Just curious as to how you think the festivals reinforce patriarchal ideologies.?
There are philosophical trends in certain dominant strands of New Age thinking that are deeply conservative/regressive. There is an emphasis on traditional gender roles that is packaged as a celebration of some kind of divine dipole of the holy feminine/masculine. The way this manifests in actual communities is not in the “we all embody both aspects” kind of way, but in a “men are this way and women are this way” kind of way. In the modern world, we understand that the traditional gender binary is a bankrupt concept held in place by an artificial power structure. Wrapping an idea up in spiritual language doesn’t make it any less empty. It leads to all kinds of weird behaviors. Example: At one of the festivals I’ve been to, they held a “sacred fire” throughout the gathering. In order to sit at the fire, women had to cover themselves from shoulder to foot, so that the environment would remain “spiritually pure and focused” for everyone (read: the men) at all times. WTF!? I hope you see how obviously stupid and backwards this is.
Meanwhile, so many of these circles are about free love and polyamory as central tenets, creating an atmosphere that pressures women into acquiescing to social scenes that they wouldn’t otherwise acquiesce to. I personally know of two popular photographers in the scene who have been outed as sexual predators by dozens of women. These women were angled into bad situations couched by the perpetrators as “healing” experiences. And when all of this comes to light, many men in the community advocated “reconciliation” and “reintegration.” WTdoubleF!? No. No. No. Even now, some of my friends still stay connected with one of those guys.
There’s too much of this. Too much.
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. I could go on and on and on.
