Daily Pagan News

“Women’s intuition” and patriarchal veil-making (Stay Sane and Savage)

The term, “intuition”, can mean all sorts of things. The word itself still requires further definition if we are to get to the core of it.
If we are talking about the capacity to have correct hunches — what is normally referred to as ‘women’s intuition” — then the best explanation/definition I have heard is that this is a category of intuition possessed by all who are in a position of being oppressed. The capacity to anticipate the actions of the “master”, to effectively “read his mind” can be a life-preserving skill — and therefore one worth developing for anyone in an especially vulnerable position in relation to power. So, it is not just women, but others who have been a long time in a position of relative dis-empowerment, who will be likely to develop this skill.

Alternatively, one may wish to consider the question in relation to a different set of ideas. Supposing that “intuition” was the capacity to detect cause and effect, that is something entirely different from the capacity to have the right hunch about what someone will do next.

Certainly, many women have a better grasp of cause and effect than their male counterparts would have. This is because women were historically positioned to relate more directly to the concrete (empirical) world than men are, whereas men were relieved of the everyday burdens of housework and child rearing so as to be able to become, in effect, Philosophical Idealists (people who relate to the world in terms of intangible abstract concepts) to a greater degree.

Read more at Stay Sane and Savage