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Yoko Ono and John Lennon
on the "Feminine Revolution"
There are no two mouths alike. Our bodies, in fact, are an assurance of our uniqueness. But we share our minds and our dreams. A dream you dream alone may be a dream, but a dream we dream together is reality. Positive attitudes create positive situations. Let's learn to aim high in our dreams. Together, there is nothing we can't do.
To middle America who are afraid of youth and the future: Please don't be afraid. Don't try to stop running water. Join us. If change is inevitable, let's change for the better for all of us. Our future cannot be anything but brightness. The law of nature is that once one knows, one can never unknow what one knows. Rapidly, more and more people will be aware. Without trying, the world is heading for perfect awareness - and you are part of it. You are part of the running water. The fenceless and doorless world is soon to come. It's our fear which is keeping the doors closed and the fences high. Please don't be afraid. Open your minds, they belong to the world. The mind knows no pain in the act of sharing, while sharing bread is often pain. Join us! - in the doorless world.
To the hard hats who think that they don't have the power to free themselves from the tyranny and suppression of the capitalists: It's not their power or money that is controlling you, as is generally believed. Their power depends on your fear and apathy. Once your awareness and confidence equals theirs, how could they keep you down? You outnumber them, don't let them close your eyes. I will send to you only in ESP.
To the youth who think they are silenced by the media and alienated from the world: The future is yours. Have the patience of a pregnant woman. But don't wait for the world to reach you. You are the aware ones. Reach out. Reach out. Reach out with love. Love communicates, whereas hatred, in the end, doesn't. Extend your hand to middle America with love. There cannot be a true world revolution without the support of the silent majority.
The world is now split into two kinds of people, and only two! One is the kind who communicate, and the other is the kind who doesn't. Those who don't, believe that they can't because they have no access to the communications media.
But you are the media. People are. Your message is the media not the other way around, and the media does not exist without people. Let's believe in people and their power. Total communication equals peace. Violence is to eliminate ignorance, apathy and hatred. Let's not fight among ourselves. Togetherness is the only power we have.
Water, on its own accord, always comes together. We're all water from different rivers. That's why it's so easy to meet. Barriers are products of our imagination. Why can't we focus our energies on a more positive image? Imagine there are no countries...all the people living life in peace. Imagine. Believe in it coming...sing about it, do something about it, and we are half way there.
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Our society is driven by neurotic speed and force, accelerated by greed and the frustration of not being able to live up to the image of men and women we have created for ourselves - an image which has nothing do with the reality of people. How can we be eternal James Bond or Twiggy and raise three kids on the side? So we pass our kids on to babysitters, nursery and high school teachers - three of the most underpaid positions in our society! How can we help but do this when our wives constantly complain about insufficient material earnings, comparing us with Onassis. Or when we are living under the constant threat of losing our husbands to girls on the street with false eyelashes and the never-had-a-baby-or-a-full-meal look. In such an image-driven culture, a piece of reality like a child becomes a direct threat to our very false existence.
The only game we play together with our children is star-chasing; sadly, not stars in the sky, but "Stars" who we think have achieved the standard of the dream image we have imposed on the human race. We cannot trust ourselves anymore, because we know we have not "made it". Because we know that we are, well...too real.
The fact that we are not fake should make us happy, but instead, we are forever apologetic for being real. "Excuse me for shitting, excuse me for farting, excuse me for making love and smelling like a human being," we say, "instead of being that odorless, celluloid prince and princess image out there on the screen."
A professor who lives in a three tatami room in Tokyo (one tatami is a size of a mat for one person to lie down on) says he needs one tatami for himself, another for his companion, and the third for the two to breathe in. "In order for me to keep a room larger than a three-tatami in an overpopulated city like Tokyo, I have to use additional energy to fight for it. Any possession that is more than what you need belongs to someone who needs it. I don't want to waste my energies keeping it." He further claims that there are two poverty lines in this world. One is where you starve, the other is where you have excessive possessions. He has donated his only other possession - his books - to the local library.
In two-thousand years of effort, men have demonstrated to us their failure in running the world. Instead of falling into the same trap as men, women can offer something that society never, because of male dominance, had before. That is feminine direction.
Of course the question will be asked, "What is femininity and masculinity?" The stereotype ideas of femininity and masculinity really have nothing to do with the true nature of men and women. In fact, most people in our society show both masculine and feminine tendencies at the same time. But to a great extent, both men and women have believed in their own myths and have subsequently developed stereotype characters of themselves. As a result, quite apart from what men and women really are, so-called masculine and feminine tendencies do prevail in our society as characteristics of the society itself.
What we can do is to bring out the more feminine nature in society to replace the masculine one which is now at work as a very negative force. We can thus make more positive use of the feminine tendencies of the society which, up to now, have been either suppressed or dismised as something to be ashamed of or even as harmful, impractical and/or irrelevant in the making of that society. Obviously, a feminine society is not to be mistaken for a female-dominated society.
The contemporary society is competitive, logical (inasmuch as the society makes an or pretense of basing its thinking on logic) and power-oriented in its structure. Hypocrisy, violence and chaos result from this structure. We can now change the society with the feminine touch, or rather with feminine intelligence and awareness, into a basically organic, non-competitive one based on love rather than reasoning. The result will be balance, peace and contentment.
We can evolve rather than revolt, come together rather than claim independence, and feel rather than think. Now these are characteristics that are considered feminine and which men despise. But have men done so well by avoiding the development of these characteristics within themselves?
What our society needs now is not the speed born of competition, the invention of faster and faster machines, nor the so-called reality based on rational and practical thinking. The outcome of such reasoning is at best a two- to four- dimensional perception of reality, which is a limiting observation of life.
What we need now is the patience and natural wisdom of a pregnant woman; an awareness and acceptance of our natural resources (what is left of them); and the healthy existence of our bodies and feelings. Let's not kid ourselves and think of ours as an old and mature civilization. We are by no means mature. But that is all right. That is beautiful. Let's slow down, and try to grow organically, and as healthy as a newborn infant. The aim of the female revolution will have to be a total one, eventually making it a revolution for the whole world, since we can never separate ourselves from the world.
The above is extracted from articles contained in the Spring and Summer 1972 editions of Sundance magazine. Although the words are attributed to John and Yoko jointly, they would appear to be written largely by Yoko.