My own emancipation bothering me

In he period of time where my teenage years began, the beginning of the seventies, the emancipation movement was very active at that time. What I learned from that was something like: women are equal to men, and to my idea that somewhat meant that I had to be able to do everything myself, and so would men. So no stories about not being able to iron (man) or hang a picture on the wall (woman). And no inequality in the household: the one should not do more or less than the other (where especially 'less' were to become the problem of course). Not that I was fanatic on this, it was more like a logical part in the upbringing which became like an automatic basis. In practice, this turns out to be a continuous, and after a while routine judgment on whether a given situation were to meet these standards. And with Joep as a partner, these standards were actually never violated, he did more than his share of chores.

I noticed that my personality still was a good guardian of the emancipation thought system and applied it on several occasions. During on one of my practice-rounds in letting go, I notice there came all kinds of small issues with regard to household chores which I did, while Joep very obviously did not do them. It has taken me quite a while to practice with inspiration where I had to cook, do the laundry, empty the dishwasher, before I could really live the moment without the judgment that I was the silly one. Whereas meanwhile all kinds of personality thoughts mentally came into my awareness (and regularly were spoken out loud as well!) 'why do I always have to do this', and likewise irritations.

The most intense practice to me was at a moment where Joep sat down while dinner was ready to be served (normally he would help on that, that 'eased the pain' a bit), and I heard myself saying that he could stay there - and he did! The remains of my personality considered this to be insane, and immediately he used my body to literally have me feel a stitch of pain, that this was not the way to carry on! This what he considered to be a successful way of trying to win my attention back for him, was repeated several times more in similar situations, and each time it brought me a bit further in becoming aware, until, in a moment of inspiration, I saw what the truly broad basis was here: these emancipation ideas.

This process has helped me to become aware of the fact that the idea of equality and sharing tasks are, just like all other things, personality issues and a great way too introduce standards and values and use contacts with others to judge whether a situation meets these standards, only to follow the familiar personality patterns from there. As usual, the solution is not to label emancipation itself as 'right' or 'wrong', it is about simply seeing it for what it is: an attempt, popular during a certain period of time, to shape relationships between people in certain ways, and thus using it to uphold personalities.

Ultimately it does not matter what it is that you are doing, it is about the intention for which you use it which really counts (become aware, let go, be your Self more, or to strengthen your personality).