *WOWW
Lies: When one lies and presents a false self, the terrible price is the capacity to give and receive love. Trust is the foundation of intimacy.
Justice between people is the most important connection two people can have. Loving justice for themselves and for others enables men to break the chokehold of patriarchal masculinity.
Where the will to power is strong love will be lacking
Colonization: A process where one adopts patriarchal behavior, out of survival or necessity.
