Sex and Gender Beyond Patriarchy
Typically, patriarchal traditions attribute certain
capacities to a gender, such as strength and reasoning to men and weakness and
emotionality to women. In addition, beyond men and women, they do not
contemplate the existence of other genders. But, there are strong women and
sensitive men. There are people who feel neither male nor female and others who
feel they are the opposite sex to the one attributed to them due to the
genitals with which they were born. In any case, patriarchal cultures tend to impose
a series of "rules of normality" and those who do not correspond to
the prevailing stereotype run the risk of exclusion or loss of authenticity.
But, to be authentically strong, a man's masculinity
must be accompanied by receptivity that enables him for a clear sensory
perception. A woman's femininity can be full only if it is accompanied by the
ability to discern, make decisions, and take incisive actions. By themselves,
these capacities are not related to sex or gender.
The functions of the left hemisphere of the brain have
a narrow, concrete, detailed focus, which enables them for analysis,
discernment, decision-making, critical opinions, all incisive functions. The
right hemisphere, on the other hand, has receptive functions, such as sensory
perception and intuition, the ability to nourish and care for people, things
and situations. Its focus is broad to encompass the whole, the totality, the
spaces between the details, the relationships between them. Based on the shape of
the genitals of men and women, we could say that the incisive functions are
masculine and the receptive functions are feminine. To conclude from this that
men and women have more than one quality and less of others, only according to
their sex, is one of the typical fallacies of patriarchal traditions, fostered
by polarized power structures, without foundation in the reality of flesh and
blood people.
Workshop
participants explore their patterns through the daily movements of breathing,
lying down, sitting, standing, walking and communicating, individually, in
guided sequences and in explorations in pairs, small groups and in the whole
group. The theoretical part of the workshop provides the necessary information
to understand how these patterns are generated and how they manifest themselves
in the relationship between the body and the Earth's gravitational field.
To realize how we occupy space with the body and in what relationship we hold
ourselves with the coordinates of the Earth's gravitational field, we first
need to receive sensory information from the whole body and its relationship
with the environment, that is, the ground under our feet and the space around
us. Secondly, we must know how to discern different types of sensations: on the
one hand, those that inform us of what is real now, the ground below, the space
around us, the freedom or restriction of respiratory movements, etc., and on
the other, the sensations that were recorded in the tissues of our body under
the initial conditions of our life. These sensations present us with the implicit
memories of those early times of our lives as if they reflected a current
reality. In other words, a good relationship of communication and cooperation
between the incisive and receptive functions is necessary. And the receptive
must come first. And it is this kind of relationship that we want to create
between men and women and people who define their gender in a different way.
In any case, a
good relationship with the Earth's gravitational field provides us with an
energy that gives us a feeling of elevation and ease in movement, a feeling of
living and moving in unison with a greater force that enables us to go through
and resolve conflictive situations. A misalignment produces discomfort and, in
the long run, dysfunction and disease.




