Siah
17-03-05, 11:36
Women Creativity and Mental Health
By Nawal El Saadawi
Egypt
1 – Undoing what education did to us:
We are born creative. Living creatures are creative by nature because to survive they need creativity. An Arabic proverbs says: (El Hagah Um El Ekhtera’a) Need is the mother of creativity or necessity is the mother of invention.
To live as human beings, we need food and sex and good art. We need to dance and hear music. But the majority of women and men in our world cannot satisfy these essential human needs. Millions of female and male children (especially in our continent Africa) die of hunger or in wars. Millions of women and men are deprived of essential human rights, of education, employment, food and health.
Those who are lucky and go to schools and universities are victims of what we call “fragmentation of knowledge”. To understand the roots of this fragmentation of knowledge we must go back to early civilization and in particular to the slave system, to slave or class patriarchal philosophy. This philosophy evolved a system of values and ideas that became almost sacred. It separated between the body and the mind (or the sprit) in order to ensure complete domination of masters over slaves. Women were included in the same category as slaves and animals since they represented the body. The owners of the land, the master, or the ruling class represented the mind or the spirit and belonged to God.
We inherited this philosophical concept. Everything had to undergo division so that the masters can “Divide and Rule”. The dichotomy of body/mind or master/spirit led to the fragmentation of knowledge, to the separation between science and art, between the natural sciences and humanities. Patriarchal class civilization and its scientific discoveries could advance towards vistas of new areas only by specialization, by dealing with parts and abandoning the whole. Colonialism, neocolonialism and post modern globalization accentuated class, gender race and religion divisions, and evolved more rapacious systems of exploitation, and so the split within the human being was deepened, the separation between fields of knowledge and creativity accentuated, and the patriarchal division between “superior” man and “inferior” women consecrated.
Separation between body and mind, between art and science, are two sides of the same coin. With them the mind is the seat of rational thinking, that is of science, the body is the seat of feelings and emotions, that is, of art.
klik, voor het vervolg (http://www.nawalsaadawi.net/articlesby/mental_health.htm)
By Nawal El Saadawi
Egypt
1 – Undoing what education did to us:
We are born creative. Living creatures are creative by nature because to survive they need creativity. An Arabic proverbs says: (El Hagah Um El Ekhtera’a) Need is the mother of creativity or necessity is the mother of invention.
To live as human beings, we need food and sex and good art. We need to dance and hear music. But the majority of women and men in our world cannot satisfy these essential human needs. Millions of female and male children (especially in our continent Africa) die of hunger or in wars. Millions of women and men are deprived of essential human rights, of education, employment, food and health.
Those who are lucky and go to schools and universities are victims of what we call “fragmentation of knowledge”. To understand the roots of this fragmentation of knowledge we must go back to early civilization and in particular to the slave system, to slave or class patriarchal philosophy. This philosophy evolved a system of values and ideas that became almost sacred. It separated between the body and the mind (or the sprit) in order to ensure complete domination of masters over slaves. Women were included in the same category as slaves and animals since they represented the body. The owners of the land, the master, or the ruling class represented the mind or the spirit and belonged to God.
We inherited this philosophical concept. Everything had to undergo division so that the masters can “Divide and Rule”. The dichotomy of body/mind or master/spirit led to the fragmentation of knowledge, to the separation between science and art, between the natural sciences and humanities. Patriarchal class civilization and its scientific discoveries could advance towards vistas of new areas only by specialization, by dealing with parts and abandoning the whole. Colonialism, neocolonialism and post modern globalization accentuated class, gender race and religion divisions, and evolved more rapacious systems of exploitation, and so the split within the human being was deepened, the separation between fields of knowledge and creativity accentuated, and the patriarchal division between “superior” man and “inferior” women consecrated.
Separation between body and mind, between art and science, are two sides of the same coin. With them the mind is the seat of rational thinking, that is of science, the body is the seat of feelings and emotions, that is, of art.
klik, voor het vervolg (http://www.nawalsaadawi.net/articlesby/mental_health.htm)