What are MEN saying about GTW?

One of the core values of Gather the Women is balance -- to bring the world back into balance by practicing the discipline of keeping ourselves in balance. We encourage both women and men to seek balance between their masculine and feminine qualities, so that they can merge the masculine ability to accomplish with the feminine capacity for connection into a powerful new form of human action. We invite women to step into leadership so that their voices of wisdom can be heard along with those of men to create a world of mutuality and interdependence.

While the Matrix itself is a place where women can gather to explore their own expression of that balance, we need and welcome the support of men who share our commitment to balance. Visit our Support GTW section [link] to find out how you can contribute to this energy.

Here is a sampling of what men are saying about GTW.

I have traveled around the world, met with Prime Ministers and Presidents, local leaders, business leaders and villagers - in the desert, in the jungle, in palaces and places most of us can't imagine where people actually live. Through this all, there is always one common theme - that the world is wounded because it is imbalanced in its influence, its decision making, its leadership and its priorities. And these are wounds that will carry on into the future unless we, as the human race, truly embrace the healing powers, the perspectives, the spiritual strengths that women can provide.

Our world has a natural tendency to seek power through separation - whereas women's first tendency is to unite and come together... I have said this to Bonnie before, are we so afraid of our own power from within that we have to push it away by creating separation in our world, among our own brothers and sisters? I tell you, and I have seen it - that we need the women of the world to be strong enough to embrace the challenge of healing the system as it stands today - and this starts with communities of people, that embrace diversity, co-creation and learning together.

Craig J. Young
Chief Operating Officer
United Nations World Trade University
Canada

The process of globalization and the collapsing of traditional borders are creating a new world civilization -- with great opportunities and great dangers. Millions of women around the world are feeling this change, and responding from their deepest instincts, developing new ideas, new ways to collaborate, new ways to understand traditional spirituality and religion and politics. The Gather the Women Global MatrixSM is a powerful new framework that can assist in recognizing and coordinating this emerging new understanding. The leadership of GTW is to be commended for recognizing this opportunity, and providing ways that women everywhere can come together to share and celebrate these new discoveries.

Bruce Schuman
Santa Barbara

Consider that now is time for women to assume their place of honor in society. Imagine women as the majority in positions of authority, as: political leaders, priests, judges, sports figures, entertainment industry stars (in front of and behind the camera), political pundits, arbiters of taste, simply the Boss. The sentiment will be different. The style of resolving issues will be different. It is likely the issues may even be different. Will their attitude towards men, their expectations of men, be different? Will men be different? Men can kick back and quit trying to prove themselves for a while. That will be different!

Maybe different men will appear. Unlike the rule-the-world-at-any-cost, blood-lust-seeking, I've-got-mine-to-Hell-with-you types who demand so much room, the "new" man may be that mythological creature, the Green Man, a consort for women, supple, strong, supportive – able and willing to defend to the death women's rights to act with impunity. The marauder mentality gone, perhaps there are men who recognize life without domination as viable.

How will women treat such a gentle man? Will the instinct for revenge from years of servitude cause a reversal of roles the same for men as it has been for women? Will women find the space for that gracious heart response they have waited so long for men to acquire?

What questions, what thoughts, will men pose to women to make the shift quickly and effectively?

How can I help you?
What do you need from me?
Tell me your ideas.
Show me your strengths.
What are your spiritual needs? How may I interact with you effectively to make that richer for both of us?
I want to discuss my feelings. Do you have time to listen?

Other subjects may range across the basics such as gardening, house-keeping, sex, even money! What about discussing raising the children? What about what we teach them? Imagine children learning quantum physics starting about age eight. What will that do for the future of humanity? for Nature? for the Gaia? Consider how many subjects will take a different slant.

As such a time comes to exist, will it be a swinging of the pendulum from patriarchy to matriarchy? Or will it be a finding of common ground near the middle where women and men are at ease, comfortable with each other, able to express their emotional needs and wants clearly without antagonism, fear of rejection? Can men and women meet in circles and discuss all issues and reach consensus even though that may be less than completely satisfactory for each individual.

Imagine such a time is now, and act as if. Perhaps we shall wake from the dream and find the past was only a nightmare, and now is that perfect state of affairs we so want it to be. Are we willing to live in such lucidity? Let's say Yes, and move forward.

Emmanuel V. Culman
Screenwriter, The Prodigal Daughter of Taquinta
Los Angeles, California